Fishel, don't you know these guys?

Former Ink & Dagger drummer sues Microsoft.

I Call Him "Gamblor"...

...and he resides at my place tomorrow night. Who's in?

Because, c'mon...

Time hole? That's always funny.

Carmen Sandiego stops fucking around

And now, the best photo of George Takei ever.

George Takei, outed on CNN.

Mac Users Get Love, Too

Looks like you artsy Mac-usin' homos will get to enjoy Civ4 as well.

Adventure games aren't dead

My new dream job is making games like these.

Happy Halloween!

FREDERICA, Del. - The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said...

The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said. The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles.

State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham and neighbors said people noticed the body at breakfast time Wednesday but dismissed it as a holiday prank.

Can I get a hell yes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, White House counsel Harriet Miers, announced on Thursday she was withdrawing her name from consideration.

There's not enough news out there.

From BBC Tech:

Bittorent User Guilty of Piracy.

The tests came back: you are human a dude

So When You Say "Arts District..."

So I heard on the radio this morning that the Everyman Theater was recently denied permission by the city to expand into the abandoned remains of the Chesapeake Restaraunt. Instead, in light of the fact that the Mayor has declared Station North the "arts and culture" district, they instead awarded development rights to that building to a company who is going to build a high-rise apartment on the location. That just makes so much fucking sense. Discuss!

Thoughts on Pits

Star Wars Bottomless Pit Final Score Tuesday Morning Quarterback tracks the bottomless pits that often turn up in sci-fi. There was no bottomless pit in Revenge of the Sith, making the Star Wars final score: bottomless pits in four of the six flicks. Previously, Official Brother of TMQ, Frank, noted that none of the Star Wars bottomless pits are surrounded by safety rails, indicating there was no OSHA long ago in that galaxy far away. Yours truly countered that the scenes prove enlightened self-interest does not exist in the Skywalker galaxy, since you should not need a burdensome government agency to tell you to erect a guard rail around your bottomless pit!

Never resolved was why there were so many bottomless pits in the first place. My speculation is technological: advanced future economies will somehow depend on the construction and maintenance of bottomless pits, possibly as conduits for dark energy (see below). Frank's guess is more straightforward. In the 1970s and 1980s, he speculates, it was a lot of work to fill in complex scenes, so matte artists simply had the bottoms of long chambers blur to oblivion. Now computer animation allows dozens or hundreds of moving objects in a scene. Thus, instead of people fighting at the edges of pits, the final Star Wars flick offered scenes of people standing or fighting at the edges of incredibly tall structures where complicated cities, chambers or landscapes were visible beneath. Indeed, there were many such scenes in Revenge of the Sith. But still no guard rails! In one scene, Anakin stopped his flying car at Padme's spectacular penthouse apartment, atop a building miles high with a panoramic view of the planet. (The ad must have read, 10 RMS PLNT VU.) The soon-to-be-Darth Vader parked at a pad next to the aerial terrace; Padme, R2 and 3PO came out to greet him. All stood right at the edge of the balcony, which had no rails or protection between them and a very, very long fall. But then if Padme could afford such a magnificent penthouse, perhaps she could afford force fields for her balcony.

esquivalience

n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.”

... a word which serves as the OED's own little copy protection scheme.

Free's just another word for nothing left to sell out

In a press release on October 20, Answers.com announced a new partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation. Answers.com will launch a Wikipedia Edition of their popular 1-Click Answers software. Advertising revenues from this service will be shared with the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wiki'd here. Discussion's cooler... I love the "watch out for slashbots" advisory running on top of the page.

have you heard the one about the professor, the slut and the football player?

probably.

the results of latest philly-more collaboration are available online.

things to watch for:

1. science-fiction
2. a rock star named t.j. mendelschwartz or something.
3. a funnel.
4. a person saying, "wow! can i touch it?"

"this is definitely a sitcom parody." chris harring, the jerk store

Everyone's favorite videogame director....

Just inked a deal to make a movie based on the game Postal. The reason for choosing Mr. Boll was, and i shit you not, “He understands the subject matter and has an appreciation and affinity for controversy and political incorrectness.”

XBox 360 hates you.

Or at least your wireless network.

Over the past week, a bunch of playable XBox 360 kiosks have shown up at local WalMarts. Thing is, they're not turned on. Why? Because at almost every wal-mart that has one, as soon as they turned the kiosk on, all of the wireless barcode scanners, printers, and handheld UPC scanners completely stopped working.

Fantastic.

Via Joystiq.

Attn: Sigur Ròs fans

They have a new album out, Takk... The first six tracks of this album are the best they've ever done. The remaining five... eh. So if one were a patron of some sort of new-fashioned store in which you can purchase tracks individually for a low price... well, you have my advice.

If you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about, listen. (Skip to 30:15 if you get bored.)

p.s. anyone know how to turn audio streams into mp3s?

Mandlebrot

sound familiar?

there's no exact date, only a copyright 2004. also no mention of a "big 'ol dinoman."

this girl sent me an email requesting some information from mica. please also check out her 'beck manga fansite.' yes, you heard right: two great (albeit unrelated) concepts crammed next to a third, shitty concept.

enjoy.

The Fucking Game

So i think i lost pretty much within 45 seconds of waking up this morning.

"what wasn't i supposed to think about?"
"the game."
"Fuck."

Pokerin' time...

Righty, so poker will be tomorrow night, at my place, at 7:30 PM. Chris, can you get in touch with those guys that still have my chips? I don't have any of their contact information...

Also, if you're looking to drink beer, i have none, so bring some.

National Nerd Day

November 5th has been declared Dungeons & Dragons day by brand owner, Wizards of the Coast. The promotion is aimed at bringing thousands of role players into toy and hobby stores to "flex their imaginations". Last year, the event had more than 25,000 gamers "flexing". Wizards is predicting even greater turnout this year.

Please insert your own jokes about "nerd flexing" here.

fixed reference.

awesome. so there exists a site, stumbled upon by yours truly, that certifies other sites as the 'official fixation' site for any given actor, show, character, etc. fuck fan- or web-rings; this is the next level. a sort of inter-nerddom standardization of, well, nerdiness. i have yet to pour through it in detail, but the very concept is fascinating. right? i mean, finally, the chick who loves that red-haired guy from 'firefly' can take her rightful place next to the guy who worships that chubby elf who eats it at helmsdeep.

We never gamble anymore, and it makes kochis cry.

So we, the old group, haven't played poker in quite some time. I miss the high-action, crazy raising, 50-dollar pot games we all used to play. Most of all, i miss playing Omaha. I suggest we convene one night soon at my place and play some poker. Your thoughts, gentlemen?

Seriously, apple...if you come out with a computer that cost less than 3 grand, i'd own one in a second...

So Steve of the Jobs gave his big apple-fest keynote today, and introduced ANOTHER new ipod. What does this one do? Motherfucking VIDEO. It apparently will hold 60 GB, or something like 27 hours of MPEG-4 video. Oh, and when you want to show others the cool indie film you've been working on? Just go right ahead and PLUG IT INTO YOUR TV.

So to go with this, they open up a new section of iTunes, and just put 2,000 music videos in there, for 2 bucks apiece. Also, if music videos aren't your thing, just go ahead and download all of last night's new tv shows for 2 bucks an episode.


Seriously apple, I love you. I have no reason to own a mac, but i'm a hair's breadth away from buying an iPod. All i need is...er....400 bucks.

wotcher.

i swear to jesus christ that i was not looking for this site. ok? i looked up the definition of the british slang term 'wotcher' (an informal greeting between mates), and up came the nymphadora tonks fan site. (tonks is an auror). i know, i know; i tend to scour the web for and flood the j.s. with whatever perverse secondary media related to whatever fixation i've just 'discovered,' but jesus sweet fucking jesus this was an accident.

anyway, back to wack-o fan sites (and i've been to a lot. often intentionally). this one takes a certain sliver of the cake for a brilliant concept: soundtracking. you're a fan of a secondary character in an immensely popular series. you love that character. you've written fan fiction, you 'shipped them with Buffy characters, you've postulated on casting in the forthcoming movie version. but what else? ah ha! pick 14 songs of questionable quality that address some aspect of your hero through a microscopically thin veil.

for tonks (who, contrary to the theme of this playlist, is not a 17-year old white girl):

s o u n d t r a c k
1. Pink - Aerosmith
2. Cruel Summer - Bananarama
3. Underneath it All - No Doubt
4. Stronger - Britney Spears
5. Footloose - Kenny Loggins
6. Cursum Perficio - Enya
7. Hard-Headed Woman - Cat Stevens
8. London Calling - The Clash
9. Building a Mystery - Sarah McLachlan
10. Taking Over Me - Evanescence
11. You Learn - Alanis Morissette
12. I Shall Believe - Sheryl Crow
13. Magic's in the Makeup - No Doubt
14. The Eagles - Witchy Woman

Aux armes, citoyens

In the same vein as those old Russian photos, check out these color photos from WWI.

let the purge begin.

dinosaur comics has directed me to some fantastic webcomics. 'nine planets without intelligent life,' for a solid example. however, today mr. rex has introduced me to the adventures of dr. mcninja. while a tiny, exiled part of me believes i would enjoy this were i a scant 16 years of age, my dominant personality regime believes this is awful and furthermore believes that the unjustifiable spread of ninja humor must must must be halted. sure, 'ninja' only surfaces about 13 million returns (appropriately less than 'cowboy' or 'pirate'), but that's probably 10 million more than necessary. the only thing that has soothed my distress to this point is the fact that t.m.n.t. returns 8th, and they have a pretty decent library of sound files.

so, if anyone has any ideas on how to make people who think ninjas are funny feel bad about life-decisions they've made, i'll be in my study. i mean, at work.

You're Not Alone

It turns out that even Royal British Museums use Sharpe as a reference for all things relating to the Napoleonic wars. Cheers to that.

The web sux!

The promoters of Web 2.0 venerate the amateur and distrust the professional. We see it in their unalloyed praise of Wikipedia, and we see it in their worship of open-source software and myriad other examples of democratic creativity. Perhaps nowhere, though, is their love of amateurism so apparent as in their promotion of blogging as an alternative to what they call "the mainstream media."

A surprisingly thoughtful essay on this whole Web thing.

sports on the jerk store?

c'mon. they're at least as accessible as c+s or whatever shit gets smeared all over this thing.

if you haven't watched football in the last three years, then you've missed seeing the greatest team in the history of the nfl in action. i say this not only as a fan, but as a dude with a relatively detached and cynical eye for professional sports. here's the story: compare these injury reports. you know or care nothing for football, fine, but you have to admit that, no matter how superstarry micheal vick is, there is a certain inbalance there. the patriots have been decimated (note proper usage of word) by injuries, have a mediocre 3-2 record, yet for some reaon, they remain terrifying to the rest of the league.

as a result, i extend this early invitation to watch january football at yavin 4. i'm not bold enough to predict a superbowl appearance, but i'll be a motherfucker if the pats aren't in the playoffs.

oh, and since joel isn't in the country to care, the rest of you can just enjoy the fact that some one, somewhere has finally posted to the jerk store. with a picture.

'cause the 'knight rider' theme, while cooler, has much stricter copyright protection.

man once again demonstrates his superiority by horribly demeaning everything he touches.

It's on, nerds

Signs point to Sun and Google announcing (if not releasing) today a competitor to Microsoft Office. The buzz is that it would run directly on the Web -- pretty much Microsoft's worst nightmare. a) it would no longer matter what OS you're running b) you wouldn't have to buy Office anymore.

(Of course, not everybody buys Office... or for that matter, Windows...)

The question is: how do they make money? Do they run ads next to your novel-in-progress or do they charge you $10 a month to type stuff into your computer? Neither idea sounds all that hot.