Thank God For DST

The last post was a kvetch about Daylight Savings Time (particularly Amtrak's idiotic reaction to it), but here's an example of DST saving lives (scroll down)!

In September 1999, the Palestinian West Bank was on daylight saving time while Israel had just switched back to standard time. West Bank Palestinians prepared time bombs and smuggled them to Arab Israelis, who misunderstood the time on the bombs. As the bombs were being planted, they exploded—one hour too early—killing three terrorists instead of the intended victims—two busloads of people.

Close call... Thank God!

--YY

Amtrak Doesn't Like Free Time

My coworker E pointed out this very weird Amtrak policy to me. Apparently, when the clocks change from Daylight Savings Time back to normal time ("Lousy Farmers"), and everyone gains an hour, Amtrak trains everywhere just... stop. For a whole hour. You'd think they'd at least pull up to the next station so people can, I don't know, NOT BE STUCK IN A FRICKIN' TRAIN FOR A WHOLE FRICKIN' HOUR FOR NO GOOD REASON. Here's a link with more info (and more links). Or finish existing runs, and push off departures.

And yeah - they discuss what happens when Amtrak loses an hour. As you suspected, nothing intelligent.

--YY

787 Dalmations... I mean Clip Arts

Via Table of Malcontents comes Oliver Laric's 787 Cliparts: "787 individual pieces of clip art are displayed sequentially, creating a shifting, mesmerizing animation in which a housepet seemingly morphs into a wrestling opponent, then a dance partner. Even more clever, the resulting movie is set to loop, so that you can watch it forever."

Cute :-)

--YY

The Nasrallah Song

Someone sent me this music video made in Israel "dedicated" to Hezbollah leader and arch-terrorist Hassan Nasrallah. Definitely a good way to lift the gloomy mood throughout Israel these days...

--YY

Miniature Gold Diggers

Via Minding the Planet: "Eureka! Bacteria Have the Midas Touch".

Wow! Huge news if true...

--YY

Funny Photos

Factum - Face the Fact. I don't know what that means, but there are some really funny photos there...

--YY

Best Video Ever

If you're bummed about current events, I'm quite sure this will cheer you up.

--YY

News From the North

I got this e-mail from my mom's cousin (and clearance to share it, but I initialized names, since some of them are on active duty over there):

Hi Cousins!

Just wanted to update you all on what is really going on in this part of the hemisphere... I mean, you can't always trust the CNN (Certainly Not News) channel!

I guess the only word to describe this situation is W-A-R. As you probably have realized, the Hizbollah is a front for greater threats—Syria and Iran.

My sons D (now a captain in Givati) and A (in Golani) are in Gaza. S (Border Police) was brought to our area with the reinforcement troops. And T, who is a combat rescue and biological warfare officer, is guarding a "sensitive" location "somewhere" in the Haifa vicinity.

I left my home yesterday (that was still standing as I pulled out) and drove by myself to B's. I had never driven this far by myself before, but terror and fear can do wonders for all those little phobias I seemingly developed over the years. Did you know that Mazda 3's really do go up to 140 kmh??? :-) Especially when I drove past Karmiel and Meron... With one eye on the road. and the other fixed on the sky, I felt like I was in some science fiction movie during an alien invasion. :-0 Beam me up, Scottie and Warp 10 me outta here!!!

I had stayed home in Avivim until yesterday, despite everything, until it became really too dangerous to do so. I mean, I thought it would be over - or at least a bit better - in a few days, like always. Was I ever wrong. The Bad Guys shoot over mortars, anti-aircraft, and katyusha rockets. Most miss but they come close enough to shake you up a bit! And then we retaliate by shooting from tanks (the ones next to my house!!!), and live fire from Blackhawk helicopters (thrilling), and more. You get to be an expert after a while and can distinguish the different types of fire, but you still can't catch much sleep even with the TV turned way up!

But, I HAD to leave beacuse the electronic fence that guarded the border was down and the attempted infiltrator (and we know what his intentions were) were shot dead opposite my house, before my eyes. The terrorist was wearing a UN uniform and drove a UN vehicle. I performed the actions I had drilled so many times with the kids, in case of an infiltration. The next morning (was it really only yesterday???), a katyusha landed almost in my back yard. It was time to go! I can take a hint!
It is so nice to be with B and G during times like this. (I am writing this email from Bev's computer.) I feel as though I am on a different planet. People work, sleep, take showers, etc. I am so lucky to have such a great family. S and C have called several times, and B and D have sent encouraging email letters. We appreciate them!!! Thank you!!!

In the meantime, let's continue to pray that this will be over soon and not escalate into something even larger Let us pray for all the soldiers' safety, and for the state and nation of Israel.

Love,
D

--YY

Spammed :-(

A spam spider hit my blog a few minutes ago, leaving a cloying remark ("Very pretty site! Keep working. thnx!", or "Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it.") on each post, with a link to some casino semi-visible underneath the butt-kissing (so I won't delete the comment, which I will, of course). It looks like the comments are there to increase the site's "link weight" on the search engines, as opposed to get you to click on it. Unfortunately for the spammer, I will not be made into his bitch.

So what do you think? Should I turn off anonymous commenting? Or turn on Captcha (the thing where you have to enter the letters from a picture - although I'm not sure how secure that is anyway)? Or both?

D'oh!

--YY

Involuntary WHAT Machine?

Involuntary Dance Machine... Oh...

--YY

What's In A Name?

Independent Sources has a hilarious article about the ten worst unintentional URL's. My favorite has to be the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales:
www.molestationnursery.com.

Oops...

--YY

Telco's Go Viral and Make Me Sick

Lobbyists representing the major telephone companies, like Verizon, which have been pushing the "two-tiered internet" have come out with several sleazy cartoons to make their "argument". As you might expect, this argument has nothing to do with the problems people have with the telco's proposal, which would basically give them complete control over how traffic flows on the internet. According to the cartoon, all they want is to ensure Quality of Service - i.e. making sure that things like internet telephony, which is time-sensitive, goes over the internet faster than e-mail, which is not - an issue that's been around for years and years. And no one ever complained about QoS. But that's certainly not what the telco's themselves are saying. They've made it quite clear that it's about money - pay up, and your e-mail will go faster than Joe Schmoe's phone call. Don't pay, and you're in the slow lane, no matter how fast your actual internet connection already is (it's called double-dipping - you get charged for the connection and then again for the traffic). Naturally, the telco's won't have to pay extra to offer their internet telephony services (or television or anything else), so they can undercut everybody else, and hey! Can you say monopoly?

The other result would be that any new internet technology anyone comes up with will have to pay protection money to the telephone companies first. The entry costs to get a business on the internet would go way up. And once again, the telephone companies will have killed innovation***.

--YY

*** From link: "Although electronic switches based on solid-state components had been developed by 1959, AT&T didn't introduce the first digital switch into the Bell System until 1976. And electronic switching was still being gradually rolled out well into the 1980s, when AT&T's monopoly on telephone service came to an abrupt end. The much more rapid introduction of digital switches by MCI and Sprint probably contributed to AT&T's downfall."

p.s. Googling for "AT&T innovation" gives you all sorts of obnoxious corpo-babble results. "AT&T innovation monopoly"... not so much ;-)

Rotoscoping+Drugs != Box Office Gold

My Hollywood Stock Exchange portfolio has been hit hard by A Scanner Darkly, which is clearly not going to be the box office smash I anticipated:



Ouch...

--YY

p.s. The graph is dynamic - it's the last 60 days of trading for A Scanner Darkly. So it may not look the same when you read this...

What To Say...

It's hard for me to blog about anything right now with the situation in Israel so FUBAR... I feel somewhat guilty kvetching about the usual stuff when I have relatives who have been living in bomb shelters in northern Israel. Plus it's the "Three Weeks" - a period that's considered one of the most solemn on Jewish Calendar. So for this post, at least, I'm going to be serious, and join the world in praying for a peaceful resolution of the crises in Israel, and for all the kidnapped soldiers to be returned home safely.

--YY

Terror in Mumbai

A friend of mine (originally from India) sent me this last night:

Dear friends,

This is a MUST do thing not only for every Indian but everyone on my
list who believes terrorism is not a solution to anything.
Kindly follow the link. An Indian media house has officially declared
to donate one rupee per entry on following link to the funds for
support to Mumbai tragedy victims.

http://clients.ibnlive.com/features/mumatt/index.php

I'm not sure I would go this route for supporting victims in India... I'd rather donate something directly than give my e-mail address to a third party for them to donate a rupee. There's just something fishy about that. Does anyone know of any charities helping out in India? Does the Indian government provide financial support to the victims?

--YY

Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality

What with the world coming to an end and all that, I thought you might appreciate a fun clip of Jon Stewart skewering clueless legislators on The Daily Show. Because, let's admit it - American escapism works for a reason. And, as Stewart points out, there's never been a more important time for Congress to step up and take on F-----g Gambling on the Internet. I mean, what else is there for them to think about these days? Morons.

--YY

Marmaduke Unlocked

Via Table of Malcontents: Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke.

Here's a typical one:

"Marmaduke's owner-lady offers up a lame twist on a tired cliche in a profoundly half-assed effort to explain her beast's wanton property damage."

Brilliant.

--YY

[Welcome], Mihai!

My friend and former co-worker Mihai has joined the blogosphere with Mihai's Mundane Musings. He puts a "qualifier" for the post in the subject/title, so people can "filter out articles based on qualifiers". Speaking for myself, I might have to filter out the [Hardcore Toenail Fetish Pornography] qualifiers while at work (but when I come home, I'm so there!).

It's good to see he's not afraid to dive right into controversial subjects (and of course has a "[Controversial]" qualifier), and it should be interesting to hear what he has to say on a lot of different topics.

So [Welcome] to Blogland, Mihai! That will be $50 dollars for the link. What?

--YY

L'Étrangeté D'Sony, C'est Arriver!

Are you in the mood for a surrealistic, Not Safe For Work, French commercial for the Playstation 2 featuring a brain in an electric chair, disembodied hindquarters being slapped by a paddywack wheel, and other what-the-hell-am-i-looking-at images? Of course you are! And I am happy to oblige your twisted desires. Enjoy. Via Joystiq.

--YY

p.s. This post's title brought to you by a combination of Google Translator and high school French.

How Well Do You Google?

I stumbled upon The Gwigle Game a few months ago, but I forgot to blog it. It's quite clever - it gives you search results, and you have to figure out what was entered into the search bar to get those results. The more Google tricks you know, the better you do, so as the website says, it can "help you use Google more effectively". Nice!

And speaking of Google, here's a more "backwards" version. Guess what I'm searching for!

--YY

Characteroke

I read about Characteroke, "a portable, augmented reality, display costume worn by a person whereby the individuals head and neck are concealed behind an active flat panel display," on Wikipedia - All I know is, I want one. "Characteroke patrons will be given the opportunity to literally become their favorite singer, comedian, or pop star using real time reality augmentation."

I guess that means it's too low-tech to cover your head with a brown paper bag these days... Shame just got a lot more expensive!

--YY

Off To Take the GRE's...

Wish me luck! Although I have to say - I don't care how many dictionaries you throw at me: pulchritudinous is not a word. And even if it was, there's no way an ugly-ass word like that means "beautiful". Ugh.

--YY

This Is Your Government On Drugs

Fresh from The Daily WTF: The Department of Health and Human Services' Usability group demonstrates how seriously they take their own advice (the joke might not be there by the time you click on the previous link - if so click here for a screenshot. It's funnier if you see the real thing though).

--YY

p.s. Not to mention their hideous use of table-based layouts and image maps, which violate basic usability concepts. Ugh! It's the 21st century, people! Although to be fair, "New Usability.gov Design to be Launched in June 2006" (from the homepage).

p.p.s. Saying "Your tax dollars at work" would be such a cliche, no?

Don't Worry - They'll Hate You Later

Via Omni Brain: Nerd ABC's for kids

Is your baby a nerd? Of course not, there's no such thing as a nerd baby and everyone knows that labeling children is bad and wrong. But if you're a nerd or a geek or heaven forbid a chemical engineer, there's a good chance that your baby will grow up to be at least a little bit nerdy. I mean, the genetics are there.. so why fight it?

And what baby doesn't need to know that "K is for Kepler's Third Law"?

A word of warning, though: in some "cool" households, this is considered to be child abuse.

--YY

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