Executioner Time

I have been reading a manga called Samurai Executioner lately. Through the series was published in the mid-7o's it was only recently released in English. It is the story of a executioner as a ronin with a middling to well paid government post. The crimes detailed and punished are recognizable as still being legitimate crimes such as murder, rape, grand theft.

When we look at famous executions down through history there are many bizarre and boroque crimes that demand death then show up in the samurai police procedural. Joan of Arc was condemned for witchcraft. Anne Boleyn was condemned for adultery and treason. Jesus was condemned heresy, a charge later inflated to sedition. Scorates was condemned for encouraging juvenile delinquency and impiety.

All these "crimes" are seen as something that belong in the colourful past. Except that people are still being executed for such nebulous and imaginary crimes as witchcraft, adultery, heresy and impiety. Here is a transcript of an interview with the official executioner of Mecca. In Saudi Arabia and other places people are condemned for witchcraft, adultery, heresy, impeity, apostasy and imaginary crimes.

Serious Game Design Traps

Tim Carter of Xfunc has come out with a new essay Serious Game Design Traps . He as a serious game designer has outlined and examined the many ways that games, especially serious games, can be badly designed. His perscription is to look at the game from a graphics, game and content perspective. The problem he outlines is that many people see games as just a collection of bell and wshes and cool graphics. To avoid that many think that a serious game has to be only the outline of thesis and a serious game must avoid the cool and sometimes mindless graphics that is apart of many games.

At the end of his essay he details some of his experiences in designing a serious game, Code Orange, and the effort he put in in avoiding all the traps he outlined.

Well worth a read.

Suicidal Food

Doesn't this sound just like Milliways, The Restaurant at the End of The Universe. When the hitchhikers get there an animal come out and offers itself as food. Here is a new blog called Suicide Food which has examples of animal mascots with the same desire to be eaten.

From a link from Adfreak.

Stoned Drive Through Window

From a mention on Adfreak comes this amusing ad about ordering food while stoned at Jack in the Box. Some antifun/antidrug group have objected to light hearted way driving while stoned is depicted. Althorough stoned drivers have a tendency to drive slower. There are other impairments beside chemical that can distract driver. Talking on a cell phone or being overly tired can equaling impairing as drunk driving. One time Homer Simpson installed so many gadgets that he could send faxes, bake and watch movies while driving. The problem with these other impairments is that it is harder to test for. Second there is a moralistic objection to drug and alcohol use. MADD has produced ads about drunk driving and ads about drinking but never ads about dangers of driving. For me the most negative aspect of this ad is the endorsement of drive through lanes . In a drive through lane cars are mainly idling. Drive throughs need to be banned

Beautiful Steel Plants

The Germans seem to really like industrial photography. This image is from Stahlseite. As well as categorizing its pictures by country it also groups them by type; Blast Furnace, Steel Works, Foundry, Forge, Rolling Mill, Coke Plant and Mine. I used to know of another German website devoted to industrial photography. Unfortunately I have lost its address.

Above is the Stelco plant in Hamilton

Cats as Nerds

In this thread on slashdot about the new Freakonomics book there is a discusion about observed economics in the animal world. aIn particularly Rheasus monkeys and washers. Moraelin responded with this "thoroughly silly illustration of anthropomorphising animals", his words not mine, comparing nerds to cats. See the highlights below.

- have a problem with authority and obeying orders. (See, "herding cats.")
- have unbalanced diets, by human standard, and would rather not eat their veggies
- have weird sleep schedules, by human standards.
- play (with) all sorts of stuff that makes no sense for a normal human.
- never discovered complex courting rituals.

Quote of the Day

Sgt Harper

Dead men gather no loot

On the Decline of the Music Industry

In a response to a newsreport on slashdot about the attempts by the Aussie music cartel/lobby group ARIA there is this interesting comment about the drop in music sales in general and to teenagers in particular. The newsreport is about some thuggish practices of getting ISP to deny service to users of bittorrent. A favorite sigquote that I have seen is: "More people surport the KKK than the RIAA".

The portrayal of women in music videos
(Score:5, Interesting)
by Scrameustache (459504) on Saturday April 14, @01:51PM (#18733025)

I think that the decline of music sales coincides with the rise in internet usage not because of the terrible pirates of music, but because of porn. Bear with me, it makes sense if you think about it:

I used to watch videos for very mediocre music, because the chicks were hot, scantily dressed, and fed this former teenager's fantasies. But today's kids don't need to buy a CD to have fap-fudder, they can get free porn with ease.

I theorize that the so-called decline of the music industry isn't because of music pirates, as they claim, or because their music suddenly sucks (the monkeys sucked, sucking isn't new), but because they were NOT in the music of selling music, but in the business of selling sexually suggestive material.

A yagu commented that the music is selling less because the retail stores/channel are offering smaller selection of music.

I'm not buying the "pirates decrease sales" spiel. My cause and effect for buying fewer cds is strictly the continued unavailability of cds on display. It used to be a smörgåsbord, now the stores look like the cutout bins of years past. This (the RIAA, and others) is an industry that rather than weather a business model storm and changing business dynamics to adapt continues to insist on taking their ball home with them (hey, it isn't even their ball!) so we can't play. And somehow, they still want to demand we pay them. Please, please, please!, just let them become irrelevant quickly so we can get on with our music!

American Foriegn Legion

According to a story by the Boston Globe reporter Bender, not that Bender, 5 months ago the Pentagon considered 0pening up army recruiting centres overseas. I am stunned, but are surprised. I thought I was well informed but I only heard of this story from reference by Mark Shields on PBS Newshour.

There are 2 things a nearly every country needs to do to fight a war. They need to raise money by raising taxes and/or borrow money. To increase the military they need massively recruit and/or draft. The times when countries at war find the men and monies quickly and easily are rare and extraordinary. The first Gulf War was paid by the Saudis and friends. In WWI Canada and Austrailiaeasily recruited because a demographic fluke. Because high immigration in both countries had a large number young, unattached and unsettled young men.

Hammer Sig

When you have a hammer, all your problems begin to look like nails. However, when you don't have a hammer, you may begin to ignore anything that looks like a nail.

- sig of Shadow Knight

I Just Bought Jon Voight's Car

Today's Wall Street Journal has a story ripped from an episode of Seinfeld. George Costanza is connived to buy a Buick LeSabre because it was owned by Jon Voight. Today's article highlights a case where the celebrity connection lowers the value. Nobody wants to act like George.

Cats do Shakespear, Badly

Code Monkey

Have we not all been all a Code Monkey at some point in our lives.

Separtists Against Separtism

In today's Globe there is a story of how Quebec "nationalists", the provincial separtists, are up in arms over an old comment from Charest. Charest suggested during the last mass outbreak of treason during a referendum campaign that if Quebec leaves there will be regions of Quebec that will prefer to stay with Canada. Many Quebecer consider that Quebec is unbreakable in the way that Canada is not. They don't look kindly on Quebec regional separtism. Quebec separtism has been coddled and fawned over by Canada as a whole. Seems a little hypocritical.

Nazi Fighting Superhero ... GOD

Superdickery is a website that was started to showcase all the ways that Superman is a dick. The cover above is in the section about propaganda comics. I had trouble breathing after seeing this cover.

Joke about Tsarist Propaganda

A Telegragh reporter went to Islamic book stores to get weird conspiracy books. Many of the books blames evolution as a vile conspiracy involving drug barons and Freemasons. He was also after a little while got The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was not on display but available under the counter. One of comments has this funny take on that piece of Tsarist propaganda.

The Protocols make me feel good....

Two old Jews are sitting on a bench in Central Park. One is reading the NY times while the other reads a copy of the Protocols. The one who reads the times asks his friend:
"Moishe.. what are you reading? Are you Meshugana (crazy)?"
So Moishe answers:
"Look, You read the Times and what do you see? The stock market is down, factories are closing, crime rate is going through the roof, another suicide bomber - All these troubles - The world is going to hell. While I? I read the Protocols and what do I see? I rule the world, I have all this money, I control all the governments - life is good....."

Power Max Characters in Real Life

On RPG bulletin board I never heard of there is a discussion of too powerful real life characters. A role playing game is balanced by not letting characters become too powereful and flexible. Here are 2 character descriptions.

GM: "This is getting a little ridiculous. You maxed out your skill in Bluff, Oratory, Instruction, Drawing, Musical Instrument: Drums, Nuclear Physics, Quantum Theory ... and Lockpicking? I like your character concept, but they don't give a Nobel Prize in lockpicking."

Richard Feyman

Okay, so I decided you guys could all be really high-point characters and all for this player vs. player game, and even powergame and min-max, but you really screwed it up. I didn't expect you to put 99% of your points in Henchmen. How the hell did this guy survive until this point? He has no Wealth score, no skills, etc. Even the skills your background mentions have ranks of zero. How does a character with an "Uncreative" disadvantage and no skill ranks in Art or Writing make a living like that? I'm also pretty sure it's unrealistic to have that many ranks in Oration with negative ranks in every other social skill. All those psychological disadvantages you're stacking are a little powergamerish, but they'll cripple you as being a threat to the other three players. What, you're banking on lots of lucky rolls and being underestimated? Yeah, right.

If Writers were Recognized

Piano Playing Cat

There is another video of a cat watching Nora the piano playing cat. Sylar left a comment on cats playing the piano.

So this is what it's come to, these millions of years of evolution, warfare, community-building, women dying in childbirth with hope because their children might achieve more.

A video on the Internet of a cat watching a video of a cat on the Internet.

This is the pinnacle of human achievement. And, truth be told, I'm okay with that. Because these cats are SO CUTE.

Edward Burtynsky Photography

Here is a slide show of Edward Burtynsky's photography. The slideshow comes from a Slate article on him. I previously discussed his work as it was depicted in the movie Manufactured Landscapes on my film blog.

Odd Ad

The problem with this car ad is that any one who has played slot racers knows that mere act of cornnering too fast can cause a slot car to spin off the track.

Beer Tent Radio

I was having a hanking for bagpipe music and so I came across a radio station on ShoutCast called Beer Tent Radio. It is a station for unhypenated canadians otherwise known as Scottish Canadians. Look the photo on their site. In Shoutcast stations list all their various genres, this stations lists it genres as "Celtic Music - Scottish, Irish, traditional, folk, rock, punk, military - lots of bagpipes".

FU in the Present Day

Who could forget Francis Urquhart the murderous Thatherite of page and screen. Recently on the Alternative History board there has been a thread that imagines FU after 9/11.

But by the autumn, things we starting to drag on. True, a truck convoy filled with chemical and biological weapons had been intercepted headed for Iran during the first days of the war, so no one could argue that the invasion was not justified on those grounds. And Urquhart’s people had been able to plant evidence of Saddam’s compliancy in the death of Diana in Iraqi Intelligence archives. But questions were starting to be raised, in Parliament, and elsewhere. When will the insurgency be brought to an end.

National Gorilla Suit day

Long Haul Trucker Calls for Railroads

On a discussion about US Energy Independence, on NPR a caller advocated a policy against his own economic interest. Mark a conservative Republican long haul trucker is appalled that he is hauling around raw and semi fininshed materials like steel and aluminum. Mike the trucker also thinks global warming is farce then he says he burns 600 american gallons of fuel per week, or about 2300 litres. He wonders why so much shipping is done by truck not railroad. The change from road to rail would happen naturally if the subsidy on trucks were removed.

His comment is here starting at the 19:30 mark.

The Rockets Red Glare

There isn't alot of commerce in most of the Star Trek series. That is understandable when most of the characters are career millitary who spend most of their time in space. Sailors have gotten a rep for being free spenders because they don't spend money afloat. They spend some time and most of their money ashore and most of their time and ony some of their money at sea. Other people have seen the lack of economic activity in Star Trek as omniously encouraging communism.

A Star Wars fan Michael Wong created a site, StarDestroyer, to argue up Star Wars and down Star Trek. He thinks that the Federation's industrial capacity is limited compared to Imperial industrial capacity. He calls fans of Star Trek "Federation Cultists". Another essay, The Economics of Star Trek, of his slams Star Trek for being a communist state ruled with tyranny. Many of Michael Wong's argruements are interesting and well argrued, he also has a special section devoted to hate mail. In a contest between Star Wars tech and Star Trek tech, Star Wars is going to win. In Star Trek humanity has been in space for less than 500 years. In Star Wars space was explored in prehistory. That said all of the essays and analyses are interesting and amusing.

T-Shirt from Rome

In the TV series Rome there is a herald who announces the news from atop a stone soap box in the market place. At the end of every report/news/government press release the herald goes does a short ad for "the Brotherhood of Capitoline Bakers, True Roman bread for true Romans". In the same way that Dave Devall the weatherman always gives a short spiel for Carrier Heating & Air Conditioning. Now a fansite for TV has created a T-Shirt design for all the friends of Rome.

Cats with a MySpace page

When cats are using MySpace does that mean MySpace has peaked or that it is time to get on the band wagon. The image above is from the profile page. The motto for the cats is "we sleep a lot". I got this link from the profile page for a character from Heroes.

The Dark Ages at Yale

At The History Network there is a report from Yale's dark ages. The historian Jesse Lemisch catalogues horror stories from his time at Yale during the cold war. Look below for an amusing ancedote of expensive learning. Here is a previous unflattering story about Yale also from the The History Network.

The barbarities of undergraduate culture at the time helped to prepare these people to commit barbaric acts on a world scale later on in adult (?) life. The culture honored heavy drinking and public vomiting and urinating – long before the homeless picked up these virtuous behaviors from Yalies.

Those NeoCons

Cool New Weapon with Cool Old Weapon

On CSI: Miami I learned of this cool new weapon, the Corner Shot. It is an Israeli weapon designed for urban warfare. The Isrealis have to deal with not just the organized armies of enemy states but also random gangs of murders. The image above comes from a clip of the product use in training.
On the www.Israel-Weapons.com page for Corner Shot there is details about Corner Shot adaptation for an infantry anti-tank weapon. The anti-tank weapon is the Corner Shot Panzerfaust. Yes, that Panzerfaust. It is German-Israeli weapon. WWII is over.

Insect Tales

From Cartoonbrew there is a report of some amusing new insest animations. In these shorts the characters are animated while been set in a real meadow. Follow this link to Cartoonbrew and the 3 completed shorts.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

Burping In Tune

Plow Train

Venture Communists

In the future we will all become like China, as their living standards rise ours will drop. Not as consequence of mercantilism but as human powered manufacturing drives out machanized manufacturing, see Manufactured Landscapes. In Boingboing there was excepts of a report of venture capitalist who just toured China. He was in China to scope out custom manufacturing, in his case hand assembly that is cheaper the machine assembly.I used to joke about Dot Communists during the dot com boom. It is no longer a joke when venture capitalists ally with communists with the same goal of cheap manufacting, cheap life. When a post called Venture Communist is writen the joke becomes a sick one.

Once I came a magazine piece that consisted of predictions by famous writers. Paul Theroux's vision was the bleakest in seeing the future in the worst of China. Here is, if the exact quote, Paul Theroux's dire futurism, (thanks Ambivalence.)

from Down The Yangtze in Fresh Air Fiend]

In a hundred years or so, under a cold uncolonized moon, what we call the civilized world will all look like China, muddy and senile and oldfangled: no trees, no birds, and shortages of fuel and metal and meat, but plenty of pushcarts, cobblestones, ditch diggers, and wooden inventions. Nine hundred million farmers splashing through puddles and the rest of the population growing weak and blind working the crashing looms in black factories.

Forget rocket ships, supertechnology, moving sidewalks, and all the rubbishy hope in science fiction. No one will ever go to Mars and live. A religion has evolved from the belief that we have a future in outer space, but it is a half-baked religion, a little like Moromonism or the cargo cult. Our future is the mildly poisoned earth and its smoky air. We are in for hunger and hard work, the highest stage of poverty -- no starvation, but crudeness everywhere, political art, simple language, bad books, brutal laws, plain vegetables, and clothes of one color. It will be damp and dull, monochrome and crowded -- how could it be different? There will be no star wars or galactic empires and no more money to waste on the loony nationalism in space programs. Our grandchildren will probably live in a version of China. On the brown banks of the Yangtse the future has already arrived.

A Dalek Chorus for the Season

Listen to heart warming sound of a chorus of Daleks yelling EXTREMINATE. Listen to other happy sounds from Dr. Who here.

Rudolph the Paranoid Reindeer

An album of Christmas song mashups, Santastic II has been released online. My favorite cut has mixed Paranoid by Black Sabbath with Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. The resulting Rudolph the Paranoid Reindeer feels more like a stampede of reindeer rather than the gentle canter of the original Xmas song.

The Xmas song, not Christmas carol, occupies a place in our culture that is at once well loved and hated. There are true postive feelings about the "holidays" that a commercial Xmas song evokes. At the same time the Xmas song with it little or no connection to any particular religion or faith is (over)used as aural wallpaper between Halloween and New Years. Thus through annoyance earning out hatred.

Back Seats Are Evil

(thanks AdFreak)

Where Advertisers get their Bad Taste

(thanks Adfreak)

Premier Isaac Asimov

On AlternativeHistory.com there is discussion of Isaac Asimov, or Исаак Озимов, who stays in the Soviet Union as a child eventually raising to be Premier of the Soviet Union. HA HA.

Scary Scopes

Photo: David Guttenfelder/AP

A Canadian soldier looks through the scope of his rifle as he guards a road construction project near the Mas'um Ghar base in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan.

I remember seeing a documentry about Canadian troops in the Balkans. The soldiers were not routinely issued with binoculars. They would use their scopes on their rifles as monoculars. This would freak people out who would see guns pointing at them. Afghanistan is a more dangerous mission then the peace keeping / peace enforcement in the Balkans. But I wonder if scopes are ever issued that are not attached to rifles.

Database of Slavery Images

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas is a database of images that has been collected and put online by a two University of Virginia profs. The database has a lot disturbing and upseting images. The drawing above is of Arab slavers and their prey. We forget, with our underatandable guilt and shame clouding our memory, that the Arab slave trade in West Africa, East Africa, North Africa, Southern Europe, the Balkans, and the Caucasuses was started before the Atlantic slave trade and continued long afterward. Saudi Arabia agreed to abolish slavery, officially, only after much pressure by President Kennedy.

Total Perspective Vortex

There are times in our life when we feeel we matter, we are important to the our universe of personal experience. Then there are times when realize how meaniless we are to the cosmos. Here is a video of the HubbleDeep Field, thanks RG. Douglas Adams realized how unnerving the immsensity of the universe is so he wrote about the Total Perspective Vortex. It is a device that will drive you mad with the meaniless of you own existence.

Quote about Bob Rae

He has a lethargic fluency that can be appealing.
- Quote about Bob Rae

Phrase of the Day: Lathargic Fluency

Political Humor

At On Point there is a discussion of political humor in the US today. Many outtakes and excepts of what could be considered humor in bad taste. Later one caller gives a reason for this increase in political themed humor and why in the States it is mainly from the left.

Humor is anger, drama is fear.

Things you CAN'T do when you're NOT in a pool

Don't be That Guy

Open Source D&D

Open Source D&D. And it is has GNU license.

My Defense of the Term Barbarian or Barb

Because of the recent post about Small Wars I have got flack for using the term "barb" short for barbarian. Some consider it a pejorative term that is dismissive and insulting of the people of less developed civilizations. It is that but it is also a legitimate term for relationship that develops between civilization and less developed peoples. It is not a racial insult. The Vikings were barbarians, the Japanese were pirates but their descendants are not. It is merely stage of development that many societies and peoples have passed through.

Civilization is not a term of endearment that is meant to honor favorite countries and societies. It is term to describe societies that have grown to be centralized states with specialists and recordkeeping. A civilization has to grow beyond the tribal level, when their entire society can be connected with kinship ties. It has to discover a way that unrelated people can live together. A civilization has standing armies with soldiers and has the monopoly force. In a barbarian society everyone is a warrior.

Barbarism develops at the border between civilization and less developed societies. A barbarian living in hut looks across to the civilization and wants the benefits of civilization he just doesn't want to join it. The civilization has more and better stuff than the barbarian society because it has the higher social organization and specialization. The rational solution for the barbarian societies, from their standpoint, is banditry. This is a problem for any neighboring civilization. Barbarians are not ignorant of civilization its tools and techniques. They can at times be almost assimilated into their neighboring civilization but until they are completely assimilated they remain a threat. Herman was a Roman officer who grew up in Rome before he ambushed 3 Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest. Acculturation doesn't automatically lead to allegiance.

On The Oceans of Eternity there is a passage that illuminates anti-civilization mindset of barbarians. One of the rebels, to Nantucket, goes to Egypt to help Africa. There George McAndrews schemes to aid the Nubians and Kushites, barbarians to the south of ancient Egypt.

McAndrews had picked up alot of experience with barbarians over the past ten years. Most of them weren't moved by the prospect of being civilized; civilization meant someone like Ramses hitting you up with the bill for his palaces and wars and forty-foot gold statues. He had found that barbarians were just as enchanted as anyone else in the prospect of wealth, and their chiefs were as greedy for power as any Pharaoh.

Moslem Politics

In a thread on Little Green Footballs about Pope Benedict traveling to occupied Anatolia and rabid angry of some the local barbs a Mike in MI has this breakdown of Moslems.

This is how I see the Muslim community of the world:

(1) Peaceful Muslims (small minority - denounce terrorism and just want to be left alone to worship peaceful Islam)

(2) Appeasement Muslims (vast majority - do not denounce terrorism, but do not wish to participate in active jihad. However, they will aid and give comfort to the active jihadists and work in other ways to promote victimhood of Muslims)

(3) Jihadist Musllims (small minority, however larger in number than the Peaceful Muslims - actively participate in jihad against non-Muslims and Peaceful Muslims to restore the Islamic Caliphate)

The GOP SUV

Odd and Beautiful Planes

Flitzerart is a site for an artist who concentrates on machinery. The plane above is the BV194, an asymetrical design that looks a little too lopsided. The way these planes are illustrated is remeniscent of the spaceship art from the 70's.

Kissinger Finally Concedes that Victory Not Possible: In Vietnam

Kissinger Finally Concedes that Victory Not Possible: In Vietnam. There have been much chortling at how the Iraq War/Occupation was doomed from the start. The problem in both wars is that if you you not serious in fighting a war, you lose. You have to raise taxes, recruit, draft and train more troops. You have to focus on the guns not tax cuts. If you are not going to fight a war with all of your resources maybe you shouldn't start one. This is not to play into the mythology of "one hand tied behind the back" reason behind the loss to the Commies. The Americans expended enough resources but were not focusing on Vietnam over the expected tank battles in the North European Plains. It is distraction not impotence that doomed the Americans effort in Vietnam and Iraq.

Yale/Shmale: The Reality

At the History News Network there is link to a study about civics, historical knowledge and politics. The study is omniously titled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship. There is one item in the executive summary that reminds one of the recent ad campaign from Lakehead.

At many colleges, including Brown, Georgetown, and Yale, seniors know less than freshmen about America's history, government, foreign affairs, and economy. We characterize this phenomenon as "negative learning." A majority of the 16 schools where senior scores were actually lower than freshman scores are considered to be among the most prestigious colleges in the United States.

Hurt

It was a Nike Ad that brought this Johnny Cash cover to my attention because it was so unNike. Nike normally tries to surport the jock ethos. This ad, and its various versions focuses on the downsides of atlethtics and of life. The video of this cover has lot of Christian iconography especially the Passion, the tragedy of a man tortured to death. It is also Johnny Cash's epigraph.

Winning "Small Wars"

At the History News Network there is a discussion of small wars and ways to win them. There is also discussion of a treatise written by an Indian Army Officer Col CE Callwell, Small Wars. His solution for winning such conflicts is to use the same tactics of the barbs, in the words of the article " to win small wars, mere victory isn’t enough, the enemy must be thoroughly and utterly destroyed to the last man, woman, and child – which means enormous civilian casualties." If the tactics sound familar it is because there are what Julius Caesar did. Recent news reports tell of Americans fighting jihadis being unable to pursue gunman back into their armories/garrisons/mosques. Treating barbs in a civilized manner doesn't civilize them or reduce the numbers of barbs. Only after their culture is beaten out of them can barbs become cilvilized.

On a related note there was ad next to this article advertising a new book on the AK-47.

Binary Translater

The web application of the day the Binary Translater from NickCisk allows you to communicate in your computer's, or your computer nerd's favorite code.

10 go to program
20 use program
30 laugh
40 repeat

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100010 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01101100 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01010100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01110011 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01001110 01101001 01100011 01101011 01000011 01101001 01110011 01101011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 01101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01110101 01101110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100111 01110011 00101100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110110 01101111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00110001 00110000 00100000 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00001101 00001010 00110010 00110000 00100000 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 00001101 00001010 00110011 00110000 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110101 01100111 01101000 00001101 00001010 00110100 00110000 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110000 01100101 01100001 01110100

How to get Charitable Funds From Cats

Thanks Geek Humor

Timeline: Modern German City in the 3rd Reich

At altenativehistory.com there is an interesting timeline of a modern German city sent to the 1940. here is a good quote: ...then he would merely do the best he could to not end up with his back to the wall, facing grim Grenediers with shouldered rifles... he would do his duty, and hope for the best.

Nigerian Scam Letter

Here is a Nigerian Scam Letter that was recently sent to me from the Ivory Coast. The spelling and grammatical errors are entirely the fault of the sleaze who emailed me this screaming letter. John Etembe is famous enough from previous scams here is an earlier scam letter used as example of why you should never trust anyone from West Africa.

PERMIT ME TO INFORM YOU OF MY DESIRE OF GOING INTO
BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU.
I AM MR JOHN ETEMBE, THE ONLY CHILD OF LATE MR AND
MRS.ETEMBE,MY FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA
MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN, THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF
IVORY COAST BEFORE HE WAS POISONED TO DEATH BY HIS
BUSINESS ASSOCIATES ON ONE OF THEIR OUTING TO DISCUSS
ON A BUSINESS.
WHEN MY MOTHER DIED ON THE 21ST OCTOBER 1994, MY
FATHER TOOK ME SO SPECIAL BECAUSE I AM MOTHERLESS.
BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 29TH JUNE 2005 IN A
PRIVATE HOSPITAL HERE IN ABIDJAN. HE SECRETLY CALLED
ME ON HIS BEDSIDE AND TOLD ME THAT HE HAS A SUM OF US$
10,500,000 (TEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND,
UNITED STATES DOLLARS) LEFT IN A SUSPENCE ACCOUNT IN
LOCAL BANK HERE IN ABIDJAN, THAT HE USED MY NAME AS
HIS ONLY SON FOR THE NEXT OF KIN IN DEPOSIT OF THE
FUND.HE ALSO EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF
THIS WEALTH THAT HE WAS POISONED BY HIS BUSINESS
ASSOCIATES.THAT I SHOULD SEEK FOR A FOREIGN PARTNER
IN A COUNTRY OF MY CHOICE WHERE I WILL TRANSFER THIS
MONEY AND USE IT FOR INVESTMENT PURPOSE,
(SUCH AS REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT).
PLEASE, I AM HONOURABLY SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE
FOLLOWING WAYS.
1)TO PROVIDE A BANK ACCOUNT WHERE THIS MONEY WOULD BE
TRANSFERRED TO
2)TO SERVE AS THE GUARDIAN OF THIS FUND SINCE I AM A
BOY OF 20 YEARS
3)TO MAKE ARRANGEMENT FOR ME TO COME OVER TO YOUR
COUNTRY AFTER THE MONEY HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED.
MOREOVER,I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 15% OF THE
TOTAL SUM AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR EFFORT/INPUT AFTER
THE SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER OF THIS FUND TO YOUR
NORMINATED ACCOUNT OVERSEAS.
FURTHERMOIRE, YOU CAN INDICATE YOUR OPTION TOWARDS
ASSISTING ME AS I BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD
BE CONCLUDED WITHIN SEVEN (7) DAYS YOU SIGNIFY
INTEREST TO ASSIST ME.
ANTICAIPTING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS
JOHN ETEMBE
PLS REPLY HERE FOR SECURITY REASON:
john_etembe2004@yahoo.fr

The Easter Bunny Hates You

DS9 Quote

A man with a deathwish is a danger not only to himself but to the rest of his team. - Odo

Isn't it Sad When Cousins Marry

Looking the history and politics of Arab "nations" one is often confronted with a difficulty in building nation states. Steve Sailer wrote Cousin Marriage Conundrum: The ancient practice discourages democratic nation-building to address so of the difficulties that inbreeding presents to nation building. In a similar vein is this article by de Atkins, an American military officer wrote in 1999, Why Arabs Lose Wars. Such happy reading.

Locations of Roman Legions

If you ever wondered if the XII Fulminata was stationed in Egypt, Syria or Judea or in all three provinces consult this chart.

The Complete War Poems of Wilfred Owen

BBC3 is reading Wilfred Owen's poetry in five minute chunks.
Asleep - Strange Meeting
A Terre
The Parable of the Old Man and the Young - SIW
1914 - Dulce et Decorum Est - Futility
The Letter - Insensibility
Disabled - Happiness
The Spring Offensive - The Dead Beat
Has Your Soul Sipped? - Exposure
Le Christianisme - The Unreturning - The Next War
The Chances - Mental Cases - Six O'Clock in Princes Street

Borat Saved by House

True story!

Movie Timelines

The Movie Timeline is a combination of many different movie timelines. Andy Dufresne was wrongly sentenced to Shawshank a few short months before someone else was framed - Roger Rabbit... or

1988

First appearance of Akira's true powers (Tokoyo, Japan - Akira)

Bill & Ted meet Rufus for the first time, and begin to travel through time (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure)

I haven't added the date of Aguirre's trip down the Amazon yet.

Chris Rock's Rules of Safety

How not to get your Ass kicked by the police.

1. Obey the Law
2. Use Common sense
3. Stop Immediately
4. Turn that shit off
   
5. Be Polite
6. Shut the fuck up
7. Get a white friend
8. Don't ride with a mad women
   

The Eyes Have It

This is an amusing ad for MicroJerk's IPod copy. I don't really see the connection to selling boxes of crippleware and this very cool piece of anaimation. In the ad a creature with many eyes (an Argus?) gives one of his eyes to a creature with no eyes. This is supposely about the Zune's sharing feature. The problem is the that shared items, songs, videos, are erased on the sharee's machine after 3 uses or 3 days. If the ad followed Zune and Microsoft's policies the creature that gets the eye would lose it after 3 days because it lacks a end user license or a valid serial number or because it was a time limited demo.

Exercise in Rhetoric

Here is an election ad from Argentina that is both positive and negative at the same time. First the lines are arranged in a negative way then the text rescrolled and everything is happy. The words and sentences are arranged like an optical illusion to show either a cup or faces. There was a similar ad earlier this year put out by AOL in the UK in "Bad" and "Good" the same facts and images were used to argue opposite points.

(thanks Bestadsontv)

Your Cheating Heart

In American Prospect, Rick Pearlstein, has a depressing view of the recent American election. The Republicans lie, cheat and steal. It is what they do well.

CSI Fragment

We continue to perform the routine motions of our life until the moment of our death.

How Long do I Have Left

The Proceeding of the Athanasius Kircher Society has a story about a patent for a watch that tells you how many years, months, days and secounds you have left alive. Doesn't this sound alot like the Heinlein story, Life-Line. In the story Life-Line an inventor creates a machine that tells how much time you left and then is murdered on day, hour that he predicts.

Sad Little Kiwi

Topographical Map Server

Canada now has put its entire topographic map database online. The map server, Toprama, does two things better than Google maps. You can get the contour elevation and spot elevation. And the best feature is that you can distances that don't depend on driving directions. Not that driving directions are not useful but if want to find out the width of a bay you want the distance from two points not the drivable distance betweeen them.

The limitation is that the source for the Top maps can be out of date. Google depends on satellite information that is relatively un processed. The map above has the elevation in feet. I was looking at Toronto and the Greenwood Racetrack was still showing.

Genealogy of Influence

We all know the philosopher family tree of Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. That is Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, but that is another story. People can be influenced by people long deadby shards of thought fossilized in books. This chart, the Mike Love Genealogy of Influence, is meant to chart the interconnection and relationship between such disparate individuals as Votaire, Dickens and Asimov. Andart has some outtakes and analysis of the Genealogy of Influence.

More on the cultural genealogy from AndArt. Even more network trees from AndArt.

Why is There Combat in Gaming

Tim Carter answers the question of why games are continued to be overstuffed with combat in an effort to please the players.

"I've always been one to believe we put things into games for reasons other than pandering to some animalistic, self-propogating desire on the part of gamers."

Warning Signs for a New Age

A Swede has come out with a new line of warning signs. Anders Sandburg has explains the need for all of these new signs along with logarithmic scaling of risk. Here is explaination for the sign above, Lack of Internet Connectivitity. Anders Sandburg's blog, Andart, is so choke full of cool, cool stuff that goes on regular rotation.

Lack of internet connectivity: today a nuisance, tomorrow a serious problem and possibly even damage risk. As our exoselves become more and more dynamic and linked to our biological minds a loss of connectivity could cause breakups of our extended minds.

(thanks RG)

Dark Redwall

I have enjoyed the various Redwall TV series. It is set in a medival world populated by funny animals. In the Alt history discussion board is a timeline for a Dark Redwall. The story of Redwall is of a good triumphing over evil, in this timeline evil wins. Cue evil laughter.

New Phrase

New phrase of the day is Intentional Community. I wonder if this phrase was coined to get away from the dirty hippie connotations of commune. But why use a 8 syllable phrase when a 2 syllable word is available.

Odd Tolkien Bio

At Wikipedia while trying to get to the JRR Tolkien page I ended up on an alternative bio. Don't look now it was only there for a short time. Here are the highlights:

Famous director, author, actor, politician, biologist and hockey player (as well as frequent mentor to Batman's younger cousin Manbat), J.R.R.S.F.B.A.B.C.D.E.F.X.Y.Z. Tolkien is the historian who discovered that the true history of the earth was being covered up by the world's governments, who did not want the general population to know of the existence of dragons, elves, hobbits, magic, etc, in order to maintain control over their people.


His written work is characterized by disputes over the ownership of jewelry, and the hand injuries that occur as a result.

He was also reputed to be the head of a secret society of monarchists who use film to undermine democracy and return the West to the Dark Ages. This secret order is called The Royal Society for Counter-Strike revolution.

Ate a lot of corn and peas.

Advertising and the Maladjusted

For advertising award program, ShowSouth, a site was created to show how advertising types are not really suited for any other line of work.

Biblical Passage to live for .

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. reference

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

The Middle Passage has been covered in many stories, books and histories but their is another story. The other half of the story of the western slave trade is the arab slave trade that wasn't limitied to Africa. Saudi Arabia only outlawed the slave trade officially in 1962. The blog Trade Routes concentrates on the history trade routes here is a story about the Indian Ocean Slave Trade.

Ad for Restraint

I saw this ad earlier this year on Best Ad on TV. The problem is that it doesn't promote one condom brand over another.

Proto Typical Campaign Ad

Here is an ad for some kid that looks like every other American election ad.

The New Beetles

Nosing around in the Rummy's Wiki entry I see that a slime-mode beetle is named after him, agathidium rumsfeldi. One blogger has provided a comparison of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their beetle namesakes.

Monkey Death Wish

Monkey Death Wish, a very silly monkey teases equally silly but more dangerous tigers.

YouTube Hits and Intellectual law

Slate recently had a feature on the top hits of YouTube. Now that YouTube has real money behind it, after the purchase by Google, much of the features, clips of copyrighted material, of it are disappearing. Comedy Central clips have been pulled. On the show On The Media there was a discussion of the expected content drought on YouTube. It all turns on a content rights, there is copyright material, copyfree material, and copyright material that is free to use, sort of. If you consider land the same way as copy rights, there is public space, there is private space, and there is some private space that can be used by the public.

There are No Accidents

There is a great new ad put out by what used to be called Workman Comp. A woman has a bad accident and then points out her "accident" was expect because she and the store wasn't following the correct safety procedures.

Do You Have Feelings of Inadequency?

Listen to this ad which is an promotes booze in the same manner as a pharma ad.

ChiCom Propaganda

I went to the same school as Norman Bethune. Or should I say school building as his high school became my elementry school. Bethune has a good reputation as someone who saved alot of lives. He was like a medical missionary going aboard to do good work. Instead of spreading the gospel along with medical care Bethune was a communist intent on spreading world wide revolution. This led him to associate with the tyrant above, see here for the murderer's memory of this meeting. How could anyone become a communist in Stalin's time.

A book has been put together that covers Chinese Communist posters, Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization. A website has been put up by the author, Stefan Landsberg's Chinese Propaganda Posters, with many of the same posters covered in his book as well as updates on recent ChiCom posters and themes, SARS and Bejing 2008.

The Old Watering Hole

The Nkorho Game Reserve has a webcam on one their local watering holes. Ah, the relaxing sounds of wildlife.

Death Metal Fans

In today's Toronto Star is an article about the odd people who collect hearses. Actual Death Metal is not normally covered in the Auto section

Back to the Future Penology

The British started transportation as punishment, deportation of convicts to Australia, because their prisons were overcrowded. A stopgap measure was using derelict warships, hulks, as cheap prisons. Now I hear of news that prison hulks are having a comeback. Creepy.

If you want to read more about the original prison hulks here is a journal written by a Crapaud POW, The Floating Prison. If want to learn about the type of criminal who ended up as guests of His Majesty. The Old Bailey has put their proceeding online for 1674-1834. You can read everyday about the poor bastards who had it so much worse.

Beetle Bailey, Today's Soldier?

In a recent Comics Curmudgeon there was an interesting comment about Beetle Bailey:

Fred P.says:
I can only hope that Beetle Bailey is not representative of life in today’s Army. The Camp Swampy crew- what with its gaggle of layabout soldiers, inept officers and only one hot secretary- simply doesn’t exactly inspire one’s confidence as to their battlefield proficiency. Just think- if our Army actually was as portrayed in Beetle Bailey, and America ever did have to go to war, there’s NO WAY we could ever win! Why, we’d just wind up stuck in some endless quagmire, with leadership that entirely lacks the imagination and competence to achieve … uh … achieve … um … oh shit!

Oooh, Economic History

Whenever I read works of fiction or history I always try to translate the monetary units in some thing meaningful. There is a tendency to assume that if something costs a dollar, a small amount to us now that it is always a small amount. I am happy that my favorite cost of living/infaltion calculator, How Much Is That?, has branched out from EH.com. The new site, Measuring Worth, also has growth and inflation rates.

Weirdly The Simpsons was able to display the relative value of money. The story is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and Tom, Bart and Nelson go a general store. When they balk at the prices the store keep has justifcation.

Apu: If you think my prices are high, go across the street! [indicates the 99-cent store, which sells luxury items like grand pianos and crystal chandeliers

Declining Telephone Cost

This is chart showing the revenue for international calls re miniute. The inflation adjusted results are even worse. The per minute revune goes from a high $28 in 1964 to $5 in 1993 to nearly nada now. The Chart came an Economist report on telecoms.

The $50,000 Bathtub

In a recent New York Times Magazine devoted to home decor one full page ad had a picture of a tub with the same relative proporotions of a cafe au lait mug. No pictures are available because the manufacturer, Boffi, only has a flash site. Here is the PDF.

The Architecture of Happiness

Alain de Botton is a philosopher who has written a book about architecture, The Architecture of Happiness, and its affect on us. Winston Churchill said that "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us". Botton's recent book is how architecture can make us feel better. He discusses his book on NPR.