Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.

Fun with headlines

Tue, 13 May 2008 06:56:05 GMT

Ah, the life of a paginator. I can do without the daily deadline pressure, but there are some parts I've missed.

Like laying out today's Annie's Mailbox advice column on the page. For space reasons, we just ran the final two letters -- from vampire fans who met their spouses via that corner of the Internet, a little peeved at Annie's earlier joke at vampire chat rooms' expense.

For one thing, the exchanges were remarkably cordial (at least compared to the screaming dramafests that usually occur whenever mainstream media catches wind of us oddballs). But also because I got to write the headline:

"When love bites: Vampire fans weigh in"

--

Then there was this story, on today's front page. Nickel summary: A new stretch of the American River has been opened to river rafters, who are discovering that the formerly secluded stretch of water is home to a gay nude beach.

Alternate (rejected) headline: "Boaters now penetrating gay hidey-holes"

Heh. *cough* Ahem. Anyway. Who says small-town papers don't cover hard news?

--
Current music is genuinely what's playing now, with Winamp choosing at random from most of my music library. Truth, fiction, stranger, etc.

The era of American exceptionalism is over (part 253 in a continuing series)

Tue, 13 May 2008 02:09:52 GMT

Massive earthquake shakes China [5/12/08]: Within the day, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao -- who is a geologist by training -- is personally on site to supervise rescue efforts and shout words of encouragement to trapped students.

Massive hurricane floods New Orleans [8/29/05]: Bush plays guitar, Condi goes shoe shopping, and the FEMA head jokes about being trapped in his office. (The timeline throws it into even sharper relief.)

--

I had to focus on China to draw the contrast, but let's not forget the crisis in Burma, either. The toll's in the tens of thousands and rising fast. Their leaders are useless, and pure dumb luck is also hampering relief efforts.

Both countries need significant and ongoing relief aid. ICRC, or Mercy Corps, or feel free to suggest other/better aid organizations in comments.

Dear life, still miss you. Signed, me

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:15:15 GMT

Hey, looks like this Internet thing is still on.

Gratuitous Icon Post: ~~Lake Emo~~ Lake Valley Reservoir*, near Truckee, Calif., just begged for this. Anyone know of any happy-face bodies of water? I foresee great success for LOLakes.
The end is in sight: I just gave notice at job #2. I doubt that'll get me back any time until after Memorial Day, but moving forward that'll allow me to really streamline my schedule. (tired cheer)
Waiting for the upgrade: I've just been informed** by the Microsoft Knowledge Base that "Tad's Mouth Doesn't Move" when he speaks. No known workarounds. Well, crap! You'd think with nine months in their testing cycle, my parents could have caught that one before it shipped.
A modest proposal: roaminrob made the mistake of exposing me to the Screaming Frog very shortly after I discovered Cat Yodeling. And now I know what must be done.

The world needs a Screaming Frog/Yodeling Cat duet remix.

I recommend using them both as backing vocals for Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You."
Your Baxil has evolved: Comedian Eddie Izzard famously has drawn the distinction between "executive transvestites" and "fvcking weirdo transvestites." Pace Eddie, I'm pretty sure I completed my transition a week and a half ago to Executive Dragon.

It went something like this:

Saturday: Spent the afternoon in the close company of a dozen topless pagan women (and almost as many men), capping off a ritual to Dionysus with an afternoon of overtly sexual competitions.
Sunday: Went home and assembled an investment portfolio.***

Both, for the record, were firsts for me.

(Edited to add: I'm not trying to imply that Saturday was a "weirdo dragon" day. No no no. Random pagan debauchery is good. More like, I'm an executive dragon because I can both do these things and blend in conventionally with some measure of objective success.)

--
* Enter "39.307,-120.585" without the quotes in Google Maps for original. Although I used Mapquest's satellite view for this icon; the color was better.
** Via the hilarious "Funny Microsoft Q Articles" compilation.
*** If you should find yourself in a similar position -- the entire U.S. market is taking a thorough beating right now. I, and my financially savvy father, recommend fleeing into commodities (especially energy) and foreign bonds. Right now, the dollar's in a slight rally, so it's a good time to buy in. The underlying structure of the economy is such that painful inflation is basically inevitable.

Still not dead

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:16:38 GMT

Updates, or fragments of updates, or updates of fragments:

Somebody shoot me now: My "two-weekend" third job, covering for the departure of a paginator at a local newspaper, metamorphosed into four weekends, then eight. Now their top candidate to fill the position fell through, and I'm being told that they need me until at least late May.

I can't leave until they find a new designer; I can't drop hours at job #2 because the only other person doing my job is quitting; and I can't drop hours at job #1 because the only other person doing my job is quitting.

It's only by the (strained and deteriorating) grace of roaminrob that I'm able to work six days a week right now instead of seven. My social life isn't completely on hold, but it's on life support. And I haven't touched my friends list this month.
"Day 34. Cops still bored."^[*]: Got pulled over by law enforcement today for pulling into a parking space. Did you know that (in California at least) it's illegal to make any U-turns in a business district, except at properly labeled intersections? (I know this, because he said I looked skeptical and showed me the relevant passage in his copy of the Vehicle Code.) This includes pulling into a parking space on the opposite side of the road.

Fortunately, I was either polite enough and/or sincere enough in my protestations of ignorance that he let me off with a warning. At least now I know that our roads are safe from the vile and pernicious evil of business-district u-turn scofflaws.
First-world problems: There is one fringe benefit to working ridiculous hours -- money to spend. Bought the copy of "Rock Band" I've had my eye on since winter, and have been vainly trying to find both time and friends to enjoy it with.

There is one aggravating thing about Rock Band: ARRRRGGH HARDWARE. I was already aware that you can't use Guitar Hero controllers with it (short version: Activision sucks donkey balls and I'm not picking up any GH games). But it turns out you can't use Rock Band controllers with it, either. I currently have three guitars in my house, at most one of which works*, and have just returned a fourth dead guitar to the store. I'm sure it's a lovely game and I really look forward to playing it. Someday.
Content stolen from the Internet dept.: "And there were dragons in the earth in those days."

--
* One official Rock Band guitar, DOA. One official replacement Rock Band guitar, unusable because I own a PS2 and they sent me an Xbox 360 guitar (not cross-compatible, and it took me a week of research to realize that). One third-party Psyclone Kingmaker guitar, recently returned to store because whammy bar died within a week. One third-party Psyclone Kingmaker guitar, new, still in box. Moral: Using equipment produced by the lowest bidders make the baby Jesus cry.

Product shill

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:15:31 GMT

Just registered SizzlingKeys to the tune of $7 for a "family pack" (five-computer license). Highly recommended for all Mac OS X users. And virtually all of its functionality is available in the freeware version.

SizzlingKeys addressed one of the most painful parts of my transition from Winamp to iTunes: it adds configurable global hotkeys for music control (as well as a few bonus hotkeys for locking or sleeping the system). It's got a clean, simple interface and has been an indispensable sanity saver at work - letting me keep music on and mute/pause it at a touch when calls come in.

--
EDITED TO ADD: Since I'm on a buying spree today, fish owners should check out the Screwcumber. (Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter. *thwaps your nose with a rolled-up newspaper*) Nice solution to the problem of how to sink fresh vegetables to the bottom of the tank.

Well, it was funny at 4:30 AM

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 11:44:00 GMT

IM convo between roaminrob and I as we're trying to mash the last bugs out of the new mailserver. Context: At this point we're trying to manually wade through a number of user e-mail accounts on the system that didn't get transferred to the new box correctly, to determine whether they're in active use or need to be shut down.

Bax: (spoken) *snerk*
Rob: (spoken) What's so funny?
Bax: # alias eat='su -s /bin/sh -c "pine -p ~nccnuser/.pinerc"'
Bax: I did this just so I could type
Bax: # eat squid
Rob: # eat squid & die;
(Later)
Bax: # eat sent-mail
Bax: Hey, look, I'm Microsoft Exchange!
(The joke refuses to get old, but does turn off-color)
Bax: # eat cowboy
Bax: Starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Rob: D-:
(Finally culminating in:)
Bax: Oh great.
Bax: The worst yet:
Bax: # eat peter
Rob: Dude.
Bax: And the worst part?
Bax: He's never used it.
Rob: Well, he has now!!
Bax: Yes, except we're about to cut it off D:
(We both bust out laughing.)
Bax: (spoken) Oh, this is so going on Livejournal.

Oddly appropriate icon

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:14:11 GMT

Last weekend, we had a little incident with our clothes washer. By "incident," I mean "flood." And by "little," I mean "half the kitchen and living room, and also through the walls so that both our next-door and downstairs neighbors had to mop up too."

Anyway, I am given to understand that it was unpleasant. I was on my Work Schedule From Heck at the time, so I first found out about it by calling kadyg during the middle of the mopping up. At which point I promptly freaked out and almost didn't make deadline with the night's layout. "Half the living room," it should be belatedly mentioned, included my computer desk.

Most of our books, papers and gear were safely up on desktops or bookshelves. However, the battery backup-qua-surge protector that powered basically everything on that side of the room was happily sitting in a quarter-inch of water by the time Kady and Rob ran out to the living room to take in the disaster.

It was promptly unplugged (and confirmed waterlogged). But I had no immediate way of knowing whether it had shorted out and taken out the half-dozen devices plugged into it.

Kady managed to plug in my monitor and watch it blink to life. An optimistic sign. My lovely, 12.5-month-old Mac Mini, on the other hand, wasn't booting.

Literally. About a week out of warranty coverage.

Got home to find out that this is because its power brick was also sitting on the floor next to the UPS. Picked it up and it dripped.

The good news, as I discovered about 36 hours later, is that when I took my computer in to work and plugged it into a known-good power brick there (my tech support job uses Mac Minis for our work computers as well; that's what convinced me to get one), it worked fine. Bad news is that, having spent the better part of a week drying out my power brick, it still isn't transmitting power to my Mini. Chances are high that I'll have to throw the brick away and buy a new one.

Is there a word that is an exact antonym of "silver lining"? I know I'm feeling tremendously lucky right now that I don't have to replace a $600 computer (and data that hadn't been backed up in months), but somehow I'm still annoyed over the much smaller expense of the bits that did blow out.*

Edited to add: Apple Discussions thread.

--
* Total damages: $50 brick, $35 UPS (it's making some death click when plugged in now -- after the same full week of drying out), $50 DSL modem (but we swiped an old spare from work), one $3 DSL filter, several man-hours of mopping, and a modest amount of landlord goodwill. Apparently the UPS had the good grace to ground as it shorted. (Come to think of it, I think the printer power brick was down there as well -- I should check it. But it cost us less than $100, if it comes to that.)

Actually embedding a video for once

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:24:11 GMT

Hilarious short cartoon that will make every cat owner out there nod in recognition:

(Via Kevin Drum.)

This is probably also a good place to mention Cat News, if you haven't yet gotten your daily dose of fuzzy goodness. (Youtube: episodes 1 2 3)

Note on the run

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:56:01 GMT

If anyone's wondering about my recent silence -- I'm temporarily back at my old newspaper job (one of their paginators left and they need some fill-in work). It's good money, but since it doesn't reduce my other obligations, it's job No. 3 and brings me up to about 65 hours/week. I'm currently on Day 12 of what was meant to be a 19-day streak with no days less than 8 hours on the clock; turns out the paper needs me for longer than I expected, and without some emergency schedule rearrangement that's going to be over a month.

My entire social life is basically on hold until at least mid-April.

I would, however, like to wish Lovely Wife kadyg my warmest congratulations for finishing classes today. She has now started her externship, and when that finishes in June she will be able to come home and officially call herself a chef.

Yay!

solidarity

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:33:33 GMT

"this is something that needs to be done, to show the people running LiveJournal that we're watching the changes they are making, that we're paying attention, that we're discontent, and that we want to be heard." [*]

I'm still about halfway through comments from my last post -- looking forward to finishing that up, but this is worth the delay. Talk to you all on Saturday.

Therianthropes' "German moments"

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:20:39 GMT

My mind goes in odd directions sometimes ...

kinkyturtle just posted some cartoons, one of which pokes fun at Nazifurs. Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like: furries who take great glee in their character violating Godwin's Law, even showing up at conventions dressed up in Nazi regalia. I mention this only because the second panel of the comic (a retelling of an encounter at Anthrocon where an actual German discovered one of the Nazifurs didn't speak the language) threw my brain on a tanget.

The encounter is funny because, well, Nazis. Not speaking German. The cognitive dissonance of it slaps you in the face. If somebody's going to all the trouble to incorporate such a recognizable symbol into their outward identity, you'd think that they'd at least try to get the glaringly obvious bits right.

And here's where my brain left the path: Do us dragons (and Otherkin/therianthropes in general) have our own "German moment"? In other words -- are we (some or many of us) missing out on anything that basic? Is there anything so fundamental to the theri experience that it seems glaringly obvious we would all have exposure to it, even though there are probably swaths of theris running around that haven't given it any thought?

As impolitic as it is to say it, I think there is.

And I'd like to submit that it's a silly thing to be a theri without having done -- and enjoyed! -- some camping and hiking.

Now, I'm not going to be a ~~Nazi~~ hard-ass about it and say the True Theri has to spend months at a stretch out in the woods. Not everyone has that sort of insanity, determination or resources. But look: we identify with creatures that are other than human. Creatures that, by and large, have no experience with tool use. Creatures whose lives were spent in direct contact with nature, fighting the elements, foraging or hunting for food, running or flying through the open spaces.

We make the choice to acknowledge that part of us because we like it. We identify with it. We have a deeper connection.

And so why would we want to sit in dark rooms, in front of cold computer screens, when we could have the chance -- at least occasionally -- to go out and live those experiences? To get a hands-on, visceral, tangible connection to the way our other side lives -- to step outside of humanity's smothering embrace for a while -- to be alone with ourselves and the caress of wind and embrace of sunlight.

Out in the woods, we discover ourselves. (I'm sure somebody famous said so. Thoreau?) And as people with such an investment in self-discovery, we should be leaping at that chance. It always surprises me when I meet those who don't. And I always have a negative gut reaction to overcome when dealing with theris who hate the idea of sleeping out under an open sky.

I should be careful to point out: this doesn't apply to all Otherkin. Elves in particular have a comparatively humanlike social structure; and not all Otherkin come from a primal background. (I think some time out in the woods would do anyone good, but that's another topic. :)) Language sticklers might note I'm talking mostly about "therianthropes" here -- people whose nonhuman side is that of an animal -- although mythic creatures such as gryphons and dragons also fall in the "primal" category.

* * * * *

Also, on another topic entirely, I support the upcoming LJ content strike (Friday, March 21). The primary reason I'm here is that it's an accessible social hub, where I can keep track of many friends easily and share semiprivate content with them. When SUP gets progressively nastier to the folks who got free accounts here to keep track of paid members like me, and when they drive my friends off little by little, SUP undercuts my entire reason for sticking around as a paid member.

Hm

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:36:22 GMT

Random odd fact of the day: Two states share the smallest number of organized hate groups in the continental U.S. --

Rhode Island and South Dakota.

(Neither of them has any groups in the categories the SPLC tracks. At the opposite end, California and Texas have over 50 apiece.)

--
EDITED TO ADD: Second map with actual numbers. Add Alaska and Hawaii to the honor roll. California loses, with 80 to Texas' 67.

Comfort zoning

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:33:28 GMT

I approve of the latest meme going around:

"Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it."

... but I'd feel a bit guilty jumping up and asking for suggestions. I'm already maintaining a back-burner commitment to cover these big topics over the next whenever. And my free time is going to be disappearing as the month goes on, in between filing our taxes and starting a two-week contracting job.

So let me tweak the meme in a way that requires far less immediate effort:

Do I have any old friends-locked posts that struck you as especially profound or worthy of broader distribution? Challenge my comfort zone by prodding me to expose those thoughts to a wider audience.

The best way to sift back through my old posts is probably to look by topic; I've been pretty good about tagging my posts. Alternatively, give a brief description in comments and I can do a keyword search through my LJArchive database.

Finally gave in

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:01:55 GMT

... and installed AWStats on Tomorrowlands today. I try not to care about page statistics, but it is nice seeing who's visiting you and why.

In honor of the occasion (I literally haven't looked at webstats for years now), I'll swipe an idea from lupabitch and share with you some of the weirdest web searches that brought strangers to my site last month*:

free billy joel in the middle of the night
Dude, he's not even in jail!

dragon union means
... not having to worry about getting fired.**

how to find out if dragons really exist or not
Well, if anyone would know how to find that out, I guess a dragon would.

firee sex games
This gives a whole new meaning to the term "smoke jumper."

what are mental faculties?
If you have to ask ... ***

how much would it cost to buy a ton of rock salt? where would i purchase it?
Don't know, but I'll tell you one thing: Shipping costs will be hideous.

send me jesus
So, I was just saying about shipping costs ...

how to hack the game
Actually, I think you wanted xkcd.

Linda Ronstadt
The punchline here is that 14 people scrolled through 10 pages of search results to reach my site -- only to find a pop quiz on the element silicon. (I also got one hit for "silicon" that way, actually.)

screaming virgins
Sorry, you're a few decades too late for Linda Ronstadt.

As a side note: I like awstats' options more than webalizer's, but installation was far more of a hassle. (I had to fix some directory permissions while troubleshooting. Never fun to track those bugs down.)

--
* I wasn't even on the first page of search results for any of these. Although Tomorrowlands has been Google's top link for six years running for "depressing poetry".
** (*rimshot*)
*** Alternate punchline: "They teach the mental students."

Okay, which one of you cast the Attract Money spell?

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:26:48 GMT

So, six hours ago, I settled a deal for about $900 of contracting work to temporarily fill up my weekends.

15 minutes ago, out of the blue, one of my two bosses just doubled my (part-time) hours and is begging for anything else I can spare.

Not that I don't appreciate the extra income, but wtf?

YAGP

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:29:18 GMT

Something must be very wrong with me when I can click through to an article titled "Gary Gygax, 'Father of D&D,' Dies at 69," take one glance at the page, and my first thought is:

"Holy crap! Lore Sjoberg^{* ** ***} writes for Wired now!"

To be honest, I'm not hit especially hard by Gygax's death. I got started with D&D (my older brother's box sets -- "Advanced" came later) as a precocious pre-teen, devouring the rulebooks and reading through the adventure modules, but by the time I actually got around to playing any RPGs, I was addicted to the flexibility and obsessive-compulsive tinkering of GURPS.

And, frankly, the original D&D ... just isn't very good compared to today's RPGs. Apologies to the old-schoolers out there, but it's true. The rules are arbitrary and strange. It took them three editions to finally flip Armor Class to positive numbers and do away with the iconic, idiotic "THAC0". Characters have no flexibility (no skills until 2nd ed.!) and the Vancian spell system is a joke. The game is ruled by hack-n-slash munchkining and gotcha GMing, and the module that redefined the word "paranoia" is seen by many as its crowning achievement.

Still.

Gygax built a foundation. He put the ideas out there. And 98% of the entire "fantasy" genre lies within crossbow-bolt range of Gygax and/or Tolkien.

Like it or not, he's a titan^**** of gaming. He deserves all the attention he's getting, and it's worth taking a moment to reflect on his legacy.

Or just, y'know, make tasteless but funny jokes.^{*^6}

--
* The link from his name to his Wikipedia article is entirely deliberate.
** Even if you're not internet-old enough to recognize him as the genius behind Brunching Shuttlecocks, then you have almost certainly seen his work. I will cite as an example (since it seems most relevant to the current post) the Geek Hierarchy.
*** Cramming multiple footnotes onto a single reference point has got to be a new high and/or low for me.
**** AC 0, HD 20, THAC0 5, dmg 7d6 + 14, treasure type E,Q(x10), R.*****
***** C'mon. You saw this coming. Admit it.
*^6 Best of the lot, seen on 1.2 billion sites on the Internet: "Gary Gygax fails saving throw vs. death."

"Old-school" gaming: A moment of perspective

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 05:49:15 GMT

(Reposting this from a friend's journal, where a pet peeve was brought up -- use of the term "old-school" to refer to things within our lifetimes.)

I respectfully disagree that "old school" is being inappropriately used -- at least in proper context.

2007:

("Call of Duty 4", Gamespy's Game of the Year)

2002:

("Metroid Prime," Gamespy's Game of the Year)

1997:

("Myth: The Fallen Lords," Gamespot's Best Graphics pick for the year)

1992:

("Street Fighter II" on Super NES, one of the year's biggest hits)

1987:

("Legend of Zelda," American release)

1982:

("QBert" in arcades)

1977:
Space War (not embedding due to image resolution)

Consider.

I am 30, and I virtually outlive modern video games. The outside edge of "old school" for video games is 30 years old. Look back 15 years, or even 10, and you wouldn't be able to believe these games were cutting-edge if your only metric was what's commercially available today.

This is why we can talk about older games as if they're relics from our grandfather's generation: because, in game years, they are. If civilization developed in the same time scale as video games, then firing up an emulator and playing an old Super NES classic would be like talking to someone who was alive in the time of Jesus. Sitting in front of an Asteroids arcade machine would be like shaking hands with the hunter-gatherer who invented bronzeworking.*

I would say the "modern" (new-school) video game era began sometime around the Playstation's success in the late 1990s; that was the time that the real transition from 2D to 3D took hold. "Old-school gaming" properly refers to the previous era, or (the sometimes newer but excellent) games designed under those principles. And it's pretty easy to see not only the graphical difference but the design difference if you've played both old-school and new-school video games.

P.S. Feeling old now.

--
* And the board game "Monopoly" would be a literal Neanderthal, walking in circles with his little dog while the rest of us are building cannons and cars.

There's one in every gaming group

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:20:59 GMT

Took a break from the campaign this week -- ended up playing a few rounds of Munchkin instead. As the last game of the night came to a close, I decided to play kingmaker:

Me: Alright, you're short by a point. Aaron, want my help for free?
Aaron: ...?! ... Sure!
Cole and Steven: WHAT? You can't do that! He'll win!
Me: I know. But you guys both made me lose my combat just now, and I'm the only character who wasn't even at level 9 at the time. Aaron didn't screw me over.
Cole: Aw, c'mon, that's not fair. We're talking about ending the game here! I've been nice to you all game and you're going to make him win just because I dumped on you once?
Me: Alright. Fine. (*thinks*) I'll give you a chance. Roll double sixes on 2d6 and I'll rescind my offer of help.

Cole's eyes light up.

He grabs his four Big Reds (old casino dice) from his bag. Tests them to see which are feeling generous tonight. Grabs the two highest. Stands up ...

... and down come boxcars.

'Course, this is also the guy whose AD&D character has no attribute less than 14, and whose d20 has long strings of refusing to roll anything less than an 18. Both with plenty of witnesses and on dice that don't roll equally well for others. This goes beyond Story Dice; this is a straight-up supernatural power. (He jokes that he's got a level or two in Fate Mage.)

Even Aaron ended up agreeing it was worth losing the game just to see that work. ("Cole, grab your character sheet.* You just earned a Fate Point**.")

--
* This isn't actually the first time that player actions have had character effects. We have a long-running campaign in-joke about the Pie skill. It has no actual in-game effects, but it exists and we can train up ranks in it. This is actually harder than it sounds, since the only way to get Pie points is to do something exceptionally cool out-of-game, usually but not always involving actual pie.
** House rule. Spend a Fate Point in-game to get an instant deus ex machina, like averting fatal damage or re-rolling any die just rolled. Only earned by doing something that probably should have required a Fate Point to pull off in the first place (like when I single-handedly routed a slaver camp).

A little good news for your weekend

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:23:06 GMT

It turns out that, among the teenage generation of Internet users, almost twice as many girls as boys author a blog or have a Web page.

This is one of the most heartening pieces of news I've seen on the tech front in years. I doubt that the gender expectation gap will fully disappear within my lifetime, but as online demographics change, attitudes will have no choice but to follow. It's already long past time for the "girls can't be tech-smart" attitude to die.

Also, in other news, cats protect you from heart disease.* 'Strue. They did a study.

I see the future, and it is full of women. And cats.

--
* Technically, not quite true -- being a cat owner is correlated with a 30-40% lower probability of death by cardiovascular disease. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation. Although I'm at a loss to figure what else could be a mutual factor here.**
** Well, okay: the amount of exercise required to ( pull claw-deployed cats off of furniture | save carpets from cat barf | chase down cats who don't want to go to the vet | stop them from going to bed on your face | bring them back indoors when they escape into the rain ) might possibly be it.

chutzpah, n.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:26:03 GMT

Received on the job yesterday (highlighting mine):

Allow me to translate into LOLcat for those of you screaming "Teal Deer":

I can think of three circumstances that might explain this:

FCC and/or market regulations actually require this level of honesty. Cool!
The sender has spent $33,000 to openly mock the people he wants to lure into his scam. And it'll work anyway, resulting in a net transfer of wealth from stupid to smart. Cool!*
The sender still has a conscience and can be saved. Cool!

So, no matter how you look at it, this junk fax is filled with win.

--
* I'm a populist at heart. But let's be realistic: We'll never eliminate inequality in the world. And if there's got to be inequality, why not embed it in an actual meritocracy for once?

Quick take: "The L33t Starfighter"

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:31:04 GMT

"The Last Starfighter" satire fanfic, based on discussion in this f-locked post about hacking "Starfighter" to beat it.

(ETA: Gods. How is it possible that I am the first person to riff on this theme? The Internet was supposed to contain everything, dammit!)

=========================================

The monotone voice again: "A candidate has qualified."

Centauri stared at the screen, muttered something unintelligible, and hit the space bar to acknowledge. "Weapons guidance hack?"

"Affirmative," his computer answered.

"Auto-steer cheat?"

"Affirmative."

"Faked lag evasion?"

"Affirmative."

Centauri rolled his eyes. "Bring him up."

After a few minutes, the craft reached the station. An overweight teenager who smelled like he hadn't showered in ages stepped out from the docking bay. "Oh em gee --"

"Yes, yes, hi," Centauri said impatiently. "So what you've heard is all real, you've proven your --"

"YES!" the kid shouted, shuffling around with an upraised arm in what might have been some sort of victory dance. "I KNEW you'd pick me. I TOLD them all I was the leetest pk'er on the server! Let's see those tards laugh now!"

Centauri gritted his teeth. "You've proven your skill and have been selected as --"

"Wait!" the kid said. "This is too epic. I gotta upload screens of that last noob I pwned. You got wifi?"

"Ex-CUSE me?"

"Wifi. Have you got wifi? Wifi, bitch, do you have it?"

Centauri pointed to a small, blocky port on the corner of his console. "Plug in."

The kid rolled his eyes. "Fail." He pulled a small device from his pocket, ran a cable to the console, and started tapping text onto the screen.

"As I was saying," Centauri continued, keeping his voice level with an effort, "you've been selected to serve as a Starfighter. THE Starfighter. We need to protect the galaxy from invasion, and you're obviously Earth's most highly skilled pilot. Unless --" he paused.

The kid, still typing out his blog entry in triumphant capital letters, didn't seem to notice.

Centauri cleared his throat. "Unless."

"Unless what?" the kid asked crossly.

"Unless the game you were playing was modified in some way --"

"Ess tee eff you!" The response was immediate and vehement. "I don't cheat!"

Centauri made a big show of shrugging. "I didn't say you did. But we've heard rumors of software compromise. We have to ask."

"Fag," the kid muttered, loud enough for him to hear. He finished his blog post, hit "Send," and stood up.

"So if you'll just come this way, we'll escort you to your ship, and then broadcast news of your victory to the server." Centauri pointed to a doorway, edged with yellow stripes, near the viewing port.

The kid hustled by, elbowing Centauri in the ribs as he went, and sauntered through the doorway with a shit-eating grin.

Centauri calmly hit a button. The door closed behind the Starfighter.

"Computer," he said, "delete queued data transmission from port e-n-zero."

"Affirmative," the monotone voice acknowledged.

"Computer," he said, a smile curling his lips, "Launch Starfighter."

The red "OPEN AIRLOCK" warning lit up. A klaxon sounded. A black silhouette, flailing madly, spun out into space.

"Affirmative," the monotone voice said.

Centauri sat back down at his console, where "Starfighter Online" was still awaiting his input: "n00b_KiLLa has destroyed you with a Death Blossom - hit space bar to continue." He tapped the key, and his character respawned. A server message blipped across the top of the screen: "n00b_KiLLa has logged off or been disconnected."

Centauri hit tab and checked his stats. 0 kills, 537 deaths. Busy day. But weren't they all?

=========================================
2008-02-14: Made a few edits to streamline it.

Or maybe it was interrupting zombies?

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 01:31:24 GMT

baxil:
Wow. I just got the weirdest tech support voicemail.
baxil:
"Hello, my name is M--- S-----, and I live in Lake Wildwood. I have a computer, and it's not -- I can't -- it's got a blue screen, and --" *suddenly hangs up*
krinndnz:
Computer ate them. :(
baxil:
"Open the drive a: doors, HAL."
"I can't do that, Dave."

-----

And speaking of Krinn, here's your tiger QOTD, from a great post (read the whole thing for context; totally sfw) about Tintin, national myths, and the landmines of history:

Rule 34 only ruins icons of your childhood if you're afraid of sex.

Quick notes from an overworked dragon

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:18:28 GMT

Your daily dose of WTF:

Go to Google. Type in the phrase: I am on the Internet. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky."

(SFW as of this writing.)

--

Your dragon sighting of the day (via waywind): "Fire Baby Dragon."

--

I hope my readers who live in Super Tuesday states are taking a few minutes out of their day today to vote. There are some inspiring candidates out there.

Settling the question

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:36:54 GMT

Blame baronlaw, who posted an entry cut-tagged with "Fire and Ice Meme", which really should have been something like the below:

View Poll: "Ice and Fire Meme"

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* If you don't get the reference.

Terbo watch

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:14:53 GMT

The continuing saga of local political candidate Ted Terbolizard:

In one of those bizarre the-Internet-is-three-clicks-wide moments, I just stumbled across this post at the wtf_inc community. Shorter wtf_inc: "omg turbo lizard hahahahaha."

(Nothing that your humble author didn't make note of four days beforehand.* Although to be fair, if your only interest in the candidate is his name, my original post was teal deer.)

Apparently word got back to the candidate himself; Terbo e-mailed the instigator and, oddly, put a link to the wtf_inc treatment over in the "Recent Interest" section of his campaign website. I guess it's true -- in politics, any publicity is good publicity.

EDITED TO ADD: The candidate himself -- terbolizard -- drops by in comments. Hi, Ted! :-) Also, a good profile from the local paper.

--
* And now I find myself wondering -- based only on the timing -- if the wtf crowd originally picked it up from my journal. If the person who first posted that is from District 4 as they say, then they would have had any number of other exposure vectors ... but I still wonder. To the best of my knowledge, it's been a few years since the drama hamsters made a big deal of me, but the twitch reflex still occasionally surfaces.