May 2009 Archives

♻ Real Politics

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Sometimes, I can’t separate reality from parody.

Faced with having Republicans force a 900-page energy bill to be read in committee, Democrats hired a speed reader for insurance. In the end, the right-wingers didn’t decide to force the speed reader to orate, but they were still curious. I especially love the committee member whipping out his camera to record the moment… that’s already being recorded by far superior cameras. Bless you, C-SPAN 3:

I love that, instead of debating a bill based on its merits, the opposition simply resorts to threatening to use the “I’m gonna be a dick” defense.


The other recent political event that made me do a double take:

♻ This shit redux

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Uploaded LeDeux’s Nike creative to YouTube. The transcoding wasn’t perfect, but the gist is there:

Also listened to more of Marshall Law’s new stuff today. Please put on some headphones and check it out while you work. If you want to download the music, the MP3s are available c/o Apache.

♻ Parking

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You do know that Google promotes domain squatting, right? The “bastard child” of AdSense: AdSense for Domains.

♻ This shit

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Awesome—Thisish released new music, this time for free! I’ve spent the last week or so listening to it while working, and definitely approve of all the new mixes. Download the ZIPs and your iTunes will be happier.

Unfortunately not available for free download is “Thisish Vol. 1,” another very sick mix of mostly beats. My favorite track is Marshall Law’s “Marshall Scores,” which samples a hockey broadcast. At least check out the preview on Amazon.

Also collaborating with Thisish is a guy named LeDeux. Why do I have to look so hard to see this great Nike ad? (Click on “Motion” and it’ll start—all Flash, so I can’t link to it directly.)


Just because we’re talking about music, I found a clip of the highlight of my last Girl Talk experience; the decomposition of “Love in this Club” around 1:25 is just great:

Of course, you can’t beat the original:

♻ hey?

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I’m glad Gmail’s (hilarious) ads playing on your broken heart finally got noticed by someone.

I’m pretty sure these are keyed off the words “relationship,” “commit,” “friends,” or “sorry.” There seem to be a few categories these fall in to:

Don’t give up!

  • Do You Want Your Ex Back? / Find out how to get your ex begging to come back, secrets revealed!
  • My husband back to me? / I Tried to Save My Relationship, Nothing Worked. Except this!
  • Gets Your Ex Back Now. / Even If You’ve Lost All Hope, This Item Will Change Your Life,Act Now!
  • How To Get A Girl Back / Get Her Back With These 5 Tips. Free Report - Instant Email Access.
  • Struggling With Breakup? / Exposed: Universal Formula To Reverse Any Break Up Effortessly.

Give up! Try again here!

  • Relationship Matchmaker / Professional Discrete Introductions When You Have So Much To Offer
  • Match.com Official Site / Someone You Can Love is Nearby - Browse Profiles and Pics for Free!
  • Relationship & Trust / Get Trust Back, Get Closer To Him & Have The Relationship You Want Now!

Let me help you with that

  • Want To End A Friendship? / Learn When To Say Goodbye To A Friend Without Leaving Scars.
  • Break-ups are Depressing / Don’t Face a Break-up Alone First Full Phone Session Only $10

The Cosmo

  • What Makes a Good Wife? / See if you’ve got what it takes to be a Good Wife with this Free Quiz

The Nonsense

  • Babbling Baby Sounds / Find out how to encourage & improve your baby’s early language skills
  • Can’t Afford Your House? / We Will Buy Your House For Cash! Have An Offer As Soon As Today…

Have one of these archived? Take another look and see what Google has to say about your failed relationship!

♻ xUnit

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I knew about JUnit and its many relatives, but I’m pretty happy that g-g-g-g-g-g-gUnit exists.

♻ KB

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Was trying to track down where Billions McMillions was at after listening to Hanzo Steel Vol. 1, a collection of “Kill Bill” inspired hip-hop. The guy has quite a few online identities, but his blog seems pretty solid. He also creates awesome art.

The fact that he painted and made a shelltoe AT-AT, (dubbed AD-AT) also puts him squarely in the “dope” category:

And… the MP3 for those who want some Quentin Tarintino/OutKast inspired beats: Billions McMillions - Ironside Jumpoff


While we’re off on a “Star Wars” bend… While I was adding Bill’s blog, today’s TeeFury popped up in Google Reader. I’ve only ever bought one of their $5 shirt deals, but I couldn’t resist today’s offering, dubbed Plaidinum:

Update: Helping it out by posting it on the visually stimulating Pattern Pulp.

Apparently, Mozilla’s page load tests have quite a bit of X-rated material. Excerpts:

NOISE: Cycle 1: loaded http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.bangbros1.com/www.bangbros1.com/index.html (next: http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.answers.com/www.answers.com/index.html)
NOISE: Cycle 1: loaded http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.pornaccess.com/www.pornaccess.com/index.html (next: http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.imagefap.com/www.imagefap.com/index.html)
NOISE: Cycle 1: loaded http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.imagefap.com/www.imagefap.com/index.html (next: http://localhost/page_load_test/pages/www.pcpop.com/www.pcpop.com/index.html)

[via Ben]

♻ M-x crank-dat

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Today’s superpoop makes me laugh and pokes fun at one of open source’s most… colorful characters: Richard Stallman. Not only does he despise you for having children and browse the web through a daemon, but he also created emacs.

As a free software advocate, rms suggests watching YouTube through the open-source SWF plugin Gnash. To attract attention to this cause, Stallman danced:

Hell, I even think he’s wearing the same outfit as in superpoop. As Jeffrey and I noticed, though, it’s the comments on this video that really make it. A sampling:

  • why does stallman have to do it w/ his laptop? Hes probably using EMACs while they did it
  • look at RMS cranking dat GNU
  • yall SUCK!!!!!aint 1 of yall dumb assess gots ny rythem!!!!!!
  • i had to read shit by richard stallman (the fat one) in my philosophy class.
  • the dude with the most skills is the chubby old guy carrying the laptop in the red shirt in the back.
  • Oh god..I can just imagine: “This video has been released under the GPL v3.0”
  • SICK A HOBO TOOO!!
  • Gnash doesn’t work very well with youtube, otherwise I would use it. Further development is necessary.
  • dis is sum gay as crap
  • homeboy in the back… ya you… the one with the beard and red shirt…. i see you… dude was feelin it
  • Everytime Stallman does something I’m embarrassed I’m so hardcore about emacs.
  • The single most compelling reason to use Linux ever. But how did they find a video camera that would work with it?

We also enjoy the comments on Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.” Unfortunately, the video has been removed from YouTube, but, to recreate the experience, here is MTV Music’s copy, along with (real) YouTube comments on the original:

  • love this song
  • -Good Song…it helps me through bad days..but I picture this music video in another way…like in a 13 year old’s eyes. Cause that’s how old I am.
  • OMH THIS IS MY FAV SONG WHEN I FOUND OUT I NEED LEG SURGERY AND MAY BE PARLEZED THIS SONG WAZ PLAYING ON THE RADIO ON THE WAY TO THE HOSPTSIAL! i am ok :)
  • The guy looks like Doctor Carter on E.R
  • this song is not that awesome. it just talks about a freakin bad stupid day.
  • me and my friends in my english class started singing this and in seconds my whole class was singing it!!!! Class of ‘08!!
  • What gender of music would you put Daniel Powter under cuse i been to 3 diffrent music stores one had him under pop other had him under light listening and another had him under rock
  • I sort of had a bad day once.. I had to babysit my brothers. so one of em grabbed a hammer and knocked me out. I woke up in a closet…I still think funny know.

♻ FlexCam saves!

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Looks like the Mexican government uses the FlexCam to fight swine flu!

For those of you wondering why I care what brand of infrared camera is featured on The Big Picture, I used to work for Infrared Solutions (now part of Fluke, the makers of those yellow multimeters) back in high school—my first professional programming job. Yes, it was Visual Basic, but I didn’t know any better. I got to work with some cool, encouraging people there. (And they liked me enough to have me back for another summer!)

For posterity, here are some more badass IR pictures I took while I borrowed the multi-thousand-dollar camera:

This was actually my first Facebook profile picture back in 2004. Man, remember that? Can you believe we used this? No Photos (you had to judge people based on that one profile picture), “Favorite TV Shows” wasn’t a field (I remember the groups “No Soup For You! (Fans of Seinfeld)” and “Family Guy Fanatics” were extraordinarily popular at the beginning. Of course, these groups were Stanford-specific because there were no global groups yet!), and the wall was a text blob (that you had to be courteous to top-post on, and you could only see who had most recently edited it, and sometimes someone would delete the whole thing or put dumbass ANSI art on there). …but I digress:

Independence Day (i.e., playing with bottle rockets) was a lot more fun with an IR camera. First, a miss:

…and then success!

♻ 'claves

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Bless you, Google. Mapping the enclaves and exclaves of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog was not easy, but you went for it:


View Larger Map

I really dig H18, which seems to be keeping a few sheep captive in seven acres of Belgium:


View Larger Map

Way more history here.


P.S.: I can’t believe you have to pay for Google Earth Pro to measure the area in a polygon! You’ll give us all this data for free but not that? Wow.

♻ Sexy People

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A couple of the most recent Sexy People have been too good not to share. (If you’re not aware, the only qualification to be sexy is to have had an awesome portrait taken of you sometime in your youth.)

Batfan:

Jon and Robb:

…and I’m not posting this just because I was wearing Robb’s shirt when I saw it. Alright, maybe I am. …It’s late in the laundry cycle.

♻ li black

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I guess this depends on if I’m OK with adoption: Can li have block children?

[via Joel Spolsky’s Google Tech Talk]

If you haven’t seen this ad, you should probably watch it on Vimeo first (not embedded here for a reason—watch): Honda Insight - Let It Shine

While it’s pretty impressive, I’m more impressed that this ad sale even happened. Did Honda approach Vimeo with Javascript and Actionscript in hand? Or did Vimeo say, “You know, for a few thousand, we can make your ad viral?”

♻ DHS

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Came across this great David Souter New York Times piece from 1994. One really feels closer to him after reading it.

The biography shows its age at the end, predicting a John Paul Stevens retirement in 1995. Today, the Justice is still active and actually called out Souter on his unexpected retirement:

As Justice Blackmun accurately stated when Justice White advised us of his proposed retirement from the Court, an announcement of this kind “is an emotional occasion.” Because Justice Souter is such a good friend, my first reaction to his decision is one of real personal loss. Because I am confident that I know how his professional work will be judged by future historians, my more important reaction is that the Court will suffer a far greater loss than many now realize. I wish he had postponed the decision that he has just announced.

Souter’s retirement flooded my “Law” category in Google Reader with posts. Notably, Religion Clause pulls through with a list of relevant opinions he authored. Reading material is in ample supply.

Finally, The Onion regularly slips old articles that feature subjects that are in the news into its RSS feed; I’m glad this one came up:

“Under penalty of perjury, I swear to God, there is this one chick who is completely hot for Souter,” Stevens said. “She personally attested to this fact during a conversation I recently overheard that I am not at liberty to discuss in any detail. Saturday is his night, man.”

If only reality were as cute as parody. Excerpt from the Times piece:

Souter’s ascension to Superior Court also marked other milestones. First, his departure as Attorney General allowed him to begin dating a female lawyer in the office, Ann Cagwin. His romantic interest in Cagwin, his closest friends attest, was the most serious attachment of his life. No American is more discreet about his private life than David Souter, but when his relationship ended with Cagwin, who is now married and living in Maine, its demise left Souter emotionally crushed.