| By the by, I don't hate everyone. I'm just more often inspired to write by anger than I am by the nicer end of the emotional scale. Tabbie sent me a nice email that leeched some of my anger. Jalen took me away from all this. Danielle played Zendo with me, which I appreciated much more than I probably appeared to. All the people who sent me gum are good. [07:46] [1 comment]
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Sunday 28 October 2001
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| The clocks rescinded an hour last night, as though it had never happened, which means the clock on my VCR is correct again (A combination of laziness and habit kept it an hour out.). It also means that the unwelcome house guest is going to be here for an hour longer than I thought. Except that's not true because I didn't know he was staying 'til possibly Monday morning, anyway. Grarh. [20:05] [5 comments]
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Laveyan Satanism;
Selfishness for me,
Screw you and everyone else. [19:53] [1 comment]
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Saturday 27 October 2001
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Taoists seek the way; embrace
Harmony and love.
They live in peace and balance. [08:43] [1 comment]
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| Ah, there's something good to blog - a question. If any of you have seen a martial arts movie with a fight scene whose ridiculousness culminates in the two pugilists each hopping on a single finger, and you know the title, please tell me. The same goes for a movie featuring people fighting while trying not to drop a bird cage; catching it on their feet, and such. [05:14] [6 comments]
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And now for something completely to be expected: GRARH!
For today's angry rant, I draw the reader's attention to a letter from our apartment rental people. The relevant highlights of this letter include: "Water and sewer costs have always been an expense that we cannot control. Including this utility in the rent is unfair to the more conservative resident, as wasteful use of utilities causes the rents to increase." ... "The amount charged for your apartment will be based on the occupant ratio of the apartment."
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if they've been including this bill in the rent all this time, and now we're going to be paying it ourselves, for the purpose of fairness to residents who use less water, surely we should be billed based on how much water we use, not on how many people are on the lease? And surely our rent should go down, now that water is not included? I may have to pull a Rowena down at the office, asking when we can expect our rent to decrease, and such. [02:00] [4 comments]
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Friday 26 October 2001
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| Time for a brief movie review; Iron Monkey. Shortly before going to see it, while looking up the movie times, I saw a review that said something like "Don't expect something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." If you see that review, don't believe it. It's quite a lot like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I assume whoever wrote that review meant that we shouldn't expect it to star a pretty lady, or something - in that respect, it does differ. In visual style, it's most comparable to Fong Sai Yuk, also starring Jet Li, or perhaps to Twin Warriors, also starring Jet Li. Anyone who has seen either of those movies probably fondly remembers some of the more ridiculous fight scenes - if that describes you, then do see Iron Monkey. The fight scenes' ridiculousness outdoes those of Fong Sai Yuk or Twin Warriors. The coherence of the story perhaps does, too, being only about as silly as Zorro. I was surprised that it was another movie remaining subtitled in the cinema - it appears Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has started a trend, there, or dispelled a myth. Perhaps wrongly so, given how pleasingly empty the cinema was. Anyway, in case you couldn't tell, this is a positive review - splendid over-the-top fight scenes, plenty of Hong Kong movie style humour, and, even though she wasn't the star, a pretty lady. [09:02] [5 comments]
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Memes memes memes memes memes memes memes.
The new religion.
It used to be 'ideas'. [08:52] [2 comments]
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Hm, Halloween in a week. I have a fantastic idea for a costume and such. An Osama Bin Laden costume, and bags of sherbet for the trick-or-treaters. "Trick or treat!" "Sherbet or anthrax?"
I won't be doing that, of course. Instead I'll just be a grouchy old man, and pretend to not understand the concept of trick-or-treat, while viciously wielding an English accent. [00:30] [2 comments]
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Thursday 25 October 2001
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| A particularly nice, if a little painful to read, UpsideClown today by Matt; Ludo. [22:03] [1 comment]
| I was pointed at tinyapps.org by Eperdu. Many things that come close to being liked by me, but not quite close enough to be adopted. (The Gun being like Motepad only smaller in file size and larger in font size... OffByOne being a web-browser of small self-containedness, but only doing HTML 3, and no CSS... Popcorn being a small POP client, but seemingly modelled on the Outlook interface that I so dislike...) [21:38] [1 comment]
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Wiccans; their super powers
save the world daily.
They can't sort out their own lives. [09:05] [1 comment]
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Wednesday 24 October 2001
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Atheists rationally
Insist there's no God.
And you're dumb, you believers. [09:08] [2 comments]
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| Another bit of fantastic political hypocrisy. A website belonging to the Democratic Party of Virginia, and about their opposition, opens with "Mark Earley is running a negative campaign". How very positive of them. Their TV advertisement says twelve bad things about Mark Earley, six of which are about how his campaign is negative, and absolutely nothing about their own campaign. I don't think hypocrisy could be modelled better if one were trying. [01:28] [1 comment]
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Tuesday 23 October 2001
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| Tsk, Mr Webster, intimating your opinions into definitions. Apparently, mantis are "remarkable for their slender grotesque forms". Obviously, in reality, mantis are remarkable for their cute slender forms, and their lack of unsightly body hair. As for their posture being one of praying - only if you're a religious nut. Clearly it's a posture of alert combative readiness, as of a person wielding two small scythes. [23:27] [1 comment]
| Apparently in a hurry to catch up with the irony of every American organisation, my bank has increased my maximum daily purchase with my card from $500 to $1000, in the same month that my balance has, for the first time, dropped below $1000, and, even, to below $500, making their generous offer worse than useless. [22:10] [1 comment]
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| The various UpsideClone-written pieces I mentioned a couple of days ago are now linked in the Prose section of my website. [15:13] [2 comments]
| Bizarre surreality in the form of rathergood.com's Blode tales 1 2 and 3 - if you don't have a broadband connection, I recommend downloading the links and playing them from files. [15:06] [2 comments]
| My CD of random music that I was going to entitle Contortion Array is now entitled Blood In A Baggie, and has cover art, after I failed to do acceptable cover art for the former title. [12:35] [5 comments]
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Vengeful, spiteful, childish God.
Christianity.
If you obey, he'll keep you. [12:22] [2 comments]
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Monday 22 October 2001
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| Hm, a martial-arts movie based on a subject I've rather wondered about. Shaolin Soccer. [15:19] [1 comment]
| Today, when I wake up, shall be a day of concentrated programming. Must get some decent coding done before I start writing a novel, to provide contrast. [13:14] [2 comments]
| For the next few days, the AntiHaiku will be summaries of various religions and unreligions. [10:16] [2 comments]
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A religion on acid,
Twisty arms and legs.
Gotta love Hinduism. [09:51] [2 comments]
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| Uh-oh. It appears that next month is (Inter)National Novel Writing Month, and I find myself a little tempted to use it as an excuse to scrawl one of my planned stories to a proper length. Apparently the natural length of a story written by me is only about 25000 words, however. I consider resolving this either by doubling the padding, which, to reach 25000, will already be quite voluminous, or by doubling the story with a parallel-time semi-sequel, which is quite tempting. (via Kevan) [06:49] [1 comment]
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Saturday 20 October 2001
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Grarh! It's ranting time.
Why is it that seemingly nobody in America, at all, is capable of surviving a single month without a paycheck? I'm pretty sure any of my friends in England could skip a month and still be solvent, and I'm pretty sure that not one of the people I know in America is so secure. The only reason I can see is the irritating culture of eating out as seemingly the staple of social activity. Spending $15 (plus tips) per person on a crappy meal with poor service and screaming brats at the next table, rather than spending maybe $10 for a meal of pasta for four and rental of a movie, and being able to have a conversation that consists of something other than "This food is good" or "This service is awful". Why why why? I don't like seeing my friends in financial straits, and I like even less lending money that I'm not likely to get back.
The particular instance in question at the moment is similar to what happened to Kevan a while back - employer running out of money. He was able to slide for several months without pay, without being particularly horrified. The American instance, however, is unable to make rent when her one paycheck is (thus far) said to be delayed. Of course, it would be better if it were impossible for an employer to delay payment for work that's already been done. Take a credit chit, give it to the landlord, you're paid up, your employer now owes your landlord money. That would be nice. And the landlord could spend the money, such that whoever gets the chit gets the debt from the employer. Why should the employee have to go into debt just because their employer is a shit? [20:34] [4 comments]
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The aesthetics of glasses,
of girls, and of light.
Reflection and refraction. [11:30] [1 comment]
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| Icarus sent me more Airwaves Gum, because he is a lovely man. Blackcurrant and menthol is a weird combination. [01:42] [1 comment]
| Once more, I am UpsideClone for the day. The same story will shortly be appearing in the prose section of my website. [00:47] [4 comments]
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Friday 19 October 2001
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| Digi quotes British Telecom's response to a request for them to increase the gain on his line. "Basically mate the gain is controlled by a little facking robot, and he'll facking do it whenever he facking likes, a'right? Now fack off". Superb. I wish Verizon were so straightforward with their blatant evil lies. [12:35] [4 comments]
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Inductive logic causing
The angry Students
To hate Master and Zendo. [12:30] [1 comment]
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Thursday 18 October 2001
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| Much hilariousness for me in the actual-newspaper version of an article I already pointed at online about female 'hackers'. Captions for pictures of each of four women. One of these things is not like the others...
"Starla Pureheart - won the ethical hacking game at Def Con" "Raven - first woman to give a technical presentation at Def Con" "Evilgrrl - member of the Ghetto Hackers" "Brazen - Used her parents' computer to get online". [20:25] [1 comment]
| Oh dear. It's another game. Worm. Damn you, notsosoft. Damn you to damnedness. [20:10] [4 comments]
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Don't call me, I won't call you.
Honest rejection,
Or they just hate telephones. [20:08] [1 comment]
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| Mental note - I should make a picture of a person "All elbows and teeth", representative of myself during any sort of physical challenge. [04:26] [2 comments]
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Wednesday 17 October 2001
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| Around 3am, I apparently become horribly amused by really bad puns. In particular, my side of a conversation as I was logging off last night went like this... (RavenBlack sniggers at the phrase "a face like a slapped arse", used to describe the New Zealand prime-minister-woman.) "Butt indeed, it is time for bed." "Arsee you later." "Bottom o' the morning to ya." (RavenBlack really scrapes the bottom of the barrel for puns) "For buns. Ahahaha." "Catch you on the backside." "If I can't sleep, I'll have to use an anusthetic." "Okay, that really is the end." "I can't do any more puns. I've rectum." "What a terrible run of puns." "Oh dear. That one was execrable." Sorry, but all my readers obviously needed to be punished. Erk. [20:09] [3 comments]
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Wondering what happens if
You pour coffee through
Expensive water filters. [20:00] [1 comment]
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| Another quote from the lady, being fogged by hug-induced spine-pop endorphins rather than by the more common sleep: "Can't breathe... I'll be eaten by clowns." [05:39] [5 comments]
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Tuesday 16 October 2001
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| Tyrethali indicates Bongard Problems as being a little bit similar to Zendo. They could apply decently to a Zendo-like game, but I find preconstructed Bongards quite irksome, as one can usually come up with a stupid rule which applies perfectly but which is arbitrarily called incorrect. Playing in a Zendo setting, the Master must construct a counterexample, rather than simply declaring the player 'wrong'. [22:36] [1 comment]
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I believe in the Bible,
And in pyramids,
Because I have seen them both. [19:16] [1 comment]
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| And another: "You should ask more questions to be more realistic." "What is your credit card number?" "I'm not telling you that!" "Why not?" "You could rip me off!" "I could but let's not talk about that." [05:33] [1 comment]
| Another splendid extract of ALICE-conversation: "All must die." "I think there are some exceptions." "Such as?" "For example, a tomato.". No doubt this will be a comfort to all the tomatoes out there, when robots take over the world. [04:52] [2 comments]
| ALICE, the winner of the Loebner Prize argues with me. Have ALICE argue with you too. [03:00] [1 comment]
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| A couple of hours ago, I cunningly destroyed the contents of my blog, due to the joys of SQL. Lucky for me the .html files are separate - a quick script returned the database to normal before it became public. [01:46] [2 comments]
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[00:30] [5 comments]
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Monday 15 October 2001
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| How long do you think it will be before the US government decide to use chemical or biological weapons on Afghanistan because "they started it"? ("and anyway, my dad's bigger than your dad.") [23:03] [2 comments]
| When my name is translated into French and back, and then into German, by Multibabel, it becomes 'Schwarzes von Raven'. Achtung! Mein secret is out! [20:40] [1 comment]
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| Today's random unfairly suspected culprit is the MDA, being suspected of distributing Anthrax. Once again, the reason for mock-suspicion is motive - millions of customers coming in with flu, and all they'll need is "No, it's not anthrax. That'll be $50. Pay on your way out. Next!" [20:07] [2 comments]
| Another fantastic spam, compressed into today's AntiHaiku. The gist of it is "Are you scared shitless? Buy stuff!"
Attorney General John Ashcroft doesn't understand probability, and says "There is 100% chance they will try something in the future", apparently. Of course, that's word from a spam, with no reference, so it's probably completely made up. [20:03] [1 comment]
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One hundred percent death-chance.
Gas masks - in stock now!
To your door. God bless Merka. [20:00] [3 comments]
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Saturday 13 October 2001
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Meeting alien life forms;
They don't speak English?
Then kill them all, one by one. [21:02] [3 comments]
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| Anthrax and fake-anthrax arriving in the mail for all and sundry; particularly the media. A master-stroke by whoever did the genuine-anthrax mailing - a full-scale scare for every fake, and, doubtless, inspiring angry people throughout the country to cheaply and easily take revenge. Simply wear a gasmask and biohazard suit when opening your mail to avoid any such trouble. [04:48] [3 comments]
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Friday 12 October 2001
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| According to SF Gate, my wife is Not Your Girlfriend. It's always amusing to me how articles about how it's bad that the world treats women differently have to do just that in order to construct their article. Apparently, female hackers are like unicorns. Think on that. [20:58] [2 comments]
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How many times must I say,
that no, young Jedi,
You are not to shave the whales. [18:57] [3 comments]
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| Pizza Hut must die, for their advertisement which says something along the lines of "In Beverly Hills, they pay for stuff with gold bouillon." It's enunciated very clearly, so you can be quite certain that it doesn't say bullion. Apparently this particular mistake is rife throughout America, and I blame Pizza Hut. [02:10] [7 comments]
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Thursday 11 October 2001
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| The US requests that the most independent Arabic TV station al-Jazeera be censored, effectively. Fantastic. (via Nik watching Channel 4 and confirmed by BBC News) [22:30] [2 comments]
| Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that the four Afghan UN aid workers who were killed in the recent attacks died because they were hit by Taliban missiles falling back to earth. American bombs destroy only the intended targets, with pinpoint accuracy, of course. (source: cynicalbastards gossip) [22:18] [9 comments]
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"Dust tastes better if it's red."
Lessons from a dream,
Nonsense in reality. [18:14] [3 comments]
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| Other spam that has amused me today; "Mortgage rates have DROPPED! AGAIN!" and, amusing in a more annoying way, the new style of spam, "You have been unsubscribed from the (whatever) Mailing List. If this has been done in error, resubscribe by...". Clever, but annoying. [01:12] [2 comments]
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Wednesday 10 October 2001
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| A lovely spam demonstrating that the art and understanding of irony are lost to America for good. "Join President Bush in defending the US Constitution". "My Fellow American: This is not spam!". No? Oh, that's alright then. How can I help defend the Constitution? Would you like me to deny cryptography to the masses or would you rather I bomb some civilians? [22:05] [3 comments]
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Puss in Boots is fictitious.
Make no mistake here.
Pus in boots is disgusting. [18:20] [1 comment]
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| I enjoy the trailer for Iron Monkey, which says "What does it take to defy a corrupt empire?" [05:38] [7 comments]
| I spent much longer on this blog code than I should have. Tsk. [02:59] [3 comments]
| The new comment system is almost complete. Expect the entire blog to explode shortly. [02:53] [4 comments]
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"Ah, and now the worm comes true!"
Things the lady says.
"I want to sleep with your clothes." [02:51] [2 comments]
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Monday 8 October 2001
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| Mutant X was also very poor, completely failing to hold more than 5 minutes of my attention, during the hour it was on. Why is it that, whenever you try to point out a character in a TV show to someone, it's always that character who, despite being in the room for the next fifteen minutes of scene, always manages to remain out of shot? [20:07] [1 comment]
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Gangsters speak gutturally.
Cops are all corrupt.
Training Day is very poor. [20:05] [1 comment]
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Carpet Bombing Afghanis.
What a super plan.
Only baddies have carpets. [00:51] [1 comment]
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Sunday 7 October 2001
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| I've realised another group who have the motivation for the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Red Cross. They're advertised on about half the websites of the world, now, getting loads of blood, and loads of cash. Notice also how their colour is the colour of communism. Coincidence? [03:38] [1 comment]
| This week's UpsideClone is mine; Life's a Bureaucracy, and then you die. [03:35] [1 comment]
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Terrible Secret Of Space;
Descend all the stairs,
Then you will be protected. [03:31] [1 comment]
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Saturday 6 October 2001
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| Perhaps I should mention that I was damning the world not for the existence of Jade, but for its non-compliance with the demand of having her bump into us. The existence can only be a good thing. If any of you know Jade, throw her my way, eh? Cheers. [06:42] [2 comments]
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| Also annoying is that I have to make AntiHaiku occupy an entire line, or they end up getting squished due to Internet Exploder not doing a very good job of guessing sensible alignments for entries with line-breaks. [06:35] [1 comment]
| Argh, how very infuriating. Some of you may know that there exists a mythical programmer girl named Jade, who we've been hoping to randomly bump into. It turns out, there also exists a genuine one. A quote from someone's diary of visiting E3 in 1997; "On the plane, we met a beautiful female programmer named Jade.". Damn you, world. [05:57] [1 comment]
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Friday 5 October 2001
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AntiHaiku: First, Seven,
Then a central five.
Seven syllables, once more. [23:07] [1 comment]
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| As a cheap alternative to buying a Lobster Hat, I applied Photoshop, thus. [03:09] [1 comment]
| Hm, I was confused, and forgot haikus are supposed to be 5/7/5 not 7/5/7. Still, at least I put a season in it. Perhaps I'll continue with 7/5/7 which worked rather well as far as I'm concerned. [03:02] [1 comment]
| Apparently I forgot to blog my white-hair experiment. Now remedied. [02:41] [1 comment]
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Apparently, today is National Poetry Day, in some nation or other. (Source: Someone saying something about it when I wasn't really paying attention). I consider this an appropriate moment to start Daily Haikus until it bores me, in the vein of ye olde Glyphs for those of you who've been reading me since them thar days. Hence:
Hats, hattish hats, on the heads,
Of people on trains,
The brains, warm, as in summer. [01:47] [1 comment]
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Wednesday 3 October 2001
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Steve Gibson has perhaps the most puerile advice ever. "Clever hackers are constantly finding new ways to sneak into your computer, so you must stay ahead of them by tightening the screws as often as possible." "...it is best to delete unsolicited eMail as quickly as possible."
Even ignoring the stupid terms he uses that could be easily misconstrued, as I so aptly demonstrate above, his advice seems to suggest that every user should spend approximately ten hours a week securing their computer. Mm, that's going to happen. [22:43] [1 comment]
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| Tsk. Movie crime-bosses need to interview their henchmen more carefully. "You are guarding a room in my building, and you hear "Psst" from one of the large vents. Do you: A. Ignore it. B. Investigate. C. Call another henchman to join you, then investigate. D. Shoot the vent repeatedly, immediately.". Standard movie henchmen apparently pick option B (ref. The Punisher). If you are an evil overlord, kill these henchmen immediately, they're a liability. Ideally you want henchmen who will pick option D (and not the closely-related more common unlisted option E, "Shoot all around the vent, but miss the vent due to being completely unable to handle projectile weapons"), but option C will do in a pinch. Note: This is not advice or assistance to terrorists - if you are a terrorist, please ignore the above. Thanks. [09:57] [1 comment]
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| After that painful download of Debian mentioned a while back, my wife finally got round to attempting to install it. The extreme difficulty that followed for trying to install network card drivers inspired her to (as I had suggested many times) try Slackware. Two hours later, with an almost fully-working Slackware, she agreed that Slackware is better. One day, she'll listen first time. Sigh [02:45] [1 comment]
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Tuesday 2 October 2001
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| Hoorah, the invention of Smart Dust. "Hey, dust, get out of the carpet!" "Yes, boss!". More seriously, it actually sounds like someone's aiming to produce a proper input system for computers. About time, m'laddo. [08:11] [1 comment]
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| A note - if you're already a friend, you really don't need to worry about that entry-of-anger earlier. I already consider you interesting. If I didn't, you wouldn't be a friend. Simple logic. On the other hand, if you're not a friend and you think "I know, I'll become a friend and then ask stupid questions non-stop", quit now, it won't work. It is possible for friends asking questions non-stop to annoy me. The thing is, if you're one of my friends, you evidently already don't do that. See? Good. [07:15] [1 comment]
| Tsk, it is apparently not possible to buy two particular episodes of The Outer Limits; in particular Quality of Mercy and The Light Brigade. Not even possible to buy the whole seasons, and I don't think I'd want to pay for two entire seasons just for two episodes, anyway. Ho hum. [07:09] [1 comment]
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Yes, it's time for bitching about the "You are good at stuff, teach me" brigade again. No wonder people think DJ Bernstein is a bastard - no doubt he responds the same way I do to random strangers asking for help and offering nothing in return. Today's goit is an ICQ person with an unprintable name, so I shall refer to them as 'goit'. Mouseovers for the conversation, I think.
Goit Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
Goit Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven Goit
Raven
Goit Goit
Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
Goit
Raven
And that covers that. Don't ask things of me unless you have something to offer, people. Friendship won't cut it. Interestingness, that might do. I can appreciate interesting friends. Why on earth would I want "suck information from my fingertips" friends? Here's a hint. Grarh! [05:23] [2 comments]
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Sunday 30 September 2001
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| The article I linked on Thursday has an interesting and entertaining side-effect suggested by Digi. "Providing advice or assistance to terrorists" renders one a terrorist. So, the CIA's relationship with Bin Laden implies... Yup. Top government organisation is made of terrorists. Horrors. [22:15] [1 comment]
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