yup.

Fuck people with inspirational quotes in the signature line of their emails. Are you kidding me? Is it that they have some vision of everyone who reads their drivel (no doubt 1-3 sentences long, and flagged as "highly important", like all of their emails) suddenly imagining the sender as some sort of fucking guru, living by the mantra so boldly displayed in an ornate font above their contact info? Hanging in there, not sweating the small stuff (they say its all small stuff), not letting perfect get in the way of progress, handing out water to small, dirty-faced children in ravaged slums? How does one, you know aspiring to hone their idiocy, choose such an inspirational quote? Do you google "quotable quotes", or "quotes for siglines" ? Give me, please, won't you, a fucking break.

Highly Variant Occurances

This is right outside my apartment, where I walk my dog. I heard a big crash while I was playing Oblivion (great game by the way) and saw this outside. A little bit scary.

They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way.

If you are familiar with the Ruby programming language and its community, you have no doubt heard of the recent, inexplicable disappearance of the community's most prolific and beloved member, _why. _why brings an artfulness to programming and the science of information in general that I always thought was the exemplar of the best (certainly my favorite) aspect of the ruby programming language, namely, that its simplicity and elegance allow a coder to focus on *what" they are trying to do, not on *how* it needs to be done.
_why did a lot of work that brought new ways of thinking and enjoying coding to people, he wrote a lot of simply sublime code, and his creativity was evident throughout everything he showed us.

So, _why is super great. _why is loved and liked. The outpouring of thanks and admiration for _why that is everywhere in any comment block on any page talking about his sudden disappearance. Is this just the Striesand effect? Maybe. I tend to think of it, however in terms of the plot at the beginning of Superman Returns.

You have somebody whose ability is far beyond that of almost everyone (or at least chooses to exercise it and be known) -- let's not carry the analogy too far, but let's say he does things for people that they would otherwise have to struggle with, or at a minimum expend a great deal of effort, and they are thankful. So thankful, that a certain mystique centers around this fellow and a series of precedents become established which begin to define the superfellow and increase the community's dependence on him. For Superman, this resulted in becoming a bit disallusioned with his role in society and required "leaving town" for a while, letting people bloody their noses, lick their wounds and save their own babies rolling down the hills in their carriages, etc. _why's last comment to the interweb was this:

programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more.

I think that like Superman, _why was fighting with his own uncanny abilities and their application. His role got too well-defined, he got pigeon-holed, precedented, depended upon. As a result, I imagine that he thought that two things were happening: 1. he was getting stale, and 2. the community was suffering as a result. Maybe I'm completely off-base, I don't want to speak for anyone but myself but I see the Ruby community reeling from _why's disappearance, and all of a sudden, the comments are turning to questions like "who will be the bext great coder...", and "what will be the next great thing..." I didn't see these kinds of thoughts before _why's disappearance, and I would venture that he hadn't either. _why, you must be tired. You gave us Cartoon foxes, Hpricot, the Poignant guide, and myriad engaging thoughts. You must be exhausted. I just hope that like Superman, you will come back in our hour of need.

@_why: I wish for you that you are never bored.

The future never was what it was ...

Check out this clip that was unearthed by the good people at Make whom I heart so dearly. The Millionizer 2000 is truly a treasure to behold. Got to give credit to the fellow rocking the mouth synthesizer solo, not a lot of contemporary compositions give enough attention to that artform, but this bloke's dedication is to be admired. Bravo sweet douche, bravo.

The people's beer.

What follows is a beer commerical. According to the advert's claims, this beer can reduce stress, so drink it! A beer commercial is not so unusual itself, except that this one is running on North Korean State televison, which does not normally allow advertisements. Also, this video is rather funny.

Carnage is an equal opportunity employer.

Oh yes. Queen Kong. This film reverses the gender of the roles of the kong, and the, ummm ... lady in the kong hand, respectively. Apparently some copyright issues with the maker of the other King Kong movie released in 1976 (produced by Dino De Laurentiis) forced the film only to be released in Italy and Germany. Apparently this flick is super cool awesome time in Japan, inspiring a group of super fans to dub a japanese dialog version which came out on DVD in 2001. Delicious.

Charisma +5, Light Side Points -4

This CD is composed of two tracks:

1. "Busy"
2. "Very Busy"

The idea is to play this cd in the background when you take business calls (assumption being you are a home office) to increase your perceived legitimacy. You're not running some kinda Mickey Mouse outfit are you? No? Good. This is a sad bit of social engineering, but I applaud the creativity

SWTOR!

Now, I recall being disappointed with Star Wars Galaxies. Poor graphics, many bugs and 12 years olds talking nerd-trash. But I was excited, nay, hopeful when I saw the pre-launch website, it seemed so neato burrito. But now my expectations have potential to be surpassed, what I experienced whilst watching E3 this afternoon was, quite possibly the Star Wars nerdgasm I had not felt since ... since I first saw The Empire Strikes Back as a little kid. The recent Clone Wars movie and subsequent Catroon Network series is ok, but I don't think it would fall into the category of badassitude, whether one measured it with the Englsih or Metric badass scale. Today's announcement is most certainly badass, I just want to know:

1. The beta test date
2. The launch date
3. Whether I'll have a job so I can afford the new videocard I will most likely require

Im' sure you'll find it elsewhere, but it would be most unblogmotronic if it were not found here, so, here is the first, cinematic trailer for SWTOR:

Wolfram's new project

Just picture this and try not to laugh ...

Excerpt from WebMD news:

EB Brands is recalling about 3 million fitness balls -- those large, inflatable balls that people use for crunches and other exercises -- after getting 47 reports of fitness balls that burst because of overinflation.

Reported injuries related to the recalled fitness balls include a fracture and bruises.

The recall includes fitness balls sold in 55, 65, and 75-centimeter diameter sizes in various colors with the Bally Total Fitness, Everlast, or Valeo logos printed on the balls, which were sold nationwide from May 2000 to February 2009 for between $15 and $30.

Don't head to the store to try to return the fitness balls.

Instead, contact EB Brands to get a copy of the updated instructions on how to safely inflate the ball.

Call EB Brands at 800-624-5671 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday or visit the company's web site.

If this is real, this is awesome

Check this out. What do we think Billy Bob's problem is? My guess would be cocaine, or perhaps cocaine withdrawal ...

Fuck you Comcast; fuck you with a dirty, rusty pole -- with burrs.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck.

Comcast sucks. Comcast sucks so terribly and inexorably bad, my hands are shaking. I don't have the strength to tell you all of the reasons why, but I'll focus on the big ones.

1. Their TV service is always deficient in some way, that is to say it never functions completely. If your DVR is working, you can probably only see half of your channels, if on-demand is working, all the HD channels are blacked out, etc. It never works all at the same time, it doesn't do what you pay it to, ever.

2. When you have the temerity to call customer service to see if they even give a shit about giving you something for your money, its like you are wearing a ski mask in a bank. You are suddenly the biggest gaping asshole in the world, or so they would have you believe. They act like they are doing you a favor and struggling to do it. You enter your information over the phone and they make you repeat it every time you get transferred to another inept waste of humanity, which is often. To say they need a little process improvement is an understatement of massive proportions.

3(mostly). Comcast violates net neutrality continually and lies about it.(Orsome would claim, they can't deliver what they promise so they decide to fuck over torrent users to reclaim bandwidth) Comcast is preventing people from seeding torrents, and in some cases (like mine) they disconnect service altogether if they detect a download/upload pattern they think (or have been paid to think) isn't right. Fortunately, there are some workarounds. But they ain't foolproof or pretty. For whatever reason, they think that it is perfectly acceptable for them to decide what you can and can't do with your data, and what data you are allowed to have access to, not cool, Johnny. Comcast should sell the connection, not tell people what to do with it. I concede that it is possible that comcast just can't handle the traffic caused by all of this P2Ping, so that's why they are simply cutting people off and/or throttling their bandwidth, but again if you are paying for a service, you should be able to use it the way you want to, fuck comcast if thy can't keep up with the demand being placed upon them they are being paid money to keep the juice flowing, so they should keep it flowing.

Now these corpse-fucking bastards would have you think that all is well, that they don't dig up graves and have their fun, and they sure as shit don't throttle or even block or disconnect torrent users, well at least any more they don't. They say that they are experienceing unusual disruptions to service, and that they just can't get anyone to fix your problem for a week. Well, I say bullshit. Fuck you Comcast. I can't wait to be rid of you forever. If you can switch, I highly recommend it.

These aren't the droids you're looking for ...

Yes. Honda researchers have combined EEG and NIR data to compile brain "state data" to determine a series of commands for a the ASIMO robot. Yes. They did that.
check out the official press release from Honda.

Fun and useful

A few random thoughts

When I was a kid, I only watched Unsolved Mysteries when they had aliens on, which freaked me out.

I like Budwesier in the bottle, but not from the can or tap.

One of my favorite things ever: the squishiness of brand new socks.

I run into interviews with Legs McNeil everywhere on TV, yet, I still haven't faintest idea about the guy.


I kinda hate blogs.

When I was a kid, my friends and I sold these the green fruits that grew on the trees in our neighborhood. We marketed them as air fresheners via a roadside stand to New Yorkers who were driving the country roads. They would rot and become maggot infested in about two days. We sold them for $1.50 each.

I kinda like blogs.

I used to smoke Parliament Full Flavored Cigarettes (dark blue pack). One time when I was in DC with some friends in college, a homeless gentleman saw us smoking (gosh we were posh) and asked me for a cigarette. I pulled out the dark blue pack, and he said, "Nevermind." How Zen.

My dog exhibits an irrational fear of empty Fiji water bottles, Deer Park, Aquafina and others seem to have no effect on her.

require 'ninjas'

So here is a steaming slice of awesome:

Whilst perusing the interweb todee, I ran across a game from a forgotten era, an epic called "Ninja Golf', for the Atari 7800. I can just picture some guy thinking, "hey we have to make a golf game, why not add ninjas?" even better, there is a page dedicated to the awesomeness of this game, complete with the ROM and emulator:

http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/ninjagolf/

delicious. it is new!

wow

I Shit you not...

Twitter. That name used to be almost cute. But now it is the very essence of the verbal diarrhea espoused by every douchebag reporter and golf ball-tie wearing tech consultant that manages to get a word in edgewise. Fuck. Don't get me wrong, I heart the interweb. I like the Myface and the etunes, but a website that exchanges ~140 character strings between users isn't exactly a monolith we should be banging our bones against. What is the catalyst of this O-so-typical internetty rant? Why do I implore you to read my misinformed overopiniated drivel? Take a gander:

What follows is an excerpt from an interview between Sen. John McCain and George Stephanopoulos. I have not altered this at all, see for yourself here.

SenJohnMcCain hi george im a little slow

SenJohnMcCainHappy St. Patricks day

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Happy St Patrick's Day! First things first: How do u tweet -- dictate or type? Blackberry or pc?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos Happy St. Patrick's day - slow, sometimes pc somtimes bb

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain AIG: Would a President McCain break bonus contracts? Obama teams says that would cause more harm than good

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos i would have never bailed out AIG, the real scandal is billions to foreign banks.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain ok, but today: should bonus contracts be broken? Dodd wants a targeted tax on bonuses OK with that?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos i haven't seen it but i would explore every option. i repeat, we wouldn't have this problem if we hadn't bailed them out

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain RIght, but didn't you vote for first TARP, which went to AIG?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos i voted for first tarp but that doesn't mean i voted to bail out AIG.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Obama says GOP can't "just say no" on budget Will you offer a full alternative to Obama budget?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos I'm working with others on alternatives - cong paul ryan has some great ideas.

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos to follow up - first AIG bailout was pre-tarp.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Take point on 1st AIG bailout How about budget? Will you offer alternative?

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain What worries you more: Pakistan or Iran?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos both. the challenges are different but both significant.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohMcCain Cheney said on CNN that Obama putting US at risk of new terror attack Agree?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos too early to draw that conclusion.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Lots of twitterers want to know: what do you think of Meghan's feud with Coulter and Ingraham?

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos I'm proud of my daughter and she has a right to her opinions.

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos like any family we agree on some things and disagree on others.

GStephanopoulos@SenJohnMcCain Thanks for your time Senator.You're a good sport I know I'm not getting anymore on Coulter and Ingraham Happy St Pat's again

SenJohnMcCain@GStephanopoulos Thanks a lot george, let's do it again soon. now i look forward to reading our followers comments and insults.

SenJohnMcCain had a lot of fun george: http://tinyurl.com/dl2w9t