That crazy Bush

Whoever said Bush doesn't have a sense of humor?

Silly Bush...you wouldn't know a balanced budget if it were handed to you on a silver platter at the beginning of your presiden...oh, wait...

(douchebag.)

Hep C drug patent workaround

Jesus Christ...what a fantastic example of just how fucked our intellectual property system is.

Yet another "Google isn't a benevolent dictator?!" story

For fuck's sake. When are people going to stop being surprised that Google is behaving more and more like a normal, self-interested corporation???

Numbers stations

Huh. I had never heard of the so-called "Numbers Stations," stations that broadcast random strings of letters and numbers and are thought to be coded spy agency transmissions.

I have a suspicion that most of the transmissions are garbage so that it's not obvious _when_ a transmission actually occurs.

European view of America

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*.

50 worst? Really?

I take issue with your list, sir. You're really going to put Yanni ahead of Mick Jagger? Really? I mean, I'm not a huge Stones fan, but still...Yanni???

Frightening

I agree with a surprising amount of this David Brooks op-ed (TimesSelect...sorry).

Scary.

When the hampsters rise up against us, they're going to kick this guy's ass

Some people have way, way, WAY too much time on their hands...

...and today's douchebag is:

Dennis Prager! Go Dennis! What does he win? Well, boys and girls, he wins a shiny new can of "Shut the Fuck Up!" (from the makers of "God, you really are a douchebag, aren't you?").

There's this cute little thing we have in this American culture of ours you think you're protecting. It's called the Constitution. Maybe you've heard of it? If not, allow me to point out article 6:

...The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

That's pretty much as close as the Constitution can reasonable come to contradicting you, Mr. Prager, without explicitly saying, "Prager, you're a douchebag, and you're full of shit, so take your head out of your ass, and go home." The Framers kind of frowned on that kind of language though.

Silly superhero name generator

Henceforth, you may refer to me as Emperor Bootylicious. That or Path Mollusk. Ooh...I also like Commander Grope. And there's something about Penguin Searphim that appeals to me. Also, Alissa said you can refer to her as Platypus Vixen. No, really...she did. I swear. O:-)

Others from my first generating attempt:
Brushon
Charmroach
Cream Flunkie
Disoriented Blast
Drool Commander
Drunkborg
Emperor Bootylicious
Flopspider
Idiotsaur
Lash Whiner
Mistress Yawn
Path Mollusk
Polka Wheezer
Poodle Psychic
Professor Tricycle
Queen Mollusk
Sacred Scooter
Saint Yodel
Sergeant Haribrush
Shockpuffin
Sneezefire
Stitchyell
Veil Yawner
Vixen Gecko
Wig Crusher

Gingrich = douchebag

Yup. Gingrich. Douchebag. Enough said.

Some songs shouldn't exist

Or rather, some covers are a crime against nature.

Massive cahones

Man...good thing he put his money on a color instead of just one number, because betting your entire life savings on just one number on the roulette wheel would be, well, fucking stupid...

Note to self: never go to Colorado

There be idiots there.

See? Women are too thin.

Curvy women = good.
Anorexic, emaciated women passing for models = bad.

The side-by-side pictures are frightening.

Why Microsoft is broken

This gentleman's blog entry provides a very nice example of how horribly, horribly broken Microsoft is.

The closest close-up you'll ever see

Dear, sweet baby Jesus, if there were ever a link that was NSFW, it's this one.

Ever wonder what sex looks like from your genitals' point of view? Yeah, I didn't either, and I think my brain just exploded. Nonetheless: go BBC! :)

Thanksgiving explained in 8 panels

...by Choo-Choo Bear and a chinchilla.

Iraqi insurgency now self-sustaining

So, let me get this straight...the terrorists are more fiscally responsible than the Republicans? Great. Fantastic. This will end well...

Did you get that?

It is amazing to me that someone can speak so many words, each word itself carrying some meaning, and yet when this man strings them together, they become total gibberish. A quintessential example of obscurity passing for profundity.

Heart Attack Grille

Oh yes. The Quadruple Bypass and the Flatliner Fries had to be shared.

Incidentally...

I am immensely amused that Kevin Federline's newest nickname is "Fed-ex."

Inhofe = douchebag

I had to post this if for no other reason than the satisfaction of attaching a "douchebag" tag to it...

Please tell me you saw this coming the instant Republicans started whining about judicial filibusters?

The real China

Most of the time the censors in China do a pretty good job of filtering out the stuff that shows all the bad shit happening in that country, but every so often, bits and pieces filter through.

Libertarians are retarded

I'm pretty sure I don't even need to explain how retarded this essay is. Let me boil down the argument to its essence: because police brutality can happen, that means we shouldn't have police.

Yes, some Libertarians seem to honestly believe this.

What's truly frightening is that this guy is a professor at Auburn. Although maybe that means he's especially innocuous, and we should be grateful that certain corners of academia serve as shiny distractions for people that might otherwise be predisposed to do something dangerous with their idiotic ideas.

RC VR

A very simple but very cool idea. I totally want one. And it's making me want to take flying lessons again. Now that, you know, I _really_ don't have the money for it.

On condescension

Having finally finished the current sprint of algorithms (bleh...I never want to see another dynamic programming problem, although given that what I face next are complexity problems, the former might start looking damn appealing again...), I can go back to focusing on the important things: unsubstantiated opinions vehemently asserted as facts.

You know...blogging.

So, I read this David Brooks piece in the NYT (sorry, it's a TimesSelect thing...I'm a bit too much of a pussy to actually post the text as I fear people do, in fact, go looking for such things), and it was thought-provoking.

I actually kind of like Brooks. He's the closest I can think of to a conservative whose opinion I can actually respect. I have been desperate to find such people as I do think there is a coherent, informed conservative political opinion to be expressed, but it's being drowned out by politicized evangelicals and the idiots that pass for Fox News commentators.

But, I digress. Brooks' point is that we've entered an era of institutionalized condescension. There is a wave of both humor and documentaries lately, he argues, that plays off condescension to, I guess, the non-cosmopolitan segments of our population. Similarly, there is an air of the rest of America becoming simply a sociological specimen for our academic and comic amusement. Think of the interviews on the Daily Show. Think of Jesus Camp. Think of Simon on American Idol. And quintessentially, think of Borat.

To some degree, he has a point. Why didn't Borat make fun of the pretension of coffee aficionados, wine connoisseurs, Starbucks frequenters, and Whole Foods crunchy-granola types? Would it have been too jarring? Would it have jolted us out of our comfortable position of cultural superiority?

And yet, I don't buy it. To me, this is a reaction, not an action. For one thing, this is often less about cultural condescension than it is an assault on pretense. Simon from American Idol doesn't really fall in this mold...he really is a condescending prick, in my opinion, and I never really found it that entertaining. But people like Daily Show, Colbert, and Borat are picking precisely on people who take themselves too seriously. Yes, Borat makes fun of the rednecks at the rodeo, but let's remember he also subjected himself to tumbling around naked with a morbidly obese guy, and in the end, he found true love with a prostitute. Not to be too glib, but I seem to recall Jesus spending most of his times with beggars, whores, and criminals. I don't see the moralizing, supposedly anti-elitist masses that attend rodeos and hold supercilious dinner parties where they attempt to "culture" a supposedly uncivilized brute from Kazakhstan doing very much of that. In fact, I distinctly remember them running away screaming when a prostitute did show up at their door. Is it Borat that is condescending, or is Borat merely focusing a giant microscope on the willfully ignorant middle-American culture snobs?

I see this phenomenon as simply taking the gloves off in a culture war we didn't start. Well, okay, I guess technically we did if you regard the 60s as the beginning, but personally I don't regard returning to a world where we hide our problems and the ugly truths of existence under artifical social structure, illusory decorum, and contrived social protocol as a particularly good idea. The last 6, and arguably 12, and arguably 26 years, we have been subjected to a cultural revolution that sought to simultaneously throw out the window both the notions of meritocracy and social responsibility and replace them with cultural cronyism and egocentrism justified as divine providence. Gone is any notion that someone actually trained for and who studies a discipline might actually be better at it than your "plain spoken" buddy Ed whose only qualification is that you know him. Gone is the notion of social responsibility, replaced by a blind faith, one increasingly institutionalized, that one's material status in the world is directly compensation (or lack thereof) for one's moral worth and behavior.

The paramount achievement of this effort has been putting idiots in charge of the most powerful government on the planet. We literally have idiots running the country in almost every aspect of its operation. And we had to have a perfect-fucking-storm of disastrous results, corruption, and hyper-visible hypocrisy for the idiots to be just _barely_ nudged out of power. Is it any wonder that it has been in these same years that we have begun to see people (comedians, documentarians, etc.) finally willing to stop being polite and say, "Look, these people are ignorant, arrogant morons. And they're running things."

So Brooks will excuse me if I don't get too upset by this phenomenon. When the willfully ignorant with cripplingly narrow fields of vision and experience stop trying to run things they don't understand, then we can talk.

What happens when your computer's battery blows up

Huh. Apparently your computer's battery really could incinerate you.

Rape accountability = lewdness

Why are people so goddamn stupid?

Sack up and quit whining

Oh, fucking get over yourself, you damn loser. You were an asshole, and you let yourself be filmed being an asshole. That's no one's fault but yours.

How Duck Hunt works

For those of you that may have been curious, here's how the Zapper worked.

Take THAT Jesus vision freaks!

I found Jesus, and he's on a dog's ass.

What the hell is wrong with you people?

Ever wonder what kind of fucked up childhood trauma leads to these kind of incoherent, paranoid ramblings?

An entertaining quote

Maybe it's just that it's 3 am, but I found this to be a great quote:

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
-- Rod Serling

Also liked this:

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
-- Woody Allen

Pellets = love

You know your self-esteem is way too low, and you have truly horrible taste in men, when...

The aptly named worst burglar ever

Dude...give up.

What _is_ a ho?

Personally, I think the first answer is better. A rake?! What the fuck is a rake?

I wish the milkman...

"I wish the milkman would de...liver my milk...in the morning..."

Probably one of the most bizarre things you'll ever see (yes, I realize this is the internet we're talking about). I can't fucking get it out of my head.

This article sucks

Okay, how can you write this article and not tell me what the fuck they were arguing about for six goddamn years?!

One never knows when a homosexual is about

Beware!!!

Kiwi

This may be the cutest and yet most depressing thing I've ever seen.

What the hell is "Web 2.0"

Tim O'Reilly's attempt to answer the question of what "Web 2.0" is.

Amazing how much of it is starry-eyed horse shit.

Dissent in the mainstream media???

Dear god...there's actually someone in the mainstream media not equivocating about how fucked up the Bush policies are? Wow.

Buzzkill

Stupid Khamenei. He and al Qaeda are really killing my "Fuck the Republicans!" post-election buzz...

Are you tone deaf?

Take the test!

I got 80.6% after not sleeping for 24 hours. I think I'm ok with that.

Nerd 911

Oh, Reno 911!...I really should watch you more.

The banana: sworn enemy of the atheist

Well, that's it. I was wrong. Clearly, the banana proves the existence of a divine creator.

Pretty space pictures

Damn impressive, you gotta admit...

Nick's 2006 Seattle voter guide

I know you've been waiting for it with bated breath. So without further adieu, going from more local to less local (all predictions made without looking at the poll numbers):

SEATTLE (CITY)
Referendum 1 - Adult Entertainment: NO.
This is pure puritan bullshit. Strippers are part of what makes this country great. Whoever sponsored this referendum needs to fuck off.

Prediction: NO. I don't think Seattle is that uptight. At least I hope not.

Initiative 91 - No Below Value Leases to Sports Teams: YES.
Meh. Fuck sports. The city needs the revenue, and even on the off-chance that it does drive away sports teams (which I doubt), the economic benefit of having them here is dubious anyway.

Prediction: NO. I think people are probably jittery about the Sonics leaving, and that will translate into a no vote on 91.

Proposition 1 - Transportation Funding: YES.
Yes, this money should come out of the general fund and not come from a levy, but the legislators aren't fucking funding this shit, so the money has to come from somewhere. Also, yay Robin Hood tax. :)

Prediction: YES. People likey their roads, and bikers likey their bike paths.


KING (COUNTY)
Proposition 1 - Sale of harbor property: Umm...yes?
This is a fantastic example of why voter propositions are dumb. I have no idea whether this is a good idea or not. It kind of smells like a real estate developer managed to get the ear of some councilperson, and the county will end up selling the land for too little, but who knows. Personally, I don't see why the county shouldn't just hang onto the land and continue to lease it as it will probably provide more money in the long term, but fuck...I don't know. King County should do whatever it thinks is best on this one.

Prediction: Aroo?

Proposition 2 - Public Transportation Sales and Use Tax: YES.
Yay public transportation.

Prediction: NO. I think people in this state are generally too libertarian to vote for something this progressive when it so directly affects their pocketbooks.

WASHINGTON (state)
Initiative 920 - Repeal of Estate Tax: NO.
Fucking Republicans.

Prediction: YES. I think Washington state is still too mired in the myth of the American Dream to vote this down. They'll view it as a tax on success.

Initiative 933 - Regulation of Private Property: NO.
Fucking land developers. Any time I read a rebuttal of the statement against and find the phrase, "I-933’s opponents will say anything to maintain big government control of private property," I know the people making that statement are full of shit.

Prediction: YES. I think people are shaky enough about the coverage of the Supreme Court case on eminent domain to vote for this as an obstacle to the gub'mint taking their land. That of course assumes they have memories that long...

Initiative 937 - Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy: YES.
Environmental no-brainer. If the fed isn't going to do this shit, guess the states have to...

Prediction: YES. Too easy to look at the gas prices on any street corner.

Joint Resolution 4223 - Personal Property Tax Exemption Increase: NO.
Honestly, I'm mostly being perverse. This is exactly the kind of shit that shouldn't be on a ballot. This is a budgetary issue that should be decided by the legislature. In principle, the state's hurting for money, and I don't feel like a tax repeal on property is the way to fix that right now, especially given the skyrocketing price of real estate.

Prediction: YES. Especially since there is no argument against published in the voter guide.


FEDERAL:
All Democrats. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could vote for a Republican this election. Honestly, can _you_ think of something they haven't screwed up?

Prediction: Democrats take the House, Republicans keep the Senate. Much as I dream that Republicans get their asses handed to them in both sides of Congress...

Doogie's gay!!!

Dude. Doogie's gay.

Best video game levels

Ah, this brings back some memories...

Best. Halloween. Costume. Ever.

Really, how can you beat a full functional Transformer costume??