verisimilitude

Irresponsible goldfish

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:39:14 -0700

John is truly a master of international relations and foreign policy. I’m referring to John Oliver of course. From episode 41 of The Bugle

Listen to the file.

tags: humor

My morning

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:21:42 -0700

When I saw what they had to do to clear the bathroom sink, I felt less bad about my inability. I had taken the drain apart and, using a bent coat hanger, had fished out what was clearly years of backed up hair and filth the likes of which I hope to never see again. But this was merely the tip of the revolting iceberg, as the two handymen had to cut the drain pipe in half with a hacksaw and extract even more disgustingness. The hair was clearly not ours. It was very, very long. Like haunt my nightmares long. So that threw off my whole morning.

Rapunzel must have grown old in my apartment.

tags: disgusting

The Bugle

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:39:36 -0700

The last week I have been catching up on The Bugle, a rather enjoyable weekly “audio newspaper for a visual world”. You might recognize the voice of John Oliver from The Daily Show but who really cares about that. It’s hilarious. I’ve excerpted a short bit from Episode 34 that I was compelled to replay a few times my first listen. Also gives me a chance to try out the embedded Flash player I just wired up. Have no fear, those of you on the iPhone without Flash can still hear the clip.

Also, another geeky technical point, I stumbled upon a useful way of making clips from iTunes files. Right click and Get Info on the track, select Options, and set the Start Time and Stop Time. Then right click on the track and select Convert Selection to MP3. Done.

Listen to the file.

Update: Had to add one more excerpt as some people didn’t quite think the first one was funny enough. What’s not funny about a nuclear submarine and some bleeped swearing? Did they bleep shipmates, or did the XO say shitmates? Funny either way really.

Listen to the file.

tags: humor

Beats and Pieces Volume 1

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:19:55 -0700

Beats and Pieces Volume 1

I tried last.fm a few weeks ago and quickly concluded that sharing my music listening habits with the public was a bad idea, despite openly sharing things like photographs. I have an irrational and vociferous response to people when they say to me: “You listen to that??”.

I’d still like to experiment with sharing music that I like, but God help the first person who questions my taste. I’ll hold off on the electronic music to start with in the hope of achieving wider interest. This batch of tracks were all things I liked from the KCRW Top Tune podcast.

These links all point at the Amazon MP3 page for the track, in an attempt to help encourage the uptake of DRM-free music. Amazon only samples 30 seconds, but I’m sure you can find the full tracks if you want to. Otherwise, you can give me $0.99 worth of trust. When people link to things via affiliate programs that always makes me a bit queasy, so none of these links make me money. Comments such as, “I heard that 6 months ago” or “That’s too mainstream/obscure” are really not useful and will be filed in my shoe after I extract it from your face.

Is 5 tracks too many or too few, or just right?

n.b. Yes, I stole the title from Ninja Tune.

tags: music

Powerhouse

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:47:11 -0700

Remember that song they always played during construction in Warner Brothers cartoons? This be it:

Raymond Scott – Powerhouse

Also, a nice animation featuring the track on YouTube.

I’ve only explored a bit of his discography but it he clearly seems to be a predecessor to the jazz influenced electronic music of today.

tags: music, childhood

Little white dot

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:39:14 -0700

I think this might be the most amazing space photo I have ever seen. Not only did we put a probe onto another planet, we had a satellite in orbit to take a photograph as it parachuted in for a landing.

tags: space

Democracies accept certain risks that tyrannies do not

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:41:52 -0700

from radaronline

“We are at the edge of a cliff and we’re about to fall off,” says constitutional lawyer and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein. “To a national emergency planner, everybody looks like a danger to stability. There’s no doubt that Congress would have the authority to denounce all this-for example, to refuse to appropriate money for the preparation of a list of U.S. citizens to be detained in the event of martial law. But Congress is the invertebrate branch. They say, ‘We have to be cautious.’ The same old crap you associate with cowards. None of this will change under a Democratic administration, unless you have exceptional statesmanship and the courage to stand up and say, ‘You know, democracies accept certain risks that tyrannies do not.’”

tags: politics

Death, taxes and

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:41:20 -0700

Some highlights from searching for “Death, taxes and” :

Sport:

Major League Waivers
Fifth Place
Leaky Waders
Comparing Golf Courses

Political:

Mrs. Clinton
McCain
the fact George Bush is an asshole
Sarbanes-Oxley

Technical:

Failing Chips
Convergence of Peer-to-Peer and Grid Computing
Relational Databases
MMORPGs

Taxes:

Death Taxes
tax avoidance
the IRS
Wesley Snipes

WTF:

Chuck E. Cheese
Leaf Blowing
the evil which lies in back of them both
left side throat burps

Favorite:

Dandelions

tags: gibberish

I am not a puppet

Thu, 08 May 2008 16:45:46 -0700

Saw this photo on the cover of the NYTimes walking down the street today. Immediately the Imperial March started playing in my head.

Dun dun dun, dun dun…

tags: politics

So we know that you're paying attention.

Wed, 07 May 2008 17:32:57 -0700

Two weeks ago was my last week at Three Rings, my home away from home for the last two years. I wrote some software, played a few games, received careful mentorship, and made some close friends. Basically everything you could want working for a company. I’ve decided however it is time for me to try my hand at the wheel. We’ll see how that goes.

For a hint as to what I am doing, here is Landon’s post on our first open source library, PLDatabase.

tags: threerings