Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
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Saturday, September 14, 2002
Last night I had the strangest dream. But breakfast was even weirder.
Courtesy of the Memepool post generator (in turn courtesy of defective yeti.)
"The most 80's hits from a station promising only music from the 60s and 70s! Here's Toto--maybe this one will fool you; I don't know."
On Thursday, Negativland (with the help of the Mosquito Fleet) hijacked a Seattle-area Clear Channel-owned radio station and proceeded to broadcast an hour-long parody lambasting Clear Channel (and the station itself.) Take the time to download highlights from the broadcast--it's protest in its most entertaining form.
Read more about Clear Channel and its insidious effects on American broadcast radio here and here. And for those interested in more about Negativland's media hijinx, read more about their battles with U2 and Pepsi, the Onion Negativland interview (and, if you can find a copy, watch Sonic Outlaws.)
Friday, September 13, 2002
I heard about the Millenium Challenge and Lt. Gen. Van Riper's part in in on NPR a few weeks ago; it's an interesting story. A link at the bottom of that story led me to Global Security and its Iraq attack timeline--a good summary and a nice collection of relevant links and background information on the topic.
I finally shut down an email account I've been using for almost seven years, the account where this page originated. Good times, good times. Sniff.
But in case anybody out there is looking for me at that address and Googles me: cyborg@chorus.net (or its past iteration pre-ISP buyouts, cyborg@itis.com). Spiders can harvest those addresses to their heart's content; they don't work anymore.
Courtesy of memepool, a whole directory of images of school lunches.
UPDATE: Courtesy of Liana (see comments), the HTML directory of the images--with names for the items. The names actually make the images even more terrifying. Just try not to picture real food when you click on the links and you should be okay. Maybe.
First Words: add your own, or read what's already been submitted as speculation on the first words that will be spoken on Mars. It's nice to see that whoever set up the site is proactive enough to go out and solicit some entries from SF writers and scientists, even if there hasn't been much response yet.
Another one of those days following links deeper and deeper in the wilds of the internet until I stumble across strangeness--like a girl looking for a new girlfriend for her current boyfriend. I don't think I'd like a slice of that particular marble cake of right and wrong, thanks.
Thursday, September 12, 2002
Giant cauliflower, sassy pie-bearing pears, jam marching off to war and much, much more on Fruit from Washington (link discovered on iconomy.)
Ready for strong opinions? It's called "pop", people. Those other labels have been bugging me for years, and I'm glad to see the whole debate finally getting some major media coverage.
You can try to convince me otherwise, but you'll have better luck just going and registering your own (wrong) opinion.
And as to this comment in the related MeFi thread, "bubbler" isn't onomotopaeic; it's just dumb. And a brand name at that.
Bah. I can handle colloquial English, but regionalisms (well, other people's regionalisms) get under my skin.
So a mail-order Halloween catalog showed up in the mail last night, and flipping though it as I watched a movie I noticed this:
What frightens me is that they clarify that the heart and bloody brain are fake...but don't do so for the severed body parts. Sure, the pictured parts look like plastic, but what's gonna show up when you make an order?
Liana passes along this CNN story about Vice City; what surprises me is not that a soundtrack is being released, but that seven soundtracks are being released. From famine past feast straight into gluttony, I guess.
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
The web's a quiet, somber place today. Appropriately so, I suppose. I've spent much of the day off talking to folks or doing creative things, so not much posting. Sorry.
For interesting 9/11 links, check out this MeFi thread, Yahoo's Living Memorial, and the September 11 Digital Archive. As always, Lileks has thoughtful things to say, as does Teresa. For an intriguing (if slightly cynical) view of news and events, see GNN's S-11 Redux.
As for my own thoughts, here's an excerpt from a message I wrote to the Monkeylist today as we discussed the profusion of memorial coverage:
I think today's memorials are important, if only because they keep the conversation going. And that conversation--the vox populi--is our
memory, our moderator; it keeps us from ever forgetting that the events occured while also preventing us from becoming insatiable creatures of anger and revenge. It's a conversation of countless voices, inherantly contradictory yet often surprisngly unified. While some have higher pulpits than others, everyone is free to join in.
In many senses, it's exactly why the events of a year ago occured. There are those who would rather the conversation be silenced than be forced
to debate and defend their own positions. But the conversation is like Pandora's Box, and now that it's loose it will be difficult--impossible!--to
capture it again.
If I may paraphrase and improvise: those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it, and those who don't plan for the future will have
none. And to quote: "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased."
It's the conversation, and as I spend my day talking with friends not just from our country but around the world about the events of the last
year and beyond, it's what keeps hope alive in my heart that our destiny isn't stratification and stagnation but evolution.
I'm glad to be a part of it.
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
You know, I remember suggesting a .kid domain to somebody as joke--but I never thought it might actually happen. Kinda.
I'm not a fan of the "Church", but I do have to direct you to this post on Microcontent News--if only to give CoS credit because it sounds so....so reasonable...compared to experiences described by others who have irritated them. I dunno; maybe Hiller is paraphrasing the situation a bit.
Ladies and gentlemen, discovered in the wilds of the Madison Blues Fest by intrepid hunter A.T. Chico, stalked by yours truly for your viewing horror, he's not a myth--if he's not real you can keep the truck--friends, countrymen, I present ... Mullet King!!!
Well, I was voter #272 around 11:30 this morning--not bad for a primary election in a small ward like the one I live in. I'll be interested in the results--and more interested in whether McCallum actually comes out of the gates and, oh, actually says something once he knows who the real competitor is. The cone of silence surrounding him through primary season has really kinda annoyed me.
Speaking of annoying, telemarketers are taking tomorrow off. It's like a variant on the old lawyer joke: What do you call one day without telemarketers? A good start.
Monday, September 09, 2002
Yeah, I know I should be going to sleep now so I can get up bright and early to vote, but one last cool thing to share before I go to collapse--Googlecooking. Sounds like you might find good--and useful--recipes that way. Or, if you have the time and money, you might intern (NYT link) at the French Laundry.
Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment.
It's kinda strange that an online quiz might know me so well, but then it also speaks in positive terms about my dating habits. So what do they know?
And from Toledo, Ohio, the heart of the hardest-working bar band on the chickenwire circuit, makin' the groupies' hearts jump every time he hits the bass pedal, ladies and gentlemen, on drums, Mister...Steven...Seagal!
Zero Science: witty pun or unintentional truth--YOU BE THE JUDGE! Still, a smoke ring gun does sound pretty cool...
| Get out and vote in Tuesday's primary elections. If you're in Madison, check out WisPolitics' primary coverage roundup for more info and the Dane County League of Women Voters site for info on how and where to vote. If you're anywhere else, Yahoo's election guide and your local paper are a good place to start. |
I want these books. Don't know if--short of a post-apocalyptic wasteland where society has begun to crumble--I'd ever get around to actually putting any of the information to use, but they sound like exactly the kind of hyper-basics information I like having in my reference libary.
It's Open Mic Nite here on OD. Stepping up to the stage we have someone who only identifies himself as "The Man", performing a piece of found poetry:
Golf balloons
wild vibes--emotionally speaking
Monsters menacing mankind strike it rich!
Miner's strategy
Compound fracture (music Maestro, please!)
Happy birthday Cro-Magnon!
Comics coronation
Super-technocrats do more with less
The seven wonders of the world give and go!
Atlas dinosuars
The Iliad scientific safari
Great impressions double trouble!
Morph magic
Shrinking structure game show
Wild winged wonders center stage!
Groovy finger snaps for The Man, everybody.
And to think I worked on solving some of those problems.
Though a little chuggy, the Alias Underground game that can be downloaded from ABC's website is kinda fun. I think it might be PC-only, though. Sorry Mac fans--have fun making your art, but you don't get all the games.
Mondays; always a trying day as I try to get up to speed for the week's work, try to finish up projects started at home over the weekend, and attempt to catch up on the flood of weekend Net traffic. (I'm still trying to decide if my lack of a Net connection at home is a good or a bad thing.)
A collection of links to start the week off:
- An excellent column by Monte Cook on how to be a professional game designer.
- Passed along by Doctor Chris, wacky hot sauces.
- A specially-built gaming table. While I like the idea, the setup seems to isolate the players a bit more than I would personally enjoy. I want to see more of my friends than their heads while we play.
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