Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
|
The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
|
Saturday, December 14, 2002
Bad dialogue of the day comes from episode 2 of NPR's radio production of The Empire Strikes Back as Han is worrying about Luke and talks to the officer on watch at the Hoth base:
"It's getting dark out there, friend, and cold, in case you didn't notice."
"I'm aware of that--I joined up with the Rebels because I notice things."
Thanks to Blogger's archiving system finally working properly again and an hour or so of skullsweat, the OD Archive is now fixed and all archive files updated to PHP--so old comment threads have returned from the dead. Enjoy.
I also noticed that while I'm no longer paying for the webspace, the original webhome of OD still exists and still points here. Weird. Nice, but weird.
An interesting pairing: buy a high-powered computer, get an underpowered machine free. So if you've been looking to both upgrade and get a machine for your bathroom or kitchen, there you go.
Bezzy rants beautifully when the tide of stupidity approaches the shores of Mutant Storm. Also, JP's article got posted on PC, and now he and Bezzy (and many others) are in the midst of a great thread on the profession of "game designer".
Friday, December 13, 2002
The Knife Collector Show on TV is currently offering fifty knives for ninety bucks. Sure, it's a deal, but what would you do with all those knives? Please, somebody tell me.
The VW commercial using "Mr. Blue Sky" is now on the VW Convertible subsite. Upon revisiting both the ad and the song, I think they (whether "they" be the ad agency or ELO, who knows--ELO hasn't updated their site for more than a year) rerecorded the song for the commerical, and in my opinion the ad version is highly inferior. Regardless of editing the song for length, the performance of the vocals in particular just isn't as good.
I know, I know. I'll stop pissing and moaning now.
Monsignor Trabbold has uncovered an incredible pit of self-loathing: the Bitter Barren Spinsters Club.
If you have the bandwith, it is a moral imperative that you watch what must surely be the best educational film ever, One Got Fat. I kid you not. Best ever. I mean, you get to see a monkey in a full body cast and everything.
I just heard the news: it's now Dr. Tritz. Congrats to Kevin--it's about time!
I always love seeing that people have put thought into everything and anything, even the design of playing cards.
UPDATE: In a related vein, Cards as Weapons, and a terrific little site from the National Gallery studying the details and historical context of Valentin de Boulogne's painting Soldiers Playing Cards and Dice (The Cheats).
Thursday, December 12, 2002
I'm back from bowling with friends and competitors, and did surprisingly well--nearing 100 in the first game and solidly breaking it in the second. I'm no Trabbold, but for me it was pretty good (mainly because I kept used Andy's ball in hopes that his skizills would rub off.)
Late-night links from around the web:
- "Piracy is Progressive Taxation", an amazingly good essay by Tim O'Reilly drawing heavily on his company's experience.
- The BBC World Service is looking for the best song in the world (or they'll eat your soul); I voted for "At Last" by Etta James, a vastly superior song to--at the very least--the Mariah Carey song currently sitting in the top 10.
- I'd hate thing I didn't have a Google-related link to pass along. Thank goodness for Steven Levy's piece for MSNBC.
- Online mac users rally to help a man who got ripped off in a eBay auction of his Powerbook.
- A long but interesting white paper on digital television.
From JP, a reminder of Google's summary of 2002 (man, a lot of Google links over the last few days..). By JP, an excellent question about game designers on PC.
"We leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return -- with peace, and in hope for all mankind."
Today is a sad annivesary, as it marks thirty years since humanity has been to the moon.
From Aaron's rod to zwilnik, it's the frightningly comprehensive Heinlein Concordence. Musn't be tempted to reread Heinlein again...
I think I linked to fTrain's speculative article on Google and the Semantic Web a few months ago; now, one of the things discussed in the article has emerged in beta form as Google launches a shopping site of sorts: Froogle. Of course, it only took the wags in MeFi comment threads less than thirty minutes to realize that one of the fun things to do with Froogle is see how much you're worth.
Is it any good? For an ongoing collection of pro/con commentary on Froogle, check out this thread on marketingfix.
Watching the last episode of The Critic on Comedy Central tonight made me wish there were more episodes...and then reminded me that there were more on Atomfilms, albeit without characters from the show beyond Jay and relying pretty heavily just on movie parodies. Still.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
I didn't link to this when I first saw it on Metafilter a few days ago, but I keep mentioning it and showing it to people, so I suppose I should share it with you: The MegaPenny Project.
Apologies to everyone who suffered longer than usual load times for this page--I had a lot of new pictures from the last few days that I wanted to share. (Of course, Santa will remain on his coffee break atop the photo column throughout this joyous season.)
And if that didn't drive you off, you might be interested in checking out 100 Steps to Starbucks, a fun photoessay.
"Exit Strategy", an enjoyable and tech-wise story. I'll have to dig more into the site of the author when I have time.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Wow! Chad has found more than 200 caches! That, um, beats my 15 or so. I really need to get out more.
I should still be working, but I'm taking a break to pass a link I discovered via Making Light on to you: The Laws of Christmas*. Enjoy.
* Google cache linked as I suspect the Geocities site will be going down a lot in the coming days; original site is here
I've been busy researching (read: playing Warcraft III) at home for the last few nights, and today I'm leaving the office on a (work-related) research trip down to the State Historical Society Library. So I'm left without the time to surf for interesting links or come up with an Original Thought, dear readers. Instead, let me direct you to the group blog for the Supernova conference currently going on in Palo Alto. I've managed to keep up with Cory Doctorow's take on the conference via boingboing, but there's a lot more goodness where that came from in the group blog. I've only had a chance to dip in for a few minutes, so folks should let me know if they find anything particularly good or interesting.
Off to research.
Sunday, December 08, 2002
Who'dve thought that a movie I enjoy as much as Back to the Future could have come from such a lousy script?
It's come to save us all: realistic science fiction. With this level of pretension, I'd be shocked if it makes it past a pilot. But I'm still looking forward to seeing a "naturalistic" Daggit.
| www.flickr.com |
Photo archive
Random art from OD