Here Be Dragons

Dinosaur on Board

Would I fly on a plane with a dinosuar? I think I would, but it would have to be a really cool dinosaur, and not some wussy little one. Yeah.

Vodka for Breakfast(.com) is an excellent URL.

Also, from what I can tell this is accurate for almost all lecturers, as to when they will pick up any given work. But it is nice to know that math teachers graph it, so everyone knows what is what.

Yeah, this is a cop out of an entry. I was going to write about buying two, count them TWO brand new TVs in one day. But I haven't.

Oh, and Nyah! To Ben blogoist for criticising me and my reading of a certain call girls blog. For truely she has got a book deal, and that is a lot more than either of us can say. I found it when she won a Guardian weblog award, which I guess makes me late to the party.

Which Reminds me.

Last night I was reading the Listener at Ben's house and I came across one ot the cartoons by um.. dunno, maybe Ben will look and tell me, and it was "the blog of Don Brash" located at ihavethingsinmyhead.blogspot.com. So today I dutifully go and look it up, and behold, it is a scythe.

Which reminds me, I've seen things. I've seen them with my eyes.

Update a few minutes later... Russel Brown is also on target.

The Future of Thesis Fun

The eventual goal of my thesis in the long long term would be to be come up with kind of stuff (sort of, this is more sociological, but still interesting). Lucky I'll never go that far. But I do find it interesting. 'Cause I'm like that. (and that's the way it is)

One of the interesting things is that with vinyl, the aesthetic was in the cover of the record. You had the sleeve, the artwork, the liner notes. With the rise of digital, the aesthetic has left the object -- the record sleeve -- and now the aesthetic is in the artifact: the iPod, not the music. The aesthetic has moved from the disc to what you play it on ... and the iPod mini will appeal to those who want an artifact for style...

Can't Print - NO Money! (and Lego)

So I ran out of money on my account, and that sucked.
So I went to the LOFT and tried to add money. Ten dollars... Check. Dodgy taped up five dollars with folded corners... Na. Whirrrr Chunk Chunk (comic spring noise) and the light goes out. Luckily this is now, and not the end of term so noone is going to go mental due to lack of ability to print out some work, but still, sucks to me.

Also sucks to KMM88 who today was also in the dreaded Can't Print, No Money zone.

At 10:22:29 they tried to print a four page document from Regyweb (I imagine it was a course change form, or the like)

No GOOD!

So one second later, she tried again... One second?

She then waited a further two seconds before trying again.

Still, nothing. Wait three seconds... That should sort it....?

No.

One more try at the one second delay.

...No.

Then in a fit of patience they wait a staggering 18 seconds!

Then they either die, or put money on their account. Not sure.

Exceptionally Geeky ALERT!

Behold the geekness. Some dude has created all the interior stuff for the Death Star One. Well, I guess only the stuff that is in the film, but damn, it is epic. Epic! My personal favourite is not one with a big scene, or an action shot, but rather this shot of the trash compactor closing. It just looks so cool.

Oh, and this guy... this guy has given too much money to lego. Oh yes. Just look at the number of Jawa he has. Stupidly lots.

Also, Ben is onto a good thing with his comment history world. Check it.

Musicy (and Gamesy)

Coolness. Steriogram have a video for Walkie Talkie Man, and what's more, it showed up on MetaFilter.

Keeping on the NZ Music slant, I must say that the lineup for EdgeFest'04 (eurgh) does look pretty awsome. Pacifier, Alien Ant Farm, The Feelers, Elemno P, Zed, Che Fu, Blindspott, Nesian Mystik, Steriogram, Scribe. That is much, and much goodness.

Saying that however, I probably won't go, instead I'll target UCSA Orienation with Goodshirt and Steriogram both playing on the same night. For $20. Oh yes, That will be cool. Come on down Thrusday.

Also, Dan now has a laptop of power. I suggest we warn Europe.

Finally, Battlefield Vietnam.... Oh yeah.

You'll be able to engage in huge air-sea battles, as players attempt to knock enemy helicopters out of the sky. Some choppers will even be able to carry and chain-drop tanks in certain areas. We can only imagine some of the insane moments that might produce.

Tank carrying helicopters.... that is going to rock. Mwahahaha.

Righto.

Aha.

Well, what a surprise. My ring tone is not as original as thought. Ah who am I kidding, it was always geek ++

Hi, Thank you for contacting Coca - Cola in regards to our XLR8 Promotion. Thanks to consumer queries such as yours we have discovered an isolated problem which we have rectified. We apologise for any inconvenience and would like to send you vouchers for 2 replacement 600ml drinks of your choice from the Coca-Cola range. If you select specially marked XLR8 packs you will be able to enter again. Please send a postal address and name so I can organise to send these vouchers to you.

Kind Regards

Renee Popple
Customer Care Consultant

Wow, they actually fixed it, and also it actually was a problem. Shib!

I'm the Pied Piper of Snot.

I am the railway station of snot. Snot enters (from somewhere) and exits my body at regular intervals.
I am the nexus of snot. Snot swirls around my body, like some wobbly jello. OK?
I am the garbage scowl of snot.

A pox on it, or rather in me.

BAH.

An excellent article about viagra. Comedy gold.

Here's Dr. Alec Broers from the renowned medical journal s95forcheapmeds.nepzzz.com, who claims "This product is 100% SAFE medically tested in labs, and by myself personally." Which means that Dr. Broers is impotent. Ha ha! "I happen to know this drug will work," went the second (and more revealing) part of Dr. Broers' endorsement, "because I myself have a limp, sagging penis." You'll notice they don't mention what kind of doctor he is. That's because he is a doctor of love.

Ben tells me I'm a second wave blogger. I hope this helps my street cred. Oh yeah.

Orkut

So about a week ago I was invited to join Orkut. According to it:

Orkut is an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends.

We are committed to providing an online meeting place where people can socialize, make new acquaintances and find others who share their interests.

It was designed and named "for the Google engineer who developed it, Orkut Buyukkokten. (Orkut is easier to spell and pronounce than Buyukkokten.)" Well goody. E2 as usual has something to say, and in general these friend networks are all about getting people together, interacting and sleeping with each other. Or at least that seems to be the case. A lot of it seems to put great emphasis on romance, and relationship stuff. Bollocks more like.

It does have communities though, and there are many and they are wide and varied. I created one, I joined one, and I joined another. My one is called "other." Damn, I'm awsome, and you know, really original as well. The second community I joined was REAL Ultimate Power!!!! It is awsome in such ways as www.realultimatepower.net is awsome. Which is many. Dan and I have long been fans of theirs. For they know the truth.

Facts:
1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

Yeah.

So as I said, I joined their community (I haven't added any other friends to my network, I am (1) after my name, but I'm somewhat interested in what the hell is going on in this thing (full of (American (60%)) geeks)) and had a look at their little community board. And what did I spot? But some comments that the "pirate community" was bad mouthing the ninja community. To which Wallace (whoever he is) responded

Well, Pirates are cool as well, you know.

The five fundamental elements of coolness are, of course Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Monkeys and Zombies.

This is why Pirates of the Carribean kicked ass - it had a Zombie Pirate Monkey. If it had had a robotic arm and a throwing star, it would have caused a black hole of coolness and caused the entire universe to be destroyed, so we were very lucky there.

Which I can't help agree with. Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Monkeys and Zombies do indeed form some sort of coolness. Although they are missing Skippy the Bush Predator.

I guess he could be a zombie, or possibly a robot.

In other news. This is not quite Zombo.com, but is pretty good.

Feel the love of links (not really o'Doom certified sorry)

• Blackhole rips star apart. This is awsome.


• How did I miss the Geek Hierachy? Luckily Will leads the way. (I had to google furries)


• Mmmm, I'm a barcode. BAR-CODE!


Posted by luther at 03:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Sparkle Motion

In true "doing my thesis" style I watched Donnie Darko, care of Claire, or more speciffically "some friend of Claire's who is (nolonger) out of the country."

It was pretty cool, and certainly very well made. I will watch a few sections of it later with directors commentary on, and see what they say, but overall I rate it wang.

I don't like 20 deleted or extended scenes with no ability to "watch all." It isn't hard surely? No, no it isn't hard, so sort it out. I mean really.

Worthy.

Oh Well

No dice for phone seller guy. Oh well.

To Waikanae

Ah yes. Waikanae.

So after the stag night where I got home at around 0630 I had to be at the airport at 0800 to fly to Wellington. Why? Well to go to Waikanae of course. Why? Waikanae? (Ah this isn't even funny) Well because my Nana was having her 90th birthday gathering there. My parents had gone up on Wednesday (the actual birthday day) but due to my desire to be at said night I didn't go up until Friday morning. My sister flew up on Friday morning, but for some reason left 30 mins before me.

So she waited in Wellington airport, until I arrived. Airport food in Chch is STUPID expensive. Oh yes, it is stupid. But still I was hungry and tired and so forked over about $400 for a small bag of fries, and a cold!? bacon and egg muffin. I did not understand how she could take it right out of the pie warmer device and hand it to me and for it to be so cold. I can only assume she was a magician.

Upon arrival R and I picked up a rental car. From my experience with car rentals they are expensive. (Except when relocating, when they are not) I would have said around $90 a day for a small car. This is about what we paid for the Corolla when TBALC "toured the north," (except they gave us a free upgrade to the starship RAV (exciting news on that front, James has promised to actually transcribe the Captain's log, as opposed to Nic whose just holds it close at night)) which wasn't too bad because it was between three of us, but for one person would suck bad.

However from Budget Car Rentals it only cost $104 for three days. Wang. And that inlcuded unlimited kilometers. So that was good.

Jumped in car and drove north, SH1 is rather wacky between the Airport and the beginning of the motorway, it is left then right then left then right then left then right then upside down, or something. I guess the bypass will fix that if they go through with their plans.

So on to Waikanae.

Arrived earlier than expected as traffic out of Wellington was probably the lightest I've ever seen it. I guess the people that wanted to leave the city for the long weekend had left by the time we were travelling, and the rest were still sitting at home.

My grandmother, my aunt, and my two cousins, as well as the husband of my cousins, and their two children were all present. Which made it (with the four of us in attendance) The entire family on my fathers side. This has never happened before. It has been 10 years since the four of us were all in the North island together and my cousin wasn't married whilst the kids weren't even born. So this is pretty important for my nana.

She seemed pretty cool with it. There were also her sister and her sisters husband in attendance, which was good.

So we ate lunch.

Then we sat around and talked like family do, followed by a short walk by some and general boffening.

Then Dad, R, and I headed to..... El Rancho! Now while only Torshin knows the awsomeness of this place, you should learn. For it is mighty.

OK, not really, but when I was aged three to 15 it was wicked. We used to go there all the time, well once a year and it was HUGE. We wandered around, and man it looked small. Just tiny, I'm not sure why I thought the buildings were that big, but I'm pretty sure it was because I was five, and two story buildings were judged HUGE as I saw things. But it was still pretty cool.

Then we approached the flying fox. Ah, the flying fox. It is the flying fox of ultimate coolness, it is certainly the coolest flying fox I have ever been on, and I go out of my way to go on flying foxes. (Bar the one near Kaiteri that was judged cool but far too expensive)

This ain't no flying fox at the park such as next to Peverel st, that begins at about tow meters off the ground and runs about 25 meters, oh no. This is a MIGHTY flying fox, and as such it has its launch in a tree! Yeah, a massive old tree that has stairs strapped on that takes you up around 15 meters off the ground. Yes. Now that is a launch bay. And it takes you through the branches of trees, and it takes you over a lake (where the "bad boys" used to jump off the flying fox into, when I was younger and too wimpy to do so) and there over some more ground and then terminates at another tree.

Flying fox of POWER.

Has been slighlty shortened now, as the destination tree died. But it is still awsome. I have a photo coming. It is such a long and difficult task to get the fox back to the launch that they use detacable foxes, rather than pulling the one device all the way back up to the start. Which actually would have sucked hard, especially whilst going aroudn the lake. So you take them off and run back to the start.

They are big metal and heavy, but they are worth it.

WANG.

We checked out some other sections of the camp like where I used to ride horses, and assorted playgrounds and stuff.

Then home to bel air.

Dinner was without my cousins family as the kids were tired, nut still left me one cousin, an aunt and grandmother to talk to although Nana is getting somewhat deaf. My sister cooked me tea in trade for me driving to the shops to get the ingredients, whilst the others mostly had left overs.

Crashed into bed very early. Was asleep before all three other members of my family. First time this has occured in a VERY long time.

Got up at seven and had breakfast, said good bye to people and jumped back in the car. Drove to Wellington airport, sorted dad out with the rental car people and hightailed it out of there.

Felt somewhat bad that I was only there for one day. She is ninety and I'm there for lunch? PRetty lame milhouse. However, could not miss batchelor's party and would not miss wedding, so really was not much that could be done.

For all her littleness, she is still rather mighty. She has lived alone (since her husband died), and in the same house in Wanganui since before I was born. Which I think makes her pretty staunch. Righto.

Other

My grandmother, my aunt, and my two cousins, as well as the husband of my cousins, and their two children were all present.

This is hard to say, as the above (the original) implies that my two cousins have one husband between them, as in they share a husband. They don't. But if I was to say the "husband of my cousin" that would be wrong as I had just said that there are two cousins, and to lose one mid sentence would be careless. So I went with the following:

My grandmother, my aunt, my two cousins, as well as one of my cousin's husbands, and their two children were all present.

But even this is not 100% cool, as "one of my cousins' husbands" could be read to imply that my cousin has a selection of husbands to choose from. Which she doesn't.

But it's good enough. Foo.

213 is my theory, and the stars my destination. Every so often I search for it on google, and in excellent news I discovered skippy associated with it. Strangely however Dan had no part in the activities of this skippy. It was strange. Strange. Also very funny. It has today shown up on Fark.

All hail 213.

Edited 20:34 17/2/04 Oops. We used Budget car rentals, not Thrifty. Corrected as necessary.

Daily Geek

For your daily geek needs I give you Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS. So there you are.

Also, Slashdot informs me that thanks to number portability in the US a dude in NYC is selling his phone number. His number is some number (867-5309) made famous in some old song (and apparently redone by the Goo Goo Dolls)

I find this kind of thing interesting, I love ebay. I also note that in the space of about two hours the bid has risen from 20,000 to over 40,000. Someone is kicking arse. I only hope that it does not come crashing down as did Mike Rowe's auction. Not that I feel sorry for Mike Rowe, I think he did fine, but I think that this guy atleast has something which is far more likely to be a serious sale, even if I have no desire to own that number.

Moving on.

Say My NAME, thicky!

So anyway I have about one share in some shitty company that send me a dividend. Of about $16. A year. Awsome? I know.

So they send it in cheque form, and I pretty much don't care. I hate cheques they are lame, and unless they are for lots of money, and or I'm feeling particularly poor I just ignore them till I "get a round to it. Then I bank them.

In 2002 I got a cheque for $16, and there was in no way much rejoicing. There was in fact NO rejoicing of any kind. I pinned it to my board.

Time passed.

In 2003 I got a cheque for around $40, and was much more pleased. (I can't remember this, but it seems likely) I banked the cheque because it crossed some threshold of being enough money for me to bother with.

More time passed, until December last year when I was really poor and upon finding a cheque for $16 rejoiced good and proper.

So I banked this cheque, and partied. Which in my case probably equalled three stolli.

Time passed (it does this a lot I've noticed. Watch out.) and in 2004 a letter arrived.

Phase two of lameness begins:

It was not addressed to me. It was almost certainly for me, but it wasn't addressed to me. Oh no. I have four names. Nothing particulary unusual about that, but one more than many people, which of course makes me cool.

This letter was addressed to my name all messed up.

1) Take my surname. Remove all mention of it.
2) Take my third name and make it my surname.
3) Take my first name, remove all letters that are not its first, and move it from first name to second.
4) Take my original second name and move it to first name, leave it unchanged.
5) Wonder what the fuck they have done to my name.
6) Wonder why they have done this to my name.
7) Wonder why now after repeatedly NOT messing up my name, that they decided to do so now.
8) Conclude they are feeble minded opossum molesters. Or simillar.

End Phase two lameness, and return to original lameness

So I got this letter. It told me that When they sent me the cheque for approx $40 it was designed to include the original $16 (which explained the sudden increase in dividend)

Oh yeah? Well screw that. Firstly you didn't tell me that, oh no, you jsut dolled out the cash... and secondly, how sucky are your accounting/cheque systems that you did not CANCEL the original cheque when you issued a second cheque which was covering the amount of the original cheque. Thickies.

I can only assume that you are (as already hypothesised) a bunch of feeble minded opossum molesters. With these thoughts in mind, I will consider the appropriate reply to be despatched to Wellington on the morning tide.

Other

Also, error messages of bullshit include:

The connection to the server has failed. Account: '24 Fridays @ Ecosm', Server: 'smtp.ecosm.com', Protocol: SMTP, Port: 7362, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 10060, Error Number: 0x800CCC0E

Which is you know rather shit. Luckily google all singing all dancing spanghorn knows what to do.

In conclusion, today's Real Life is funny. Oh yes.

Things.

Things that make me happy include people who cut down trees (a pine and a pohutukawa) because they are "angered by opposition to the scheme to revamp Akaroa's seafront" getting fined $21,400. Suck on that (beyaatch).

Things that surprise me include the strange coincidence that the Swiss couple who were in the news over the Christamas break for having a bottle thrown at them, get in the news again for handing in $120,000 which they find on the side of the road. They have had a pretty random trip to NZ if you ask me.

Things that make me happy include the fact thay someone has been arrested for aforementioned throwing of bottle at cyclist, and will hopefully get the severest of smacks upside his head.

Things that make me laugh include the fact that Armourguard lost $120,000 out the back of a truck. Aha. Ahahahaha. Sucks to them.

Things that don't surprise me include Armourguard being bastards and not giving this couple some decent reward. They might (especially thanks to the news they haven't) but generally Armourguard and ADT do some pretty dicky things, including of course making us lot redundent on some sort of whim.

Thickies.

What Ho?

Oh, and thanks to Will for his canon and all others for their outfits. Sara did well with sand and a million fairie light, and Glen is a geek for drawing a hand on the soccer ball to give out island its very own Wilson.

Stag Night

And so it began. We arrived at James T’s and found a collection of Aussies. They were huddled around the beer, and so was Adam. We sat and chatter like civilised folk, whilst more beer and wine was drunk.

Food was served and it was good. James and Nic, with the help of James’ mother and some friend of mother did well to provide the 16 of us with a selection of fine foods, and a munt load of pasta. Damn there was a lot of pasta, and we didn’t get through half of it.

We then convoyed into the Dux, well we walked through the park. But Nic drove, for he is a sissy. We found Dave at the Dux and he joined our throng.

Ben Low had 200 meters of shrink wrap. Note to Dan, this is shrink wrap, not shrink ray. So in due course James was attached to one of the lighting polls at the Dux. Security looked on, laughing and seemed to think that 1) James was lucky they only took his shirt off, and 2) that there was no problem.

Mwhahaha. She even defended our actions when one of the other guards called her up on the radio to check on things. Some people gathered, some people laughed, and so on and so forth.

Four homophobic red necks also hung around. I think they secretly liked to see James with his shirt off, but were in firm denial. My justification for labelling them homophobic is really baseless, I just laughed and laughed every single time they screamed “smack his arse” to anyone getting close to James. They were truly interested in James having his arse smacked, and one even tried to gather the strength to do so, he was however unable to actually complete the deed.

Then to the Bog, which had (unsurprisingly) an Irish Band(tm) playing. To prove they were what they claimed to be, they broke into Dirty Old Town within five minutes of our arrival. I was amused.

Then to... somewhere I never need to go again. While I am not totally averse to our going there, it did seem to somewhat stall our party. Not stall, poleaxe. It also resulted (after tooooo long) in us arriving at the JP after it closed.

It closed?! WTF. Oh yes, apparently a Thursday prior to Waitangi day (and hence a public holiday) is not enough to entice people to come and out and play, and so the JP had closed its doors due to lack of custom. Damn, drat and damn again. This was at around 0500? I think. So we wandered somewhat morosely back to The Strip, found it similarly essentially closed and strayed home around then.

Full credit must be given to Hemon for capturing the events on his digicam of wangness. And also to Dave who drove us home.

Extra:
Now often I am seen as uncaring of things, specifically people and or their so called “feelings.” And to be honest this is often true. Although in my defence I believe many people are fooling themselves into caring about things they really don’t, or shouldn’t care about… But as usual I digress. Things I do care about include things many people in this modern world seem to care less about.

I was for example extremely displeased by the owners of a house on Clyde Rd between Creyke and Memorial when last week the cut down a massive Red Wood - OK Nic thinks it wasn’t, so we’ll call it a “big pine of some description” - It was well over three stories (at least) tall and it was awesome. It was probably also pretty damn old, as large trees don’t tend to just “spring up.” And they cut it down, and I was sad.

Also, I hope that they find the fucker or fuckers responsible for polluting the Sounds and mess them up. Yes I do. ‘Cause I’m like that.

Also, although there have been a few murders in town recently, just keep in mind that there have been arrests made in all of them, bar the most recent one. (Although also remember that they are not guilty, just arrested.

Finally

For those interested in the unbundling issue, Chris Barton covers the strangeness that is the final report which recommends NOT unbundling the local loop. Sucks to that I say. Mmmm Call4Change.

Geekily:

You know you want too. And if you don’t, you should learn.

Edit: Quix pointed out that my link to Chris Barton was absent due to speech marks. Now it isn't.

Spang.

I watched the Superbowl, and I must say I enjoyed it. I rather like Grid Iron, not as much as some, but much more than many, especially those many occupying this country. But that is that. We ate excellent food in an excellent spot thanks to Clinton and his booth booking styles.

Halfway through, due to forgetfulness I was required to attend the ophthalmologist. Which must be noted for being spelt opH... which I find odd. Anyway that was poor planning, but luckily he was located in the Harley building located just over the river from the Grail, and the game. The Harley building I can tell you is named after Harley St. in London. I know this because when I was dressed as a duck and standing on the bridge the tram guys would always tell the travellers that that was the case. So now I know, and hence you.

His nurse checked my pressures, which sounded rather arcane, given that it was not my blood pressure, but my eyeballs. Checked out fine.

Then with the drops into my eye to dilate pupils for maximum looking inside and seeing stuff. They did not work, for I'm too big and fat, so more drops were added and finally my pupils dilated. Net result being that someway down the page of the magazine I was reading I simply lost the ability to focus on the words. Which was odd.

Somewhat scary actually. I simply could not see the words on the page, and I realised that that sucked, and that I'm very glad that I can see well. Obviously not as well as some, i.e. the people without glasses (or need of them) but still pretty well.

Man looked in eye. All good.

Back to the game.

Missed Janet's nipple ring. Feel that entire media circus over the issue is stupid, and American's concerned over said image can all shut up, and or die.

Pirate Party!

It was good. There have been other reports, and they are good. Dave did well with his official historiography. I tackled a bottle, as per Ben's instructions. I'm rather proud of it, if only because there is an excellent photo.

Photos will be forthcoming.

A Big B... A Big B... A Big Boat.

So Clinton who worked on the "boats" was beaten down until he relented and agreed to take me on a tour of the Star Princess next time it wandered into port. He agreed to take Si, but Si had work. And work had Si. He also took his parents.

The owners tell me that the Star Princess is taller than the Statue of Liberty and longer than three football fields, holding 2,600-passenger and featuring an unprecedented design with some of the most innovative amenities ever found on a cruise ship, providing its passengers with unparalleled onboard choice.

Which sounds pretty excellent. And my, it is big. More on it later.

Fark tells me that Red Bull is banned in France and in Denmark. It also tells me that under new EU laws, it will have to start labelling itself as "highly caffinated." Which is strange given that coffee does not come with this warning, and is approximately the same in terms of caffine at 80mg. Who knows. I drink Coke. Also, note the quantity of sales? I think you know what to do.

And I'm tired.

Err Hmm.

First Nic pointed out that many of the links in the previous post were spaz. Blame MS Word and curly speech marks. HTML likes them not at all.

Secondly, Claire is one lovely lady.

(Dave I have a place for you to hide)

In All New Sucky Abriged Form

We morn today the great lost post. Ben witnessed my distress. Aaaaaaah. That'll teach me to write it in a web browser. Don't normally, but that is no excuse. Dirty accidental hitting the TAB key instead of capslock, plus backspace equals goodbye post. Fuck fuck fuck.

First up, Penguin Bashing. The old link doesn’t work, so give Google a try. Fi has got herself up to 323.5 and I declare this the highest possible score. Ben and her win. Some somewhat supportive proof.

Aaaaah the pain of the lost post.

Right.

This is awesome, some might not agree, they are simply wrong. It’s from last years Super Bowl, and it is funny. It is also s-l-o-w from homepages.mac

I had a massive (somewhat rambling) discussion about this earlier, but no longer. Yes, fuck it I’m bitter. So we’ll go with this.

1. I have no idea who will win the Democratic nomination.
2. I think Bush Jr will win the election come November.
3. I believe that the voter turnout will not increase from the 2000 election.

One is fuh.
Two while it seems to me that many Americans don’t like their current President, I don’t have faith in either them, the rest of the population, the media, the democratic system or the Democratic party in general to successfully effect regime change.

I wish they would, but I don’t buy it.

Buying it aha, yes. Oh the media and the big big big dollars of the President and all his men will role like a steam engine over pretty much everything that stands in their way. All the problems will be swept aside like so much chaff and the all singing all dancing king of the world I’m the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA should come straming through. The voters will believe, or they will die.

OK maybe not die, but they will not vote. They won’t vote because last time they tried that crazy gamble (see Dr M. Hirshberg y’all) they didn’t elect a President the highest court in the land selected him (see also Mason ranting) so really why should they try again, the system is obviously being gamed.

The Pentagon pretty much know that someone is going to fiddle with their system, but none they’re not scared, because Bush Jr gives them money (not the soldiers, or their families obviously but big corporate tank jet fish tank building uber corporations) so people fiddling with the system, they’ll just ensure it is fiddled their way, or if not that it gets dwaleeted.

On top of that many American’s don’t believe the democratic system works to start out with, before you add in crazy media frenzy, whacky election fraud and presidential candidates. So they don’t vote anyway. Didn’t last time - won't this time.

While many of the disenchanted voters may really really dislike Bush Jr I don’t see this breaking them from their model of non participation. The system is set up in some whacky ways even outside of Florida, having it on a Tuesday (ie when many people work so don’t have an opportunity to vote) is just a start, and it gets worse the deeper you look.

Torshin didn’t even get into the Electoral College. WHACKY. The Electors are not required to vote for who they said they would, they just do so out of tradition! FUH!? Go look at a Presidential Futures Market or a much better one, the University of Iowa Electronic Markets

And so on.

I hope that they get rid of Bush, I just don’t believe.

Right, closer to NZ politics...

What is Don Brash on? I’m not going to bother discussing his recent speech discussing amongst other things outlining Nationals policy on Maori and Treaty issues, I’m going to jump right on in and say Qua? As the Herald reports:

National leader Don Brash has stripped his only Maori MP of her Maori affairs portfolio after she criticised a controversial speech he made on race relations.

[..]

National deputy leader Gerry Brownlee would take over the Maori affairs portfolio, the spokesman told NZPA.

Fuh? Good move their Dr Brash. Should work really well removing your ONLY Maori MP from the Maori portfolio and giving it to Gerry Brownlee!? Yes, score the MP for Ilam (Fendalton) should be the money shot for these issues. Exactly the right man for the job. Now I’m not saying that it has to be a Maori MP to deal with Maori issues, (nor would I make any claims about alleged "genders") but I’m sure they could have found someone a little more appropriate than Gerry Brownlee. I would suggest (as Nic tells me the TV news did) that someone in charge of such a portfolio would do well to be able to perform a simple greeting in the language of the people he is going to be dealing with, having meetings with, helping with requests, and generally trying to get on side with. Of course maybe he is going to learn, in fact I’m sure he will after the news incident, but still... Strikes me as a poor move. I just don’t see Gerry pulling this one off convincingly. Also I’ll be interested to see the response he gets from his Fendalton electorate over his new portfolio and responsibilities.

Possibly I’m behind the times on this one, but Aahahahaha. Aha. AHAHA. Ahaaaaa. Bush, Blair nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. I think not. Now I’m sure James would point it out, as I’m sure I would, and I’m sure you would, and you, and YOU, that it is only a nomination, but still. I mean really.

This is a nifty diagram showing links between search engines. I liked it, but then, well I like that kind of thing. The mouse disappears over the diagram itself, but if you hover over a logo it should work. Interesting (well, not really) lack of vivisimo although it is kind of new.

But not new like this (fear my segue. Also fear my extreme segway)

Oh yes, from the people that brought you realcontacts behold eurkster. In the model of these FOAF (friend of a friend of a guy you met in the pub in Norway who once sent a postcard to some guys aunty) it is a search engine that allows you to see what the people in your network of associates are searching for.

OK. Why? Well I’m not entirely sure, but I can if I wish email the person (I don’t know who it is, but they see who I am when I email them) and I don’t know discuss what I saw they were searching about. So if I’m a bag vendor and I see someone searching for bags maybe I give them a call? OK sounds reasonable. Except well for a start most people probably don’t want people to see what they are searching for (there is a radio box for private searches) and two it is lame.

I logged in to check it out, and I see my sad little network. First layer two people, then 39, then 217. OK so there are going to be over 250 people whose searches I can see (I assume) and really who the hell are these 250. I know who the two are. And I know a few more that are off those two, but three steps away? It seems one of them lives in the States somewhere, I certainly don’t know them, and really how much in common am I meant to have in order to want to see what he is searching for to use it for out supposed mutual benefit.

Well let us conduct a test.

your friends recent searches

switchdesk + config
directx9
d3d9.dll
Mutt + icon
Eye of Gnome
TIMP Crack
richmond campbell tigers
Nautical Brass & Leather ...
digestive system sheep
news feed
cars
moreover
dynonobel.com
solar energy systems
javascript
union square partners
union square ventures
nissan nz site:nz
nissan agents
klein bicycles

Riiiiiiight. Yeah, sure lots of interesting stuff there. Can’t wait to contact one of these guys to discuss something about... About nothing. There is nothing there I want to talk to anyone about, let alone someone I have no connection with bar some crazy link to a friend of a friend. Especially on such useful searches as "cars" wow, yeah hold me back. I mean it is an interesting system, and I can see very marginal utility operating if they can get a ranking system up whereby you can see where people have gone successfully from searches (they don’t have that, they just have a sort of but not as good one of those) but overall I just don’t get it. Of course I’m not all crazy onboard with these Friend networks anyway, and hope that I would agree with Jason over a Kottke. Who advertised for a position as manager of his various online networks which were keeping him occupied. The Nautical Brass & Leather... actually turns out to be Nautical Brass & Leather Hand Held Telescope - But still, don’t see my running to the phone (as it were.)

Oh yeah, there is a patent on ladders for spiders now. In case you were wondering.