June 14, 2023

2023.06.14
My other favorite film I saw at the 48 Hour Film Project was Acceptance...

June 14, 2022

2022.06.14
it often seems. like the human is jealous of me. because of how happy i get. about the simplest things. i don't know how to tell them. they can do that too


My dad was a national competition level counted-cross-stitcher (amazingly fastidiousness, like the stitching looks as good on the back as the front) and I cherish some of his works my family has around, but sometimes I am bummed that the new stuff is really amazing. Like, he was working at an Nintendo NES-level of design, and now things are at least at the Gamecube era.
Oh, super sweet video of a young Jim Henson permutating a muppet...
You think because I'm kind that it means I'm naive, and maybe I am. It's strategic and necessary. This is how I fight.
Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All At Once

So, even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.
Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Every new discovery is just a reminder...
We're all small and stupid.
Everything Everywhere All at Once

We're all useless alone. It's a good thing you're not alone
Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All At Once

June 14, 2021

2021.06.14
For my dev blog, I posted a link to this article on how Apple with its M1 chip feels like Homer Simpson as new manager at the Bondish Villain's Evil Nuclear Lair, getting better work just by asking for it....
Could you, um, work any harder/faster than this?
I do think of this scene a lot.
Peanut Butter is smoky pudding. Smoky pudding we've all consumed.
Dream Jim Henson

Viral videos greatest hits
*yelling at joggers* Why do you run? Do you feel the hot breath of God on your neck

June 14, 2020

2020.06.14
Welp, I know my no-nuance, get-to-the-crux-ness, don't pay your dues just find fun low hanging fruit that seems pretty core to my way of engaging with the world probably prevents me from really achieving art, but silver lining I don't have the perfectionism of this guy...

June 14, 2019

2019.06.14
From the cries of Sinn Fein to the whines of Jackie Mason, everybody's got an agenda and everyone thinks he or she is right. Trying to change someone's mind usually becomes an exercise in futility, so it is your job to pretend to care. Offer some tepid advice and move on. Cultivate the Switzerland of your soul and remain delightfully detached.
Janeane Garofalo, "Feel This Book" (co-authored with Ben Stiller in 1999).
That final line has been buzzing around my head lately - the usual caveats of there being some privilege in it, and that some struggles ARE worth pursuing - but you gotta pick your battles, or maybe more importantly - pick your battlefields.
ThinkGeek kinda going away...
Oh, that's kind of a bummer! They had a nicely curated bunch of geeky stuff....
People who like Hawaiian Pizza - would you also enjoy, say, a banana slathered with mayo? 'Cause to us that's the same energy, right there, more or less.

June 14, 2018

2018.06.14
Happy Flag Day Dedham

June 14, 2017

2017.06.14

--François Schuiten, via White Space Conflict tumblr with more examples

June 14, 2016

2016.06.14
Video from an undercover CIA operator - This video is a great reminder that no one thinks they're the bad guy of the story (and yeah, the USA really acts more like Star Wars' Empire than the Rebellion). BUT - to understand why the differences between relatively rationale actors is so strong, you have to look to the starting premises. And when that starting premise is one of the unfalsifiable, supernatural faiths, especially of the fundamentalist variety, anything goes. There's no real limit to the amount of hate you can theoretically justify, and then if you look to basic humane principles to judge one of these faiths as superior to a different one (for example, the Judeo-Christian Fundamentalists aren't generally dunking suspected spies into nitric acid, I'd say that's a plus) then you're admitting that humane principles are important - even if you think that the humane principles only make sense when coming from God (which I think is false) at least you're outlining some potential common ground, so we should run with that and promote that flavor of humanity.
What ISIS Really Wants I remember reading this a year ago, surprised I couldn't find myself linking to it.

Christians and Moslems who want are all anxious to bring on the apocalypse bug me out, man.

June 14, 2015

2015.06.14
Oh, hush.

June 14, 2014

2014.06.14
Saw "Edge of Tomorrow" -- at first it was all Idiocracy meets Starship Troopers but then it turned into Groundhog Day meets Saving Private Ryan, so it was alright.

June 14, 2013

2013.06.14
'Happy Birthday' is the public domain... I'd kind of miss the fake-y songs shows and restaurants put in its place "Happy happy birthday / You know we're all excited / We'd like to sing the real song / But we think it's copyrighted"
I enjoyed this for the splitscreen fun. And the beards.

I think people who love Backbone.js think more in nouns, and I think in verbs. It's a profund philosophical interactions vs essence divide.

zefrank on chasing that happy

2012.06.14

You become yourself with another self: you make a pair, and in doing so you see the future in each other's eyes.
Robert Rowland Smith on "Falling in Love"

Indeed recognizing that with death the relationship must end gives marriage much of its human pathos. The vows say 'I'll love you for as long as I possibly can. I can't love you after I'm dead, because I'll be dead.' Marriage begins from death, as it were, and work backward to fill the intervening period with love.
Robert Rowland Smith on "Tying the Knot"

You know, I like Dubstep-ish Bass Drops as much as the next guy, but it's odd it's the only way to tell current from 10-15 yr old things.

sortasuper

2011.06.14
Another week's worth of my entries in Miller's 30 Day Drawing Challenge:Superheroes. (Not too late to join in!)
Power corrupts: this is not a metaphor. And writers were instantly corrupted by the mad power of choice.
Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow. This is why I have trouble writing.

The muscular little charcoal birds, thirteen of them, were working, climbing, far above the mountaintops. Nearer the ground, the yellow canarini (they were actually much bigger than canaries) gave a sudden unanimous cackle. They weren't laughing at him, he realised, or not at him in particular. They were laughing at human beings. What was it about us that they found so funny?
We're birds! they were saying. And we fly! All day we do what you do in your dreams. We fly!
Martin Amis "The Pregnant Widow"

If you don't have time to drink 8 glasses of water a day, at least leave your mouth open during rain storms.

Is it Penny Arcade's mention of "El Shaddai" or the "lord of lords" idea leading to Duke Nuke'em "Hail to the King" ads on the Amy Grant song video?
Margaritas taste a whole lot better when you're not pregnant.

the angriest animals on the internet

2010.06.14
A long while back I got my team at work to continue a tradition of animal-based names, but with "Team Angry Manatee" (I had to use the projector and whiteboard and marker in cannons and lasers to show them just how fearsome an angry manatee could be.) FWIW this site is now the second biggest hit for "Angry Manatee", and it got me wondering... what's the angriest animal on the Internet? I.e. Which animal name gets the most Google hits, proportionally speaking, when you search on "animal name" rather than just "animal"?

The results were a bit surprising... out of the 150 or so names I got off a mildly adulterated Wikipedia List of Animal Names, "Angry Manatee"'s percentage was a lowly .013%, putting it about 2/3 of the way down the list.

So for your edification, I present:

Click to see the raw data!
For the record, the least angry animal was the lyrebird. The Internet had no hits for "angry lyrebird" - at least not until this page gets found by Google.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256250/ - USA "51+ Star Flag" toy shows likely patterns for most state counts from 1-100. Patriotic and geeky!
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
Sidney J. Harris

With Netflix on Wii upstairs, in HD on Xbox on the basement projector, on laptop or in bed w/ iPad, we can watch Season 2 Office anywheres! (Or once they have the app for iPhone anyway)
http://comixed.com/2010/06/12/4-koma-comic-strip-captains-log/ - sorry, but this Star Trek TNG comic made me laugh and laugh... 2019 UPDATE at least I think it was this Pictures for Sad Children:

"Believe me, friendship lasts much longer than love."
"Yeah, but it ain't as much fun."
Sadie and Sgt. O'Hara, Miss Sadie Thompson


June Blender of Love is here!

bzzz whirrr click whirrrr

(6 comments)
2009.06.14

--Shields & Yarnell - "Robots", from 7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show. I remember being kind of fascinated with this skit as a kid, and even now, the idea of automatons crudely trying to emulate a domestic scene is pretty nifty.
"I have a VERY selective memory. Unfortunately, it's not me doing the selecting."
Love without passion is dreary; passion without love is horrific.
Lord Byron

Oof. New romance is making me question my impartiality selecting poems at http://loveblender.com ...

(heartish berry for new blender digest)

Penawawa-X must've been like the coolest name for a wheat OF ALL TIME.

hulk SMASH hulk CRUSH hulk... PONDER FUTILITY OF HUMAN STRUGGLE IN AN INDIFFERENT UNIVERSE

2008.06.14
Went to see the opening of the new Hulk film. Afterwards JZ and I ran to Best Buy and bought the game... we had read previews that said it was modeled on Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, which was a great destroy-everything and bound over the city romp that we had liked a lot on the Xbox.

The new game is decent, good graphics, well-balanced, not as polished as its predecessor. But mostly, seeing Ed Norton's sad sack version of Bruce Banner loving rendered in CGI is worth the price of admission by itself.


Poem of the Moment
The green leaf opens and the leaf falls,

each breath is a flame
that gives in to fire;

and grief is the price
we pay for love,

and the death of love
the fee of all desire.
Robin Robertson, "Lesson".
Woo. I like the subtle chemistry lesson, the tie-in of fire and the chemical oxidation process that is both crucial to our survival but leads to our ultimate decay.


Article of the Moment
After the Garfield thing the other day I thought I'd link to some more traditional academics, a Slate piece on poems that can and can't be attributed to Shakespeare. It's funny, though, when it speaks of
"Funeral Elegy": some 600 lines of unbearably pious tedium whose clumsy witlessness, lack of irony, and paucity of poetic felicity raised questions in the mind of anyone who has an ear for Shakespeare.
It make me realize that I probably have absolutely zero ear for Shakespeare, and the "otherness" of anything that was written around the same time, or even a tribute or parody in a similar style, would overwhelm my attempts to discern if it was the real deal or not.

Shameful(ish) confession: In high school senior year I got about two near-A pluses, English class and History class, for my paper "Discard the Bard?" by essentially cribbing a set of articles in the Atlantic on the authorship of Shakespeare and writing my paper in the form of a dramatic dialog. It was especially easy because the articles were written by two Academics, and then each author got the chance to reply to the other article.

I should feel guilty about my intellectual dishonesty, but I think the teachers just appreciated the daring and freshness in the format of the result, relative to all the boring papers they must have had to slog through.

Somehow I managed to avoid ever writing a significant thesis paper or doing a thesis project; that dodge in high school and then keeping my head down with both the English and Computer Science department at Tufts.


Least favorite movie trailer cliche: anything "beyond imagination". so how the hell did they come up with it?
Why does beer seem better from a tap, but soda seem worse from a soda fountain?

day of thur

(10 comments)
2007.06.14
This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.


Politics of the Moment
We will see neighbor against neighbor, church against church, family member against family member. That's why in this country we don't vote to take away rights.
Marc Solomon, MassEquality.
Tight vote looms on same-sex marriage, if a MA constitutional amendment to cut down the scope of the definition of marriage should be part of the 2008 ballot. Err, isn't there a precedent for constitutional amendments ADDING rights? As in, they made the "Bill of Rights" not the "Bill of Fewer Rights". (Oh, there was Prohibition, which they had to discard a little while after.) To be brutally frank, I think this comes down to King Mob being squicked by buttsex. If you're against gay marriage, don't have one.


Comic of the Moment
Basic Instructions continues to amuse. I just found a receipt for the $2200 Buddha (a 36" RCA that dwarfed the tiny apartment) TV I bought myself 7 years ago. EB has sure milked helping me get it up those stairs! (But at least this weekend he showed me that I can indeed get not one but two of these six foot tables into my little Scion. I'd recommend those tables by the way... Miller and I both have one and they come in useful at the oddest times, plus they're lightweight but sturdy.

I remember getting my first Canon digital camera not too long after, justified in part by my old camera breaking right before the wedding. It's funny, my "big ticket" purchases seem to not be as big as in years past, but there might be more of them now.

kisrael's syndrome: acute neurological hypochondria

(4 comments)
2006.06.14
So it turns out Ksenia and I didn't get the role at that senior residence after a recent second interview there. That's kind of a relief I'd say. No one thought it sounded like a good idea, and while there are still aspects of the arrangement that intrigue me, between the time commitment and size of the quarters provided, I'm inclined to agree.


Cultural Nugget of the Moment
A fascinating piece on How the Aymara have a "backwards" view of time. The more common view seems to be based on locomotion, going into the future. But as I started musing about the idea, without reading the article, I realize there's a beauty in the "facing backwards" view. You can't see the future, your back might as well be to it. Instead we can look at the past, with events receding in the distance as we move from them in time, but maybe with some large events looming for years...

The language is interesting for other reasons, it's the one that grammatically insists that a sentence declare if it relates something personally witnessed or if it's just here-say, which might tie in to the "looking into the past" idea. Also it features logic that isn't just boolean yes/no but includes a third option. (Anyone here read "The Mote in God's Eye" or "The Gripping Hand"?)


Neurological Condition of the Moment
So FoSO sent me a Boston.com article on "face-blindness", or prosopagnosia. I think the implication of the smilie she included with it was that maybe it could explain my tragi-comic inability to differentiate actors as well as my stated habit of identifying people by their hairstyle.

And there might be a little something to that, assuming the condition has varying degrees of severity. But then again, I'm a terrible neurological hypochondriac. In the past I've been given to wonder if I have "shadow" syndromes of (in rough, descending order of "likelihood") I'm sure there's some degree of me wanting to be "special" with these things, which must be annoying to people who have full-blown cases of any of them. And some of these aren't even "shadow syndromes", but I think they do let me feel a touch of empathy, because I think I can connect to the source of the condition, especially with something like Tourette's. But obviously, none of this is seriously interfering with my life, so I should stop being so self-coddling. (I still find these, and almost all neurological conditions, really interesting. I need to read that sequel to "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat". The real sequel, not the parody followup "The Man Who Mistook His Ass for a Hole in the Ground")


Snark of the Moment
Lore on The Dos and Don'ts of Livejournal.

hot tuesday

(1 comment)
2005.06.14
Dialog of the Moment
"For over 1000 generations, organic food like us lived in harmony with the ways of the farm..."
"The farm?"
"Yes, Cuke. The farm is what gives us our power. It's a kind of a... field. That creates all edible things."
Obi Wan Cannoli and Cuke Skywalker in a very clever and Organic Foods propaganda movie Store Wars. The stormtrooper eggs were very clever. Heh heh, "kind of a... field".

Update of the Moment
The other week I posted a photo of a dramtically lit bridge-like structure, turns out it's the Canton Viaduct that even has its own website. It's "one of the two oldest surviving multiple arch stone railroad bridges still in active mainline use in the United States" and supposedly has some twin structures in Russia. Like I said, it's a little disconcerting how the road just veers under it. It reminds me a bit of this Roman Bridge in Portugal.


Reproductive Rights of the Moment
Slate on how Italy is providing us a lesson-by-example on what happens when rightwing-prolifers get control over in vitro fertilization. (They already pointed out that prolifers probably have mixed feelings about mixing it up with the millions of people who have tried IVF.)

back in action

2004.06.14
Thanks to LAN3 for tending to kisrael.com over the weekend...I think it was a neat change of pace.


Quote of the Moment
A person without doubt is a monster.
Garrison Keillor at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, 2004.06.12.
I think in indirect reference to the current administration.


Link of the Moments
One more link from LAN3:
Kirk, I left your links and text below, and here's one that might be up your alley:
http://wheredidthetimego.com/
It's a flash toy on the topic of mortality. At first it appears to be yet another mortality clock, but after a very short survey (that uses sliders, mainly, not multiple choice, heh) it shows you what portion of your years has gone to doing so-and-so, and amusingly so, rather than how much time you have left, etc. My favorite bit is tiny: the "loading" animation has a great little anim of the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx. (I wonder why nobody combines this sort of thing with mortality clocks, so you can look at it and say "Oh, thank god, I'll get in at least 21 years of sleep before I die I might as well stay up tonight.")

Historical Footnote of the Moment
An impulse item at, oddly, one of those highwayside gas station / restaurant areas, I picked up a multi-CD set War on Radio, with lots of original radio footage from World War 2: speeches, propoganda broadcasts, interviews. It makes you realize what a simplified view we have of that time, the speeches in particular have all kind of fascinating subtopics that a typical high school or college overview wouldn't have covered. But, interestingly, both Churchill and FDR pronounce "Nazi" differently than (I assume) most people do now...I think most people now say "Not-See", but then it was more like "Gnat-See"...which makes sense, given that it's a shortening of the German for "National Socialist". Assuming "Gnat-See" was the general pronunciation then, and I'm right that "Not-See" is the predominant way of saying it now...I wonder when it changed?


Photoshopping of the Moment
--Coolest Photoshopping Contest I've seen in a while, Cyborg Animals. Some of the insects were really cool...

oh, canada

2003.06.14
Joke of the Moment
"How do you spell 'Canada'?"
"C - eh? N - eh? D - eh?"
Ed Forster, friend of my Mom's, thought to be original to him! I thought it was a little clever.

Small Gif Cinema of the Moment
two kitchens

mo's
   
brooke's
In England I bought a tiny toy camera, Digi Precision, imported from China, with a cool see-through case. The instructions are pretty unhelpful, I'm thinking about making a webpage for it. It's not a good camera for photos but one redeeming features is the movies it can take...practically ready-made to be shrunk down for small gif cinema.


News of the Moment
I don't know if it was a semi-legitimate attempt to start a tour operator company, but I admire the concept of Mainline Airways, started by a college kid, without offices. Or planes. Or crews, or permits, or much of anything...the pure virtual airline.

backlog follies

2002.06.14
Rant from Last August
Wow. You know what I really hate? That stupid jokey kowtowing bowing gesture people make.
This has been in the kisrael.com backlog file since August. Do you know the gesture I mean? Both hands up in the air, elbows bent, then bow/put the hands down as if you were doing worship or something? Man, that's just embarassing to watch. (Followup: Ranjit thinks it ultimately might be the "we're not worthy" schtick from Wayne's World. (The IMDB Quote Page for that movie is pretty funny.))


Backlog Link of the Moment
From the same day (I knew I wanted to make this animation to link with, but also knew that it was going to be a big pain to rip out) it's Stress by Jim's Big Ego. A great song, and the Flash "music video" I've ever seen. (Inspired me to shoot this rather less cool small gif cinema entry.)


Quote of the Moment
Doubt is the fate of all thinking men

to sleep perchance to learn

2001.06.14
I was reading the transcript of this lecture by Marvin Minsky, one the pioneers of AI. Interesting guy, I saw him at Tufts. Anyway, he points out a recent finding that seems to indicate that 6-8 hours of sleep is really crucial to learning. (He also points out that a lot of these "proven" theories get thrown out after a couple of years.) Anyway, I wonder why someone hasn't marketed a product to let you monitor your sleepcycles at home. Is it that hard to do?


Funny Link of the Moment
Robert Tilton, the farting evangelist. Wow. This is really, really funny in a 3rd grade kind of way-- but third graders don't have that sense of timing. Click the first link under "Classic Videos". (via cruel site of the day, though I think I saw it on "God Stuff" on The Daily Show once upon a time.)


News Link of the Moment
Slate.com on helping the California energy crises by greatly expanding daylight savings time... all I can say to this off-the-wall suggestion is... ohpleasehpleasehpleasecanwecanwecanwePLEASE???

Gilgamesh opened his mouth,
saying to Enkidu:
"Friend, who can scale heaven?
Only the gods live forever under the sun.
As for men, their days are numbered;
their achievments are a puff of wind.
Here you are, afraid of death.
What of your great strength?
Let me walk in front of you,
and let your mouth call to me, 'Keep on! Fear nothing!'
If I fail, I will have made myself a name.
'Gilgamesh,' they will say, 'went against fierce Humbaba
and died.' They will remember, afterward,
the child born in my house..."
---
The masonic sword belonged to M.T. Cunningham of Salamanca, NY.
00-6-14
---
          "How do you know I'd be afraid?" Lloyd said, "How do you know that would be the last thing I'd feel?"
          "I don't know that." Shwartz *tick-ticked*ed the pen. "You can never know. That's what's terrible about death."
          "Lots of things you don't know when you're alive. So what's the difference?"
          Schwartz's fingers stopped, and he stared at Lloyd as though he had seen him purely and for the first time.
--Thomas H. McNeely, from "Sheep"
---
[When asked "Does the Bible specifically tell us what is going to happen in the future"]
"It sure does, Ben, it definitely does...this is definite...it specifically clearly, unequivocally says that Russia and other countries will enter into war and God will destroy Russia through earthquakes, volcanoes..."
--Pat Robertson,"700 Club" 1981-12-2
---
I've known about the dangers of sex for quite a while, but having some girl shatter my skull with her tongue wasn't one that I'd have expected.
--otto.man@the.couch, rec.arts.movies.current-films
---
"The fact is good writers are almost never dangerous."
--John Gardener
---
"Man Versus Nature: The Road To Victory"
--Troy McClure movie on The Simpsons
---
200 Days 'til Y2K...
99-6-14
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"Never eat more than you can lift"
          --Miss Piggy
---
ROSALIND: I want to elope.
PETER: All by yourself?  Darling that just isn't *done*.
          --Jon Stephen Fink, Further Adventures
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this mornimg i discovered my own Gödel number... luckily my memory is so bad I forgot it before any harm was done...

seriously, my memory is so bad it's beginning to frighten me
97-6-14
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