One of the remarkable things about this study is the fact that the children did not find it at all surprising that a machine could miniaturize objects. Or that it might need privacy to do so.
From this article on toddler cognitive development that’s actually quite interesting. Via MeFi.
The new Dave Matthews Band CD has that ridiculous Sunncomm non-DRM DRM on it — you know, the one that (a) has no effect on non-Windows machines and (b) can be bypassed by disabling Autoplay even on Windows machines. The idea is that the disk ships with a “data layer” containing special, crippled digital music files that work with Microsoft players (but not, of course, the most popular music player). To access them, you’re supposed to let the CD install special software on your PC, which we’re sure won’t cause any problems at all.
Of course, even if you play by these rules, you still can’t get the digital files into iTunes or onto your iPod, so DMB have actually posted instructions — fundamentally stupid, absurdly complex, around-your-ass-to-get-to-your-elbow instructions — for getting Mp3 files off the disk. Why they don’t just tell their fans what everyone in the tech world already knows — again, that the Sunncomm solution is absurdly broken and trivial to bypass is beyond me.
One more time: We at Heathen will not buy any CD shipped with Sunncomm’s bullshit plan. We expect we’re not the only ones. We further expect that adding DRM like this to CDs — which makes it harder for uninitiated buyers to move legally purchased music from CDs to iPods to whatever for personal use — makes it MORE likely, not less, that said buyers will simply resort to illegal downloading or copying from friends.
Remember, RIAA: your failed business model is not our problem. Give us something we want, and we’ll pay you for it. Keep fucking with us, and you’ll get wholly disintermediated.
(Mostly via MeFi.)
Steve Carell: One Funny Motherfucker.
In his years on “The Daily Show” Mr. Carell became known as the guy who was willing to do almost anything for a laugh, a marked contrast to his low-key demeanor when not performing. He once ate an entire tablespoon of Crisco — both in rehearsal and on the show — when ice cream or frosting would have worked just as well, just so he could enjoy Jon Stewart’s horrified on-camera reaction. He also famously did a takeoff on news correspondents who demonstrate the negative effects of alcohol. Instead of just pretending to get drunk, he consumed cocktail after cocktail and ended up screaming, howling and, eventually, throwing up in Mr. Colbert’s car. It’s a tradition he continued in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” in a chest-waxing scene that has audiences alternately wincing and laughing as chunks are ripped from his heavily-forested torso, leaving him red and, inevitably, bleeding.
Especially when you have The Learning Abscess. Sample:
An Evening With
Mariel Hemmingway Beautiful, talented, intelligent and spiritually evolved, Mariel Hemingway is an amazing, independent woman who has truly succeeded on her own terms. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get lonely, or have needs like any other woman. And let’s face it, the acting offers aren’t exactly pouring in anymore. Taken together, these circumstances have given rise to a unique opportunity for you to enjoy the intimate company of the Academy Award-nominated granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, in your own home, or in a nice hotel, or in a not-so-nice motel, or in a reasonably comfortable van. A serious practitioner of Yoga for 20 years who has studied Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyengar, Kundalini and Kriya, Mariel can not only discuss these various philosophies and methodologies but can perform elaborate contortions to allow serious Cirque de Sole-style fucking that will blow your nuts clean off. Whether you would like to enjoy this amazing opportunity one-on-one or with a few buddies, Mariel is a non-judgmental woman of the world, and is game for anything life throws at her. Course 2293 August 2 or whenever’s good for you 8pm-Late
Don’t miss “An evening throwing things at Sidney Sheldon,” either.
We were planning to rant some more about the whole stupid Intelligent Design thing, but as it turns out the Onion has stepped up to the plate: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory. (However, you should take a gander at this post over at Accordian Guy’s blog anyway.)
We’re anonymously quoted in Gridskipper,a Gawker media blog about travel. Said quote comes from a mail we submitted in response to a previous entry in re: Moscow’s Cosmos Hotel.
The AP is reporting that the TSA may relax restrictions on razorblades, scissors, small knives, etc., which makes huge amounts of sense. We’re pretty sure hijacking a plane is no longer possible, so frankly we’re comfortable with passengers carrying pocketknives and boxcutters and other nonweapon “weapons” all they want. Making the list of in-flight contraband saner would return air travel to a less-irritating level of ritual, and would allow the TSA to focus on finding actually dangerous items instead of knitting needles and Swiss Army knives.
But then there’s this paragraph:
Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require [new TSA head Edmund] Hawley’s approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision. [emph. added.]
Frankly, we wonder if this is some sort of giveaway to Ted Nugent, bowhunters in general, or them Duke Boys (though they’d have to buy their dynamite locally, as you can’t even have that in checked luggage).
So, as we’ve seen, sometimes invertebrates eat vertebrates. This prepares us somewhat, then, for another such case: bugs eating birds. (Photo via link, at Bird Watcher’s Digest. Found on several places this morning.)
From Salon‘s piece on Novak:
Twice, Karl Rove was dismissed from George H.W. Bush’s campaign, in 1980 and 1992, respectively, for leaking to Novak.
National Labor Relations Board allows employers to ban off-duty fraternization between employees.
Mmmmmm, Bacon.
Update: Mr Tendentious informs us that, when he and his bride lived in Miami, they were able to get bacon flavored with juniper. Mmmmm, gin-bacon!
Seminal punk club CBGB has been given a legal reprieve by a New York judge.
More drunk, abusive puppets losing at blackjack.
Ah, our government at work. From this CNet story:
Dobson’s hate-filled faux-Christian cult site offers tips on how to tell if your prepubescent child might be gay, and what to do as a result (“change is possible!”, they assure you, despite being wholly contradicted by the APA). Fortunately, Fafblog is on the case.
That this restaurant — widely hailed as the finest in the country — is closed for a private party on October 10 and 11. Mrs-Heathen-to-Be and I had planned to dine there 10/10 as the kickoff event of our California honeymoon.
Fuck.
Certain other Heathen have been bitten by the comment-scrubber in overnight processing, so we want to take this chance to remind you all that certain words will get your comments automatically removed by a job that runs every night at midnight or so.
The forbidden words are (case-insensitive):
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p style=”margin-left: 4%”> incest viagra cialis rape href beastiality cum phentermine hydrocodone vicodin best-xp-software.biz anti-spyware.ws replica-watch.ws spyware-removal.net rolex-replica.org spyware-removal.biz green-card-lottery buy-rolex spy-deleter.net rolex-replica poker-room
N.B. that “href” is among the forbidden terms. This means you cannot put a link in your comments. Sorry. However, you CAN put in a bare URL, and rely on the above-average population of Heathen to figure out how to copy and paste it into their browsers.
Yeah, as it happens, our government KNEW THAT ATTA WAS AN AL QUAEDA OPERATIVE as early as summer 2000.
Jon Stewart pokes fun at the absurd, pork-full appropriations bill by noting it includes, among other things:
…and $1.6 million for something called the American Tobacco Trail in North Carolina. Here’s all you need to know about the American Tobacco Trail: It starts at “slaves” and ends at “cancer”.
From tonight’s show. Excellent.
Presumably, though, Pope Ratz is opposed even to these very nontraditional condom deployments.
Sort of a companion piece to the top-ten-tech thing, CNet gives us their picks for the Top Ten dot-com flops. Ah, those were the days.
So, this aquarium moved a large octopus into a bigger tank, assuming that its strength and stealth would keep it safe from the other critters in the new environment — a population that included sharks in the 3 to 4 foot range.
Something weird happened. They kept discovering shark carcasses at the tank bottom each morning, so they stayed up to see what happened (link to embedded RealVideo at PBS). As it happens, the shark turns out not to be the indisputed food chain king in this particular tank. (Link via MeFi.)
Read this piece on August 6, Presidential daily briefings, and the wonder that is the Bush administration.
Read this; the gist:
I have CDs that I have owned for nearly twenty years. I have made back-ups of those CDs. I have converted those CDs into mp3s and more recently into AAC files. I can play them on any device that I want simply by changing the format. If my hard drive dies I still have my CDs. If my portable player dies I still have my CDs. If I decide to run MacOS, Linux, BSD, Windows or any other operating system I will still have my CDs and my CDs will still sound better than the files I downloaded. I have some serious doubts that if music purchased online today will be playable three years from now without breaking the DRM.
He speaks Truth. (More on this issue here — same blog, different author.)
Spot on, particularly number 10, but not for the reasons they cite. It’s only with the Treo that Palm devices approach the intelligence of the Newton 10 years ago, and even now they fall short of some of its abilities. Of course, the market moved toward “small and cheap” and away from “big and expensive,” and Steve wasn’t about to keep a Sculley product around, but the Newt was (and is) seamless and friendly in a way that Palms still aren’t.
Ibrahim Ferrer, 1927 – 2005. (Pic via CNN; news and more via MeFi.)
No, really (via MeFi).
Today, my brother turns 30. We observed said event on Wednesday night with a trip to Philip M’s via booze-filled limo — I flew over to attend as a surprise, orchestrated by my sister-in-law — but today’s the actual day.
Happy birthday, Frank. I love you. See you soon.
Lately, we’ve heard a lot about some sort of Euro-craze for a song/ringtone called Crazy Frog. We had no idea until moments ago that this track is little more than a remix/mashup of Harold Faltermeyer’s “Axel F” (from Beverly Hills Cop) and this loop we blogged in 2001 clearly (originally) intended to be an imitation of an F1/Indy car (or, as some suggest, a two-stroke motorcycle engine).
If you like the funny — and I think you do — then head on over to see Leave It To Bush, episode 3, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson and Christopher Fucking Walken.
(Longtime Heathen will recall our affection for episode 1 some months back.)
It is now illegal to prescribe, dispense, or advertise any form of birth control on any University of Wisconsin campus. From the linked story:
Wisconsin State Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, introduced this bill based on the belief that “dispensing birth control and emergency contraceptives leads to promiscuity.”
What. The. Fuck?
(Of course, our other reaction is “thank God it’s not a Southern state.”)
We have Lindsey to thank for this one.
We believe the following quote from Dr Thompson adequately captures the Proper Breakfast for sometime during the festivities:
The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newpapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music…All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked. Hunter S. Thompson on breakfast [from “Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’76”]
If you go here, you can make your very own Venn diagram. Here’s a sample from longtime Heathen MAD:
Office Guns, for all your workday ballistic needs.
Hundreds of years ago, scientists were branded (sometimes literally) as heretics and thrown in prison for discovering facts those in power found inconvenient (for example, heliocentrism).
Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX-Jackass) presumably wishes he was in power then instead of now. Barton is using his committee chairmanship to harrass scientists whose work supports a conclusion with which he disagrees, namely that climate change exists. He’s demanding they turn over not just data but also personal and financial informationMore information available at the American Institute of Physics. Even some Republicans are calling the move “misguided and illegitimate.” This, of course, matters little to Barton.
From CNN comes this, under the headline “New Mel Gibson film to be in Mayan”:
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — Actor-director Mel Gibson is well on his way to cornering a new niche market in Hollywood — movies written in exotic languages. A year after breaking box-office records with “The Passion of the Christ,” which was shot in Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew, Gibson has struck a deal with the Walt Disney Co. to release his next picture in a Mayan dialect.
“So, have you ever seen Sting live?”
Yeah, we’ve seen Gordon. Twice, really. Once, years ago, at what we still think of as the best venue for large scale live music in the southeast (RedOak Mountain Ampitheater in Birmingham, Alabama). Earlier than that — spring 1991 — at UNO Lakefront in New Orleans, though, was the definitive sighting.
Back then, before Sting became the punch line for Jaguar commercials, he was still interesting. He was touring in support of his last good record (The Soul Cages), and had fer-crying-out-loud Concrete Blonde opening for him. In that pre-Internet-as-we-know-it era, nobody in Tuscaloosa knew it was happening until I went back to Hattiesburg for spring break — and discovered, via a local record shop, what was happening the following evening in the Big Easy. My little brother and I quickly signed on, and then we called certain other Heathen at their ancestral home, and consequently he and a couple others (J.B. and M.E.) were screaming down I-10 from Florida to Louisiana.
They missed the true opener — a damned shame, since in all honestly we were bigger Concrete Blonde fans than Sting fans — but they got there in time to see something extraordinary. After the CB set and the requisite period of silence, the lights went down, followed by a simple follow-spot and two guys walking out on stage: a tall pale blonde dude, and a black guy with short dreads and a big-ass drum.
Sting started talking. He told us about how he’d wandered into a bar in Santa Monica or someplace months before, caught by the rain, and heard this guy. He went backstage. He, being Sting, got him a slot on his tour. He informed us that in half an hour or so, he’d be out to play his set; in the meantime, we were to listen to the dreadlock guy.
Dreadlock guy was Vinx. Nobody, mostly, knows who the hell he is even now, but at that moment in 1991, it was easy to believe he was about to be a big-ass star. He held the arena in his hand with an ease I’ve not yet seen again. The material he did was incredible and solid and true. I immediately bought his record, and then the follow up, and then. . .
. . . he vanished. Of course, he was still there. He just didn’t have major label support, or the exposure the comes with it. He’s still out there, but the records I know are now, criminally, out of print. This guy’s the real deal. See him if you have the chance. Buy what recordings you can. He’s real. I sit here, nearly 15 years after the first time I heard his voice at UNO Lakefront, and I still can’t believe how few people know how awesome he is.
So that’s what we’re telling you about this evening, shifting POV and all. Go. Buy. Listen.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: It's official, I've got a new entertainment-industry-whore contract. Sean "Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, relentless hack" Combs.
[Heathen]: Gonna bling-out his servers, fo shizzle?
[SomeoneWeKnow]: I'm gonna pimp him some Catalyst, nizzle.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: And some linaaaaxxxxx!
[Heathen]: I can't believe you just said that.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: Since I'm only moderately certain I said what I intended, I can believe that.
[SomeoneWeKnow]: Of course, as Snoop said, "Nizzle does not mean neighbor."
Edward Bunker, once the youngest inmate at San Quentin, passed away last Tuesday. He started writing while still inside, and his success therewith carried him to Hollywood; he is perhaps most famous for his role as Mr Blue in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 Reservoir Dogs.
OS X is making significant inroads in corporate America. Sure, the hardware costs a little more, but how valuable is stability? How valuable is total immunity to Outlook viruses? How valuable is just-plain-better platform security?
Go see the final Tamalalia. Don’t believe me? Ask Everett.
Ok, sure: I am the president of IBP. But I have that role because I’ve been a volunteer and supporter for years; I like what they do, and think you might, too. This isn’t pure boosterism. It’s worth your time. Tamarie has created Houston’s only original musical series, and she’s done it for ten years. Check it out.
This weekend is all sold out, but remaining dates are: 8pm on July 28, 29, 30; August 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, September 1, 2, 3; also late-night 10:30 shows on July 30 and August 6, 20, and 27. Tickets are $10 to $17. For an additional ten bucks, on Fridays at 10:30 you can pick up on Miss Lily’s Drunken Lodge Hall Revue on the cabaret stage and make an evening of it. All performaces at the Axiom, 2524 McKinney, +713 522 8443.
Jon Carroll has one of the best damn columns I’ve ever read today. It’s got Groucho in it, for crying out loud. Go. Read.
Among the layoffs is Alan Kay — one of the founders of Xerox PARC.
A museum in London has an exhibition that is, basically, a running faucet. It wastes about 9,200 gallons per day.
Between Rove and Roberts, this is getting little play in the mainstream media, but the House voted to extend the PATRIOT Act yesterday. Billmon reminds us why this is a very, very, very bad idea. PATRIOT is a hodgepode of expanded search & seizure powers protected by a veil of secrecy in the name of “national security,” and will end up being abused even if it hasn’t been already. Governments are loathe to give up power once they get it, and every government in the history of the world has abused the trust and power granted it by its citizens. Let your congresscritter know how you feel.
In the “useless security theater” department, NY will now do random bag searches on the subway. Like that’s gonna deter anybody from anything.
Finally, it looks like somehow we got the Irish drunk enough to give the CIA authority to secretly interrogate Irish citizens in Ireland even if they’re not suspected of any (Irish) crime. WTF? We proclaim we’re defenders of liberty, but we consistently behave as agents of government power trumping said liberty.