|
|
|
November 20th, 2009
02:39 pm - Click click click click....clunk. *smack* *reboot* *DING!* clackety clackety clackety!
I need something short to restart my LJ. Voila, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ebugle obliged with a meme!
YOU HAVE ANSWERS! I HAVE QUESTIONS! YOU HAVE QUESTIONS WHICH REQUIRE ANSWERS TO ASK THE QUESTIONS!
Leave me a comment saying which part of testing4l you like best and you will be graced with a series of questions for your answers and your questions will be answered because of your answers.
Hooray for mutual recursion!
EDIT: Huh -- I thought *everyone* had seen this meme. Ok, so here's how it works. You comment to this with the part of testing4l that you like best. I reply back with 5 questions. You post the responses in your journal along with this header.
1) Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted teacake?
I believe that I prefer human companionship to that of a toasted teacake. I've never understood people who can only love a baked good, but it is only inevitable in an infinite universe, so they must be inevitable too, since they happened.
2) How would you try to escape from The Village?
#6 proved on three separate occasions ("Chimes of Big Ben", "Checkmate", and "Many Happy Returns") that escape by sea was possible. In addition, the other #6 found escape and return by sea. However on more than one occasion, escape by air was halted ("Arrival", "The Schizoid Man", arguably "Many Happy Returns").
I believe that escape by sea is unquestionably the best way to go, barring the ability to find the road from The Village to England (as seen in "Fall Out"). In the meantime, I would attempt to live in areas unseen by the cameras (As shown in "Chimes of Big Ben")
If somehow, my escape was barred, I would replace my number badge with one that said "Number One" and I would proceed to rule the village with an iron fist. It would be the only logical assumption at that point.
From there, an army of guards could proceed to overwhelm other micronations. Eventually, I would have the manpower to invade France. Following France, a landing on Britain would seal my eventual control of Europe. After that, it leaves only negotiations with the Slavic commonwealths and America to ensure my place in history.
3) How do you want your funeral to be held?
I have almost no desire to have my body or life commemorated. Roll me over in the sheet I die in and put me out somewhere for the scavengers.
I have things I'd want done upon my death. I would approve of a convention of friends and acquaintances of mine. I know lots of cool people and the very least that they'd do is be cool together. Why not?
I've always been fond of gemlikeflame's suggestion that she would slap my corpse in the face and say "Wake up, testing4l. It's not funny anymore. Wake up!"
Maybe someday I'll fake my death and see what happens. If I did, I'd come back in 5 years to laugh at everyone who believed it.
4) What is the best number?
The exact amount of money that the Treasury department knows to be in circulation. In several bank accounts under my secret identity, of course.
5) How many monkeys and how many type writers would it take to write your life story?
Thanks to advances with electric typewriters and networking suites (See RFC 2795), I estimate a sliding scale for parts of my life where circumstances were carefully calculated (Fooling my mother into thinking I eloped, for example) vs. the usual random crap I end up involved in (Say, is that a pancake in there?).
I expect that more than 7 billion monkeys would be required since approximately that many humans are engaged in failing to outsmart me thus far. One can assume that each monkey would be at peak productivity with a typewriter for each limb. I recommend instructing them on the hazards of RSIs.
|
November 4th, 2009
12:33 pm
It seems like I post stuff like this all the time, but I'm going to post it again.
A friend of mine just posted something about Stephanie Meyer (the author of the horrendous "Twilight" series) being a Mormon. Part of being a Mormon is apparently giving a portion of your income to the church. The Mormon Church was recently involved in the support of Prop 8 -- a law to prevent same-sex marriage. He posted that people ought to boycott "Twilight" because of this.
This is something that has always made me uneasy. It's particularly difficult for me to defend "Twilight" of all things, but in this case, I find myself defending it.
In our society, we work to earn capital. Capital is then spent on the necessities of life and luxuries. A direct result of work is the ability to feed one's self. By boycotting something, you are attempting to stop the flow of capital to a person or group of people who perform that service. This necessarily means that you are attempting to stop them from being able to care for the necessities of life and their ability to afford luxuries. If very successful, that person could be in a situation where they are unable to feed themselves.
Do you believe that someone should starve for their convictions?
Wrong or right doesn't even play into that. If they perform a great harm, this does not give you license to harm them. Two wrongs do not make a right because their wrong does not make you more right. You are actively seeking to harm someone because you disagree with them.
Most people in America enjoy and defend -- to some extent -- the right of free speech. This action specifically seeks to restrict that right by limiting the amount of money someone can make. Moreover, it does so on the arbitrary basis of one person's opinion. By doing so, you are saying that one can have free speech as long as they agree with you.
That's not the way a democracy works. Even the way our democracy works is flawed -- we treat it in our electoral system as a mobocracy. The biggest mob gets their beliefs enforced.
Possibly the most repellent use of this was after George W. Bush's second election in which I recall Condolezza Rice saying that the win presented a mandate because more people had voted for W than any other president at any other time. It also happens to be that more people voted against him than any other president -- he won 50.7% of the vote.
A margin of victory like that should not give one the impression that their beliefs are correct and ought to be enforced. It should be troubling. By having that impression, you are saying that the 49.3% who disagree ought to have your beliefs enforced upon them. It doesn't mean that their objections are not valid. It certainly does not mean that they shouldn't be considered. It does make their vote invalid because they did not vote with the whole.
If you believe in something controversial, it is your duty to understand why it is controversial and accept that for the greater good (which is not necessarily the good of the majority), you ought to concede some things.
|
November 2nd, 2009
12:20 am - Brief, but definite post
Halloween plans were sudden, brutish, and awesome.
They involved hastily creating costumes, going to SF to #9's place, re-acquainting myself with people I met last year at the same event, and taking to the streets.
Someone decided we should do a reverse trick-and-treat -- that is, we go up to people and give them candy.
Armed with a basket and the knowledge that someone was documenting all this, I had my A game on display. I gave candy to anything and everything that moved. I gave candy to cars stopped at street lights. I parlayed us entrance into a club ahead of a line of people.
(Someone beat me to giving candy to a bus driver, sadly. Such is life.)
At length, the film ran out and I was under instructions to not be funny or entertaining. Not long after that, all the candy ran out.
We'd planned on going back out again, but never quite got around to it. Instead, we went back, relaxed, and flirted.
Speaking of which, there was an inordinate number of people walking around San Francisco who were taken.
One amusing note: K~ came dressed as a beer wench. It was some trivial amount of capital at the Halloween store (which, by the way, is my new definition of rape & pillage capitalism. Jesus, that place was screwed up by the masses of raging consumerism).
The best part? The costume's name was the same as #11's name, so apparently, she came as #11.
I was called upon to toss out an accent for my costume and managed at various times: a passable imitation of Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins, an Irish accent, and a Slough accent. Being drunk *definitely* helped me with those.
Briefly chattered with an actress. Not a very serious one, judging by our conversation, but it was interesting to be urged back on a stage. Perhaps I should. I don't think I'm quite that egotistical or free with my time right now.
Besides -- I have a secret project and the care and feeding of an upgrade to take care of.
Anyway, lots of fun was had, excepting the trio who I almost killed because they claimed virtues of San Francisco. Additionally, I could have done without the 30 minutes of trying to park, giving up, parking in a marginal space with a flaking red curb, and deciding that the parking fine would be worth the next 30 minutes I'd spend trying to find a space.
I did have a realization which I'll try to post later about San Francisco.
|
October 13th, 2009
04:08 pm - I can feel the rage coming on...
First off, Dragon's Lair for the DSi.
This is the stupidest thing ever. It completely misses the point and it makes me think that Nintendo has really given up on all the revolutionary crap they were promising for the next generation of consoles.
Here's the thing about Dragon's Lair. When you first see it, you want to play it because the animation intrigues you. And as you start playing it, you die. A lot. You get frustrated. You start jamming the joystick and rapid-fire hitting sword. And the machine misinterprets that, so you die a lot more.
You'll have seen the same sequence a billion times. You know you're trying to go right. You've seen people do parts. You've memorized them for future use. But you still can't get that first part right.
However, given enough time, patience, observation (and quarters), you relax. You learn when to hit the controls and you do every part of it in a precise dance. You hear the low tone which prompts you for the control and you stop hitting it when it chimes at you. Getting in tune with the machine (combined with the cabinet's enclosure) draws you just a little farther into the world of Dirk. You stop playing a video game and start being Dirk.
The DSi -- almost no matter what -- is going to screw that up. The screen is not that sort of immersive. You can bet that the timing's going to be off and all the subtle cues will be gone or changed.
This embodies every problem I've ever had with feminism and feminists.
This point in particular:
So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?
Do you think I’m overreacting? One in every six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I bet you don’t think you know any rapists, but consider the sheer number of rapes that must occur.
What she fails to mention in her continuing quest to train guys into recognizing "signs" is that while supposedly one in six (a piddly 16%. Compare that against other risk factors in your life that you don't worry about. Like being in a car wreck.) American women are raped, the overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by people who know the victim before the crime.
This is essentially a woman who is trying to justify her outright sexism with statistics. Let's say I'm afraid of black people when I'm driving. Does this mean that I should then write an essayabout how black people are Schroedinger's Carjackers and distribute it to them?
No, I should understand why I feel that way, take responsibility for my brain chemistry, recognize that it's wrong, and do whatever is necessary to get over it.
Instead, she goes on to castigate men as being some sort of Cro-Magnon who has just crawled out of the caves to join human society. And never you mind that women also rape women! No, it is clearly men which are evil. It seeks to reform those same men and civilize them by teaching them to pussyfoot around this woman's feelings.
It's possibly that last point which irritates me most. Who should resolve that woman's insecurities? Who should take responsibility for it? Should she? Never. Those same men that she claims she sees as potential rapists should take it upon themselves to be slaves to her emotional whims.
I'm going to make a point of dedicating time each day to writing. I have a great deal to do. I've been away from LJ for a long time. In part because of work and in part because it's hard to get back in the swing of things after vacation.
Speaking of vacation, I've started covering that one.
|
October 9th, 2009
05:18 pm
<root> Say -- you've taken basic physics, right?
<some_poor_girl> yes
<some_poor_girl> well, basic is context-dependent
<root> Which would you think presents the greater static coefficient of friction: Tissue or wet tissue?
<some_poor_girl> is this a test?
<root> Do you want it to be?
<some_poor_girl> oooooh
<root> Because we could have an experiment right now.
<some_poor_girl> I think wet tissue
<root> I bet your tissue has a lower static coefficient after you've been sweating.
<some_poor_girl> ....
<root> We'll just have to find out I guess.
<some_poor_girl> that is a TERRIBLE pickup line
<root> For science.
<some_poor_girl> terrible
<root> Thank you. ; )
<root> The hard part was finding a word for skin that wouldn't be obvious.
<root> "skin or wet skin" would've tipped you off way ahead of time
<some_poor_girl> man
<root> tissue though -- ah yes. The sterile language of biology to save my hide.
<some_poor_girl> i was thinking about tissues and how fragile they were
<some_poor_girl> and stacking them
<some_poor_girl> and stuff
<some_poor_girl> damn you
<root> hahahahaha
<root> FOOLED YOU
|
August 24th, 2009
12:47 am
This is a post with a link to another post about stupid tourists that I should have on hand more often.
|
12:20 am
Saw District 9. It didn't quite live up to the hype for me.
If you like The Office, you will probably like this film a lot more than I did -- the first half of it is very reminiscent. Remarkably slow paced. I'm beginning to think that's a Peter Jackson thing, though it might have seemed extra-slow because I pretty much knew what was going to happen.
It took me until the halfway point to become even a little engaged in the film. I feel like this might have been a purposeful thing. A lot of extraneous stuff might have been left in there so that people would pick up on new things if they watched it more than once.
Worth seeing? Maybe. I'd give it a 6.5/10. Remarkable for this movie year, but only because there have been so many duds (Come to thing of it, the only film I saw in a theatre that really struck me as good this year was Star Trek).
EDIT: Oh yeah -- really obvious pokes at apartheid. I think Peter Jackson wanted to smack us over the head with that one. At least it wasn't the point of the film.
|
August 23rd, 2009
12:35 am
ARGH
I really ESPECIALLY dislike Tony Scott's decision which took this wonderful bit of Tarantino's writing and turned it into this lousy happy ending.
There's a couple other things that were wrong about it. One thing that was way right about it was the relationship between Alabama and Clarence.
Scott -- to his credit -- filmed the right ending and told Tarantino that he would make the decision when he made the final edit. Tarantino explains this in his commentary and says he thinks Scott made the right decision for the movie he made.
But for most of the movie, I was squirming just a smidge because it wasn't the same movie I read. He cut out some stuff that made Alabama more genuine, like her cheering at the end of the Sonny Chiba marathon and a lot of the stuff in the comic book store. She ends up just being a chick for the most part rather than the character she was in the script.
One hell of a cast though. Dennis Hopper vs. Christopher Walken is every bit as much fun as you'd think it would be.
It's kinda funny since I just finished watching Interstate 60 with commentary last night. Oh -- and I found out why no one heard of Interstate 60. It never made it to the big screen. The production company wasn't quite sure how to market it and then they folded.
|
August 20th, 2009
10:30 am
First thing's first: I saw Ang Lee's The Hulk on Monday evening. I expected to think it was OK. Ang Lee's crazy ideas made that an awesome flick. It's like he and the Wachowski brothers were on the same wavelength when they made Speed Racer. Lots of multiple-shots in a shot that really gave it a feel of being like a comic book. Homage was paid, though they removed a Lou Ferrigno cameo.
EDIT:Roger Ebert explained it well in his review:
The movie has an elegant visual strategy; after countless directors have failed, Ang Lee figures out how split-screen techniques can be made to work. Usually they're an annoying gimmick, but here he uses moving frame-lines and pictures within pictures to suggest the dynamic storytelling techniques of comic books. Some shots are astonishing, as foreground and background interact and reveal one another. There is another technique, more subtle, that reminds me of comics: He often cuts between different angles in the same closeup--not cutting away, but cutting from one view of a face to another, as graphic artists do when they need another frame to deal with extended dialogue.
One of my sisters once said that I was like the Hulk in the sense that when I fly into a rage, it is the rage to end all rages.
I'm not certain I agree, but I did appreciate the opportunity to add "You're making me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." to my phrasebook.
Secondly: I'm going to see Plan 9 in the theatre tonight. The MST3k folk have decided to do the mother-of-all-rifftrax for it. How bad could it possibly be, right? ;)
Thirdly: I had Plans for this weekend. Major plans. Awesome plans. Plans of travel and excitement and adventure. But as it turns out, K~ has business at home, so she won't be up this weekend. I am going to take this opportunity to start into a fit of autodidactism.
For a while now, I've noted that I really have very few artistic talents. At one point, I had a good voice, but that's mostly gone away now. I can't hit the same pitches I used to and I don't have the motivation to seriously pursue that.
I can write well enough, but I've never had a talent for anything more than developing a concept for fiction. I simply don't have what it takes to keep that concept rolling into a story -- character development and the like.
I long ago swore off poetry (though I still have a poetry challenge in the back pages of this journal) and mankind has subsequently breathed a sigh of relief.
I have never been able to paint and haven't tried since kindergarten.
And, most importantly, I have never really been able to draw. Of all these, drawing seems like the easiest to actually do. All one needs to do is duplicate with their hands what they see with their eyes in the first instance.
[ You hear the sound of animationgrl laughing her arse off in the distance ]
Some of it may be attributed to exposure to stonesundial at various points. It's hard to say. What made me really want to get around to drawing was a foolish utterance by philled2thebrim. Namely that he would start a webcomic if I started one.
Combine all this with a particular bite I received recently -- cartography.
I've decide that I am going to start working on a map. I haven't decided of where yet, though I'm fairly certain what I'll want it to convey and how I'll survey. My feeling, right now, is to do either the northwest of San Francisco or some portion of San Jose. Maybe Milpitas -- I've always had an odd fondness for Milpitas. The main thing stopping me from doing San Francisco is all the damned buildings -- it really gets in the way of the terrain.
Furthermore, I plan on doing it as primitively as possible with the aim of putting it on parchment once I get it right, replete with "Here there be dragons" sorts of illustration.
|
August 17th, 2009
August 14th, 2009
03:11 pm
From wiki. This pleases me immensely:
Neuromancer was commissioned by Terry Carr for the third series of Ace Science Fiction Specials, which was intended to exclusively feature debut novels. Given a year to complete the work, Gibson undertook the actual writing out of "blind animal terror" at the obligation to write an entire novel – a feat which he felt he was "four or five years away from". After witnessing the first 20 minutes of landmark cyberpunk film Blade Runner (1982) which was released when Gibson had written a third of the novel, he "figured [Neuromancer] was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film." He re-wrote the first two-thirds of the book twelve times, feared losing the reader's attention and was convinced that he would be "permanently shamed" following its publication; yet what resulted was a major imaginative leap forward for a first-time novelist.
This came up through a game of hopscotch through wikipedia started from the first major disagreement K~ and I have thus far. Namely, how we feel about "Fragments of a Hologram Rose".
She didn't like it because it was about a device which is never really described which is clearly a metaphor. I remembered liking it because of Gibson's use of language -- which is always a pleasure to read. I considered the possibility that I was younger and more easily impressed.
I found it online. I still love that story.
|
August 12th, 2009
12:00 pm
A John Hughes obituary penned by Molly Ringwald.
An account of someone who wrote letters to John Hughes.
I don't have much to say. Lots of running around. Tomorrow night will be my first chance to breathe in a good long while. I plan to enjoy it thoroughly.
|
August 3rd, 2009
03:10 pm
I would very much like to be 161.6 miles away from home, 134 miles away from here, and not in the ocean right now.
|
July 31st, 2009
12:45 am - A meaningful session of IRC
A conversation in #TheVillage on irc.foonetic.net with the always wonderful comedy team of haplo3k and philled2thebrim. They're obviously a comedy team because philled2thebrim is gay and haplo3k has suggested she's bi.
Obviously, I'm the straight guy -- the final ingredient to any good comedy team.
22:55 <%Haplo> root: I feel like you'll enjoy this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m6JDYRFvk
23:08 <&root> I'm very conflicted about that
23:08 <&root> It's *really* good.
23:08 <&root> The lyrics are clever
23:08 <&root> and -- for once -- they're actually geeky.
23:09 <&root> (It seems like most things these days aren't really, but they say
they are.)
23:09 <&root> It makes me wonder a bit if people like me are just the early
adopters who are going to get swept up in the wave of normal
people who are slowly becoming more technically proficient
23:09 <@c3> Your mom is a wave of normal people
23:09 <&root> and -- I'll admit -- one of the reasons I love being me is
because I'm unique.
23:10 <%Haplo> "How unique are you?"
23:10 * Haplo hides
23:10 < Tesseract> wow. that is geeky.
23:10 <&root> I'm so unique that I'd remove your duplicate entries after a sort
if you took off the "ue".
23:10 < Tesseract> people are just stealing all your unique aspects, root
23:10 <&root> (man uniq. You'll get it)
23:10 <&root> Sometimes I really do feel that way.
23:11 <&root> I don't see it as a horrible thing usually
23:11 <&root> It's not like, say, a wave of langoliers coming at me as my
plane's taking off.
23:11 <&root> I think of it as a reminder from the universe that I can't rest
on my laurels.
23:11 <&root> and that's at least 1/4 of the reason why I'm going to Seattle
and spending time on the Alameda.
23:12 <&root> I hit a point where I realized that the stories I was telling
people happened like 5 years ago.
23:12 < Tesseract> like an unexpected icy patch of sidewalk for the woman who
thinks she's better than everyone, these signs are a warning
to keep improving yourself
23:12 <&root> Or at least to wear good treads.
23:12 <&root> It's why I keep good tires on my car.
23:12 < Tesseract> to think, essentially
23:13 <&root> I've been happy for a while watching people try to be geeky
23:13 <&root> and sure -- it's elitist
23:13 <&root> but I've been watching people for years playing at it
23:13 <&root> and now I've actually seen someone else do it.
23:13 <&root> I respect that -- and for that -- I disrespect myself.
23:14 <&root> Haplo: So -- I guess in a really roundabout way -- thanks! That
was awesome 8D
23:14 <%Haplo> :D
23:15 <&root> c3: coder girl is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m6JDYRFvk
23:15 <@c3> Ok, coder girl==http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-m6JDYRFvk
23:16 <&root> I guess one of the real hallmarks of someone who's done something
that right is that almost every line of that song requires a
pretty indepth explanation.
23:16 <%Haplo> Heh.
23:17 <&root> Another fun fact: I've dated a geek girl -- a real geek girl --
and I've found out that I don't really want to date another geek
girl.
23:18 <&root> Not that it stops people from hearing songs like this and
thinking "Oh man, that's SO hawt!"
23:18 <&root> She was awesome -- one of my better girlfriends, for sure -- but
that relationship would've been too constricted to really hold up.
23:18 <@c3> http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=75684929656&h=d2IQv&u=c-o7m
23:19 <&root> Nothing that interesting to share with each other -- ultimately,
I think that's one of the joys of a relationship
23:19 <@c3> http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=75684929656&h=d2IQv&u=c-o7m
23:19 <&root> anyway -- I'm woolgathering again
|
July 27th, 2009
09:46 pm
Just tired.
Had an awesome time last night.
Must commit to going to bed now or else I will not make the arduous journey to the bed.
Current Music: zzzzzzzzzzzz...oh crap I'm snoring again
|
July 26th, 2009
08:46 pm - Because sometimes lyrics say it better than I can:
You've gotta have heart
All you really need is heart
When the odds are sayin
You'll never win
That's when the grin should start
You've gotta have hope
Mustn't sit around and mope
Nothins half as bad as it may appear
Wait'll next year and mope
When your luck is battin zero
Get your chin up off the floor
Mister, you can be a hero
You can open any door
There's nothin' to it but to do it
You gotta have heart
Miles and miles and miles of heart
Oh it's fine to be a genius of course
But keep that old horse before the cart
First you've gotta have heart
You've gotta have heart
All you really need is heart
(When the odds are sayin you'll never win
That's when the grin should start)
You've gotta have hope
Mustn't sit around and mope
Nothins half as bad as it may appear
Wait'll next year and mope
When your luck is battin zero
Get your chin up off the floor
Mister you can be a hero
You can open any door
There's nothin to it but to do it
You gotta have heart
Miles and miles and miles of heart
Oh it's fine to be a genius of course
But keep that old horse before the cart
First you've gotta have heart
|
July 25th, 2009
03:41 am
A bit of amusement. I was reminded of Europeans treating the Monica Lewinsky thing with a measure of humor about how conservative we were in our values when it was well known that some leaders in Europe had affairs.
Now we can laugh back: Hey Italy, at least our president slept with an intern, not a call girl!
(No, I don't really care beyond that. I don't think that scandal is worse than Clinton's affair and so it deserves about as much moral outrage: namely none at all.)
It does seem odd that Italians are up in arms about it though -- they had a porn star elected to Parliament!
|
July 23rd, 2009
06:57 pm
Free advice: Never have your car stolen. It ends up costing you around $800 when you get the chance to go and pick it up -- even if the cops tell you there's no charge *and* put it in writing.
The shuttle is pretty worked over. Nothing to do for it but put it out of its misery.
|
July 21st, 2009
07:35 pm
Man, the flu sucks.
I'm missing game night for the first time in a very, very, very long time.
|
|
|
