"She kicks high": Need a better reason to choose a new game console? Maybe Bruching Shuttlecock's Videogame Console FAQK can help:
How do the consoles differ from each other?
Unlike previous generations where the differences were simple and easy to articulate, such as "Mortal Kombat on the Genesis gots more blood," the differences among these machines involve pushing polygons, bump mapping, and other phrases that sound like excerpts from "Debbie Does Flatland." The actual effect this has on the screen is subtle and often difficult to see, which is why each machine is now bundled with a rabid fan of the system recruited from various discussion boards around the Web. This fan will stand over your shoulder and point out reasons your machine completely rocks over the competition. They will also make disappointed noises and roll their eyes whenever you fail to play the games at optimal efficiency, but that's the price you pay for progress.
In other broadcasting weirdness, I actually heard an announcer call espn.com "the official sports site of the internet". It's so sad when traditional media tries to shoehorn the internet into structures they understand (and, of course, can profit from).
I've got a handful of readers who might be interested that Lambda the Ultimate, The Programming Languages Weblog, exists, so I'll comment on it and then try to block it from my mind as quickly as possible.
This entry brought to you by Google's 7th ranked site on "pickle clip art".
How did I not know about Pittsburghese.com, an homage to the horrific grammar and pronunciation that we all know and love? Visit the audio quiz page and hear snippets of authentic pittsburghese! [via memepool]
Manipulate a wireframe skeleton by dragging its limbs or, what I think is more fun, putting it in walk mode and tweaking what seem to be joint-angle parameters. Nicely done. [via Bored]
If your special events are lacking the pizazz you crave, try a Promotional Robot. Get the conventional happy, smiling robot or the product replica version. As the site reminds you,
"When a 5 1/2' tall tube of Colgate toothpaste rolls up and reminds you to brush and floss, you can't help but be impressed." [via Bored]It is probably for the best that I only just found out that it is National Novel Writing Month. There's only one book that I should be writing currently, and it's being held to high standards of non-fiction. Perhaps next year, though, I will give it a shot. I like the goal of getting ideas out by just writing, and worrying about quality later, if at all.
On the more serious side is How to Write a Novel in 100 Days or Less from Peace Corps Writers. It is perhaps overly optimistic - I'm reminded of some really cringe-worthy tripe by the suggestion "Begin with that pure emotion. Turn it into prose." - but if you're looking for some inspiration and a couple of prods, it is worth a look. [via Mood Swings]
The crassness and tackiness of the Topps Enduring Freedom collectors cards (think Sept. 11 and aftermath themed baseball cards) continues to astound me, paticularly when I follow that link and see there are 89 such cards, with such inspirational titles as "Wall Street Reopens" and "Defence Secretary Rumsfield Makes A Point". I know everyone is making fun of them but, really, don't you think our kids will look at this stuff with the same attitude we have towards the Duck 'n Cover turtle? Why are people going out and paying for their propaganda? [via memepool]
As I've mentioned here, I don't usually read slashdot, even though I know it's supposed to be the geek place to be on the web. It absolutely tickled me, though, to find out that a close friend was slashdotted today for their research. They do programming languages work on "a safe dialect of C". Skimming the comments area lead me to send my friend the following e-mail:
Somebody at slashdot.org said:Ah, vox populi meets academia....
> one of the main things i use C for is when i want to be unsafe. C lets
> you fuck with the system in completely arbitrary ways. i program in C
> because i'm smarter than the compiler, so i want it to let me do
> whatever i want, and assume i know what i'm doing. when you need to
> write code that needs to be safe, and you want the compiler to double
> check everything you do, use java or ML or something...
Yeah dude - your research sucks! You're stupid! The guy posting from www.sexsexworld.com thinks so too! I could do your work using only #define's! Nyah!
proud of my green thumb
The relationship between advisors and student researchers has been put on clearer legal ground in the judgment of a recent case of an advisor who patented, as sole inventor, his student's research after telling the student it wasn't patentable. While the original state court judged the advisor had no obligation to tell his student about the patent and that the student had no standing to bring the lawsuit, the Federal Circuit judged not only that the student could sue, but also that the advisor has an obligation to act in their students' interests:
Chou I clearly represents the Federal Circuit's desire to protect the patent rights of student researchers from being misappropriated or stolen by their supervisors. However, by holding that the supervising PhD owes a fiduciary duty toward his student researchers, the Federal Circuit's opinion may yet have greater consequences. Fiduciary duties are most commonly associated with businesses and stand for the idea that certain parties (such as business partners) must act with the highest degree of loyalty toward, and in the best interest of, the other party at all times.If this is an accurate assessment of the implications of the case, this represents a potentially major shift in the balance of power, particularly since in some such cases the university would also be liable for the advisor's actions. But, particularly in an academic world where graduate students are turning to unionization to try to settle their grievances, putting some legal safeguards in place to reaffirm advisors' obligations could actually help strengthen academia by reassuring students that abuses will not be tolerated. [Thanks JRE!]
...
As such, student researchers will now be able to sue their supervising PhDs for any actions that are not in the best interests of the student researcher or the patent rights of the student researcher. This protection will apply to all conduct of the supervising PhD, not just to the type of conduct that results in "stealing" or "cheating."
In another step of the perennial quest to make science sexy, a new magazine takes that task literally, introducing Seed which merges fashion magazine style with accessible science articles - "science for the Maxim generation". Who wouldn't be drawn in by a magazine described like this?
On the cover, the lithe nude female stares deeply into the eyes of the lithe nude male, her breast just covered by his hand. Inside is a photo spread of a woman in an aquarium, a full-page picture of a pacifier with text that begins ''you suck,'' and another page that is entirely blue, with just a wisp of cloud.I fear I may fall into the "snobby" community of scientists the magazine's editor dislikes when I say that I don't think science needs to take on the imagery and symbols of fashion and men's magazines. [via Science In the News]
Those Star Wars fans who aren't already waiting in line for tickets for Episode II have been rehashing the recently released trailer extensively, and CNN is there to sum up the responses. From their extensive research, they were able to come up with three points of consensus:
-- It was "dark" in style, according to at least two posters.Well, I'm glad we cleared that up....
-- It wasn't long enough to satisfy hungry fans.
-- Natalie Portman, who stars as Queen Amidala, looked "hot."
After the success of the Charlie's Angles movie, I guess it was inevitable that we'd see more 70's TV-to-movie conversions, such as an Ang Lee directed The Incredible Hulk, due out in 2003. Rumor has it that Dr. Banner has been cast, but the Hulk will be CGI.
I saw my first episode of Iron Chef the other night and enjoyed it immensely. Sometimes I wished they would slow down so I could see what they were doing, though. What fun, then, to find the Iron Chef Reverse Engineered Recipes page, which presents one cooks attempts to recreate the recipes from the show. A nice resource for fans. [via PCJM]
A fond farewell to Karen of Thought Experiment. She says she and the family are all well, but she is closing down her web journal for now. I've really enjoyed reading her, particularly through her pregnancy, and I'll miss having her in my regular rotation.
I seem to be getting this web promotion thing wrong. My site doesn't even appear in the 930 entries Google displays for a search on "weblog". So what does bring people to my page? Besides the obvious "screenshot", I get a fair number from things like "Goonies 2 script" and "Goonies sequel", due to my occasional updates on the upcoming movie. I saw "teenage nuclear reactor" go by once, probably from someone looking for the story about the teenager who built a nuclear reactor in his backyard. And, I'm excited to report, I have received traffic for being the second Google hit for "people using Amanda" and in the Google top 10 for both "free 1800's pornography pictures" and "voyager spacecraft pornography". What saddens me is that my crochet site has seen a surge in queries such as "afghan pornography pictures" - something that confused me until I realized they weren't talking the cozy blanket type of afghan, at which point I became rather sad.
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