Business class alternative NYC <-> London

Saw a random advertisement for Silver Jet, which seems to be a new airline catering solely to business travelers. Seems like a really nice alternative to standard business class if your company's willing to pony up for business class in the first place...

What it's like to be a CS (or math) student

Child's Play makes the big time

Nice to see video games getting good press for once.

The growth in scale of Child's Play is mindboggling. And as the article mentions, video games make surprisingly good therapy for sick kids.

Today's creepy news

Girlfriend sexy? Maybe it's 'cause she's...infected with a parasite! Yay!

94% of Spanish bank notes have cocaine on them

Wow.

American view of the world

My bare lady

I...have no idea what to say. Except, don't open this at work.

Water...in...spaaaaace!

It's shit like this that makes me wish I could play around in weightlessness for a while.

RIP James Brown

Boo. James Brown died this morning.

You are an atheist

To celebrate Jesus' birthday, I thought I'd share one of my favorite quotes:

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

-- Stephen Henry Roberts

Merry Christmas. ;)

New Transformers trailer

Please don't suck? Please? This is my childhood you're fucking with here...

Dear all 9/11 conspiracy theorists

Shut it.

You will be assimilated

One of the trickiest things that criminal law will have to deal with in the next few decades, assuming of course that it doesn't bury its head in the sand, will be the erosion of the idea of free will. Personally, I think this is something that needs to be absorbed into the public consciousness before we can ever get public policy right.

Are you lactating?

Or: mmmm...delicious baby...

Wisdom of the Crowds

I find this a bit disturbing. I'm not sure why.

New Firefox logo

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: the new Firefox logo.

Relatedly, this seems to be becoming an internet meme...

Wow.

The failure and ineptitude of the 109th Congress summed up on one concise article.

Pennies not even worth a penny

Wow. Has the dollar turned to such shit that the metal in the coins is worth more than the coins themselves?

Deep.

Work

I really liked this article on, well, work that was linked from David Brooks' latest column. It's surprisingly Marxist given that it was linked by a conservative.

I'm not sure what to say about it. One of the asides really resonated with me, which is that self-esteem comes from one's own achievements in and of themselves rather than external sources. In some ways I think that's the point of the article: cubicle jobs are soul-crushing precisely because they are rote and involve no personal investment, and yet the relentless trend in modern capitalism is to concentrate what can only be described as the "interesting parts" of work into fewer and fewer hands, leaving only the assembly-line jobs leftover.

How chilling.

God has a dark sense of humor

This is some kind of divine poetic justice for the fact that Jeffords left the Republican party, isn't it?

Oh sweet baby Jesus, save me...

PCWorld's 15 best time-wasting sites piece may be the single most dangerous article ever created...

Family Guy voices

Dude...Meg is hot.

Solace in scientific research

I take some solace in the research that says night owls are more creative. Now, does the fact that I inverted my schedule imply I'm really, really creative?

Top 10 supercars

...according to some metric.

I actually still prefer the Lamborghini Gallardo to all of those (although I'd take Murcielago in its place, of course). Too bad I'll never have anywhere near enough money to own one. *wistful sigh*

Long distance relationship with my computer

From:
Subject: [Cs-grads] ah, technological progress
Date: December 10, 2006 4:28:42 PM PST

Just for the record, I would like to highlight a uniquely modern dilemma I'm having. I was given access to several machines. I now find I might need physical access to them.

Here's the problem: no one seems to know where they are. In, you know, the real world that some of us occasionally inhabit.

(names withheld to protect the guilty and because I probably will still need their help)

If I had more time, I would love to dwell on the philosophical ramifications of this fact. In the meantime, it's reminding me of this apocryphal story about UNC (my home town):

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2001-05/sunflash.20010521.3.xml

Nick

Indian wangs too small

Find your nearest male Indian associate and make fun of them for this.

The chronicles of Big Milk

A very nice example of how utterly fucking broken our system of government is. And just because pretty much every government out there is worse doesn't make it any better.

Johnny Cash doing Hurt

For some reason I've been in rather a sober mood lately. So, continuing in that theme, I felt like posting the Johnny Cash "Hurt" video, which is amazing (and, frankly, better than Nine Inch Nails' original).

The paranoid optimist

This is one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time. Bless you, Onion.

Your daily douchebag (12/8/06)

Today's daily douchebag, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, can, I think, easily take the cake for Douchebag of the Year if not Douchebag of the Decade. As much as Bush and Rumsfeld suck, I don't think they can really hold a candle to holding a conference on whether the Holocaust happened. I'm really, honestly having trouble coming up with even a hypothetical act that would rival the event in douchebaggery.

Congrats President Ahmadinejad! Truly, you are a douchebag among douchebags.

Sunset on Mars

I am not religious. I do not see the hand of God in this picture, as those who are would. What I see is the profound beauty of the universe, a beauty that exists despite the profound myopia and stupidity of humanity.

...and as I am tempted to make a joke here to cut the gravitas, I won't. I will let the moment stand. It is beautiful. That is enough. I am reminded of Jodie Foster's line in Contact:

"They should have sent a poet...they should have sent a poet..."

Family Guy and its inspiration

I had no idea these scenes were actually taken from viral videos!

This hurts me

What if chat rooms were real?

I can't ride a bike

I thought I could. Then I saw the video of this guy.

Fund more research! Fund more research!

Fund more research! Fund more research! (or at least restore the funding Bush cut [that fuckhead])

Well, there's good news and bad news

The good news is that I'm slowly acclimating to Chinese time.
The bad news is that I am not, nor do I have any specific plans to be, in China.

Sigh.

The porn vote

...and this kind of genius, boys and girls, is why Stephen Colbert now has his own show.

Say it ain't so!

You mean...Google is the next Microsoft? And it's a monopoly? And it's engaged in monopoly maintenance? But...but...Google isn't supposed to be evil!

Chickens of doooooooom!

Zombie chickens!

The terror that is Santa

For some reason, I find this set of pictures of children terrified of Santa deeply satisfying.

Chuck Norris and technicians

1. Guide to technician terminology
2. Facts about Chuck Norris

Allow me to highlight a few of the latter:

• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn't actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear.
• Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Every Playmate of the Month in the history of Playboy

Obviously, NSFW.

Very surreal.

Ewwww.

There was an episode of X-files like this.

It's a tossup whether the insects or the fungus are more creepy.

Science is cool

I'm sorry, but this is a really cool video of the sun. I know that makes me a nerd, but really, what doesn't these days?

Silly string: the difference between life or death

Support our troops: send them silly string today!

Your daily douchebag (12/1/06)

Today's douchebag: Walter E. Williams.
The winning entry today managed to compare social welfare programs to slavery. For that, Mr. Williams, you are our Douchebag of the Day!

"Most of what Congress does fits the description of forcing one American to serve the purposes of another American. That description differs only in degree, but not in kind, from slavery."

Local students make good

The Nike/iPod stuff seems to be getting a good deal of press coverage. These are fellow students and in my security class with me. Go them. :)

It's all downhill

In the past few days, I've

• Played ping-pong
• Edited something on Wikipedia
• Made a reference to Kobayashi Maru

Apparently, I'm slowly making my way through every verse of Weird Al's White and Nerdy.

I hate being a stereotype. *sigh*.