A Merry Christmas to you all
I'm off to torment some relatives for the next week or so; as there's very little where I'm going that resembles an internet connection, I'm not going to be able to post on the blog. But, never fear, I will be bringing my MacBook so during the periods of rainy, grey-sky induced boredom, I will no doubt be tapping away...
So, dear reader(s), have yourself(ves) a very Merry Christmas*, and if you don't celebrate that, have a very nice bit of time off from work instead. And, if you don't have even that, I'm sure the overtime pay must be good. And if it isn't, er, well, those New Year's resolutions might possibly include finding somewhere better.
Tata!
(* Yes, I do mean this in a non-denominational, secular, civil holiday sort of way, Ritchie, and no arguing about Kwanzaa, Cephalapodmas or anything else that fits in the same calendar period!)
Sock Puppetry/Happy Esperanto Day!
Sxtrumpetmarionismo/Felicxa Esperanto-Tago
In honour of Esperanto Day, December 15, I am also translating this blog entry into Esperanto. I'm sure it's quite an awful translation I've done!
Honori Esperanto-Tago, la 15(dek kvin)a de decembro, mi ankaux tradukis cxi tion blogenskribigon en Esperanto. Mi estas certa ke gxi estas malagabran tradukon tiun mi faris.
(pronounced, 'honoree esperanto-tahgo, la deck-kvina deh detsembroh, mee ang-cow tradookeess chee tee-on blohg-en-skreebeegawn enn esperanto. Mee esstass t-sertah keh jee esstass malagabran tradook-on tee-oon mee farees)
[The 'x' seems to be standard Esperanto orthography for a ^ mark above the previous letter, softening it, so s="s", sx="sh", c="ts", cx="ch", g="g", gx="j", j="y", jx="zh" as in French 'je', since most fonts don't have letters with a hat on an s, c, g pr j :) Also, u="oo", ux="w"]
Resources: A good dictionary, a good pronunciation guide, a good language course
Rimedoj: Bona vortaro, bona gvidilo por prononco, bona lingvokurso
On with the show...
"Sock puppets", to use the term as refers to its use in chat rooms, forums and blogs, are different names used by the same poster, mostly for evil...
"Sxtrumpetmarionetoj", uzi la vorton tiel ke gxi estas uzita kiam oni parolas pri babilspacoj, novajxgrupoj kaj blogoj, estas plejparte diferencaj nomoj uzitaj per la sama verkinto, kutime por diableco.
The best media corrections of 2006
Link: http://www.regrettheerror.com/2006/12/crunks_06_the_y.html
As you may imagine, since pretty much everything is available on the internet somewhere, there is a site the specializes in tracking media retractions and corrections. Most of the time, these are pretty dull, but sometimes the retraction itself is inherently funny, either due to what's being retracted or because the retractee just isn't that sorry. Not all of the entries in the linked to story are of this nature though but I'm not going to dwell on the more serious ones.
Teddy Ruxborg
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_WJ23Zg1Rg&eurl=
Cuteness is irrelevant; you will be assimilated.
Warning: do *not* play the first part of this in front of a small child.
(Via Gizmodo)
Music video by a man who can't play the instruments
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzqumbhfxRo
The link is to a music video of a person playing quite a nice bit of music on the drums and piano. The nifty part is that although he can't play either, through the magic if clever video editing it sure looks as if he can. The wild part of it is that it's not dubbed; all the music is as played, except with a bit of re-arranging.
The Wall Street Journal has more information on this bit of YouTubism.
(Via Kottke)
Aircraft on treadmills
Link: http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/11/airplanetreadmill_pr.html
BoingBoing has a hysterical discussion on the old conundrum of whether an aircraft on a treadmill could take flight. Being neither a physicist, engineer nor a mathematician some of the erudite discussion escapes me, but as far as I can tell there are two answers.
VCR Case mod
Link: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/the-vcr-media-center-pc-221596.php
This is a case mod that I'd actually like. It's nice work!
Paris-Dakar Goodness
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0Ti8a3X14
I'm not much of a vehicle racing fan -- what's with those endless circuits, NASCAR? -- but I make an exception for the Paris-Dakar rally. It's truly impressive and looks to be one step shy of lethal. Link goes to YouTube highlights from the 2003 one.
While the motorcyclists are impressive -- and certifiably insane -- it's the big trucks which grab my attention.
Crossovers, Mutations and Assortment
Something someone wrote today reminded me that in the discussion of biology and evolutionary theory, everyone looks at mutations, mutations, mutations, but they miss out the extremely powerful silent partners, chromosomal crossover and its most excellent cousin, independent assortment.
Cthulhu Christmas
Link: http://www.cthulhulives.org/store/store.lasso?1=product&2=4
A disturbing selection of Christmas songs, all in the style of H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos.
They even have downloadable score music, from such classics as Death to the World!
Such wonderful songs as:
- It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Fish-Men
- I Saw Mommy Kissing Yog Sothoth
- Have Yourself a Scary Little Solstice
They do not a bad job, all things told. I don't have the CD (yet), but the snippets are certainly enough to let me work out the frustrations I have with mall music Christmas favourites redone by boy bands or overly heart-felt soloists.
More referrer searches
It's been a few weeks since the last round up so I figured it was time for another bunch:
Glaring Furball
Link: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2006/december#mon-11-thomas_hawk
Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber lays into a recent Macintosh switcher saying:
What I take away from stories like this is not “Hey, it’s great to see another PC user switch to the Mac.” What I take away is that he ought to feel like a jerk for having mocked Macs and Mac users for 15 years, because he would have been just as happy if he’d switched earlier.
Hiro(ine)
Link: http://crawlacrosstheocean.blogspot.com/2006/12/i-need-hiro.html
An interesting post from Declan over at "Crawl Across The Ocean" about one of the better new shows on TV, "Heroes". What he posits is that the show would be even better if they switched the genders of the lead characters. Reading through his post, I have to say I was left thinking "Yeah, I'd like to have seen that."
Oh, ick. Serious ick.
Link: http://spermcube.org/
I'm probably going to have to create a new category for this type of link. I don't think "silly" really captures the essence of this "yuck". For those who don't want to follow the link, the synopsis is an art project to display one cubic metre of semen.
The only redeeming explanation is if it's more a performance art piece and the idiots who produce are in fact the real focus. Heck, maybe it's people who think this is worth discussing who are the actual target.
