December 2008
48 posts
Crooked Little Vein
[Beware, minor spoilers] I finished Warren Ellis’ CLV yesterday. Has been a while since I had so much fun with a book.
To me the characters are carrying the story. Mike and Trix (who wins coolest female lead since YT in Snow Crash) are a great duo and the supporting characters are the good kind of strange. The more I think about it I guess I most enjoyed the love story aspect of the book,...
WatchAmazing laser theremin is amazing.
Oh hai, goldmine!
Two persons I admire: Richard Dawkins interviewing Derren Brown.
See also: Interviews with Prof. Michael Baum on alternative medicine, with Aubrey Manning on Ethology and with Father George Coyne.
How not to get your point across
Today I read this passage about the loudest natural noise:
The noise of the collected shrimps amounts to an earsplitting 246 decibels, which even adjusting for the fact that sound travels five times faster in water, equates to about 160 decibels in air; considerably louder than a jet taking off (140 dB) or the human threshold of pain. Some observers have compared it to everyone in the world...
My D90 feels like a gun. Like a rifle. Like a bow. I’m actually shooting with this thing. Sure, I’m not a sniper yet. I’m not even sure if I will become a decent gunslinger in the near future. But you don’t have to be perfect at something to have the fun of your life doing it. Apart from capturing a picture of a moment, collecting it, storing it, I here actually love taking...
“The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability...”
– Stanley Kubrick
The festivities are upon us. With seven-league boots they approach. I’m counting the days. Until December 27th.
I’m talking, of course, about the 25th chaos communication congress: Every year between xmas and new year Berlin becomes the place where “hackers, scientists, artists, and utopians” meet for a four day conference covering everything from talks about computer...
digitalyn:
My Little Xenomorph II by ~eruna on deviantART Amazing amazingness. I have no word. I started to randomly search for pics of wasted ponies and ended up on custo, and even if I wasn’t the kind to play with ponies as a kid, I’m now totally amazed by those people collecting and customizing them. Imagine the amount of time they used to create and detail this one.
I propose a corollary to...
Q: You just accidentally a coca-cola bottle Is... →
digitalyn:
No, you can clear that up easily. Just do a barrel roll. For more extreme cases of accidentally a coca-cola bottle, do a barrel roll while dividing by zero, although this is admittedly dangerous.
Ahhhh. Practical tips for a better living. Over 9000 thanks!
“Perl is like Voodoo - An incomprehensible series of arcane incantations that...”
If you take joy, pride and comfort in stereotyping yourself or others based on gender without the least bit of irony, let me tell you something: You bore me to death.
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
– Robert Capa
At a cozy housewarming party
A friend, after reading a tweet: »Martin, what is “Goatse”«?
I LOLed.
Sometimes I'm really slow
Nous sommes seuls, sans excuses. C’est ce que j’exprimerai en disant que l’homme est condamné à être libre. Condamné, parce qu’il ne s’est pas créé lui-même, et par ailleurs cependant libre, parce qu’une fois jeté dans le monde il est responsable de tout ce qu’il fait. […] l’homme, sans aucun appui et sans aucun secours, est condamné à chaque...
“New rule: if you use Linux, you have to wear a frightening Finnish knitted hat.”
– Warren Ellis on Whitechapel - Linux, stop holding our kids back. /thread (via digitalyn)
Amen.
A Star Wars "Opera/Concert/Musical"? →
Hmmm… Star Wars. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. European tour.
Meta: Starting anew
Recently I decided to reboot a lot of my online activity: I semi-retired my old blog, deleted my old flickr crap, cut down the “homepage” and replaced it with sweetcron. I also decided to get rid of comments wherever I can - not worth the hassle.
By now I’m convinced that it was a really good idea: The old fun doing this kind of stuff, I experienced back around 2001 when I did...
Kanji Fail
One of Europe’s most prestigious scientific research institutes has had to issue an apology after discovering that the calligraphy used on the cover of its flagship publication to illustrate a special China edition was in fact an ad for a Hong Kong strip joint.
The institute hastily replaced the cover - which advertises “hot, young housewives” - from the online and English...
WatchJust noticed I hadn’t posted that here. Enjoy. ;)
digitalyn:
I think I found the evillest place on the internet…
And I think I just heard my credit card scream in pain…
WatchDon’t get addicted to brain crack!
So, on this weeks podcast I mentioned that I want my washing machine in the basement to twitter/irc me when it has finished washing. Of course, hilarity ensued and people email me about how it should work, if I have some specifics etc.
So I thought a bit about it and wrote down some specs for my ideal solution:
What I want is a small device I’d call the MonitorBug. It has WiFi and a...
Random thought #92
I sometimes hesitate to call things I do “work”. Because I know it tends creates a false dichotomy of “work, not fun” in the mind of other persons.
As far as I’m concerned, work is something you do to express yourself. If you have fun or not is a function of the people you do it with and for.
“The Internet is the greatest generation gap since rock and roll. We’re now...”
– Schneier on Security: The Future of Ephemeral Conversation
This is a reminder
This is a reminder. To myself. Because I tend to forget just how important music is.
Every few years I seem to have a phase where I don’t listen to music that much. And every time I only realize, just how much I was missing after a way too long period of musical drought. When I rediscover what I was missing it feels like finally being healthy again after weeks of having the flu.
Let me...