Israeli High School Hit By Terrorist Rockets, No Casualties

From Haaretz:

A Qassam rocket landed at the center of the southern coastal city of Ashkelon for the first time on Tuesday evening, hitting the ORT Ronson High School building, causing light damage to the structure but no injuries.

Hamas - via its military wing, the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades - later claimed credit for the rocket attack, the deepest ever a Qassam has reached into Israeli territory.

In response to the strike, Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Tuesday ordered the Israel Defense Forces to step up the pace and force of its operation in the Gaza Strip.

"This is a major escalation in the war of terror that the Hamas organization is responsible for," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a speech at the home of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones, marking the American Fourth of July holiday.

The attack was an "attempt meant to harm Israeli civilians that live within the sovereign borders of Israel, and it will have far-reaching consequences," the prime minister continued. "The Hamas organization will be the first to feel this."

:-(

--YY

Simple Signups

Yitzi chimes in with a cool link, which he calls the greatest site sign-up feature.. ever!

LibraryThing | Catalog your books online

If you go to this site, and you aren't yet a member, you type in a username and password into the login fields, and viola! you are now a member. Zero-step sign-up .. i likes. Why don't all sites work like this?? utterly brilliant.

Well, there are probably good reasons, like... ummmm... I'll get back to you ;-)

--YY

Spamusement Returns

Ah Spamusement, how did we manage without you?

--YY

Get Back To Your Lamp!

AccessoryGenie (they pissed me off so they don't get a link, not that you couldn't figure it out) sent me an e-mail today with the subject "Thank you for your order". Since I haven't ordered from them in months, I was immediately alarmed - with identity theft rampant these days, who knows, right?   Perhaps someone broke into my account and ordered five grand worth of... accessories.  Anyway, obviously I opened the e-mail. And read this:

Thank you for your past order to www.AccessoryGenie.com
As our way of saying Thank You we have a ** GREAT July 4th Holiday SPECIAL***

Oh, am I pissed (or should I say, "they rubbed me the wrong way" or, "they better have a heavy stockpile of wishes right about now"). This is going to The Consumerist (who I just posted about), and I'm debating whether to tell them how scummy they are for pulling this.  And please don't try and say they didn't know what they were doing.  In the VERY unlikely chance that this was true, it means a major e-tailer is ignorant to the dangers of phishing and other forms of identity fraud.  Either way, this wisher is going to another genie.  Yeah.

--YY

Good Stuff From The Consumerist

The Consumerist has been on fire lately, with a slew of great stories and posts:

It has a whole section on AOL, with plenty of stories on AOL's crappy Customer Support and their policy of actively preventing users from cancelling. One man, Vincent Ferrari, even taped his call, and made it onto CNN with the Dada-esque results. Another resorted to begging.

Then there's the case of a Comcast technician falling asleep on a customer's couch, apparently because Comcast kept the guy on hold for an hour. Comcast fired the technician, but the person who reported it tried to get him rehired, since the fault really lies with Comcast's tech support infrastructure, rather than the individual technician. But as Consumerist rightly points out, there is no excuse for a technician to fall asleep on a customer's couch - that is as unprofessional as it gets.

Then they have a funny take on the feud between the administration and The New York Times on the latter's reporting on the government's secret trolling of bank records: some supporters of the administration say it's "treason" to report on something like that. Says the Consumerist: "If free speech is treason, then the terrorists truly have won. If they win, the war is over. If there is no more war, then there is no crime of revealing state secrets in wartime. Therefore, there is no treason." At least they admit it's specious reasoning :-)

They have a cool story about a band encouraging their fans to download their music and burn their own CD's.

And a story about how Intel plays the song "Intel Cares" on the PA for its factory workers in China.

But what I like most of all is their straightforward approach to how they see companies - not as antagonists, but simply customers who want to be treated fairly and like human beings. That's why they're reluctant to say hello to a salesperson in a store. And why they sometimes feel that dealing with Customer Service is a war, and that, in that sense, companies are not even following Geneva Conventions. And that "Sometimes All We Want Is An Apology" (great post on how companies could avoid a lot of lawsuits if they were willing to admit they were wrong every once in a while).

Last but not least, they are more than happy to post stories about good customer service, like Moen, USAA, Timbuk2, and even the rarest of the rare - good service from UPS. And they do point out when the customer who contacted them is actually wrong.

So keep up the good work, Consumerist! Fight the good fight!

--YY

Please Stop Apologizing

As Regret the Error points out, sometimes apologies are better left unsaid... (text NSFW)

--YY

Thank You, WebMD

Today, in the "No S--t" Department, WebMD writes: "Rheumatoid Arthritis May Hamper Sex".

Ummmm... duh?

Less obvious: "Migraine Sufferers: Are They Sexier?"

--YY

A NAFTA By Any Other Name...

Via my co-worker T, who really needs a blog ;-) - NAFTA has apparently been reborn under a new name - The SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America). And like the rose, it smells the same no matter what you call it. I'm actually not anti-globalization in general, but "rebranding" something to make it more palatable is just obnoxious.

--YY

All About 'W'

No, not the president. The 'w' command on Linux:
"Show who is logged on and what they are doing." (from the Linux User’s Manual)

Hmmmm - on second thought...

--YY

Testing Flock

I am posting this from Flock, which I read about on Slashdot.  It's reaaaaally cool!

--YY

Blogged with Flock

Helter S'Coulter

Hey Coulter fans! Are you running low on hate and bile that you need to get you through the day? If so, check out The Coulter/Hitler Quiz! Who said it? Anne Coulter? Or Adolph Hitler (yemach shemo*)? Don't ask me - I got a score of zero!

* See halfway down linked article for an explanation of that phrase.

--YY

p.s. The Headline/Title/Subject is a reference to Helter Skelter, a book about the Manson murders. The title comes from the fact that Charles Manson saw the Beatles' song of the same name as a prophecy of a race war to come in the future (it was in fact about an amusement park ride).

Gaming on Speed

Via Creation Robot, the Speed Demos Archive, where you can download video captures of gamers playing games at top speeds. It's a great resource if you're stuck on a game (one of the ones they have online, at least), and want to see how to get past a part as quickly as possible. I picked out some interesting ones...

Quick Shots:
Marble Madness for NES (0:03:13)
Jurassic Park for Genesis (0:03:33)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for NES (0:03:35)
Jaws for NES (0:04:48)
Super Mario Bros. for NES (0:05:06)

Surprisingly short:
Mega Man: The Power Battle for GCN/PS2/Xbox (0:05:08)
Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls III for PC (0:07:30)
Metroid for NES (0:18:35)

Long Hauls:
Zelda: The Wind Waker, The Legend of for GameCube (6:42:xx)
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for GameCube (7:11:xx)
Chrono Cross for PlayStation (7:55:08)

Surprisingly long:
Mega Man X: Command Mission for PS2/GCN (5:46:xx)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for PlayStation 2 (7:46:xx)

--YY

Funky Gadgets

Wired's Gear Factor has had some cool gadget reviews recently:
1) A car specially designed for handicapped drivers here.
2) A lawn chair made of... lawn here.
3) A wall safe that's much more fit for the age of technology than a stuffy old painting here.

--YY

Earth Has a Heart of Gold

Isn't that just so poetic? And new research indicates that it's true: '[Macquarie University geologist Professor Bernard Wood] says there is enough gold buried deep within the Earth's core to cover the entire land surface of the planet to a depth of half a metre... "We can say that more than 99 per cent of the Earth's gold is in the core," he said.'

Whoa.

--YY

UPS vs. FedEx - Incompetency Showdown

So I'm expecting two packages these days - one via UPS and one via FedEx. The UPS one came to my building yesterday, but to the wrong apartment. Why? Because I'm on the 3rd floor, and the sender decided to put the floor as well as the apartment on the address label, confusing the nice delivery-person. Meanwhile, FedEx keeps trying to send the package to Brooklyn (and getting a "Delivery Exception", according to the tracking website). I don't live in Brooklyn. The address doesn't say Brooklyn. The ZIP CODE doesn't say Brooklyn. Yet for some reason, they are trying very hard to give someone in Brooklyn my somewhat expensive purchase. So FedEx wins the incompetency showdown for now, but that's just because I gave up on the UPS package and told them I'd pick it up myself...

--YY

Third Time's The Charm (Or, RSS Fun)

I got three consecutive stories in my RSS reader from TheForce.Net with the headline "ILM Have Lost Their Magic":

Model shop spun off to form seperate company...

Model shop spun off to form separate company...

Model shop spun off to form new company...

There we go. Although you could have just said "Model shop spun off" - the rest was redundant anyway.

--YY

Congratulations - Everyone's Above Average!

Damn Interesting has an article about the "Above Average Effect": "When asked, most individuals will describe themselves as better-than-average in areas such as leadership, social skills, written expression, or just about any flavor of savvy where the individual has an interest." Since, by definition, the majority of people are average, there's obviously something going on here. He continues: "It seems that the reason for this phenomenon is obvious: The more incompetent someone is in a particular area, the less qualified that person is to assess anyone's skill in that space, including their own. When one fails to recognize that he or she has performed poorly, the individual is left assuming that they have performed well. As a result, the incompetent will tend to grossly overestimate their skills and abilities."

Makes sense to me. But this logic focuses on below-average people. What about average people? So here's my take: If the average person is incompetent at something, then the above logic holds. I.e. anyone who perceives themselves to be competent at something (even if they're not) will then consider themselves to be above-average (since mere competence places you in that desirable category). The error therefore comes in assessing one's own competence. If the average person is competent at something, however, then the error is more likely to be that the individual simply believes that not to be the case. That is, they assume (incorrectly) that most people are incompetent, and that they are competent (whether that's true or not), and therefore they are above average.

There's also a stigma associated with "average" - "above-average" sounds so much better, even if average is really good! In a highly competitive environment, this is very likely to be the case - the "average" applicant to Harvard is most likely anything but! As a relevant aside, the Talmud says that it's better to be the follower of a pack of lions than the head of a pack of foxes - i.e. better to be below-average in a talented group than above-average in a mediocre group.

To sum up, if you want to know how competitive you are, you have make sure you know what your competition is, and be able to entertain the notion that you may not be the best. Sounds good to me. But then again, since I'm better than everyone else, I already knew that ;-)

--YY

This Post 85% True

I just bought a bottle of conditioner yesterday, and the label says "70% Organic Ingredients". I was going to compare it to something disgusting, like "This soft drink is 95% not urine", but I decided to go with "This root canal will be 80% painless!" so as not to gross you out.

--YY

"Mommy, Why Does Ann Coulter Hate You?"

"Because I'm a Democrat, dear."

--YY

Watch? Yes. Understand? No...

I'm not sure how to even describe this - it's some sort of Japanese animated music video. I used StumbleUpon to find it (like I do many sites). I will say that I watched it on a computer with no sound card, so I'm sort of assuming that it's a music video. But that ups the surrealism level a bit. I will also say that after watching the whole thing without sound, I felt a weird desire to join a cult - any cult - this thing would make a great recruiting video... for something...

--YY

Stop Copying Me!

A new website called Copyscape "finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you." It could become an invaluable tool as Information Property issues get thornier and thornier...

--YY

Freud 2006

Via Mind Hacks: Sigmund Freud's ideas have not aged all that well. And Prospect Magazine has an excellent article about why that is, and how cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) has replaced it.

From the article:

No one has fully explained the great riddle of how flesh became thought, but it is now perfectly possible to piece together a working model of the mind from neuroscience and cognitive psychology that contains no oedipal conflict, no thanatos or eros, no pleasure principle, no ego and—decisively—no unconscious. We may be emotionally attached to some of these ideas but, scientifically speaking, we don't need them.

Does this mean that the big dream of the talking cure inspired by Freud has been swept aside by a biology of the mind? Far from it.

It's an interesting historical survey of psychology and talk-therapy, as well as a good look at what the current state of the art/science is.

--YY

Living Color

Here's a cool optical illusion: it relies on the after-image your brain makes to merge two pictures together, and uses that effect to colorize a black-and-white picture! You have to see it to believe it (actually, you're not really seeing it - you're fooling your brain into seeing it... never mind).

--YY

Come and Get Me!

Here's a new website that offers a super-simple but really cool hook: Pin in the Map. Basically, it shows you a Google Map. You click anywhere you want on the map and make a note. It gives you back a permanent link to that spot on the map that you can share with your friends (or put in an evite or whatever). Nice, simple, powerful. I like!

--YY

Full-Flavored Aliens

Next time you take a drink of rainwater, that funky red stuff you just swallowed may be have angry relatives that eventually come back and abduct you. At least, that's what CNN/Popular Science is saying, in a matter of words. The cells appears to be alive and reproducing, but without DNA, something unique. Actually, they're appearing in India, which makes sense - the Martians must be outsourcing their production of... red gook. Thanks, SW!

--YY

It's Lonely At The Bottom, Too

I didn't know about this, but the IMDb has a "Bottom 100" movies chart (I found a link to it here). This may be one of those things everyone knows about already, but it's pretty funny, regardless. If you're one of those "everyones" who knew about it already, I have now joined your ranks. And yes, I'll make myself at home - thank you.

--YY

Low Carb Robertson

In case you haven't had your fill of weird stories today, here's a doozie (from The New York Times): GNC has pulled a health shake promoted by Pat Robertson off the shelves. Now, a 76 year old evangelist selling power drinks is weird enough, but apparently there is a video clip of him leg-pressing 1,000 pounds on the Christian Broadcasting Network's website (this has understandably gone viral on YouTube).

Anyone know how to digest this particular nugget?

--YY

Cylons Come To Springfield

If you enjoy BattleStar Galactica (I do) and The Simpsons (sure), you'll love this Simpsons-style rendition of the BSG characters.

--YY

p.s. I've had this link for a while - sorry it took me so long to put it up...

If This Had Been A Real Emergency... Oy

I had a somewhat disturbing experience in New York last night. I was walking home along 24th street from the PATH train when I walked by an abandoned open leather bag on the sidewalk, under a phone booth. It looked empty, but I started having visions of watching some horror story on the Ten O'Clock news (not that I actually watch the Ten O'Clock news, but anyway). In other words, I decided to report it as a suspicious package. "If you see something, say something", right? Since I was reasonably sure it wasn't an emergency, I called 311 instead of 911. I got a surly operator who eventually transferred me to 911 when she figured out what I was trying to tell her (in fairness, I was still walking, and it may have been hard for her to hear me). My exchange with the 911 operator (who I didn't really want to speak to in the first place) was priceless:

I told her that I saw what seemed to be an abandoned, empty bag on the northwest corner of Park and 24th street, under a phone booth. Simple, right? First they had to ask me what was so suspicious about an empty bag. Fair enough, I said, it *looked* empty but you never know. Then the real fun started - "the corner of E24th and Park is an invalid address." Ummmm... no, it isn't - I just walked by there. "Can you give us another address as a reference point?" No, I'm not there anymore (I was in a rush - I couldn't stick around). "Well, it's invalid." After a few more minutes of this, she finally decided to end it, mercifully. "Would you like to leave your name and number for follow-up purposes?" What I thought was, "Hell, no." What I said was, "Well, I don't really have anything else to add to what I said. I'm just reporting what I saw." "Ok, thank you, sir." *Click*

There are a few things wrong here. One is that it's a huge pain in the ass to be a good citizen (or what I thought was being a good citizen - maybe I'm wrong). I didn't want to tie up 911's lines, but I ended being forced to anyway. And I got the feeling I was "imposing" the whole time I was on the line - like I was asking them for a favor or something. I had to repeat the same exact information to both operators. So far, not too surprising, although annoying. But the worst part is that the 911 operator couldn't seem to do anything without entering the address into some database. Maybe the street or avenue there has a different name - street names and avenues change a lot in Manhattan. Sometimes they're named after a famous person for a stretch, or if they are adjacent to a park, they take on the park's name for a bit (4th Street becomes Washington Square South, for example). Does the 911 system take into account that people may not know the precise street/avenue combinations at that point? It would be horrible to hear that a tourist between 7th Street and 9th Street on 2nd Avenue didn't get help because they said "8th Street" and not "St. Marks Place".

Anyway, the whole experience left me disillusioned and disappointed. It was an unfortunate case of "no good deed goes unpunished". I'm tempted to think twice about the next time I make a call like that (although I would still do it again, and urge my readers to do the same). This isn't a case of whining about bad customer service, which I've done here. This is an example of how New York still doesn't seem to entirely have its act together when it comes to these things. In Israel, this whole thing would have been taken much more seriously.

Was I right to report this? Comments welcome :-)

--YY

National Review Tries to Ruin Music

Via Radosh, National Review posted a list of the top 50 "conservative" songs. Their definition of conservative leaves a lot to be desired, though: it doesn't take much to get on the list. Anti-communist? Or even hinting at being anti-communist? You're in. Making fun of teenagers? Welcome aboard. It's pretty clear that the quality of the list is poor when the author of the #1 song on your list (“Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who) bashes your article.

I guess if this list helps some conservatives enjoy their music better, ummm.... well that's just sad, actually. For the rest of us, we can continue listening to music that we don't necessarily agree with. Just Imagine*.

--YY

* That song sure didn't make the list!

Ruby on Rails

I've been getting into Ruby on Rails, a web development platform based the Ruby programming language. Here's a nice tutorial to get started.

Update: Oops - I forgot that I already wrote about Rails two weeks ago. But the tutorial link is new... And I've been thinking about what other stuff could go on "Rails" - Video Game development, natch. Any other ideas?

--YY

TMBG vs. NSA

Mmmmmm... Acronyms. My friend T from work sent me this Boing Boing today - They Might Be Giants made a cute little ringtone (available for free as a stand-alone mp3): "Call connecting through the NSA". Well, now you can't say you didn't know...

--YY

Oprah Takes a Trip...

...to Auschwitz. Gawker posted a picture of the somewhat surreal billboard promoting her trip - maybe they could have picked a less smiley picture? The trip is with Elie Weisel, the author of Night, which is the book currently selected for Oprah's Book Club.

Anyway, the show started (in NYC area, at least) 20 minutes ago - sorry... I just found out about it, though.

--YY

Makooooooooooooooor!!!!!!

Makor is closing. All is lost.

--YY

Re-Re...Re-Releasing Star Wars

Lore Sjöberg has a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek take on Lucasfilm's announcement that they are re-releasing the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy in September (Limited Edition, of course). Now, the more cynical among us (myself and Sjöberg included) may wonder about the timing of such a release, seeing as how Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are just about upon us, making the new releases almost immediately irrelevant. More likely, we cynics groaned about the fact that they are not simply releasing the original trilogy, but the modified additions with the original version thrown in as "bonus material". Hmmmm. As Sjöberg puts it, "people who bought the special edition when they really wanted the original version will have to buy the special edition again, and people who didn't buy the special edition because they only care about the original version will have to pay more to get the special edition anyway! Yes! Use your aggressive feelings! Let the hate flow through you!" He then comes up with some hypothetical future re-releases, such as "The All-Wampa Edition". Check it out!

--YY

p.s. Lucas is really good at giving fans exactly what they want while completely pissing them off at the same time. It's his inner Palpatine, I guess...

Can I Take Your Photo?

A nice article on the legality of photography these days, via Consumerist. Wired also has a piece this month on the topic, by Clive Thompson. Intellectual property laws being what they are today, it's important to know what the law actually is (although it differs from country to country and even from state to state). But for the most part, common sense prevails - in the public domain, for non-commercial purposes, you can photograph just about anything without permission, as long as it's not a security risk. Read the article, though, and/or consult your lawyer if you plan on making use of this information, though. Damned if you're going to try to take me down with you, paparazzi pond-scum!

--YY

p.s. I'm being generous - pond-scum is the nicest kind of scum.

Preaching On Rails

Via Slashdot - an IBM article on the incredible new Ruby on Rails technology. The article is geared towards skeptics, particularly in the Java world. If you're a web developer, Rails is definitely big news!

--YY

The Ultimate Resource for Gold Diggers

MillionaireMatch.com:

Does your economic success make it difficult for you to meet that special someone? Why try other dating websites that can only claim success, when you can meet tens of thousands of successful and quality singles and friends right here!

Oh, yes - it's so hard to meet women when you're loaded. They just flee in terror as soon as they see that $8000 Breitling watch. Such a turn-off.

My favorite link? "Click here If you are making less than $150,000 per year". And so it begins...

The craziest part? It's cheaper than JDate.

--YY

Fun For All Ages (NSFW)

More fun from Consumerist, this time regarding Hasbro's Oozinator, a water gun-like toy that shoots... ummm... ooze... all over the place. The commercial is a little disturbing. Most of the Amazon reviews were taken down, but Consumerist dug up some of the funnier and/or less subtle ones. My favorite:

As much fun as this toy is while it lasts, it does indeed tend to shoot the ooze much quicker than I would want. It’s good for me but my partners don’t enjoy it.

Oh, Hasbro...

Update: The official site doesn't help matters:

Sneak up on your opponents with a surprise bio-ooze attack! Just when they think you’re coming at ‘em with water, blast ‘em with a shot of icky bio-ooze! Shoot out globs of gooey bio-ooze and then drench ‘em with water! It’s a double blast attack that’ll keep your opponents on their toes and running during every water fight. With the OOZINATOR blaster you don’t just get soaked, you get drenched!

Icky indeed...

--YY

That's One Way to Get a Parade...

Consumerist posts a video about a Dutch store owner who, "sick of shoplifters, decide[d] to give the 10,000th shoplifter a big prize, including party hat, cake and an in-store marching band." Unfortunately, the shoplifter was sweating so much that the chocolate bars hidden in her armpits melted, ruining her blouse and an otherwise wonderful day.

--YY

Another Satisfied Customer

Overheard on YodaYid's phone today:
*ring ring*
YY: Hello?
Robot: Hello - you have an important business call from XYZ. Are you able to take this call?
YY: Uh, sure.
*pause*
Robot: I'm sorry - I didn't catch that. Are you able to -
YY: Yyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssss.
*pause*
Robot: Thank you. Please wait while I transfer your call.
*pause*
Robot #2: We're sorry. All of our customer service representatives are unavailable right now. Please hold for the next -
*click*

--YY

The Third Guitar Is In A Secret Place...

Witness Michael Angelo Batio and his skillz: two guitars at once. Well, it's really one creepy siamese double guitar, but he's playing both at the same time. It's a little uncanny, really...

--YY

IP Madness

Slashdot reports that Walmart is considering trademarking the yellow smiley face. I'm actually for it - there's something deliciously ironic about an evil corporation purchasing a smiley face. Be that as it may, it's another step in the descent into the IP (intellectual property) madness that has been going on these past few years (well before that as well, but not like this).

I wrote about this almost a year and a half ago when "I had to agree to some Terms and Conditions to read an electronic brochure about IBM Websphere".

Anyway, seeing as how absurd the situation is these days, I have an idea. We (the people) should start a corporation whose sole purpose is to trademark every day phrases so other people can't.

Really? Yes, Really.™ Why Not?™ Everyone is Doing It.™ You Could Too.™ Join Us Or Die.™

Catchy, huh?™

--YY™

p.s.™ Sorry if this post got annoying towards the end, but That's My Point™.

What's Your Name, Little Dolphin?

Dolphins have "names", or as techies might say, "unique identifiers":

Dolphins communicate like humans by calling each other by "name", scientists in Fife have found, BBC News Online reported. The mammals are able to recognise themselves and other members of the same species as individuals with separate identities, using whistles.

Via MediaFax.

--YY

p.s. Funny - women don't seem to respond so positively to whistles. They should take a page from the dolphins.

Wii Will Wock You

As reported on Gamasutra, Nintendo showed off some of the cool new Wii features in Zelda: Twilight Princess, among other games. One very cool one: you can use the motion-detecting controller to pull back an arrow on your bow, and while you're doing that, a speaker built in to the controller plays the sound of a bow being pulled, so it sounds like you're actually doing it. Cool!

And the game also has motion-detection-based nunchucks. And you can never really have enough nunchucks - let's face it. I would play Tetris more often if it had nunchucks in it.

Less interesting? Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

Anyway, the Wii should definitely be a unique platform - great moves by Nintendo!

--YY

Some Star Wars Stuff For Ya...

It's been a while since I actually posted about Star Wars, so here's a few treats for you (mostly via Table of Malcontents:

• Star Lords - a SW+LOTR mashup (warning - I did not watch this yet, so I can't vouch).


• A more sympathetic take on Vader at the end of A New Hope on YTMND.


• And my favorite - The Best Homemade Lightsaber Duel Ever.


• Except maybe for this one.

And it's all fan-made! Huh.

--YY

Bubble Man

David Blaine is at it again in "Drowned Alive". See him on Columbus Avenue between 63rd and 64th (look for the man inside a giant bubble). From the Gothamist, the stunt is thus:

[He will spend] a week under water, get dragged out of the water and then get shackled wtih 150 pounds of chains, put back in the water to hold his breath for 9 minutes and break out of the chains.

That doesn't sound healthy. You can also write a message on a piece of paper and show it to him. Anyway, I'm a fan of his magic - less so his stunts - but this sounds pretty cool. I might just check it out. I'm in that area fairly often anyway. I just have to think of what I would write... hint: not what this guy wrote.

--YY

What Color Is Your Wii?

New Nintendo Wii colors revealed! Via Table of Malcontents.

--YY

p.s. Slashdot asked if the name change is a marketing gimmick. Of COURSE it is - it's all about marketing at this point. Otherwise they would ship it in a cardboard box with the name "New Nintendo System".

p.p.s. Sorry about the RSS mess-up - I was using Konqueror to blog, and it apparently does not play nice with Blogger.

Who's Gutsier?

Stephen Colbert or Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G)?

It's a close call. Colbert recently did the White House Correspondent's Dinner, "(attended by the President, the elite of Washington politics, and the White House Press Corps) and told the truth. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped. The live audience gasped. Scalia laughed his ass off. You want to see a brilliant comic display some real courage? Look no further. Enjoy the reaction shots, and Colbert's audition for Press Secretary job." (quote from Slashdot). I'm not sure who in the West Wing decided to hire Mr. Colbert, but I'm sure they've been spending a lot of time on Monster.com recently. Among other things, Colbert joked about the Plame Affair, Cheney's Birdshot, Iraq, Fox News, Bush's approval rating... My favorite line? "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." :-D So, a gutsy man for a tough crowd.

As an aside, that's one of the problems when a Republican president is elected - Republican comics are few and far between. Both Ben Stein and Drew Carey have done the Correspondent's Dinner under Bush, and I watched Stein - he bombed so badly that the Pentagon immediately bought him for $2.6 billion. It's kind of like the Academy Awards (going to the opposite end of the political spectrum, but staying elitist). Jon Stewart bombed because Hollywood types can't take a joke that's not approved by their publicist. But I digress.

Ali G takes risks far more often, and with people who are much less restrained when it comes to physical retaliation. I.e. he and his crew have been both assaulted and arrested in the line of duty. Mainly when he plays Bruno - his flamboyantly gay Austrian character - schmoozing with the folks at, say, a gun show in Atlanta. Or Borat, the Kazakhstani who is clueless that Americans may find some of this customs to be a bit awkward. And finally, Ali G, "the only interviewer prepared to ask the really difficult questions like "what was it like to walk on the sun?" to Buzz Aldrin or asking the ex head of the FBI to cast his mind back to the grassy knoll and ask "who really shot JR?" (from Official Site).

So who's more gutsy? All I know is, Colbert probably shouldn't say anything private on his home telephone anymore.

--YY

Disney Disney

If only I could speak Russian. I could be James Bond, but more importantly, I could read this website, which points out extensive... uh... resource reuse in old Disney movies. Very economical, of course, to have the same exact scene (with the same exact poses) in two different movies. Not much has changed since then, as anyone watching Disney Channel's "Original Movies" will note. Or Disney's "new" features, for that matter, like Herby and The Shaggy Dog. Geez. Via YesButNotButYes .

--YY

C For Cookie

C For Cookie is a cute Sesame Street-based spoof of V for Vendetta. Not a primo quality spoof, but as I said, cute.

--YY

p.s. I'm starting to become reluctant to join in on the whole "viral video" thing - it's gone from "meme" to cliche very quickly.

Jane Jacobs Remembered

Visionary Jane Jacobs, whom I wrote about back in October, passed away this week. I have a soft spot for her work - she was an incredible scholar who remained active to the end. Anyway, I won't write any sort of obituary here since there are far more people out there who can do a much better job, and who already did. But no one, to my knowledge, has contributed more to understanding the organic nature of cities than her. Rest in Peace.

--YY

Cancer Breakthrough?

I just stumbled on this via Digg:

At long last, some good news! A scientist working at the Center for the Biology of Chronic Disease found the surprising cause of cancer. As it turns out, it's not what scientists at the National Institute of Health (NIH), researchers in pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and members of the media think...

To summarize: the cause of cancer, and other chronic diseases, is not a genetic mutation, it's an infection with a latent virus.

If this is true, wow. It seems legit, and I really hope it is. Stay tuned...

--YY

Runaway Brain

I saw this on Slashdot a while back - an online test that measures how fast your brain is. But surprise, surprise, it was slashdotted. So after waiting (and forgetting about it) for almost two months, you can finally see what the fuss is all about! Unless you were one of the slashdotters. Tsk Tsk.

--YY

Hypochondriacs Rejoice!

Apparently, it's not you. It's THEM - the drug companies, that is. According to BBC, drug companies are "disease-mongering": making up or exaggerating diseases so that people will buy more drugs. Now if you'll excuse me, my chest is making a rhythmic thumping noise - I think I need to take something for that...

--YY

Take One For The Team

Drugs, that is. I've been meaning to post this one from Mind Hacks for a few weeks:

From the entry on p45 for the SSRI anti-depressant citalopram (trade name 'Cipramil') in The Psychotropic Drug Directory 2001/02 by Stephen Bazire (ISBN 1856421988): "The green and yellow 20mg pack in the UK has led to increased use among football supporters in the author's home city of Norwich."

You read that correctly - soccer fans in Norwich City are taking medication based on the fact that the colors on the box match the colors of the local soccer team. I can't imagine why they're depressed... Get a life people! And this is coming from someone named YodaYid.

--YY

p.s. I wonder what would happen if they packaged estrogen supplements in those colors. How far does team loyalty go over there?

Now That's Hot (Work Safe)

I just saw this hyperlink on the IRS Website (under Forms and Publications): What's Hot in forms and publications. I clicked with bated breath:

[N]ewly-enacted tax law changes and changes from prior tax law that will be reflected in future versions of the tax products or you may access Publication 553, Highlights of 2005 Tax Law Changes.

Someone get me a towel - I'm sweating...

--YY

The Answer to Information Overload?

My good friend Yitz, who just got married (woo-hoo! awesome wedding too :-) ) points out a nice piece on Information Overload. Not my cup of tea, but you might enjoy it...

--YY

Back, Baby!

Hey all - I'm back from my trip - I have a few things in the pipeline that I want to blog, so stay tuned!

--YY

I'm Away From My Computer Right Now

I know, I know... I've been remiss in my blogging duties lately. I have the standard list of excuses - no time, nothing to write about, I'm in another country, I was abducted by aliens, etc etc.

Honestly, I really haven't had any issue jump at me that I felt I needed to contribute to. Or maybe I've had too many. In any case, I'll try to resume soon... Meanwhile, if you have something you want my opinion on for whatever reason, let me know - yodayid@yahoo.com (I'm not worried about spam at that address since it's basically little else at this point. I'll still get your message though - I get legit stuff there too).

Take care!

--YY

The Evils of Voice Recognition

A lot of companies are moving to voice recognition instead of touch-tone inputs. This can get rather annoying, especially if you don't want people to hear what you're saying. Touch-tone is nice and anonymous... If I were in charge, you might start hearing "conversations" like this...

Welcome to Dynafro Incorporated, your one stop source for all your widget needs. For sales, please say "used tampons". For customer service, please say "methadone refills". For all other inquries, please say "anal leakage", or stay on the line for the next available agent, although we prefer that you say something.

--YY

Something a Programmer Never Wants to See

From today's WTF:

/*
This is bad. Reaaly bad. It's a really, really bad hack. If you're an employee of Intertrode Communication, then I'm really, really sorry that you have to maintain this. I was honestly planning on removing this tomorrow, but I've been known to forget things like this. It happens.
*/

Yes, incompetence does happen. At least the programmer apologized...

--YY

Naked Skydiving Photo

NOT SAFE FOR WORK! And very freaky... Why am I posting this, you ask? Because of the photo's caption: "Bet you didn't know the human breast does this in a free fall!"

--YY

V For Disappointing

I just saw V For Vendetta today. It was an interesting movie, and sure to prompt discussion, but I was kind of disappointed. The best review I saw of the movie so far was from The L.A. Times:

Despite all the lengthy speeches about living in fear, [the characters] are risk-takers, lane-changers and, frankly, fickle dates. Evey, an assistant at the British Television Network, is surprisingly sanguine and plucky for someone who as a child watched her parents dragged away in the middle of the night with bags over their heads. We first meet her as she primps for a date, the firebrand TV pundit Lewis Prothero (Roger Allam), spewing bile in the background. Like apparently everyone else in England, Evey seems somewhat blithe about the whole brutal-regime thing. She doesn't deny herself the pleasure of talking back to the TV, nor does she allow curfew to impinge on her social life. She has a date with her boss, Gordon Dietrich (Stephen Fry), a popular television personality many years her senior, and she does her best to keep it, curfew be damned.

It's not that you begrudge Evey's taking the opportunity to advance her career, or even to meet new masked people. It's just that you'd think, you live in a brutality repressive state for most of your life, you look over your shoulder once in a while. Not her. Nor Gordon, who for a high-level media figure at a state-run station comports himself pretty naively. Nor even Det. Finch (Stephen Rea), who is assigned to track down the terrorist, and instead ends up confronting the truth about his leaders, daring even to ask questions out loud.

I was thinking this exactly - the world depicted in the film is not dystopian enough! If you play Half Life 2, on my short list for the best game ever made, a sense of oppression suffuses the entire game. Civilians in the game are downright terrified, and for good reason - in that world, if you sneeze the wrong way, you're going to find yourself in a very dark place for a very long time. And of course, there are always the aliens and zombies outside the city gates that are more than happy to pick up where the police state (the "Combine") leaves off (they are the ostensible reason for the Combine's existence in the first place). The point is, Half Life 2 did a much better job of creating a world where fear is in the air, where the powers that be use the mass media to keep that fear in place, and where violent revolution is really the only solution. At the end of "Vendetta", I was really thinking, "Is all this violence really necessary?"

Then there's the big issue in the movie - the t-word, terrorism. V, the hero, is called a terrorist (both within the movie itself and by those discussing it). But I have my doubts. The reason is that it depends on how you define terrorism. Is it "the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons" (American Heritage)? Or is it more "the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear" (Princeton University, emphasis mine)? V is a terrorist according to the first definition, but not the second, since he never targets innocent civilians.

The best thing about this movie is that it will prompt discussion. And healthy discussion is the life-blood of a true democracy, that we are thankfully still in, despite what some alarmists might think.

--YY

p.s. You try coming up with a word for "disappointing" that starts with "V". Yeah, I didn't think so.

Hacking Garfield

On Table of Contents today:

It's always fun when the Web hive-mind picks up on something, plays around with it, and eventually squeezes all the joy from it and leaves it in a corner of the laundry room to rot until moving day. The latest bit of shared play involves taking Garfield comics, and removing all of Garfield's dialogue, leaving a strip that's sometimes bogglingly surreal, sometimes just sad, and nearly always funnier. The progenitor of this trend may have been a livejournaler who decided he didn't like being linked by Boing Boing, so his discovery exists only in Google's cache, but the banner has since been taken up by the Something Awful forums and the Truth and Beauty Bombs forums. I'm excitedly counting the days until I'm sick to death of this!

They definitely change the whole dynamic of the comic. When the cat stops talking back, the cat owner seems much creepier (and sadder) all of a sudden. I don't know if they're funnier, though, because I don't have the originals on hand for comparison purposes, so I can't say one way or another. I'm definitely curious as to what the original jokes were for these, though!

--YY

Who Willing?

I got this from The Word Spy:

Murphy willing (idiom). If nothing goes wrong. Also: Murphy-willing.

Example Citations:
Django-Dojo alliance was finally announced to the world by our very own Jacob Kaplan-Moss:

Starting with version 0.92 (which should be out in a few weeks, Murphy willing), Django is going to bundle Dojo with the toolkit.
—Eugene Lazutkin, "Django Dojo," Eugene's Blog, January 28, 2006

If you have a moment and the URL for an interesting video clip, try adding to the schedule! Murphy willing, a new item will appear in the feed each night. When the item goes live on the feed, also Murphy willing, the item will appear, with details, on this weblog and be open for comment.
—Andrew Grumet, "Personal TV Networks," Andrew Grumet's Weblog, July 15, 2004

Earliest Citation:
Side-note: We've been archiving the My.UserLand.Com channels, so if historians want to trace the development of syndication on the web, we'll be able to give them a clue. Murphy-willing!
—Dave Winer, Scripting News Archive, June 23, 1999

Notes:
This phrase is a secular play on the very old (15th century) phrase God willing, and it comes from Murphy's Law: in a given situation, if anything can go wrong it will. Murphy's Law was named after U.S. Air Force Captain Edward A. Murphy, who performed deceleration studies in the 1940s and noted that if things could be done wrongly, they would be.

Stalking Gets an Upgrade

Gawker has upgraded its Stalker section to include... Google Maps. Heaven help us.

--YY

Selling Out Hollywood

I recently rediscovered HSX: Hollywood Stock Exchange (a game started in 1996, now owned by Cantor Fitzgerald). I made my millions back in the late 1990's, when everything was being greenlighted and all you had to do was speculate. Nowadays it's a little harder. For example, my massive purchase of Trick Monkey in 2001 didn't do so well. This description may explain why:

Robert De Niro produces and may star in the true-life story of magician David Blaine in Trick Monkey. As a young street magician, Blaine is torned between the pursuit of his calling for financial success or for the sake of art. His influential mentor believes in the importance of magic as an artform not be taken advantage of. However, the young magician is thrust into confusion when he realizes how much money can be made.

What was I thinking? I lost more than H$200,000 on that one (you start off with H$2,000,000). I'm going to have take comfort in Motherless Brooklyn: "a film that follows a detective who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, and who must solve the murder of his mentor. The film is based upon the novel by Jonathan Lethem, who sold the story rights to New Line for a high six figures. To date, no director has been attached to the project." Yeah... H$110G, baby! Not that I particularly want to watch that one either, but hey, it was undervalued.

Even more fun is "shorting", where you invest in a movie's demise. If you think the stock's price reflects more than the movie is going to make, you can short it, and profit if it falls short. If it does well, of course, you're in trouble. I tried shorting "National Treasure 2", but that actually seems to be a non-empty threat. Sorry, America, I tried...

And last but not least, there are options. I made a few bets on the Oscars (mostly long shots like Clooney for best Director), which would have paid off big if they won. But it was not to be... D'oh!

One fascinating thing about HSX is that its market seems to do a better job on the whole at predicting the box office than industry experts. That could be why they call their movies section the "Movies Prediction Market". More to the point, that could be why they started a parallel website called HSX Research, which looks to make serious cash on advice based on the HSX market. Anyway, it's a pretty crazy story of how a cute game can become something much more than anyone expected. And it's a great way to see (and speculate on) what's coming down the pike in Hollywood. Crap. But you didn't need HSX to tell you that.

--YY

Glad I Don't Work There...

From Overheard in the Office:

Worker on phone: When can you come in today?...Well, I don't know how long it takes to file an Apprehended Violence Order.

--

Boss: Did you leave this in the copier? It got jammed.
Employee: Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry.
Boss: If you and [Janet] ever got married, you'd have really stupid kids. I'm just saying.

--

Project Manager: I'm working on Chronic Constipation and should be done with it later today. How is Ulcerative Colitis coming along?
Multimedia Developer: Good. Should have it for you tomorrow for review. What's up with Vaginal Discharge?

--

Supervisor: We have a call-out
Boss: Why's he calling out?
Supervisor: Says his house caught fire.
Boss: Bulls***! Tell him we want a pic of him fighting the f***ing fire! Then we'll authorize the call-out!

--

Boss: Don't do as I do. In fact, don't even do as I say.

Worker #1 on speaker: I was wondering why [Billy] hasn't called me yet.
Worker #2 on speaker: I'll go make sure he calls you this time.
Worker #1 on speaker: Do me a favor and punch him in the kidney as you walk by for me! Make him crap blood for a night so he can think it over.

--

PVC worker: Hey [Neil], I don't mean to sound like a p***y, but I just cut my finger off.

--

Boss: Hey, can you help me? I need to make a floor plan for the new office.
Underling: Yeah, sure. What are the dimensions?
Boss: It's 10,000 square feet.
Underling: Yeah, but what are the dimensions?
Boss: What do you mean? It's 10,000 square feet.
Underling: Yeah, but like what is the length and width?
Boss: Just make it 10,000 square feet.
Underling: But is it a square, or a rectangle, or what?
Boss: Uh, make it a rectangle.

--

Manager: You all need to help out and pull a shift in the Concierge Department. This is what team work is all about. I make too much money to help in the Concierge Department.

--

Assistant #1: I want to stab my eyes out. Is that normal?
Assistant #2: Yes.
Assistant #1: Just wanted to make sure.

--

CCA: My Excel's not working.
Manager: I don't care.
CCA: What should I do if my Excel's not working and you don't care?
Manager: Call the Ghostbusters.

--

Manager: Have a good weekend.
Underling: You're leaving?
Manager: You're not.

--

Employee: Do you always have to act like a child?
Manager: This company is all about innovation. And studies have consistently shown that the most innovative thought comes from the ages of five and under.

--

Manager: It would be misleading of me to tell you that there was any hope of you having a job.

--YY

Table of Malcontents

Lore Sjöberg, formerly of The Brunching Shuttlecocks (a site I used to love), has a new blog on Wired called Table of Malcontents. He's really into web comics, which I'm not, and that seems to make up a large percentage of his posts, but it's still an enjoyable read.

He also has a very funny take on World of Warcraft - what it would be like if it was a text-based game (ah, the memories). This part reminds me very much of my experience with the game:

"Take this bag of jelly to Commander Wolfchow in Cramhollow Dale."
> Go to Cramhollow Dale
You run to Cramhollow Dale. You run and run. You run and run and run. You keep on running. Someone runs past you, faster. You keep running. Two gnomes run past you in the opposite direction. Still you run. You're not there yet. What are you going to do?
> Run
That's right, bunky. You're gonna run. You continue to run and run and run and run and ... whoa, you're in Cramhollow Dale. A tall man who looks like a lot of the other tall men around here has a question mark over his head.
> Give bag of jelly to man
"Good!" says ...
> Click Complete Quest, Accept, whatever, just get on with it

And last but not least - his bio: "Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become an entrepreneur, restaurateur and voyeur."

Funny man, Sjöberg.

--YY

Consumerist Has Self-Image Issues

They have this to say about themselves - "We know our template sucks. It looks as if it was withdrawn from the chthonic bung hole of the smelliest goth web designer who ever laced skull barrettes through his or her armpit hair."

I'd hate to be that designer right now. Also, there's some interesting stuff about accessibility further on.

--YY

p.s. "Chthonic" is a real word! Go figure.

Grumpy Old Men

Don't mess with retired, tenured, and disgruntled professors. From MindHacks:

This had me in stitches. Apparently Darwinian philosopher Daniel Dennett (who's out and about promoting his new book) has fallen out with fellow Darwinian, British-Born philosopher Michael Ruse. Ruse warns against taking evolutionary theory too far, so that it becomes an argument for atheism. Anyway, during the tiff (see here for detail) Dennett emailed Ruse suggesting he was being enlisted by the dark side. So Ruse replied:
"I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine – I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever the fuck I want to without sinking further".
"I am a hardline Darwinian and always have been very publicly... in fact I am more hardline than you are, because I don’t buy into this meme bull*** but put everything... in the language of genes".
Reflecting on the fall out, Ruse apparently had this to say:
'I think he [Dan Dennett] finds it very difficult when people don’t say to him 'you were fantastic. Can I warm the bog seat for you before you take a crap?'".

He's a pretty cold guy - I'm not sure he'd be much of a seat warmer. But I'm not a big Dennet fan, so heeheehee.

--YY

Natalie Raps

Natalie Portman, of Star Wars fame, performed a very... intense gangster rap on Saturday Night Live this past episode. The video is on NBC's website. Let's just say there's a lot of bleeping, and any little Amidala-wannabe's would probably start crying if they watched it. Anyway, it's pretty clear she's trying to shed her "good girl" image...

--YY

Why It's Hard to Work at the Times

To quote Gawker - "[I]t's gotta suck to have the nation's best business reporters in your spin-some-bull**** progressive-management staff meetings." Yeah, try telling your business columnist why you reduced his benefits and took a bigger bonus. D'oh!

--YY

That Darn Antihelix

Sent to me at work from a PriceGrabber review for a Bluetooth headset:

As for comfort, it tends to press a rigid edge against a cartilagenous prominence of my outer ear (specifically the inferior crura of the antihelix) and after about 10 minutes I find myself trying to shift the headset around to keep from developing some real pain.

But it does look cool. Did I mention that?

I personally find this review offensive to people who were born without the inferior crura of the antihelix. Who the heck are you with your assumptions and your "boxes"? People without inferior crura of the antihelix are people too! I hope your other reviews are more sensitive, sir...

--YY

Watch What You Say...

Someone might be listening...

--YY

Ingested, Not Stirred

In possibly one of the most bizarre stories I have ever read, Mind Hacks reports that the "British secret intelligence service MI6 dosed [soldiers] with LSD without their consent during the 1950s". Whoa. Even freakier - they filmed it, and it's on Google Video - complete with stuffy British narration.

Anyway, if you see 007 dancing on the roof in his underwear, now you know why.

--YY

Ghost Blogging

My co-worker "E" came up with an interesting point - how far off are we from blogs being important enough to be mandatory for big shots? And once that happens, are we going to see ghost bloggers (akin to ghost writers)? Is that going to become a new business model?

--YY

I Just Wrote Me a Letter...

...to the New York Times, that is. I added a hyperlink to the editorial in question for your convenience. It's about those cartoons again...

Regarding your editorial "Silenced by Islamist Rage", you write that moderate Moslems "must make it clear to [Islamists] that blowing up mosques, beheading hostages and strapping on belts of explosives are far, far greater evils than a few drawings in a distant paper." This statement reflects a common misunderstanding on the part of Western culture - to the Islamists, this distinction between violent crime and religious crime simply does not exist. Blasphemy and desecration are seen as no less evil than violence and murder. Meaningful dialogue cannot occur as long as there is such radical misunderstanding.

--YY

p.s. The headline is a take on the song "The Letter", by The Box Tops.

Bush Says

Fun with Google News:

"Bush says civilian N-deal will take time"

"Bush says ports deal should go through"

"Bush Says High Oil Prices Make Other Sources Viable"

"Bush says South Asia an 'important trip'"

"Bush says energy breakthrough will 'startle' citizens"

"Bush Says Cheney Handled Issue 'Just Fine'"

"Bush says more international troops needed for Darfur"

"Bush says Americans shouldn't be discouraged by Iraq setbacks"

"Bush says 'Touch Your Toes'"

--YY

Trippin' Rooms

This is seriously cool - rooms with optical illusions. Via MindHacks:

They're painted so that from one particular angle the shapes line up and your visual system flips into thinking that it can see a flat, 2D, pattern when the reality is a disjoint 3D one. Awesome.

And here's a first for this blog - I'm going to link in the images:



--YY

Full Color Credit

Here's a useful tool, via (I forgot! :-P), for seeing exactly how your credit card payments break down, how long it will take to pay off your debt, and how much you'll end up having paid by the time you're done. And it's nice to look at, too. The only trick is that it assumes you're done with your little shopping spree there.

--YY

You Are So Getting Me This

It's the Fake-Out Fedex T-Shirt! I don't know what it's really called, or where it came from, or how to get one, but I know I want it :-)

--YY

And Who Wouldn't Love You?

I have no idea how old BlackPeopleLoveUs.com is, but judging from the number of letters posted, it looks like it's been around for at least for a little while.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, enjoy and discuss! And if you have, let me know when that was...

--YY

"The First Rule of Death Cheese Is That There Is No Death Cheese"

(This post from Gawker is so good that I have absolutely nothing to contribute to it. Even the headline/title is lifted directly from them. I am simply quoting it in its entirety. I got nothin'. Enjoy.)

As most of you already know, we are bad people. We lie, cheat, steal and revel in public urination. Our worth as human beings is unquestionably low, and we’ve always been OK with that. We never have a problem mocking that which secures our place in hell.
But today is different, because we’re laughing at the expense of innocent children. We’re laughing so hard, honestly, that we can’t properly write this item. You see, a Staten Island bus driver allegedly organized a fight club amongst the middle school kids on his route, urging them to fight one another and use scissors as weapons. It may not seem funny, but:
• The driver called himself The Emperor
• The Emperor rallied kids with his “sick Jedi mind trick”
• The bus was called The Death Cheese (a “mini Death Star on wheels”)
• The toughest fighters were nicknamed Darth, Sith Warrior, and Jabba, according to “sources”
What sources? Jar-Jar Binks? Amazing. We don’t even want to publish this post, just because we don’t want the Star Wars Fight Club to ever end.

--YY

Both Generous and Creepy

As seen on CraigsList (via Consumerist):

I have 3 bottles of humalog insulin exp date 2 06 im sure its fine i have used insulin way past the dates with no problems. I also have 2 bottles of the same insulin with exp dates of 2 07 take 1 or all. Got a transplant and no longer need.

That's actually really nice, and I'm happy for the person, but it's also really really weird.

--YY

Cartoons Revisited

A coworker forwarded me this yesterday:

Israeli group announces anti-Semitic cartoons contest!
February 14th, 2006

A Danish paper publishes a cartoon that mocks Muslims.
An Iranian paper responds with a Holocaust cartoons contest -
- Now a group of Israelis announce their own anti-Semitic cartoons contest!

Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, has followed the unfolding of the “Muhammad cartoon-gate” events in amazement, until finally he came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so he announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

The contest has been announced today on the www.boomka.org website, and the initiator accept submissions of cartoons, caricatures and short comic strips from people all over the world. The deadline is Sunday March 5, and the best works will be displayed in an Exhibition in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Sandy is now in the process of arranging sponsorships of large organizations, and promises lucrative prizes for the winners, including of course the famous Matzo-bread baked with the blood of Christian children.

Ummmm right. I happen to think it's a very funny concept/thought experiment/hypothetical. It would make a great Onion headline. But I'm not so crazy about the possibility of actually doing it. Not that I think it will make matters worse. A friend of mine told me that he thought it was bad timing. I doubt it - it's not like there would ever be good timing for something like this. As the jokesters behind this idea said:

In the last two days we’ve received hundreds of emails from all over the world. About 98% percent of them are from Jews saying: You’ve made us proud to be Jews (Or from non-Jews saying you’ve made me wish I was a Jew).

A few were concerened that real anti-semitists will use our cartoons to spread hate.

I don’t think they need us for that, they have no trouble inventing excuses for hate. Perhaps, if their crouds would see that Jews are drawing the same ridiculous cartoons, they might doubt the truthfulnessof these stupid cartoons.

Possibly - it's one those ideas that is so crazy that it just might work... but probably not.

And I believe Mr. Sandy has one more thing to say:

And finally, Arabs our are friends and hopefully one day we will all live in peace, and share our special Matzos with them.

--YY

p.s. Mmmmmmmmmmm...... special Matzos....

Cussin'

Warning: this post contains profanity (duh).

William Safire writes about profanity in his On Language column in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It's a topic I always found fascinating. In particular, he focuses on President Bush's preference for the words "darn" and "heck" (he opens the article with the classic "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" quote. I personally would have gone with "My Darn Pet Goat").

He points out that "darn" and "heck" were invented as softer alternatives to "damn" and "hell", back when "hell was Hell, the place where you burned throughout eternity". Not that it's not thought of that way today by many, but certainly people who take damnation and hell literally are going to be much more sensitive to the words. Since Bush tends to ally with the Religious Right, it's not surprising that he's going to use the softer, more "secular" words. On a side note, he mentions that "tarnation" comes from "eternal damnation". And they used that word in Looney Toons!

All well and good, but profanity always interested me on a deeper level. What's it really all about? As far as I can see, there are two kinds - "curses"/insults (like "Go to hell" or "You bastard!") and bathroom/bedroom words (I'm sure you don't need me to come up with examples there) What I find interesting is that in the latter category, the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable seems to be mostly arbitrary. The kids' book "Everybody Poops" would probably not be as popular with young parents if it was called "Everybody S--ts". But why not? What is it about one term for excrement that makes it "OK" and another that makes it shocking? Your guess is as good as mine.

Of course, when it comes to s-e-x, every word there is taboo, and elicits some sort of emotional reaction, even the word s-e-x itself. The number of euphemisms for that as well as the distance from the original are through the roof - again, you don't need me to elaborate. I'm sure most of you could come up with at least ten synonyms off the top of your head. Again, why are some better or worse than others? Obviously "making love" is a much healthier, more positive, and more agreeable term than "doing the nasty", but for the most part, it again seems arbitrary.

For the record, I'm not saying that there's nothing wrong with profanity, and that you should take your kids to see the next Quentin Tarantino movie. Far from it. There's definitely something wrong with having your brain focused constantly on what's between your waist and your thighs (or in my case, shins). But it's important to approach this soberly, instead of just having a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that one collection of phonemes were used to refer to something instead of another.

--YY

p.s. I learned a great new word while writing this - "dysphemism". It's the exact opposite of a euphemism. A good example would be "Pass the processed cow lips" instead of "Pass the hot dog".

So Much to Blog, So Little Brain Cells With Which To Blog Them...

Lots to talk about today. First, and most important (actually, so important that the word "important" itself loses some of its meaning when compared to other things), it's my birthday! In honor of this momentous occasion, in which the earth has made yet another revolution around the sun, ending up in the same relative position that it was when I was born, I am going to post a hypothetical conversation between myself (YY) and myself ten years from now (YY+X). Enjoy!

YY: Hey, great to meet you.
YY+X: I can't say likewise, since I met you like ten years ago.
YY: Good point. So, world peace, huh?
YY+X: Yeah - it was surprisingly simple, actually.
YY: Interesting. Nice work!
YY+X: Thanks :-) I really couldn't have done it without you.
YY: Yes. Kudos to myself as well.
YY+X: But you didn't do anything yet!
YY: Obviously *something* I'm doing now is helping... I assume this blog helped?
YY+X: Actually, the next three posts are going to be surprisingly crucial, considering the subject matter...
YY: Profanity, Anti-Semitism, and Prostitution?
YY+X: Oh, you're doing those next? Never mind...
YY: Oh. Well I'm going to post them anyway.
YY+X: You know, I don't really remember being such a jerk ten years ago. Are you sure you're YY+X-X?
YY: Quite sure. Are you sure you're YY+X?
YY+X: Oh my, yes. Anyway, I have to go back to cleaning up my "Space Trailer". You know, in ten years, you're going to be living in a trailer park in outer space.
YY: Well, that sucks.
YY+X: Save it for your profanity post, dude.
YY: Yeah, take care yourself.
(YY+X has left the... spacetime instance)

Well, that was singularly unpleasant, wasn't it? But not particularly surprising. Anyway, here's looking forward to many more years of YodaYid!

--YY

Ummm... Go For It!

Saddam Hussein is on a hunger strike. Does that tactic work when no one gives a s--t? Take your time, dude... no rush.

--YY

Keep Away From Children

More fun with Boing Boing and kids: Ill-Advised Kids' Toys. If you have kids (and even if you don't), you may find the link, ummmm, disturbing...

--YY

Don't Sell Candy To Strangers

Just saw on Boing Boing:

Kids refuse to sell candy after completing health unit
Kids at a Florida elementary school refused to sell candy to raise money for a field trip, having just completed an educational unit on health and well-being. The widow of Dr Atkins was so moved by their commonsense that she donated $16,000 to their school so they could afford the trip without selling junk-food.

Awesome! :-) Go kids!

--YY

Are You a Crackpot?

Based on my last post, we all know I am. But are you? Click here to find out for sure...

--YY

p.s. Yes, I'm aware that it's from 1998, shortly after Duke Nukem Forever was announced.

p.p.s. Linkwise, I think this is my most incestuous posting thus far...

To Rant, Press Three Now

Is it me, or are cellphone voicemail messages these days waaaay too long, through no fault of the phone owner? "To leave a callback number, press 5. To page this person, press 6. To whisper sweet nothings into the person's ear, press #." What happened to "It's YodaYid - you know what to do. (beep)". To me, that's more than enough. People know how to leave a message, and if they don't, they have no frickin' clue what any of those other options mean anyway. I don't need to hear a ten point plan for solving fiscal problems in developing countries. Just play the damn tone already! By the way, if you see me walking down the street yelling "BEEP" into my phone, now you know why...

--YY

Creepy Toothpaste Ad

(Warning: Link is not work safe)...

Below is the text from a creepy British toothpaste ad, via Stay Free Daily (it's "James", an eight year old boy, talking to his mother):

Mum, Did You Know...?
"Dirty teeth can kill you!" PREVENTDISEASE.com
"Bad diseases can start in your mouth?" abcNEWS.com
"Gum diseases can be an early pointer to Alzheimer's?"

Ja-a-ames, don't worry...
we use Beverly Hills Formula
active10 the new ultimate toothpaste
with ten health-promoting agents!

Now, so far this is just stupid and over-the-top, not creepy. But the picture accompanying the text has the boy walking in on his mother, who is completely naked in the shower (and the picture leaves very little to the imagination).

To quote Stay Free: "It is important to remember... that even if your mother is beautiful, there is nothing sexy about her. Then remember that it isn't actually her son. And his smile is really creepy."

And the point of this ad was what, exactly? Yeesh.

--YY

p.s. Mmmmmm... toothpaste.

Forever Whenever

Duke Nukem Forever, the longest-running joke in the video game business, just won Vaporware of the Year award from Wired Magazine, again.

How vaporware is it? Consider this quote from the developer's president, George Broussard:

What can I say? We're undeniably late and we know it. We've switched engines a couple of times, and we've started over a couple of times. We've made some mistakes, and we've learned from them. I'm just glad we're in a position to do those things, and to be able to make the game we want to make, instead of being rushed out the door to meet stock projections.

In the end all that matters is the quality of the game, so, lessons have been learned, and progress is being made, and we're working as quickly and quietly as we can. You're completely justified in calling us 'turtleware,' at the very least, but the release date is still 'when it's done.'

The source for that quote just happens to be from the 2002 Vaporware Awards.

A more recent quote, from the official site:

Things are together; we're in full production. We're basically just pulling all the pieces together and making the game out of it. There's a lot that's finished. All the guns are finished. Most of the creatures are finished. And as I said, we're just basically pulling it all together and trying to make it fun. We've kind of got all these disassociated elements that make up a game, and you put them together and things happen. And then you just tweak it and polish it until it's fun, and that's kind of the phase we're in now, just trying to make something that is really fun to play and interesting.

Ummm... "Most of the creatures are finished"?

Another take - all three Star Wars prequels were created and released since this game was announced.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. But I'm not holding my breath.

--YY

Them Cartoons

There's a huuuuge brou-ha-ha over several political cartoons containing caricatures of Prophet Mohammed (the depiction of whom is explicitly forbidden in Islam), which were originally published in Denmark. Now there are riots all over the place, especially in Afghanistan (oh, great - there again), where (as of this posting) five Afghans have been killed and eighteen wounded.

On one hand, the cartoons are clearly offensive (as President Bush has pointed out), and should not have been published in the first place. Not just offensive - in Islam, it's blasphemy. Not that I even got them - I looked through them to see what the fuss was about, but, not speaking European, I had no idea what they were trying to say. But I'll take on faith that they're really insulting to Moslems. And just like any any other cartoons that target a particular group (ethnic/religious/hat size/whatever), they (by which I specifically mean the originals) were inappropriate to publish.

But. The violent reaction across the world has been overreaction ad absurdum. It's even being called a "Cartoon Crisis". And I understand the decisions by newspapers in Europe to publish the cartoons. They are now an essential part of the story (a story that now involves people getting hurt and killed), and the public needs to know the full story.

And freedom of speech is very much an issue here. There is a world of difference between saying (as I did) that cartoons should not be published versus saying that the cartoons should not be allowed to be published. They are insulting, but they are not inciting, which I think is as good a criteria for free speech as it's going to get.

And if you want a homegrown example of blasphemy, there's always Conan O'Brien with "Bungee-jumping Baby Jesus", "Gun-Toting, NASCAR Driving Jesus", and "Bar Bar Glinks". Have you heard of those? I didn't think so. Or at least not in the same context, by far.

Then there's this (from the BBC):

[A picture that] showed the Prophet with the face of a pig... has circulated in the Middle East (The BBC was caught out and for a time showed film of this in Gaza without realizing it was not one of the 12). This picture, a fuzzy grey photocopy, [which] can now be traced back (suspicion having been confirmed by an admission) to a delegation of Danish Muslim leaders who went to the Middle East in November to publicise the cartoons. The visit was organised by Abu Laban, a leading Muslim figure in Denmark.

And NeanderNews reported that the picture is actually from some French "pig squealing" contest. Right. Anyway, to me, that's incitement - using fraud to deliberately fan the flames.

And even worse, there's this (via an excellent column by Andrew Sullivan): "[D]emonstrators in London held up signs proclaiming EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM and BE PREPARED FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST." 'Nuff said (he also has this great line: "Freedom means learning to deal with being offended.")

I just wanted to point out something interesting that I noticed - the Europeans, who are generally accused by Americans of pandering, are taking a much more aggressive stance on this issue than the Americans - to my knowledge, the cartoons haven't been published in the mainstream media, and the administration has come out strong against the cartoons, despite its "clash of civilizations" statements in the past.

So that's basically it - obviously, this has gone well past the issue of political correctness. It's about intimidation and fascism now. As much as we don't want to admit it, it really is an example of a "clash of civilizations", and only ours has freedom of the press.

--YY

Does This Sort of Thing Happen To Other People?

So it's Friday night, I'm walking with my friend near Washington Square, and I see one of the "No Parking" posters on a lamppost, which they put up when they're filming something. So out of curiosity, I walk over to see what production it was (probably something stupid like "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" or "Third Watch", but hey). Just as I walk up to the lamppost, a guy walks to the other side of the lamppost, takes out a knife, and rips it off. Since the lamppost was large enough, neither of us saw each other while he was doing it, but it happened so fast that I didn't even see what had been filmed there (I assume he was taking it down because they were done filming).

Does this sort of weirdness happen to other people?

Also, last Friday, I was sitting on the PATH train waiting to get home when a blind man with a seeing eye dog started getting on the train. Just as he's going through the doors, a pigeon that had been in the train (something I didn't even notice beforehand) flew right by his head. He didn't even flinch. If it was me, I would jumped, at the very least. If I couldn't see, I would have probably freaked out. So I was really impressed. Anyway, everyone was staring at him, but I guess he didn't realize that... But that was just a surreal scene, to add to the weirdness of my day.

Just wanted to share :-)

--YY

Piano Roll Call

In researching a little side project, I came upon a cool site that collects old-time piano rolls and uses software to scan them and convert them to MIDI. It's a very cool project since before recording equipment was invented, a player piano that used rolls was the only automated way (as far as I know) to play back a song. It makes sense to use MIDI since piano rolls were the precursor to MIDI. To quote Wikipedia, "Piano rolls have been in continuous mass production since around 1897. Though they are still being made today, MIDI files represent a modern way in which musical performance data can be stored. MIDI files accomplish digitally and electronically what piano rolls do mechanically. Software for editing a performance stored as MIDI data often has a feature to show the music in a piano roll representation." PianoDisc is a cool technology that combines the two.

Good stuff!

--YY

What Happened to Little Hearts With Arrows In Them?

This is NOT work-safe, but very funny...

--YY

p.s. How about "If you can read this, you are too close", instead.