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May 31, 2001
Hey! MetaFilter's back on line
Hey! MetaFilter's back on line already! See, that didn't hurt a bit, did it? Meanwhile, Blogger has slowed to a crawl. <Roseanne_Roseannadanna_Voice> "It's always something!" </Roseanne_Roseannadanna_Voice>
Posted by John at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)
Photo of Travis in the
Photo of Travis in the Junior Varsity 8 race at the Southwest Regional Junior Championships (CJ's) at Lake Natoma in Sacramento on May 19-20. (He's in the #3 seat, fourth from the left in the photo.) They won this race with a time of 6:30.2, an amazing 14.7 seconds over 2nd place Berkeley High School. They won their lightweight race (with Travis in the stroke position) as well, by 7 seconds with a time of 6:28 for 2000 meters, over second place San Diego Rowing Club. Race results here, see lines 5 (MJV8 Final) and 21 (Mlt8 Final). Thanks to Greenlake Crew for the photo!
Posted by John at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
Le Piano Graphique offers you
Le Piano Graphique offers you the chance to compose music -- good music! -- on the fly, at your keyboard. Zannah at /usr/bin/girl posted this one yesterday, and it's so cool I want my own link. There are different "themes" for jazz, techno, etc. The one labeled "Compulsion" - the jazz riffs - is the best IMHO although the graphics on the others are better. Pay attention to the instructions about which keys do what (e.g. top row is background, middle row is guitar solos, etc.), and you'll be creating dynamic backgrounds that interact with the music, designing CD sleeves to go with your hits, even giving yourself a round of applause when you're done. Years ago, I bought my kids an electronic guitar that had prerecorded musical passages including drums, a symphonic background, and a host of guitar licks that you could combine; they were all synchronized, so it actually made music. I don't know how much the kids liked it, but I loved it. This is like that, only for grownups. Once again, speakers down!
Posted by John at 06:02 AM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2001
Dean Paxton posted this little
Dean Paxton posted this little left brain/right brain teaser that's supposed to be difficult. Your left brain sees the words but your right brain sees the colors, and the two don't match. But I'm color-blind. My right brain is on sabbatical. Piece of cake. Who would have thought that could be an advantage?
Posted by John at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)
(You better) IPO Soon. From
(You better) IPO Soon. From the 
.
Speakers down if you're playing this at work. I knew there was a song out there, waiting to happen, that would use the words "syndication", "ROI" and "cybersquat" in the lyrics. Well, here it is, and it's got a beat you can dance to. AND it's interactive. Thanks, Allen, for the link!
Posted by John at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
MetaFilter is down. It was
MetaFilter is down. It was inevitable, I suppose, given the recent outages. With the Pyra office bandwidth going up and down, general business conditions and related employment issues giving Matt a series of ongoing problems, the MeFi server had to be relocated to a more stable and better connected home (a round of applause for Jason Levine, please). Meanwhile, I'm already starting to get the shakes from withdrawal. Does "early next week" mean Monday? Monday morning?
Posted by John at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
Dizzycity.com provides live cameras on
Dizzycity.com provides live cameras on every street corner in New York City, that you can control - zooming and scanning from your browser. See the riots and the demonstrations, the parades and the fireworks, all from the comfort of your home or office.
Posted by John at 11:09 AM | Comments (0)
Even a ninja's gotta eat.
Even a ninja's gotta eat.
Posted by John at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 29, 2001
Prepare to be amazed by
Prepare to be amazed by the Silophone. The navigation on the site is not very clear, so here's the HowTo:
1. Go to the site, and click on the link at the bottom left, "Play the Silophone".
2. On the resulting page, there will be five links, again at the bottom left. Click the top one (which is almost invisible), "Hear Silophone". This opens a streaming Real Audio client.
3. Then select a sound file from the list (6,511 available) or upload your own (.wav or .mp3 file) and click on the "Play" triangle at the top. Your sound will be played into the silo, and you'll hear it through your computer in about 30 seconds.
Why is this cool? It all has to do with the silo. Located in Montréal’s old port, Silo #5B-1 was built in 1958 and has been cited by Le Corbusier as a masterpiece of modern architecture. The elevator was used to store grain which came to Montréal by rail and departed by sea. The elevator became obsolete and was closed in 1996. Since then it has remained empty and, for reasons of security, closed to the public. The structure, constructed entirely of reinforced concrete, is 200 meters long, 16 meters wide and approximately 45 meters at its highest point. The main section of the building is formed of approximately 115 vertical chambers, all 30 meters high and up to 8 meters in diameter. These tall parallel cylinders, whose form evokes the structure of an enormous organ, have exceptional acoustic properties: a stunning reverberation time of over 20 seconds. It is simply breathtaking.
Posted by John at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)
Beardon High School, in Chattanooga,
Beardon High School, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, loses state championship tennis match. For violating the Second Commandment. Apparently the state athletic association allows players to shout "Jesus!" or "Christ!" when they miss a shot, but not "Jesus Christ!". That's deemed an "audible profanity or obscenity." Do you get the sense that some people are missing the point here? Of course, the way I look at it, they're just lucky Bibleman didn't swoop down and deliver an Old-Testament-style wrath-of-God whuppin' for their irreverent ways.
Posted by John at 12:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2001
When you're totally fed up
When you're totally fed up with it, here's a link that will let you turn off the Internet. (Just remember Alt-F4 will turn it back on if you get scared.)
Posted by John at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)
OK, maybe you can really
OK, maybe you can really buy anything on the internet. I thought, sure, nuclear weapons or some nifty genetically modified retroviruses, no problem. But hey, bobcat piss, now that's going to be hard to find. Well, no, I didn't really think that, but somebody sent me this link and I didn't know how else to explain it. I mean, ewww.
Posted by John at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2001
As a white, educated upper-middle
As a white, educated upper-middle class Republican corporate executive, I don't get too many chances to rebel against oppressive policies or actions targeted at my demographic. The few privileges afforded minorities are denied to me. However, there is one way in which I am sorely oppressed, and you may share this characteristic with me. Have you noticed that the world is biased in favor of early risers? Well, now we have a website to fight this unthinking, unfeeling discrimination!
Posted by John at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2001
First came www.f---edcompany.com as the
First came www.f---edcompany.com as the first web site euphemism I've seen. Now there's www.luckedcompany.com. Hmmmm. If I had to guess, I'd say Pud is having firewall issues with major corporate networks filtering obscenities. That's what you get for being a smart**s.
Posted by John at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)
I have a new vision
I have a new vision of Hell. It came to me, not surprisingly, after my nerve endings were marinated by four solid hours of being put on hold and told, "we can't help you" by the discount ticket agent and the third-rate airline. Stuck in the Rotten Apple for an extra night, this vision appeared as I sat in the restaurant, named "Le Bistro", at the Airport Holiday Inn at JFK. The 1970's etched glass pictures and brass lighting created the perfect backdrop for the pink- and orange-upholstered furniture. As if the color palette for the upholstery were not lambent enough in its own right, the staff decorator apparently thought it would create an interesting juxtaposition with lime green carpet. He, or she, was correct. The smell of disinfectant permeated everything, and set the mood for the evening's entertainment. Two words: karaoke night! Renditions of Billy Joel's "Honesty", the Neil Diamond/Barbara Streisand duet "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", and Elton John's "Sad Songs", although exquisitely awful, were completely overshadowed by the fat girl with the Bronx accent trying to sing Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It?", which was in absolutely perfect pitch except for the two highest notes on the words "What's Love" which were just slightly out of her vocal range. So she sang those two words a half-tone flat every single time. And since those two words comprise roughly 25% of the lyrics of that song, it was, quite literally, unbearable. She cleared the joint out, even though this was obviously a crowd with a high tolerance for pain.
Posted by John at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2001
Best line from the concluding
Best line from the concluding episode of Star Trek Voyager came from Captain, er, Admiral Janeway in the shuttle as she's headed into the temporal rift while enemy ships are firing on her: "Get these Klingons off my tail." Wonder if they had special training for that duty back at Starfleet Academy?
Posted by John at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
While I'm not a big
While I'm not a big conspiracy theory advocate, this kind of stuff keeps popping up and it freaks me out. Rule #1: anything transmitted (whether digital or analog) or recorded (whether audio, video, written or electronic) is subject to inspection, monitoring and even unintended publication. It doesn't have to be "big brother" either -- remember the guy who took all his girlfriend's increasingly strident voicemail messages off his cell phone, turned them into MP3 files and put them on the net at www.psychoexgirlfriend.com?
Posted by John at 09:40 PM | Comments (0)
Not to rant against the
Not to rant against the Big Apple, but it only takes a couple of days here to remember why I was so glad to leave after living here for all of 18 months. Trying to catch a cab in the rain, surrounded by crowds of at least 200 people on every street corner all talking like Gilbert Gottfried, while taxi drivers who seem to think that the steering wheel is secondary to the horn in navigating city streets careen through red lights at intersections without even a flash of brake lights, and then trying to fall asleep to the never-ending sound of sirens heralding some poor unfortunate victim's latest tragedy echo down the dirty streets all...night...long. Yeah, that does it for me.
Although I did get one mental image that's going to stay with me a while. At one of the three protests (yes, three!) I've seen here so far this week, Taiwanese were faced off across the street against Chinese, supporting or protesting the Chinese Prime Minister's visit here. I saw one girl, about 18 years old, on the Taiwanese side of the street, wrapped in a yellow rain slicker. She had 3 or 4 small American flags in each hand and she was waving them and jumping up and down, yelling at the Chinese demonstrators, "Taiwan should be free! Taiwan should be free!" Sort of recalibrated my estimation of the U.S. role in such foreign territorial and sovereignity disputes, it did.
Posted by John at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2001
And it's raining.
And it's raining.
Posted by John at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
What a horrible day. I
What a horrible day. I guess that karma thing kicked in to pay me back for Saturday. Flight to NY, supposed to arrive at 10:10pm, late, airline lost my bag, late night construction crews on the Van Wyck so the 30 minute trip to Manhattan took an hour and a half, scavenging for an all night market to get toothpaste and shaving stuff, finally got to bed around 3:00am. Then the alarm went off at 7:00am, which is 4:00am to my left-coast-adapted brain. Ah, the excitement of business travel... Argh.
Posted by John at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2001
What a great day. Travis
What a great day. Travis is at the California State Championships at Lake Merced near Sacramento all weekend. Nick and Matt are off with their grandparents visiting Washington, D.C. Colin had a birthday party for a friend at Q-sar from 12:30-6:30pm. So it was just Julie and me this afternoon. We decided to tempt the fates and take my '61 Vette up to Sacramento to see the Junior Varsity finals at 3:00pm, where Travis would be in the stroke position on the boat. This was the first extended voyage for that car in 15 years. So we set off, and about halfway there the temperature gauge maxed out, so we pulled over to let the car cool down. It was about 95 degrees. We got back on the road and made it to Lake Merced about 10 minutes before the JV race, just long enough to get into position and see the whole race, scream "Go Marin!!!" at the top of our lungs and watch them beat the rest of the field by over three boat lengths. They also won their lightweight heats later in the day. Travis rows in the lightweight finals tomorrow, and has a heat and (hopefully) a final in a single. Anyway, we went off to the medal stands to watch him get his gold medal, and then it's back in the car for the trip home. Halfway back, we stopped to let the car cool down again, this time strategically planning our stop at a Chevy's where we downed wings and nachos and ice cold margaritas. Back in the car, picking Colin up on the way home.
The ride was noisy. The ride was hot. It was not only hot outside, but the interior of the car was like an oven from the engine heat, which somehow gets very efficiently transmitted through the firewall and the floorboards. We had to keep our speed down to 65-70 to keep the car from overheating, and even then we had to stop twice to let her cool off. We got sunburned because it's a convertible. The last five miles we experienced some really disturbing squealing which sounded to me like the water pump, which may explain why the car was overheating. But still... we got waves and honks from pedestrians and other cars and even a guy on a motorcycle with a bandana and an American flag on his leather jacket gave us a grin and big thumbs up as he blew past us on the highway. At least a dozen people asked, "what year is it?" even though the license plate says ITS1961. Four hours in a convertible classic sports car with my beautiful wife, watching our son get a gold medal. What a great day.
Posted by John at 01:06 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2001
Maybe you thought EOD stood
Maybe you thought EOD stood for End of Day. But on the web, it stands for An Entirely Other Day, Greg Knauss' amusing and evocative logbook. He's ceasing his posts, and I'll miss him, because he's funny and insightful. In short, this guy really knows how to write.
Posted by John at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2001
A busy day at the
A busy day at the office getting ready for a trip to New York next week, gathering up presentation materials, scheduling appointments, logistics. I manage to get out the door by 6:40pm, not too bad, but traffic is completely bottlenecked getting on to the Golden Gate Bridge. The GGB -- and 101 on the south side, has no median strip. They plug in little orangle cylinders like ice cream pushups to show you where the lanes are divided. That way they can give 4 or 5 lanes to the rush hour traffic headed into town in the morning, reducing the outbound lanes to 2 or 3. Similarly, in the evening, the pushups get moved over and the outbound traffic gets 4 or 5 lanes. Well, today, there's only 3 lanes open northbound across the bridge. Still, as I get on the bridge, I can see traffic across the bay, where I'm headed, and it seems to be moving fine. Maybe, I'm thinking, there's a wreck on the bridge. With no median strip, there are a couple of head on collisions every year. But no, that's not it. As I get halfway across the bridge, I see a man walking on the eastern side of the bridge, headed north. Naked. Oh, is that all? Traffic picks up speed and the bottleneck dissolves. This is San Francisco, we get more bizarre stuff than that every day.
Posted by John at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2001
Cool factor: 9.9. This site
Cool factor: 9.9. This site has a collection of little snippets of Cole Porter lyrics, like this one:
"If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the 'Coriolanus,'
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they'll all kowtow."
-- from Brush Up Your Shakespeare by Cole Porter
Posted by John at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
San Francisco's wild parrots. I
San Francisco's wild parrots. I didn't even know.
Posted by John at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)
$13.50 a year to register
$13.50 a year to register a domain name at 000Domains seems like a pretty good deal. Especially compared with Network Solutions at $35.00. Just FYI.
Posted by John at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
Iwantoneofthose! This is a web
Iwantoneofthose! This is a web site full of Sharper Image, Brookstone, Hammacher Schlemmer, Damark kinds of ultracool-but-ultimately-disposable toys. Cool stuff we'd like to play with, but we know we'd break it in a day or two. This site stretches those boundaries in a fun way. How about your own personal fighter jet? Prices are all in £, as the guys who started it, "three mates and a cat with an idea that came about over a drink in a pub", are based in London. [Exchange rates here.]
Posted by John at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)
It started with a voicemail
It started with a voicemail this morning, "Hello Mr. Parker, my name is Tom Payton, and I’m with the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington. You’ve been selected to serve on the Republican Business Advisory Council representing California." So, out of curiousity, I called him back. "Tom isn't available right now, but let me look up your record." You could almost hear an audible click as the fundraising machinery engaged. Interested to hear their pitch, I got passed around, talked to three different people, listening to a 30-second message from Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), getting sold on the unique opportunity afforded us by the Bush administration being in the white house to reform social security, pay down the national debt, eliminate capital gains and the death tax. As someone "with a distinguished record of national leadership", "solid reputation" and "a track record of business success", my "financial principals and opinions" are seemingly in high demand. [By this time, I'm waiting for him to compliment me on my golf swing, too.] I'll get a press release announcing my appointment, a picture of me with Congressman DeLay for my office, exclusive invitations to hobnob with the politicos, all the usual goodies. "Tom is asking business leaders who join him in this initiative for a relatively modest contribution of $300 to $500, can we tell him you've accepted?" Uh huh.
Me: "So, what's the money going to be used for?"
Them: "A marketing campaign to elicit grass roots support for these critical initiatives."
Me: "In other words, to pay the salaries of people like you, to telephone people like me and ask for more money?"
Them: [.............................]
Posted by John at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
IGoWin is a really good,
IGoWin is a really good, easy introduction to Go. This is worth downloading; take my word for it. There’s a really straightforward, well-designed instruction manual, complete with questions to test your understanding of the concepts. Work at your own pace. Then, when you’re done, there’s a little mini-Go game (the board is only 9x9, so games go fast) that lets you practice what you’ve learned against the computer. It gives you a head start (4 stones) and then progressively fewer stones as your skills improve. By the time you can play the mini-Go game straight up with the computer, no advantage, you’re ready to play for real. There’s also a lot of useful info in the Help manual about connecting with other players online.
Go is interesting. It is not only more subtle than chess, but the variety of possible moves on the much larger board (19x19 versus chess at 8x8) is much greater. Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, evaluating 200 million positions per second. The best computer Go programs can only play around the level of 8-13 kyu. Go rankings start at a low of 30 kyu and rise to 1 kyu, then go from 1 dan to 6 dan (amateur), and finally 1 dan to 9 dan (professional). Most people who are serious about studying the game, and have stronger players to play with, can get to 10 kyu in about a year, and 1 dan in 3 to 5 years.
Posted by John at 01:51 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2001
Hotbar will give you thousands
Hotbar will give you thousands of "skins" to choose from for your browser buttons. Eye candy, yum. This is another site that gets high marks for useability. Go, get the skins, preview, and load them up. Lots of other interesting downloads and offers there, too, but you don't need to if you don't want to.
Posted by John at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
Here’s another one I
Here’s another one I missed. [Sigh.] Say there’s an election in your state that is a lock for a candidate you don’t want, you can trade your vote with someone in another state where it might make a difference. As a Republican in California, I’m all over this for the next election. BTW, the Justice Department has apparently already looked at this and decided it’s legal. As the site says, “Frustrated about the election? Don’t mourn – organize!” Interstate vote-trading works in national elections; it's interesting to think about how you could organize it for local elections. Also, at what stage does this become illegal? If you're trading votes, isn't the next logical step buying votes?
Posted by John at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
Word Police. Take the Entrance
Word Police. Take the Entrance exam, get your diploma, and you can issue citations to all those morons butchering the language. I have a new banner over on the left at the bottom.
Posted by John at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)
Got a bright shiny new
Got a bright shiny new balisong, and don't know how to use it? Here's how.
Posted by John at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)
How to Beat a Speeding
How to Beat a Speeding Ticket. [Warning: this is one of those blasted Angelfire sites with the annoying popups. I hate popups.]
Posted by John at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)
So, you’ve always wanted oil-on-canvas
So, you’ve always wanted oil-on-canvas paintings from the old masters to adorn your walls, eh? Well, at the Hung Long Gallery, they’ve got you covered. And no, I didn’t make that name up. My thesis is pretty simple. Some people, who might most charitably be characterized as having more money than sense, are coughing up $40-80 million for a Van Gogh, and even then they’re not sure they’re getting an original. Why not save yourself the agony of uncertainty? For $80, you can have a genuine oil copy of Van Gogh’s Fishing Boats on a Beach hanging on your living room wall right next to the dogs playing poker. Sure, you’ll know it’s a fake, but what you choose to tell your visitors is up to you. If you like this idea, just send me 10% of the money you save by not buying the originals, and we’ll call it square. OK, 5%, but only because I like you. Hung Long has selected a very nice group of paintings to copy, too.
Posted by John at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2001
I have to get away
I have to get away from my computer. I remember my dad building things, repairing appliances, putting up fences, fixing the roof, building a house. He was a builder. I remember my maternal grandfather in the barn. That was where he seemed most comfortable, stacking haybales, moving the tractor in, hauling out bags of seed. He was a farmer. I'm a businessman, but I don't want my kids to remember me at the computer. I am forced to sit in front of it for hours a day anyway, at work, where it occupies a position of prominence, dominance on my desk. Email is the standard of corporate communication, attachments to emails the documentation of our virtual existence. Even though I spend half my day on the phone, half the time I'm on the phone I'm on hold, redialing, waiting - and multi-tasking on email. This is not good. I guess it's preferable to having them remember me on the cell phone, which is where the rest of my day seems to go, but still... When they remember Julie, they will remember her in the kitchen concocting wonders of culinary delight, in the garden tending her plants, in the car ferrying them to their activity de jour. The mental picture that I paint for my kids as I go through the motions of my life has to have more substance than pixelated images at 1024x768. I'm going to go home and play with my boys now.
Posted by John at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)
What does your car say
What does your car say about you? Is there conflict between your personality and that of your car? Cars.com offers you your very own Car-O-Scope, a psychographic profile based on your answers to some profiling questions, as compared to other survey respondents. Since my '61 vette is now back and roadworthy, I decided to profile myself using that car. Got the results in my email this morning (here are the graphs, which also suggest some alternative vehicles for me), which started off with "Boy oh boy, John, you picked a vehicle which is just about perfect for you." But, then again, the profile did rank me pretty high on "flaky", and pretty low on "grasp of reality". Hmmmm.
Posted by John at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
Another cool thing I was
Another cool thing I was given for my birthday was the giant Jelly Belly assortment box, with all 40 flavors. Highly recommended as a gift (both to give and to receive!); it will not only satisfy your curiousity but it tastes great too (36 out of the 40 are delicious). And only 4 calories per bean, no fat!
Posted by John at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)
Speaking of applying a few
Speaking of applying a few volts of electricity, remember the world domination game Sean Connery played against Klaus Maria Brandauer in Never Say Never Again? Are you any good at Tekken? Props to MeFi for this unbelievable find, although the web site itself inflicts measurable amounts of pain.
Posted by John at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2001
I got a copy of
I got a copy of the The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook for my brother for Christmas, thinking, "gee, that looks like a fun book." And Gretchen just gave me a copy for my birthday! Cool. They have a web site, too.
Posted by John at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
Don't miss the Museum of
Don't miss the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, if you're looking for entertainment. It is sometimes amazing to me that we, as a species, have survived this long. You're probably too young to remember the shoe-fitting x-ray unit (1940's), but maybe not the foot-powered breast enlarger (1970's). And remember, "A few volts of electricity appropriately applied will put the sparks back into your love life!"
Posted by John at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2001
The Bulwer-Lytton link mentioned below
The Bulwer-Lytton link mentioned below reminded me of my other favorite annual award event, The Darwin Awards. Each year I get about 20 copies of it sent to me by friends in my email. I had only ever seen it in email. I wondered if there was a web site set up, didn't even google it, just typed "darwinawards.com" in the address bar, and bingo! There's a randomizer on the site, too, so you can get a random hilarious bonehead death anytime you need a laugh. Some might argue that this is tasteless and cruel, that death is a sad and serious affair, and to you I can only say, "you're so uptight only dogs can hear you fart."
Posted by John at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2001
Travis made the local paper
Travis made the local paper with his crew team, sweeping yet another series of races. MRA rules!
Posted by John at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2001
FYI, I changed the CNN
FYI, I changed the CNN link -- over on the left there -- to go to http://robots.cnn.com, instead of to http://www.cnn.com. The robots site was apparently put up by CNN to keep the spidering traffic from the search engines off their main site, probably to keep the ad impression count meaningful. Anyway, the robots site is the same as the regular site, but without the annoying popup window, and no ads. It is much more attractive and is my new home page at work.
Posted by John at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
"It was a dark and
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
--Paul Clifford (1830)
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest run by San Jose State University, for the opening line to the worst possible novel, is suffering from a hoax where announcements are going out spread by email with fake results. I guess that's a hallmark of success. They are nearing the deadline for 2001 submissions. I can't wait to see this year's winners. Previous year's winners were breathtakingly bad.
Posted by John at 04:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2001
Somehow I missed this one
Somehow I missed this one on the first go-round. Thanks, Josh, for the link. Sodaplay is tinker toys, tensegritoy, legos and erector sets all rolled into one. On your PC. Animated. Check out the "zoo" of sodaconstructor creations to see what others have done. There goes my productivity.
Posted by John at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2001
Southerners get ragged on a
Southerners get ragged on a lot for their speech. It's attributed to laziness, but since that's my heritage I prefer to think of it as efficiency. After all, it takes fewer words and syllables to say "fetch me the hammer" than it does to say "get the hammer and bring it to me". But I think what makes Southern speech truly entertaining are the metaphors. There are literally thousands of sayings that get passed down through generations and shared in the community, which lend a richness and diversity of expression that I miss out here in California. A good metaphor is precise; it evokes the exact feeling the speaker is trying to convey. And the best ones are pretty funny, too. Here are a few of the better sayings, most from my Dad, a few from elsewhere, that I think are worth bringing back into common use:
You make a better door than you do a window. (You're blocking my view.)
Shoot low sheriff, they're riding chihuahuas. (Be careful.)
Stick a broom up my ass, and I'll sweep the floor while I'm at it. (I'm too busy.)
That's harder than Chinese arithmetic. (That's very difficult.)
That's about as funny as a fart in church. (Not funny.)
You're so uptight only dogs can hear you fart. (Relax, you're too nervous.)
Don't piss on my leg and then tell me it's raining. (Stop lying and tell the truth.)
Now you're cookin' with gas. (Now you've got the right idea.)
It was on there like ugly on an ape. (Something was fastened on very tight.)
Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. (Not the best thing in the world, but OK.)
Get out there and knock the top off that grass. (Mow the lawn.)
It's going to take a month of Sundays. (This is going to take a long time.)
My stomach thinks my throat is cut. (I'm hungry.)
He was shaking like a dog passin' a peach pit. (He was very scared.)
I don't have a dog in that fight. (I'm not going to get involved in that dispute.)
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. (Feeling well-rested and energetic.)
He could go bear huntin' with a switch. (That's a big guy.)
I won't sleep more than 10 hours worryin' about it. (I'm not concerned.)
Posted by John at 02:29 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2001
Well, Dubya's continuing incompetence in
Well, Dubya's continuing incompetence in managing international affairs of state and his draconian anti-social policies got us kicked off the United Nations Commission on Human Rights today. "Even some countries that view the United States as a champion of human rights were annoyed by Washington's opposition to recent votes by the commission to provide AIDS treatments to poor people and to declare a 'right to food.'" FYI, we got beat by Sweden. Sweden, for cryin' out loud. And then to add to our ignominy in defeat, we have that paragon of international diplomacy, Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, saying that this vote may have the effect of "turning the human rights commission into just another irrelevant international organization." Gee, Henry, fed that ego lately? You putz.
Posted by John at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)
This has been around for
This has been around for awhile, but it keeps changing and improving. The Visible Human project, online at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html, is an effort run by the US National Library of Medicine. It involved taking pictures of two cadavers, one male and one female, after cryosectioning. Frozen and sliced into 1mm cross-sections, transverse CT, MRI and cryosection images were then acquired. Put them all together and you've got a movie of what it's like to fly through the human body. There are a variety of specialized applications allowing users to control the viewpoint, orientation, zoom and scroll, and many of the resulting images and movies take greater advantage of the original photographic detail than the movie listed above. This movie from the Queensland University of Technology's Digital Anatomy Lab project, which just focuses on the head, is a great example. The coolest new medical, photographic and Internet technologies and kind of weird and creepy at the same time.
Posted by John at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2001
Welcome to Antarctica! Your travel
Welcome to Antarctica! Your travel guide is Colin. 2nd grade class project, proud papa.
Posted by John at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)
With Dubya, Rice and Rumsfeld
With Dubya, Rice and Rumsfeld bungling our foreign policy vis-a-vis China, and Powell off in the Middle East trying in vain to settle 1000-year-old conflicts, perhaps it's time we sent this man (a.k.a "the Cleaner") in to negotiate for us. [comment unabashedly ripped off from owillis on MeFi - too funny to pass up!]
Posted by John at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
Umberto Eco is a brilliant
Umberto Eco is a brilliant author. Most of his books are generally "accessible" to readers with a well-developed vocabulary. But Foucault's Pendulum was tough going. It's been 30 years since I read a book that had an average of one word every two pages that I had never seen before. Then I came across Dr. Eco's Curriculum Vitae, the only one I've ever seen that needed a directory. I feel very small. What an underachiever I am. Click on the link that says "Academic Degrees" and you'll feel that way, too.
Posted by John at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
Don't piss me off.
Posted by John at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
Some Arab organizations are now
Some Arab organizations are now up in arms over Pokémon. Although the Japanese inventors claim it translates to "pocket monster", Arab groups are saying it translates to "There is no God in the universe." And Pikachu translates to "I am Jewish." No, really. I'm serious. And who knows, maybe there really is a conspiracy by all those atheistic Jewish Japanese programmers of childrens' television... to get us all to... watch cartoons. Wait a minute...
It just seems to me that before I went officially asking questions of a country's embassy about a cartoon, I would think through the ramifications. "Gee, Abdul, I'm not sure about this. How do you think it's going to make us look on the world stage?"
Posted by John at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
Rumor confirmed. Extract from an
Rumor confirmed. Extract from an article in today's SF Chronicle:
"Among the ideas being floated are firing up generators on mothballed Navy ships in Suisun Bay near Benicia and ordering nuclear-powered submarines to help provide energy."
Posted by John at 08:59 AM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2001
I heard a rumor that
I heard a rumor that they're thinking about parking a couple of battleships off the coast of California, and using the nuclear power plants to generate electricity this summer. I hope they have some big extension cords.
Posted by John at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)
Paul Andrews says we need
Paul Andrews says we need to be creating web logs for money, or risk becoming "a unique but ultimately marginalized form of therapeutic solipsism." I completely disagree with him, but admire the turn of phrase. Yesterday's bon mot was from CNBC's daily market wrap email, detailing the big price moves that came along with the news that despite the selloff in communications companies, spending on communications equipment for the first quarter rose 20%, "in a crushing repudiation of conventional wisdom."
Posted by John at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
Jerome Karabel writes about the
Jerome Karabel writes about the "values gap" between the American people and our new President, in this article entitled "Growing Number of Americans Say 'Values Candidate' Bush Does Not Share Their Values". The thing that is, perhaps, most alarming is that we are such jaded veterans of the political messaging machine that it's hard to even work up the energy to get mad about it. Politicians lie, the sun rises in the east, and if you eat Chinese food you're going to be hungry again in a hour. Truth.
Posted by John at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)
Following up on my post
Following up on my post of 3/12, about my former employer Bridge Information Systems filing for bankruptcy, today's news is that Reuters swooped in and bought most of the remaining assets. A business generating over $1 billion in revenues scarfed up for $275 mil. But then, that's why debt is a four-letter word, right? After laying on substantial "retention bonuses" to keep the executive rats from fleeing the sinking ship, it will be entertaining to see Reuters come in and examine the cost structure. Staid Brits from Fleet Street are in for a shock.
Posted by John at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
