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Because if you've never heard anyone yell 'I'll fight everyone in this Applebees!' then you've never really been to an Applebees.

It was great being able to assemble a last minute band (via my more-of-a-mailing-list-than-a-band "Boston For Fun") that played the stage of Davis Square's new Crystal Ballroom before the Boston 48 Hour Film Project... like I just saw Rebirth Brass Band here in February! People who think the US health care system is the envy of the world are very badly informed. (Maybe it's the best if you're a gazillionaire? Like it's optimized for the top 5% of expensive shit, but for the other 95 meat and potatoes stuff it's just out there.)

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at the risk of being too nature vs nurture and too pessimistic about the ability to make some levels of change, I hadn't thought quite as much about athletic type being a cause and not an effect

For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.

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Melissa and I watched Bo Burnham's "Inside" a few days ago.

"White Woman's Instagram"... dunno if it's punching down a little besides potentially yukking someone's yum, but damn he did such an amazing job making authentic looking versions of some of the tropes... it really made one think about the style of femininity the form represents.


31 details and references you might have missed in Bo Burnham's new Netflix special 'Inside' pointed out a further redeeming nuance; most of the video is square-cropped ala instagram, but the part that's emotionally opening up is reflected with the cropping widening as well.

The whole thing was kind of astounding insight into wrestling with depression and uncertainty and grinding out something artistically productive; like the odd cutaways of him making himself eat breakfast while reviewing the previous day's work.

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Interesting piece on trauma, the thread leads to talking about autism spectrum issues as well.

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Nice day for a little woodsish walkaround with Liz (Melissa had to stay home, she banged/scraped her little toe something fierce, like blood-soaking-paper-towel fierce) We went to the Hammond Pond Reservation near Chestnut Hill.

Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise.

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Play all the Steely Dan albums in release order.

It's not quite "consciousness", but when the automated assistant can do the right thing based on that query, we know we are doing with somewhat more clever things!

Sometimes I'm not sure if our grammar processors are as sophisticated as Infocom parsers on old text adventures. I could tell the turtle in "Enchanter" 'turtle, go se then get the scroll then go nw.' and the turtle would do that.

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G is for gin! T is for tonic! Our six titties are supersonic! We don't mind men - We don't like fuss. We're the Glee team - Come and get us !

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Band Life Hack - having trouble keeping your group together and tight on the descending line in a cover of Herbie Hancock's Chameleon (like around 0:55 of that one?) Try the mnemonic "HERbie / Hancock / CuriOsity is good...." Here's a argument between baseball umpire and manger, with sound (Lotsa cussin') (MLB is trying to remove this, but this version showed up)

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I like my women like I like my coffee, strong enough to kill me but with a hint of mercy.

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Miyamoto in 2002 : "Get accustomed to the GCN Controller because, 10 years from now, this controller will be the standard" -- and in 2018 the Switch will let you play Smash Bros using it! It was so good, I love how differentiated the buttons are and how the scrunchy-then-click triggers work

There's really no middle ground with you. Either you don't care at all, or you care 100-and-crazy-percent.

(I've used (as recently as yesterday) another line from the same episode as a hint to transition back when a corporate chatroom conversation or in person office bit of goofballery has gone off the rails: "Meanwhile, back in a place of business...") http://mightygodking.com/2016/06/13/one-thing-about-orlando/ - to paraphrase: there are 200K members of ISIL, tops, and 1.47 Billion Moslems. ISIL will always be able to mosquito bite us, but they win when they get our politicians to reframe this as "Christianity vs Islam", because suddenly their numbers look bigger.

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Here's a bad joke! Why is Trump like ISIS? They both hate moderate Moslems!

If pigs could fly, imagine how the wings would taste.

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Moleskin: it's like a blister for your blister!

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I'm impressed you have a tattoo... well, impressed isn't the right word.

This makes me Laugh Out Loud every time I see it...

Apparently it's part of the MMM3000 project, trying to make a helmet so hungry gamers don't have to take their hands off the controls. Fill their final prototype with the Soylent product and you'd be set for a good long while.

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There's something magical about the brief period spanning 2004-2009 when digital cameras finally reached a mass appeal price point. Suddenly, people were taking more photos than ever before, but hadn't mastered the concept of 'how to look good in pictures' that came once smartphone cameras took over, ushering in the era of selfiemania.

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1. I think this thing in Iraq is semi-huge. and underreported I know getting into Iraq was a mistake, I'm not convinced our complete pull out wasn't.
2. Recent I read (maybe in that "Think Like a Freak" book) how Saddam threw out the UN inspectors not because they'd report he had WMD but because they'd report he wouldn't; I (and a ton of other folks) had a rather-USA-centric view that didn't let me think about how he felt more threatened by regional rivals than by us.
3. If they weren't such a bunch of fundamentalist barbarians out to install a repressive region of utter intolerance, I'd almost have respect for these jerks. As it is I will just find it hilarious they are called "ISIS" just like the people in the animated series "Archer". Amazing rainbow over JP:

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How do you spell non sequitur? With an orange.

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You know the web dev rule 'don't mix logic+content'? Now think coding: is OOP like html w tables & inline styles? (oop=func+data mixed!)

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Racefail in Game of Thrones, specifically the white liberal woman as the saving and humanizing force for all the browns peoples.

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http://kirkdev.blogspot.com/ On my dev blog, quick thoughts on iOS7's "Today" view and what "slide to unlock" should mean.

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The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.

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http://www.yelp.com/biz/ups-customer-center-south-boston -- I think Geek Squad using these guys to send back my fixed camera is a form of punishment. I haven't noticed many Yelp scores that low. In "Driving With Plato", Robert Rowland Smith begins the chapter "Having Your First Kiss" with a bit of Shakespeare:

ROMEO [To JULIET.]
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray -- grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
[KISSES HER]

...A kiss is a matter of delight, of play, of a delicious hide-and-seek, as light as a feather and as solemn as the prayers to which Shakespeare's lovers allude. It hovers like a net to catch all their fluttering feelings: hope, expectation, anxiety, curiosity, relief, abandon. It waits for them teasingly at the end of the sonnet, to bless the miracle of love at first sight. Listening to Romeo and Juliet, one wants to say that above all kissing proves there are more mysterious and wonderful things in the world than are dreamed of by science.

But what's interesting is that this romantic wondrous-ness finds itself enhanced rather than diminished by the formal elements, the scientific structure, of the verse, and that the young lovers themselves seem more than a little aware of it. That repeated s, for example, makes the lines sound like the kissing they describe, especially because the  s often combines with a p, not only in the words lips itself, but also palmers, prayers and pilgrims. Each time Romeo or Juliet speaks, he or she repeats at least one key word that the other has just enunciated, as if their fates were becoming laced together through each letter of that word. The final two lines create not only a couplet but a couple: they demonstrate the union and symmetry between the love-birds.

"Driving with Plato" is a pretty good book! I need to check out his earlier work "Breakfast with Socrates" (which is about what philosophy has to say about every day events, vs "Driving"'s emphasis on major life milestones, like a first kiss...
via Bill the Splut

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aw big ol sneeze all over my computer screen WELL AT LEAST THE COLORS ARE PRETTY

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If 90% of everything is crap, it's not the same 90% for everyone! We need more EVERYTHING!

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The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.

via gifanime

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Google weirdness. A search for "tapir", with quotes:~5 million. Without quotes :~1 million... huh? Messing up my search for angriest animal.

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Cashback is a cute romantic English film-cross genre. As if Vanilla Sky and Office Space had a mushy baby. W/ skin, but in a lovely art way.
Mighty God King has a whole series of these (PG13, but really funny.)
Straggled through to another Friday! Hooray!

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Analysis of the Moment
Permanent Monday is uncanny. Although it now seems to be defunct-ish, it was some very detailed, almost scholarly analysis of the daily Garfield strop. The weird but is the analysis isn't just there to just mock the strip, but rather seems to acknowledge its strengths and weaknesses and the craftsmanship that goes into making it. I think I might have to read the whole archive of this!

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Video of the Moment

I liked this song when I heard it on Shatner's "Has Been". Then I found out that it was a cover, not something Shatner had penned, so I liked it less. The I found this juxtaposition and I like it more, though maybe not as much as when I thought Shatner had written it.

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Quote of the Moment

Sad, sober friend: I just really miss her, I guess.
Drunk friend: There's no color the sky can't be at any given time. Remember that!

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what good are subsidized 25 cent cans of soda without an intern to go downstairs and bring them to me?

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Sudden meetings at work are less scary in some ways 'cause my move to Boston is probably the same as a "hunker down" move would be.

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(meeting ended up not being scary, just my old hands off manager moving to another group, and a new hire manager who I'll report to) At work yesterday my having a decent digital camera came in handy for some folks who needed to make some screenshots from actual phones. So once again I may build a reputation as the guy to go to when you need a white board photo or what not.

With better cameras, I'm using more and more diskspace every year. I was musing about winnowing the worthless shots out of what I usually keep on my harddrive. (Historically I've been superstitious about not getting rid of old photos, but now I'm generating so many of them as I try to get the shot just right...)

So I would probably hedge my bet and burn a DVD with all the photos-- even if I never actually tried to retrieve something from that archive. That DVD would map to the Greek idea of Hades; files reduced to abstract collections of ones and zeros, shadows of their former selves lacking the life force of being turned into viewable images... And if I did have to go to the DVD to retrieve a file, I would be like like Orpheus travelling to the Underworld...

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Monster of the Moment

Angus used to have vivid, terrifying nightmares about an evil blue mouse named Hickory Dock who would scuttle from a loudly ticking clock and bite him on the hand--inspired, apparently, from the seemingly benign nursery rhyme. Even at the ripe age of five, Angus can't sleep with a ticking clock in the room.

Sorry the kid was having nightmares but "Hickory Dock" is one of the coolest evil names I've heard in a while. Much cooler than my own childhood bedtime foible of being convinced that someone saying "Don't Let The Bedbugs Bite" would give me nightmares. "What's the Haps?" I've been saying that a lot lately. Nicely anachronistic, less demanding than "what's happening?", a little less casual than "what's up?"

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Video of the Moment
200 liters of Diet Coke, 500 Mentos mints = a must see recreation of the Las Vegas Bellagio Fountains... Mentos and Diet Coke can erupt with surprising force. So don't mix the two in your stomach, even if you're a cute gal (is that an English or Scottish accent? I'm so dumb with that stuff.)

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Quote of the Moment

"Why does nature hate a vacuum?"
"Nature hates a lot of things and, actually, a vacuum is far down the list -- behind perpetual motion machines and lemon-lime flavorings."

Snark of the Moment

Piercings and tatoos say something about a person. What they say varies, just like with any art, but many of them say "I'm angry and I make bad life choises." Those are the ones I'd avoid in IT.

The quote is a little bit reactionary, and poorly spelled, but funny. (Reminds me of the guy saying "I like gals with tattoos...women not afraid to make a decision they'll regret later.")

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Ramble of the Moment
So for a while I've had this thought that I can't criticize anything my parents, or any of my ancestors did, up to the time I was conceived, since there'd be a good chance of me not being here. After that time, however, it's all fair game for second-guessing.

I mentioned this at Sawers' farewell bash and extended bullsession, and someone pointed out that this kind of attitude could be extended for everyone, that if no one in the world carried a grudge against anything that happened before they were born (otherwise, like the flapping of butterfly wings causing a hurricane, they might not be here) then there might be a lot more peace in the world.

It's not how people actually think or act but it's a nice thought, limiting your grudges at LEAST to things done in your lifetime.

This is the second and final day of Kisrael Held Hostage with your guest captor, LAN3.

AIM of the Moment
Last Saturday, I got this IM from kirk, out of the blue:

kirk: now they're gonna wanna put him on money
LAN3: What's that now?
kirk: sorry, wrong IM window. My response to someone asking if I heard Reagan died
LAN3:: Reagan died?

And that was how I got the bad news. But as much as it does a Republican (arguable) good to trump up the passing of that late great President, I really just wanted to mention that as the ...

Segue of the Moment
because this morning I heard, on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, a short thumb-sucking essay by host Scott Simon, which is a regular feature on the show. This week, Simon contemplated the alleged drive to add Reagan to money. I don't know if the drive is substantial, merely has a good media coverage, or just presumably exists, but considering what I now know about Andrew Jackson, I'd be happy to see him off the $20. However, Jackson had very big hair, and Reagan had a rather squared hairstyle that just won't fill the oval on the bill very well.

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Radio of the Moment
That last link goes to a long-past episode of "This American Life," the WBEZ (Chicago)-based public radio show that gives a weekly hour of radio documentaries around a single theme.

Last week's episode was one I nagged Kirk to listen to. It spent the entire hour on a single general story, a look at private contractors in Iraq: "I'm From the Private Sector and I'm Here to Help" (RealAudio and Audible.com archives available)

It covers, in its various acts, some of the private soldier/mercenaries, the friction between the contractors and the military (including an argument near the beginning which is terrific radio), a contractor who is working on Baghdad's heavily-improvised power systems, a woman in a nearly-all-male niche, and even lets you witness, aurally, an ambush in traffic.

In other good radio: Scott Simon's thumb-sucker is at times cloying, but I'll give him credit-- he got Simon and Garfunkel in the same room.

Animal Science of the Moment
Science has confirmed what dog owners all know: Dogs understand language. I sent this to my sister, and she estimated that her golden retriever, Cider, can understand almost 40 words:
sit stay down wait here come outside leave-it kong swimming frisbee bo-bos (bedtime) puppy-chow good-girl greenie bone treat cookie go-hup paws-up kisses bath ears hot no-begging out go watch-me walk love who's-there speak find-it cat quiet as well as the names of 4-6 people she sees often.

Paranoia of the Moment
The Reproductive Cycle of Black Helicopters. This probably confirms everything you've ever suspected about their sinister origins.

Game of the Moment
N is an addictive game that runs on your PC or Mac using CPU-hungry Flash. The gameplay? "play as a ninja trapped in a world of well-meaning, inadvertently homicidal robots." Think Lode Runner with physics added.

The game is really fantastic, but I don't think I'll ever finish it-- to advance you take 5 levels per episode, and there appear to be 30 episodes. Watch the demos that autoplay on launch for a great look at the various inhabitants of the game, and read everything in the "help" and "story" -- there's a lot of hidden humor and classic gaming references.

1000 Thanks to Kirk for letting me cover his weekend. This was fun! LAN3 out. Fact of the Moment

Zebra mating is often accompanied by flatulence.

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Funny of the Moment

My husband, not happy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring the other day so that he would be able to monitor my moods. When I'm in a good mood it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood it leaves a big red mark on his forehead.

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News of the Moment

Bush on a Segway

Bush off a Segway

He's not all that great at golf either, according to CNN

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Quote of the Moment

Ah, Atari. In your rise and fall is every lesson a video game executive should take to heart and never does. Lesson one, be run by a chief executive who at least commutes to reality.

Interesting reading, though probably only for fans of games in general. Quote of the Moment

When God created time, he created a lot of it.

Ironically enough, I'm making today's entry in a bit of a rush.

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Link of the Moment
Yesterday memepool linked to QDB, the Quote Database Home for IRC. (IRC is an older form of chatroom.) If you're in a hurry, check out their Top 25 page. [PG13 links, that IRC crowd is a wild bunch.] Yikes... thanks to some wacky slip of the mouse, I lost my back archive of material I keep on hand for this 'blog... mostly some ok quotes, stale news, and random thoughts. A little frustrating to have lost that information, but on the other hand it's nice to have some kind of fresh start. Points out how I need to develop a better archive/backup system.

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Games of the Moment
The robotduck games page has some really decent shockwave games. In particular, ranjit (no slouch himself in the game writing department recommends 'yard invaders'. It's a unique variation on the invaders theme, your little man (followed by his trusty duck) has to pick up apples and hurl them at the marauding aliens... and then pick them up again. I wonder if the control might be better if it used the keyboard as well as the mouse, but overall it's still a good game in a cool visual style. I really should try to get into programming in director/shockwave.

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Joke of the Moment

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.