Way too amused by the English language
(12:17:07) labrat0013: would I be impossing too much to ask for a ride today?
(12:17:21) Restless Warrior: Nope, I can be there at 6:00.
(12:35:08) labrat0013: Ok, thats te awsome!
(12:36:00) Restless Warrior: I can’t believe you just mispelled the word “teh,” which is itself a stupid misspelling. That’s a translation from speech to text back to speech and back again to text, erroneously at two different junctures.
(12:36:24) Restless Warrior: Not to mention grammatically incorrect… *sigh*
(12:36:28) labrat0013: I have trouble getting my head around the fact you typed all that out
“It is a damn poor mind indeed which can think of only one way to spell a word.”
—Andrew Jackson
🤷♂️
The Deviant Geek
You answered 85% of the questions as a geek truly would.
—
You’re a geek and you know it. You’ve got all sorts of fringe hobbies and socially unacceptable tendencies. Chances are, whenever possible, you hate to be grouped with other people and sometimes go out of your way just to be different. You’re smart too. You’re more willing to depend on your own brainpower to solve problems, instead of relying on others to pull you through life. You probably read a lot, and generally enjoy learning new things. So what’s it all mean? You may be considered by some to be uncool, but you probably don’t care either. In social situations you may be either slightly passive or slightly loud (geeks always fall into the extremes). In a nutshell, you answered enough questions correctly supporting a geek philosophy to be considered a more potent geek than 60% of the population.
Unintelligent design
noonereally has enlightened me to a proposition superior to both the Theory of Evolution and the Pharisaism of Intelligent Design. Everything makes sense when you consider the simple idea that God is an idiot!
“He says naïvely, outspokenly and without suggestion of embarrassment ‘I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God.’ It is only another way of saying ‘I, the Lord thy God, am a small God; fretful about small things.’”
—Mark Twain, in Letters from the Earth
Gremlins
(16:04:11) LLichte: This is really weird. I found a setting that makes my capture card look REALLY good.
(16:04:17) Restless Warrior: Yeah?
(16:04:20) LLichte: But it also lags for no reason, without indicating that it’s dropping frams.
(16:04:22) LLichte: Frames.
(16:04:32) Restless Warrior: I wonder if it’s doing integration.
(16:04:58) Restless Warrior: If that’s the case it might be dropping frames from CPU usage.
(16:05:27) LLichte: Oh, it was recording!
(16:05:34) LLichte: Why does it look so much better when it records?
(16:05:51) Restless Warrior: Gremlins.
(16:06:26) Restless Warrior: They don’t want to be recorded. So when you record, they don’t interfere and make the picture look worse. ‘Cause if they did, you’d have proof they exist.
(16:07:50) LLichte: You get +1 to spurious logic!
(16:11:33) Restless Warrior: Everything is evidence toward the existence of gremlins.
(16:12:06) LLichte: I’m not. >:o
(16:12:09) Restless Warrior: I heard a noise outside that I couldn’t identify. Well, ask yourself: could it have been gremlins? If the answer is yes, then that means the likelihood of gremlins is greater with you having heard that noise!
(16:12:59) Restless Warrior: You are a good friend. Now, if there were gremlins, would they want to create a “good friend” out of the flesh of several dead men, to use to get close to me and ultimately play terrible, terrible tricks on me? Of course they would!
(16:13:22) Restless Warrior: So yes, you are evidence toward gremlins!
(16:13:34) Restless Warrior: (Sorry dude.)
(16:14:22) LLichte: No I’m not! >:o
(16:14:40) LLichte: You are racist.
(16:14:42) Restless Warrior: That’s what the gremlins would make you say if you WERE made by them!
(16:15:32) Restless Warrior: And I’m not racist, I am culturalist.
(16:15:35) Restless Warrior: I hate the gremlin culture.
(16:15:42) LLichte: The gremlins are a race!
(16:16:16) Restless Warrior: If I met a gremlin who liked to play video games and RP and was generally a cool guy, I would have nothing against him! And if I met a non-gremlin who made fake friends out of the flesh of corpses just to torment me, I would hate him!
(16:16:19) Restless Warrior: So it’s the culture man.
(16:16:58) LLichte: That’s what HITLER said.
(16:17:17) Restless Warrior: Ouch, you just lost an argument about being crafted by gremlins. That takes skill.
(16:17:21) LLichte: http://www.sorethumbsonline.com/d/20050624.html
See?
Neverending memes
You are the Chariot card. The Chariot has the
energy to succeed. Their ambition and drive
leads them into competition, and they often
come out the victor. The fast-paced energy of
the chariot is met with the ability to control
and lead. The Charioteer’s leadership is not
authoritarian but rather an attempt to bring
their team to victory. The Charioteer can be
obedient to those who have proven themselves in
a position of leadership. Physical prowess and
activity are important to the meaning of this
card. Travel is found here as a journey of
personal growth. Moving from one point to
another in attempt to find a better place may
be taken both literally and as a metaphor for
the inner self. Image from: Dorothy Simpson
Krause.
http://www.dotkrause.com/art/tarot/tarot.htm
Which Tarot Card Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Humor
Seems like everyone is taking this humor test. And since I would have been a German civilian and gone with the flow while the Nazis crushed all who opposed them, I have followed suit here as well!
Harry Potter and politics
Slashdot mentioned today that Harry Potter book 6 was leaked. Apparently about 15 copies were sold early at a bookstore in Vancouver. This, in and of itself, does not surprise me. But it seems the distributor got an injunction prohibiting people from even talking about the books prior to the official release date.
I know it’s Canada, but the precedent set by something like this is still rather frightening. If it had happened in the U.S., it surely would be unconstitutional, given our first amendment rights. Otherwise, what’s to stop courts from issuing arbitrary injunctions preventing people from talking about the president’s speech today, or other topics not protected by nondisclosure agreements (key word here: agreements)?
Of course, some people on Slashdot commented that it’s probably just a publicity stunt. In that case, umm, don’t buy books from this company. =P
“There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies cannot stand.”
—G’Kar, Babylon 5
Oh, the horror
This is for you, noonereally and tozcat. Fear and loathe me!
25: Pikachu - When several of these Pokemon gather,
their electricity can cause lightning storms.
Of the Original 150, Which Pokemon Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
“If there is a God, and I ever meet him, I’m just going to kick him in the balls over and over.”
—Tycho Brahe, Penny Arcade
Programmer humor
int zero(int x, int y, int z) { return 0; } // ha ha, screw you, x y and z!
Wholly unsurprising results
You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don’t believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof).
The continuing saga of copyright
Slashdot ran an unsurprising article today about how software piracy is seen as normal in the UK. My attitude is in line with the article’s assessment: copyright infringement is inevitable. “Information wants to be free,” as it were. There are several good Slashdot comments (a few great ones from ShieldW0lf), as well as other goodies such as this Thomas Jefferson quote: “He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights his candle at mine receives light without darkening me.”
I have strong opinions on these issues but I don’t really feel like writing a long LJ rant about it, since most of you probably agree with me anyway. So instead I’ll just link to this relevant User Friendly strip!
Black Mage: “You ever get the feeling that the universe is a vast, impersonal emptiness that exists only to hurt you?”
Red Mage: “Yes. It’s how we know the DM is doing his job.”
—8-bit Theater
I am ninja!
a Ninja
You scored 11 Honor, 5 Justice, 4 Adventure, and 4 Individuality!
—
You are a soldier of the night. You rely on no more than your cunning and your reputation to strike fear in the hearts of lord and peasant alike. You’ve a sense of honor, but one that comes from within, not imposed from outside.Black clothes and shuriken for you. You’re gonna do just fine.
My test tracked 4 variables. How you compared to other people your age and gender :
Top six songs
square721bt has challenged me to list my six favorite songs right now.
- Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
- Green Day - Holiday
- BT - Remember
- Offspring - Lightning Rod
- Scott Peeples - Dream Fighter (Punch Out remix)
- TaQ - Traces
Of course, this list is woefully inadequate, as there are dozens of other songs I probably feel as strongly about (for example, I could not choose a single stand-out Bad Religion song for this list, but it’s because so many of them are so good). But these were the first few to come to mind as top-notch.
These are all songs where I have specifically thought “Damn, it’s over already?” and skipped back to replay them immediately, over and over.
Lastly, I decline to nominate six more people. I refuse to be viral like that. =P
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Orson Scott Card on politics
Orson Scott Card has a weekly article in the Ornery American, World Watch. Card is a conservative Mormon, so his view vastly differs from my own, but he is a very intelligent man and a great writer, meaning he often presents his point of view in a comprehensible fashion. The article I found really interesting is The Riots of the Faithful, which discusses the recent uncorroborated (and later discovered to be false) Newsweek article claiming American interrogators were flushing copies of the Quran down toilets to force devout Muslim prisoners to talk.
Another technology hero
I wrote a while ago about how insightful I have found Paul Graham’s articles. Today (thanks to Slashdot comment surfing) I discovered another cache of insightful material: writings about the Internet by Clay Shirky. I enjoyed reading his objective analyses of file sharing (he tells it like it is, rather than offering praise or condemnation for any party involved), as well as his smackdown of the Semantic Web. DNA, P2P, and Privacy looks intriguing as well.
“If what you own cannot be protected, you own nothing.”
—Jack Valenti
Java constructor weirdness
Every once in a while, something about the way Java works still surprises me. If you’re not a programmer, you will probably not be interested in this technical rant, so I’ve enclosed it in a cut.
Future production of digital media
Reading about the trackerless BitTorrent beta got me thinking some more about the future of media (movies, television and music) in a capitalistic economy (the latter article, while often insightful, is hurting my brain).
Gencon data browser
To anyone attending Gencon this year: I made a Gencon data browser application that downloads the Gencon event data from their web site and lets you search and browse it in a more reasonable fashion than using Excel. Drop me a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.
Also of use is Alan De Smet’s Gen Con 2005 Event Listing, which is a web-based listing of Gencon events that combines entries identical apart from start time (in other words, it lists events that are actually distinct rather than a separate entry for each start time). However, his listing does not show what’s still available or provide filtering capabilities, so both these tools have their pros and cons. Hopefully both together should greatly reduce the pain of planning for Gencon.
Reconciling an ancient injustice
Just when it seemed like world peace was on the horizon, the availability of online weather data is under attack in the Senate! Not that this is the most important issue ever to grace the Congressional floor (nor even this humble LJ). But it serves to illustrate one thing horribly wrong with our lawmaking process today.
I act my age!
You Are 26 Years Old
- Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.
- 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.
- 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what’s to come… love, work, and new experiences.
- 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You’ve had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!
- 40+: You are a mature adult. You’ve been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.