June 30, 2003
I’ve probably watched 2.37 hours of TV in the past 6 months, however that might change soon (… survey says). In addition to Nintendo and Godzilla, the innovative Japanese are proud to present their latest creation: TV Brick. Anders thoughts on the device:
Primarily targetted towards Japanese families living in France (seeing that popular Japanese channels like Yomiuri TV and NHK Sogo are unavailable outside Japan), the idea is that is you plug one of these boxes to a TV antenna and a broadband connection in Japan, and the other to a broadband plug and a TV in France; instant “magic” happens and all the goodness of Japanese TV is in your livingroom.
Based on open source technologies (and the OpenBrick platform); obviously the crowds are going to go berserk creating open source TiVo like / file sharing applications etc….
Last week I discussed PVRs, but in a different light (in terms of skipping ads). This new device sounds great and if their colorful illustration is any indication as to how exciting users will be, then go ahead and put my neighbor down on the waiting list — I know he wants one. Also, I’d like to know how much bandwidth is required to stream shows from one client to another along with the ability to fight Mothra and Shredder in real-time. Oh and yes, based on the OpenBrick Wiki, some discussion on WiFi seems to be synergizing, that means they will undoubtedly succeed.
P2P meets Mr. Roboto?
I’ve found a legitimate way to link to iluminent, a fella by the name of ‘john’ posted “How you know you’re from Texas” — a compilation of mannerisms, sayings and just good ole fashioned tomfoolery. Having been born, raised and schooled on this fertile plain colloquially referred to as “not Yankeeland,” “not Mexico” and “bigger than Alaska,” I am certifiably able to endorse the following:
- Onced and Twiced are good words.
- Fire ants consider your flesh as a picnic.
- “Coldbeer” actually is one word.
- People really grow and eat okra.
- Green grass DOES burn.
- “Fixinto” is one word.
- Backards and forards means I know everything about you.
- “Je’eet”? is actually a phrase meaning “Did you eat?”
- You work until you’re done or it’s too dark to see.
- You measure distance in minutes.
- You’ve had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day.
- Stores don’t have bags; they have sacks.
- You know what “cow tipping” and “snipe hunting” is.
- You know all four seasons: Almost summer, summer, Still summer, and Christmas.
- Going to Walmart is a favorite past-time known as “goin wal-martin” or off to “Wally World.”
- You describe the first cool snap (below 70 degrees) as good chili weather.
- A carbonated soft drink isn’t a soda, cola, or pop .. it’s a Coke, regardless of brand or flavor.
There are several more, but these words hit home more than the rest. A couple of notes: I’ll be glad to take any of you city slickers snipe hunting sometime… Coke is more ubiquitous than distilled water, but not as much as our fermented friends… dozens of time each year you literally have to switch from the heater to the A/C and vice-versa during the day — and above all else, it takes about 20 minutes to reach my house from point A.
Lastly, when I was about five years-old, I went on a field trip to SamuelÂ’s Farm (any real resident of North Texas knows that place). I managed to set my rump down on one of the most feisty ant hills on this side of the Red River and had to literally unclothe myself in front of, among others, very attractive Belles. I was scarred for life.
Just say no to Fire Ants.
You may have heard friends and relatives comment on various events with “it’s become so hard to see a difference between parodies and reality.” Well, I ran across a site that just about fits that bill: OBJECTIVE – Creation Education.
You may have seen Landover Baptist and gotten a kick out of various shenanigans there, well this OBJECTIVE site wins first prize and a year’s subscription to the Scantily-Clad Furniture and Centerfold Drapery magazine.
My favorite section by far was the Creation Science Fair, with the following entries:
1st Place: “My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)”
Cassidy Turnbull (grade 5) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle and the monkeys. She tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them. Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey.
[snip]
2nd Place: “Women Were Designed For Homemaking”
Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences shows that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker.
[snip]
1st Place: “Using Prayer To Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance In Bacteria”
Eileen Hyde and Lynda Morgan (grades 10 & 11) did a project showing how the power of prayer can unlock the latent genes in bacteria, allowing them to microevolve antibiotic resistance. Escherichia coli bacteria cultured in agar filled petri dishes were subjected to the antibiotics tetracycline and chlorotetracycline. The bacteria cultures were divided into two groups, one group (A) received prayer while the other (B) didn’t. The prayer was as follows: “Dear Lord, please allow the bacteria in Group A to unlock the antibiotic-resistant genes that You saw fit to give them at the time of Creation. Amen.” The process was repeated for five generations, with the prayer being given at the start of each generation. In the end, Group A was significantly more resistant than Group B to both antibiotics.
The whole site is actually pretty subtle about being a lampoon and has the added advantage of looking as if muchos horas were spent on layout and design. If you want some extra kicks, be sure to visit their condemnation of ‘malls’, look for telling quotes like:
“Darth Maul”: Commercialized symbol of evil whose name sounds like “mall”. Coincidence?
Oh, and yea, there are others who thought this could be real.
June 29, 2003
I’ve been fairly busy with a few “real world” past times, however I managed to get in a couple hours of batting practice in the past two days. I mention this because I totally ripped up my hands yesterday afternoon. Apparently the tape I used on a bat didn’t like my calices (before blogging I was a super duper t-ball slugger…). In fact, the tape literally ripped up my hands every time I swung (it is akin to wrapping a bat with sand papper and pounding a hardball for an hour or so).
Anyways, I don’t have any pictures right now (I’m using my feet to type with), but I do have a site that probably has an accurate illustration as to what my tender palms look like. ShowMeYourWound is surprisingly run by my same amigo that runs Unclesharky – check out both, but be sure to look at the lovely captions that go along with the skin-titillating pictures.
And I know you all wanted to know this.
June 28, 2003
It’s continuing mission, to explore strange new ways to spend, spend and spend. To seek out new revenue streams and errect new agencies. To boldly tax no one has taxed before. [cue music]
Despite my belief that jingoism was passé and ancien, it appears to be rearing its head in the form of the time honored justification: “If we can make it to the moon, think of what we can do.”
No saber rattling is done in this 21st century example however, those have been replaced with astronomical budgets and gigantic combustion chambers.
I mentioned a column by former congressman Robert Walker a month ago. Slashdot linked to a couple of articles, one of which references his op-ed column regarding the need for jump starting the beleaguered space agency.
Rather than drown on about the enormous financial costs associated with such an endeavor, along with the reallocation of productive resources in the name of “prestige,” I will merely link to ‘The coming space race with China’ – a justification for yet another mischievous and inefficient Race to the Unknown™.
I didnÂ’t want that part of my income anyways.
June 27, 2003
I’m not sure how many of you are keeping up with the various companies deploying WiFi commercially in quasi-public settings (like hotels, airports, pay-phones, etc.), but Starbucks is probably the best known example currently — utilizing a partnership with T-Mobile.
Joining them now is McDonalds, who is deploying equipment in three test cities: Chicago, New York and the Bay Area — would you like megabytes with that?
Wi-Fi Networking News has more details on that and I’ll let you know if I start offering access from my summer mansions.
I actually have no desire to look like a schmuck or act like a schmuck (being a wise-ass is A-OK), so for those of you that have linked to my blog in your blogroll (or given out my screen name to all the college chicas), I will attempt to link back to you sometime in the near future.
For now, here are a few that for some reason or other, felt compelled to link to me (I know it’s not for the free beer and wings):
- Media Dystopia (I blogged about his fantastic ‘Dano’ situation before)
- Mutated Monkey’s (no idea, maybe she saw my TV show)
- Funky Kenzo (from that bachelor party I didn’t throw)
- Mors Semper Tyrannis (I emailed him the X-rated version of the Constitution)
- The Worst Weblog Ever (this feline-o-phile is pretty funny, I stole his CSS too)
- Outwardly Normal 2 (I used to own massive amounts of shares in his blog, but sold it for a cheap import, he apparently is the co-creator of this handy dictionary)
- Know ProSE (he’s an uber geek that for some reason commented on my blog, I was honored [bows])
- Richard Giles (because I emailed him and called him at odd-hours each night)
- Mike Ewens (because I got him blogging, he owed me BIG TIME, like Mav and Ice)
- Matthew Davey (we worked on the BSJ, he’s a cool bloke)
- David Veksler – RationalMind (because we went to the same school and yelled at each other all day long)
- iluminent/weblog (I think I emailed him one time about RSS templates, probably in reference to that 10 he has on the banner)
- Gnome-Girl/Cheyene (she was the first “real” person to leave a comment here, I’d say some other things, but now isn’t a really good time)
- MediaTIC (because I fooled everyone into believing hablando espanol muy bien)
- Doing The Internet and Her Twin Sister (Andrew made his presence known with a bang… his wife wasn’t too thrilled though)
- ryochiji (this guy is a techno-bad ass too, he made Blog Matcher and is now heading to the University of Chicago for grad school, oh and he can walk on water)
- Holy Shmoly (this is Donncha’s blog, he’s the mofo that put together an excellent fork of Cafelog and is now part of the WordPress dev team)
- The Unnamed Blog (out of the blue, he probably saw my award winning stunt double moves in that Jackie Chan film, with that guy and girl and… well, I don’t want to ruin the plot)
- atom grid (sniff, he was the first LLC that committed a hostile take over of my blog, oh and he’s a riot too, if you’re into [deleted explicative])
- Karen de Coster (we actually didn’t care much for the others existence at one point, now we at least obey the restraining orders)
- Jason Ditz (he’s the smartest unemployed bachelor that also periodically updates his blog, hire him)
- The Serfdom Times (he’s the only other Dallasite I personally know that has a blog, besides Andrew — he’s a good cartoonist too, hire him)
- Mad Ancapper: Silas (because I destroyed the incriminating evidence from his bacchanal back at A&M)
- Human Conduct (because at least one person read my inside-joke parody)
- Wondrous Beauty (Sharleen and I met once at A&M, I did not get pregnant)
Thanks for whatever weird, sick and twisted reasons you put me on your rolls. I think there were a few others, but when they figured out that my blog is all about multi-level marketing scams, they hit the road. Anyways, that was my good deed for this quarter, I might do it again — depends on how much of an exodus results from my exposition of your secret identities.
Mike pointed out an interesting article, I thought this part was dy-no-mite:
Oh, and try copyrighting your Social Security number too. Then you can sue the IRS for using it – they are not permitted to use it by law, you know. You have to pay them, why shouldn’t they have to pay you?
I’d gladly be the test case (like Eldred) for such an idea. Though, I have my doubts that anyone would rule in my favor as they would be eliminating State revenue, a clandestine event that probably would never happen this side of the Apocalypse.
Poetic justice?
June 26, 2003
If you don’t already, I’d go ahead and shoot myself. Yes, you should know what I’m talking about: Strongbad Emails over at the Homestar Runner site. If you want some good old fashioned spit-and-rub humour, be sure to visit each and every Monday for something good and something awesome.
Oh and check out this Wired interview with the creator of Homestar Runner, it’s pretty entertaining in-and-of itself. I wonder who would play me in the Homestar Universe — Macaulay Culkin in Flash?
DALLAS, TX – Following the announcement that Collectrix LLC holds a patent on One-Click Blogging™, lawyers from the dotcom issued cease and desist letters to four companies all accused of infringing on the intellectual property of the Dallas-based start-up.
Userland executives, creators and developers of Manila and Radio, two automated weblogging systems had nothing to say when asked earlier in the day to comment on the lawsuit. Google, owners of Blogger, a popular automated weblogging system, told reporters that it is looking into the accusations. WordPress.org, creators of an open-sourced weblogging system, told reporters that they were in contact with lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation but had no further comment. Six Apart, creators of Movable Type, a weblogging system, also refrained from commenting at this time.
Little is known currently, but Tim Swanson, spokesman for Collectrix LLC told reporters that, “this was the first in a series of potential suits to set up a licensing and royalty system for intellectual property that Collectrix LLC was recently issued a patent for. We are confident that this will hold up in court, the law is on our side.”
Copyright 2003. All rights reserved. This material may not be republished, retransmitted, printed, copied or distributed in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author. Collectrix and One-Click Blogging are trademarks property of Collectrix LLC.
