The Spherical Chicken

I was about to do a search for "giant crystal cave" when I noticed the things that popped up in my auto-complete box:

giant monster
giant rabbit
giant rabbit movie
giant robo
giant scorpion
giant space creature
giant spider

It reads like a Who's Who of Godzilla villains.

Anyway, this is why I was looking for giant crystal caves. Old news, to be sure, but very cool stuff. I can see Superman chilling out in a place like that.

Spam used to annoy me, but no more. The increasing effectiveness of spam filters and the increasing desperation of spammers to circumvent these filters has conspired to take away from spam all its pretense and offending content and leave it with nothing but delightful nonsense. Gmail routes all the junk mail I get into its rightful place, and whenever I inspect my spam folder to see if any message has been wrongfully blacklisted, I find that every message there has earned its branding. I also find that the messages are hilarious. Here are some examples from just this past week. The titles here are the subject lines of the e-mails, and the authors are the monikers of the spammers.

( caricature commando, by Pen Wong )

( warily, by Billy Krouse )

( NASA artistic, by Mat Hatcher )

( forked clear-headed, by Jonathan Blue )

I receive a few messages like these every day. They all come with images attached, and the images presumably carry the message the spammers wish me to here. However, I never see these images. Gmail's spam filter shuts them away, and only shows them to me if I ask to see them, though of course I never do. All I am left with is this strange stream-of-consciousness writing, this not-quite-poetry and not-quite-prose, all of which is in dire need of a good spell check, and none of which is advertisement.

Spammers, you've completely failed your arms race. Not only are you powerless to sell me anything, but you can't even annoy me anymore. You might as well give up. Please keep your letters coming, though. I do so enjoy them.

People like to say that they are "proud to be an American". Not everyone, of course, but plenty of people. Now, I hardly dispute the matter of enjoying being an American. America has been very good to me. I will not, however, say that I am "proud" to be American.

( Read more... )

This should have been posted on July 4th, for Independence Day. It is late because I am lazy. I'm not proud of this.

LIVE TRUMPS 1.1

watch lodo_bear fight

CREATE YOUR CARD

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

ETA: Well, shucks, the site is down, and apparently forever. I had only made it to level 3!

I have just put a new feature onto my LiveJournal - advertising.

This isn't for the extra options or userpics. This isn't going to give me any money. This is because I am cheap, and because I am costing LJ money.

It's not free for them to maintain my posts in their memory and support my bandwidth. But they do it anyway, and it hasn't cost me anything. That's not quite right. Someone should pay them back. The thing is, it's not going to be me, because I'm cheap. So I've fobbed the bill onto someone else.

Besides, you all have Adblock by now, don't you?

For a long while now, I've had a signature in my e-mail that says "Life is simple. So simple, in fact, that we feel obligated to complicate it." It's something I came up with myself, because I needed something to put in my e-mail signature. You've got to have something to put in there.

Well, just a few minutes ago, I discovered this saying of Confucius's: "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."

Plagiarist.

Ding dong, the witch is dead!
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead!

I must say, I'm a little amused at the fuss of him dying just now. I understand the frustration of him seemingly escaping justice, and I know that it would have been a good thing if he had been convicted, since there are other tyrants in need of a trial, but on the other hand, he's finally toast! Let's face it, he was going to die anyway, and I say, for a tyrant like Milosevic, the sooner the better.

In this column, Paul Greenberg pointed out that a fellow named Hermann Goering also died just before facing justice, although in his case, he killed himself just before he was hanged. As I see it, that's really, really stupid. Isn't the point of execution depriving someone of life they might have otherwise enjoyed?

Entropy has done us all a favor and removed the presence of a fellow we didn't want. I suggest that we stop fretting over Milosevic's premature departure and get on with our lives before we too cross the bar.

People say write funny things on the Intarweb. One funny thing I've seen a lot is the phrase, "I lolled", generally found as a reply to something funny. It means that the poster laughed out loud at whatever it was they're replying to. But it doesn't sound like "I laughed". It sounds like "I farted". Now, in context, this generally serves to add to the humor of the situation, but it causes me to laugh at the other posters instead of with them.

Another funny thing I've seen a lot is *dead from cute* (sometimes spelled "ded"). It's not as funny as people saying "I farted", but it got me thinking. What if cuteness could kill? What if those sweet little baaaaaby animals you're ogling were actually hazardous to your health?

For one thing, it would put a dent in the pet business. Imagine: "Do you carry rabbits?" "Yes, ma'am, we just got some kits in today. Here, have a look." "Aww! They're so fuzzy!" *dead* "...ma'am? Ma'am?" Domesticated cats probably wouldn't be very popular either. People would raise Rottweiler-Chinese Crested crossbreeds to protect them from the deathly cute kitties. And people would club baby seals in self-defense.

But think of the potential havoc this could cause! I could rob banks with just a few cute pictures. I'd walk in all cool, go up to the counter, and pull out this. BAM! The clerk's brains melt instantly. The people behind me gasp in horror, the security guard rushes in, and then I wheel on them and show them the picture, killing them all. And the best part is? To protect my identity, all I have to do is show the picture to the security cameras. Then, when they're reviewing the tapes looking for my face, they'll see the picture and go "Awww..." *dead*, and I'll be scot free to strike again and again! AH-HAHAHAHA!

But my career as a supervillain would be cut short when my arch-nemesis, Blind Cynical Man, pulled a mirror on me. "Curses! Cut down by my own ultimate weapon! Oh, the - awwww, so cute!" *dead*

MAN FIGHT BEAR!

BOY FIGHT BEAR!

WOLF FIGHT BEAR!

WRESTLER FIGHT BEAR!

BABY FIGHT BEAR!

MECHA FIGHT BEAR!

LIZARD FIGHT BEAR!

SUPERVILLAIN FIGHT BEAR!

ICE FIGHT BEAR!

Inspired by this guy.

EDIT: It has just come to my attention that jokermage was not the origin of the "man fight bear" thing. The first known use is archived here, and it's about this John West commercial, which jokermage linked to. MAN FIGHT BEAR!

I am clearly far too fond of my own journal.

( See my comment statistics )

This monday, the good students of ASU got an unexpected and unwelcome surprise: dead baby photos (more info here). This has prompted plenty of discussion (see here and here), especially in the arizonastate (see here and several posts after it). For the record: I don't like photos of blood and guts, and I'd really prefer to not to have such photos burned into my eyes from obstructive 18-foot banners. However, there is also the subject matter of the signs. They weren't supposed to be about gore (one would hope). They were supposed to be about abortion; they were using gore to convey the argument that abortion is wrong. I agree with the central message of the signs; I do not favor the legalization of abortion.

( Read more pro-life ranting... )

One more thought about the subject of the signs: there must be a better way to convey the message. As far as I can tell, the signs just made everyone say "Ewww, blood" and crack a few more dead baby jokes than usual. I think this is a message worth conveying, and it disheartens me to see the message not just poorly conveyed but actually obscured by the medium.

Explaining Relativity to the Cat
by Jennifer Gresham

Imagine, if you will, three mice.
Contrary to what you have
heard, they are not blind
but are in a spaceship
traveling near the speed of light.
This makes them unavailable
for your supper, yes.

So these mice, traveling near
the speed of light, appear
quite fat, though there is
no cheese aboard. This is
simply a distortion of mass,
because the mass of a mouse
is nothing more than a bundle
of light, and vice versa. I see
how this might imply mice
are in the light fixtures,
undoubtedly a problem, so

let me try again.
If two people attempted
to feed you simultaneously,
no doubt a good situation,
but you were on a train
traveling near the speed
of light, the food would
appear unappetizing, falling
to the plate in slow motion,
an extended glob of protein
that never smelled good,
if you ask me, train or no.
The affinity of the food
for the plate, what we call
gravity, is really just
a stretch in the fabric
of a space-time continuum,
what happens when you
have sat in a seat too long,
perhaps on this very train.

Oh kitty, I know how you hate
to travel and the journey must
have made you tired. Come now,
lick your coat one more time
and let us make haste
from this strange city
of light and fantastic dream.

More of her work can be found at http://www.litmuspoetry.com/poetry.html

Richard Cory
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, -- yes, richer than a king, --
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

LJ userpics are like t-shirts. They are the badge you wear, expressing a small portion of the sort of person you are, or think yourself to be. They're usually meant to be funny in a snarky way, because, like t-shirts and bumper stickers, they're too small to say anything meaningful.

The first userpic I made for myself was this little guy:


I then took that image and negated it, getting this cool little picture:


Of course, like t-shirts, you may have your favorite userpic, but you have to have a few others to express your mood properly. I tried this pic for a while:


But it didn't really say anything, you know? Fun, but bland.

However, I now have a new userpic, courtesy of Hello Cthulhu:


One day, LJ is going to make me cough up the money for a special account, just so I can have my own gallery of absurdity. Until that day comes, I'll just have to work with River Tam, Lodo, and Cthulhu the littlest happy pirate.

Recent photo of Mel Gibson:


Recent photo of Saddam Hussein:


How much are you paying your image consultants, Mr. Gibson?

EDIT: As usual, someone else saw it first, and pointed it out better than I could. Check out Born Twice at Ship of Fools.

An artist is a five year old child with a magnet in one hand and a crayon-scribbled piece of paper in the other, looking for a refrigerator door. [Link]

Beware of false prophets. And beware of false devils. [Link]

Take a cue from Ender's Game, heroes. Fly FEET FIRST. [Link]

What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are sent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless facts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run after an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And if they balk at this surreal cocktail, they're called misfits. [Link]

I'm thinking it's a bad thing when real life becomes an escape from the stresses and difficulties of dealing with your hobbies. [Link]

Sucking for a while is the gateway to not sucking. [Link]

In the future, everyone will be Hitler for 15 minutes. [Link, and more information about the argument ad nazium here]

Ah, the Internet. Is there anything it doesn't know?

The ad below was recently spotted.



So wrong.

I nearly missed it! Today is the Day of the Ninja!



Celebrate in stealth.

It has been a goodly long time since I posted a report of my roof-seeking antics. This has been because I have not been able to get on any new roofs. However, I have finally done it again. I have walked on the roofs of McClintock Hall, West Hall and Dixie Gammage Hall.

It was easy getting on all three, because they're connected, as you can see on this relevant section of the map. It was tricky, because I'm not a good climber, so I usually have to find ways I can walk up to a roof. This time I got lucky.

I had tried West Hall and Dixie Gammage before, but to no avail. The key doors were always locked. McClintock Hall was initially out of the question - it's a dorm, so it's gated, and I don't have a key. Fortunately, I happened to be close to a door just as a student was walking out, and the student was even nice enough to hold the door for me as I slipped in.

After that, it was easy. I took an external staircase up to McClintock's third floor, where a fence was all that stood between me and my goal. I climbed over it, and wandered across the three buildings.

It was great. The feeling of freedom from walking on a floor with no walls or ceilings, the thrill of doing something forbidden and the everpresent possibility that someone will see you, all there. Good fun.

I really don't know where to go next. I hope I can get lucky like that again.

The title of this post is a reference to a fun toy I have been wasting my time on: Orbiter, the free, open-source and all-around awesome spaceflight simulator. Ever intend to fly the Space Shuttle? Now, you can get some practice. It's very hard once you get outside the atmosphere, but that's the fun of it. What's also fun is to launch your ship into the upper atmosphere, then kill thrusters and watch the air burn around it as it descends (yes, I know it's not actual fire, just heat from sudden change in pressure).

The real fun arises from the fact that it's open source, which means anyone can look at the sourcecode and make new ships for it. Among the available addons:
- the Freefall, a Firefly. You, too, can be a leaf on the wind
- the LSS Photon, a ship capable of accelerating to relativistic speeds in seconds. Makes interplanetary tourism a snap
- the Wandering Star, a pirate ship. Yes, a wooden pirate ship. If you thought the Firefly was fun, fly the Wandering Star as fast as it will go, and behold the fury of the flying, burning pirate ship.
I'd go on, but I have other stuff to talk about.

One of these other things is the sad state of the world. This is just wrong.

I did some hanging out with miwasatoshi, an all-around cool guy, this afternoon. We stopped by Bubble Teaze at the Memorial Union, and I ordered a chocolate avocado smoothie.
That's right, chocolate and avocado, together at last.
The chocolate was good, but the avocado was not quite right. The texture was there, but the flavor was absent. I was disappointed.

Closing thought: in quantum physics today, a fellow classmate of mine gave a presentation regarding the debate over quantum phenomena in the brain. The debate centers around the idea that quantum uncertainty is responsible for our consciousness. It got me thinking: what happens when we can finally duplicate all the things human brains can do in a machine? Machine brains can already do many things better than human brains. By the time machine brains can do anything human brains can do, and do them just as good or better, the list of things they'll be able to do better will be long indeed. Then someone is going to build a superbrain, and it's going to look at us and think, "What am I going to do with all these people?" I, for one, am nervous about the possibilities.