Oh, the horror
· 😄 amused · ♫ The Brand New Heavies - Boogie (Frequence3 -- www.Frequence3.org - Une Rafale De Tubes - The French
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
· 😄 amused · ♫ Sylver - Make It (Radioseven - www.radioseven.se )
int zero(int x, int y, int z) { return 0; } // ha ha, screw you, x y and z!
Wholly unsurprising results
· 😶 blank · ♫ Third Eye Blind - Jumper (EnergyRadio.FM - Energy X)
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
· 👌 okay · ♫ No Address - When I'm Gone (Sadie) [EnergyRadio.FM: EnergyX]
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!
· 😊 cheerful · ♫ Tegan and Sara - Walking with a ghost (Frequence3 -- www.Fre
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
· 👍 good · ♫ Denise Lopez - Tarzan Boy (Veckans Smash Hit) (Radioseven -
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
· 🪷 calm
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
· ⚡ energetic · ♫ Emma - Free Me (Full Intention Mix) (EnergyRadio.FM - Energy Dance)
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
· 😠 annoyed · ♫ Good Charlotte - Lifestyles of the rich & famous (Frequence3
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
· 🤔 thoughtful · ♫ Skinlab - Bullet With Butterfly Wings ( ChroniX Aggression -
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
· 🥱 tired
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
· offended · ♫ Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You ( (EnergyRadio.FM -
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!
· 😄 amused · ♫ Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head (EnergyRadio.FM
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.
The whimsy of the modern spammer
· 😕 confused · ♫ Changin' My Life - In Future (Caravan) (^kawaii-radio^ || fu
Just received the following spam (for the second time):
From: Neateye <nitaigouranga@aol.com> Subject: Gouranga
Call out Gouranga be happy!!! Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga …. That which brings the highest happiness!!
Don’t you have anything better to do, Neateye? Are you hoping I will investigate your exotic cognomen?
Ok, fine, you win. Googling…
Hmm, apparently the #1 hit is a Grand Theft Auto resource site. Definitely worth sending obscure spam for. But actually, the Urban Dictionary entry is a lot more enlightening (well, sort of…). It seems many others have commented on this oddity as well.
“I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes … to spread a lively terror.”
—Winston Churchill, writing as President of the Air Council, in 1919
Technology gone horribly right
· 💻 geeky · ♫ Soul Blazer - SNES - Overworld (Gaming FM - Complete Selection)
Google maps now has a satellite view. It’s pretty sweet!
The Internet. It just sits there.
The joy of geekdom
· 😄 amused · ♫ Beki - Wake Up (EnergyRadio.FM - Energy Dance)
I love being a geek, but sometimes it’s sad when something amusing happens that no one else would understand. As a result, I’m going to pointlessly explain today’s amusement in great detail, just to bore everyone.
Concentration and productivity
· 🤔 thoughtful · ♫ Junior Jack - Stupid disco (EnergyRadio.FM - Energy Dance)
I was doing some obligatory Slashdot April 1st surfing (I swear their stories get crazier every year), and came across an article from a few days ago about “Attention Deficit Trait.” The basic idea is that some people do not have true ADD, but still suffer from an inability to think deeply or be productive when surrounded by distracting technologies, especially interrupting ones like cell phones and instant messenging. The guy who linked the article was critical, saying that of course people get distracted by distracting things, and that this phenomenon is not something new.
Wasting time
· 😶 blank · ♫ Everything But The Girl - Dubtribe Sound System / Do It (BeatBlender [SOMAFM]: A late night blend of
What weird misc. thing are you?Dancing Bacon I love you and you make me hungry. Get in my skillet, M’kay?
Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.
But clearly, Madame Giry, genius has turned to madness.
—Raoul, “The Phantom of the Opera”
VoIP telemarketing spam
· 🥱 tired · ♫ O - Zone-Mai Ai Hee (Dragostea Din Tei) (EnergyRadio.FM - Energy Dance)
A link to an interesting article about VoIP appeared on Slashdot today. According to the article, some analysts predict that the recent VoIP boom will result in customers receiving 150 or more unsolicited telemarketing calls per day, even if they are on the “No Call” list (VoIP allows calls to originate from other countries, outside the jurisdiction of the “No Call” list).
While the statistics in the article are reasonable, I still think the analyst is being overly pessimistic. Sure, people buy things over the phone. But that’s when receiving somewhere between one and ten unsolicited calls per week. Imagine receiving 150 per day. How fast would you hang up if you hear the tell-tale “Good afternoon, sir”? How fast would you get caller ID installed if you don’t have it already (although I am admittedly unsure if there is an analogue to caller ID with VoIP). But I think consumers’ irritation level will absolutely skyrocket if they start receiving that many unsolicited calls. It will become a lot harder to sell things that way. And other companies will create methods to block unwanted calls. I’m not sure how the dust will settle in the end, but it will probably be interesting to watch.
Out of the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall… nothing but Net.
Jolt Cola Cup: success?
· 😢 sad · ♫ Alicia Keys - Diary (Hani Radio Edit) (EnergyRadio.FM - Ener
The Jola Cola Cup happened yesterday. NOR won with 4 points. Allen was a close second with 3. Oz also scored a point. Paul, Nate and Jason did not score but had a big impact on the fight. All in all, I think most people had a lot of fun (especially during character creation), and the event was a big success.