Hamster Song and Dance

Not that hamster dance. In the comments in a weird blog page that dealt with the consturction, in the 18th cen, of a keyboard based on cats I found additional animal musical weridness. An engineering student built a midi controler that was based on the movement of hamsters.

Stuart Little as Richie Rich

I saw Stuart Little, the film on the weekend. It was more than a little disappointing. It seemed to me, as someone who read the original EB White book, that the only connection the movie has with the book is a couple of names. But then I recently read a article about how Disney remade Mary Popins in his own image. Literary properties are generally bought by the movie industry merely for the names of characters,sometime not even that.

There are a lot of niggling changes in the movie from the book. Stuart is adopted from a orphanage instead of being born a Little. George Little is the same age or younger Stuart Little instead of being a teenage. The "evil cat" is the same white fluffy persian we have seen in many crappy films. There is a lot cute goofy riffs on theme of talking animals. The normal problems with adaption is that it is done by of for people who have knowledge of the original source.

But number one annoyance of this film is extraordinary wealth of the Little Family. in the original book the Littles lived in an apartment building. In the movie the Littles have a nice 4 story house. An apartment the size of the house can cost millions. But the Littles have a house on 5th avenue accross from Central Park where 1 bedroom condos are $1m. The Littles have a house on a patch of ground worth tens of millions.

Anagram TTC Map

Over on BoingBoing there has been reports of several reworkings of transit maps. Most of these reworking have been based on the London Underground Map. There has been a lot of reworking of this map annotated, as a history of pop music, as advertising and with the station names anagrmized. Here is the Toronto TTC map anagramized. It makes me wsnt go to Butt Rash (Bathurst) right now.

Ice Photography

Following a link in a music documentry that traces the impact of a 6 secound riff has had on popular music. The documentry is delivered by a Nat Harrison on a phonograph in a quicktime movie. The image is from a web site of an ice photographer, d. hirmes, no other biological data is given.

Star Trek / Strangelove Mashup

At Worth1000 ther is photoshop contest to mash two or more movies together. This was my favorite.

Cartoon Jihad

Several months ago a Danish newspaper asked some cartoonist to satirize Mo' the Maurder. Most of the cartoonists chickened out to one degree or another. One of the cartoonist show the cartoonist furtively drawing, another made a joke about heaven being all out of virgins. The cartoons were inoffensive and offended only terrorists.

Here are the Cartoons
Here is the children's book that prompted the Cartoons and the story of the writer.
Here is an amusing and offensive story of Mo' the Mad Maraurder, Cult Leader. NSFW
Here are a variety of editorial cartoons about the Mo' Cartoon Madness, and a blog about editorial cartoons from the same source, Cagle.
UPDATE
The Danish editor who comissioned the cartoons speaks of his reasons in "Why I Published Those Cartoons".

YAAFM Moslems

From Zipperfish, the same guy that has had a series of rude Flash cartoons, comes YAAFM. A purple demon and slug come out and the demon talks about how stupid people can be. Now Zipperfish has come out against MoCultists.

Funny, rude, and offensive YAAFM Moslems.

Orcs acting like Arab Cultists

HUNDREDS DIE IN ORC RIOTS FOLLOWING "OFFENSIVE" POST AT DHIMMI WATCH WEBSITE

"We moderate Orcs condemn the violence but sympathize with the hurt feelings of the rioters," said a moderate Orc who wished to remain anonymous. "These filthy non-Orcs must all be killed, for they do not respect Orc sensibilities and portray us as violent and intolerant."

from http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/010242.php#comments
Picture from http://lefalaipe.free.fr/Fond%20d'ecran%20grande%20taille/war3%20-%20orc.jpg

Square Law of s.h.w-i

A nice collary to Sturgeon's Law and how crap is encouraged.

From a post from Sidney Webb in a thread about a Bay of Pigs WI.

The Inverse-Square Law of s.h.w-i, Karl. It's the reason that Firebug's "[OT] Millions for Defense" is the most popular thread on the NG at the moment. In general, the shorter and more worthless the post, the better the response. Your post was short but not worthless, so it didn't get as good a response as Bug, but still got a better response than your longer stuff. The opposite extreme is, say, an episode from an Anthony Meyer TL where s.h.w-i sits collectively slack-jawed in amazemen and we don't post anything. The corollary to the Inverse-Square Law is that if someone really _wants_ a response, they need to post something short and worthless. Which explains 90% of all Usenet posts.

Engineers Aboard

Listen to a an interview on NPR with a writer from an IEEE Spectum, the magazine of the engineering association IEEE. The engineer was outline many of the problems that associated iwth upgrading a 3rd world electrical grid before security concerns are dealt with. The writer went into detail in the interview and his article about the various impediments to building a functioning electrical net.

The photo is from a slideshow associated with this article.

Things Blown Up Real Good

The Painting is from a bomb test, Operation Crossroads: Bikini Atoll, in the 50's . The image below are photos of bomb tests.

Handel's Messiah

I borrowed a copy of Handel's Messiah and also surfed over Wikipedia to enhance my listening pleasure. Following a link from Wikipedia I came accross a site that provides public domain choral music, CPDL, who also follow the wiki format. This site has a lot of Handel's works and the full score to Messiah.

Although the wikipedia entry activated hobbyhorse #324. Handel is described as a German composer who lived part of his life in Great Britain. In reality he got to London when he was 25 and stayed for the next 49, he never left. Wouldn't it be appropriate to describe him as an English Composer who was born in Germany.

Jihad vs. McWorld

There was an Atlantic Magazine article and book by Benjamin Barber about the presures between globalism and tribalism a decade ago. Here is a image, from Jihadwatch. The post generated some amusing popculture responses. Like this;

How dare they burn and beat the image of The Prophet McDonald? (Fries be upon him.)

Lo, verily, they will be smote in a way that can be supersized for 39 cents, and if we don't ask, it's free.

Corporate headquarters willing, the Prophet McDonald (fbuh) will return sporting a long red beard and yellow dishadasha, bringing with him the Mahdi McCheese, who will rise from the well of the milkshake machine.

Oh no not Hagar

Tinfoil Hat Brigade, Arab Division

Listened to a Talk of the Nation program about Hamas. They were talking about the crazy nutty ideas in Hamas's Founding Document. Hamas thinks that Lions Clubs and other service clubs are a part of centuries long Jewish/Freemason conspiracy. Now I have known members of these various organizations who have been with these "spooky" organizations. The Tin Foil Brigade have long hated the "masons". Originally this was a problem that Catholic groups had with nonreligious organizations. The Arab objection maybe has to do with an organization that is constructive not destuctive. Or maybe because the Protocols of the Elders of Zion assertion of a link between Jews and Freemasons.

It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups.

English translation of Hamas's Founding Document courtesy of WorldNet Daily. Here is Commentry on the same document.

Angry, Angry, Angry Muslim Mobs

Screen scrape from Jihad Watch

"Islam is coming to Denmark"

To see the Muhammad cartoons, click here.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: the Jawa Report is featuring 26 photos of cartoon rage, as expressed today in more than a dozen countries.

Best comment.
A true poster child for immigration control.
Posted by: DCWatson at February 10, 2006 06:19 PM

Muldoon the Thief

On tonight's Fifth Estate there is a story about the continuing sleeze about professional liar Mulroney. Mulroney won a libel suit against the Canadian government for an investigation about dirty Swiss bank accounts. Now it turns out that there is a paper trail back to lying brian.

We have seen this story before in world history and other mob stories, the biggest problem with corruption is that the bought don't stay bought. Loyalty can only be leased.

I look forward to Mulroney giving back the money he won from the government.