Terrible Nerd is Savetz’s memoir of sorts of growing up nerdy in California around the same time I was growing up nerdy in Mississippi. Near as I can tell, it was much easier going in California. ;)
I met Savetz on the Giant Nerd Cruise last month, and he gave me a copy of his book as we were playing Cards Against Humanity. I read it on the boat, which tells you how far behind I am on these posts.
He’s a nice guy, and his book is a fun read, but probably only if you’re part of our tribe.
Frankly, the VHS artifacts in this video only add to the hilarity.
This man’s prosthetic hand is absolutely astonishing. It’s dextrous enough that he can tie his own shoes. Truly amazing.
If you’re like me, then part of you wishes you could just pull a Kathy Bates whenever someone pulls out in front of you and makes you slam on your brakes. Why not just hit them, dammit?
Of course, we don’t do these things, because of the damage to our cars that would result, not to mention the possibility of injury and liabilty to the other driver.
Apparently, though, the rules are rather different for Russian bus drivers, as the linked video shows. The driver known as The Punisher refuses to slow down when drivers cut in front of him, with predictably delicious results.
He is, of course, our new Heathen Hero.
Peter Dinklage was on 30 Rock.
Two words: Tentacle chandaliers. Maybe Mrs Heathen will want one over the dining room table?
You know, it’s nice and all that multistep logic is possible in a custom field calculation, but don’t you think it might be NICER to make it possible to debug something like this
IIf([Imported Actual Finish]<>projdatevalue("NA"),100,(IIf([Imported Actual Start]=projdatevalue("NA"),0,(IIf([Imported Expected Finish]=projdatevalue("NA"),0,(IIf([Imported Actual Start]>=[Imported Expected Finish],0,(IIf([Imported Remaining Duration]<0,0,((ProjDateDiff([Imported Actual Start],[Imported Expected Finish])*2/3)-[Imported Remaining Duration]*60*8)/((ProjDateDiff([Imported Actual Start],[Imported Expected Finish])*2/3))*100)))))))))
without resorting to external editors? I mean, just some basic paren matching would save an awful goddamn lot of time…
If you connect enough 1:50 gears, you can run the first one at 200RPM and still encase the final one in concrete, as it will be trillions of years before it rotates even once.
Gamer-Heathen may have heard by now of the serious clusterfuck that is the new SimCity release. EA has decided that an always-on Internet connection is required to play this single player game that has no natural reason to connect to anything, and their servers got swamped on launch day. The predictable result was lots of folks with an $80 game who could not play.
At least one reviewer has pointed out the absurdity of this.
I, on the other hand, proceeded to Good Old Games and payed $5.99 for the last good version of SimCity, SimCity 2000. Go and do likewise.
I’ve been sitting on this for a while, but it’s gold and deserves to be seen: SciFind’s list of 11 alternate universe female Doctors is simply brilliant, and rewards a careful read if you know your Who history.
For example: this alternate-universe Eighth Doctor is Helen Baxendale (as opposed to Paul McGann). There as here, the Eighth appears only in an orphaned TV movie years after the show was cancelled, and more than a decade before the revival. For reasons I’ve never understood, the producers cast Eric Roberts as longtime foe The Master. Go check to see who plays “The Mistress” in the alternate universe. ;)
Also, total wins: Honor Blackman in the 1960s, opposite Vanessa Redgrave as the Mistress; Joanna “AbFab” Lumley in the 1980s; and Suranne Jones as the Ninth (most famous to Whovians as the personification of the TARDIS in the Gaiman-penned “The Doctor’s Wife”).
Go. Read. Enjoy.
Just go read the whole thing.
(Widely linked.)
So the big news today is that they’re going to allow pocketknives on planes again, which is nice since, you know, disallowing them had absolutely nothing to do with reality in the first place. Bully for them.
However, the new rules are, like everything that has anything to do with the TSA, arbitrary and capricious. As detailed here, the maximum permitted blade length is 2.36 inches, or 6 cm. The diagram in place clearly includes a Swiss-Army type knife, which was at first encouraging, since they come in essentially two sizes — and the one used as an example is obviously of the larger variety, and therefore should be the same size as the one I (and millions others) carry.
Except it’s been scaled down for the diagram. The normal-sized Victorinox (which is to say, most of them) are 3.5 inches long closed, and include a main blade that measures not quite 2.75 inches long (about 7 cm). Wenger’s knives are slightly smaller — 3.25″ closed, with a 2.5″ blade.
Nobody, to my knowledge, sells a Swiss knife of the size used in the diagram, but you can bet your ass that a shit-ton of TSA goons will have fancy new-to-them second-hand Swiss knives the week after this goes into effect (April 25). Travelers will see the Swiss knife in the diagram, think they’re cool, and have them snagged by the jackass patrol.
Nice.
Is Scalia the most vile person in Washington?
Washington, hell. Frankly, I like his chances in the regional bracket.
Call Me A Hole is the improbably perfect mashup of “Call Me Maybe” and “Head Like A Hole.”
Go on. Click. You’re going to get what you deserve.
Over at the Verge, they’ve got the first real coverage of what it’s like to use Google Glass. I’d really love to try one — especially for navigation when driving or biking.
I just wonder how they’ll deal with the fact that much of their market already wears glasses.
They’ve taught a giant four-legged robot called Big Dog to throw cinderblocks.
I’m rarely amused by graffiti, but this is kind of awesome.
This is apparently an unofficial tribute, but Skyfall: 50 Years of Bond is pretty spectacular. Seriously. Don’t miss a single frame.
This is what they WANTED. Attempting to negotiated with these halfwits is a fool’s errand, because they don’t care if we cut the budget in stupid, excessive ways.
This man has invented a machine to separate Oreos and remove the cream.
Larry Miller — whom you otherwise may remember from a memorable turn as the sucking-up shopkeeper in Pretty Woman — and the Stages of Drinking.
I’ve contended for years that the justice’s much-discussed “originalism” was little more than a thin veneer over a legal mind more than happy to rule based on outcome rather than principle; he’s done it over and over.
So this development won’t surprise you at all. More here.
Serious question, though: Does anybody know an Originalist who isn’t pro-life? There’s nothing about the positions that should join them at the hip, and yet pretty much everyone I’ve ever encountered who claimed the former was also actively using it the further the latter. It’s almost as if they picked a doctrine to support their point of view! Which is convenient, since, like Scalia, it’s likely they don’t really mean Originalism anyway.
The FBI is continuing to trumpet its success in quashing terror plots it invented and then entrapped people into joining.
I can’t help but think that, while this is certainly good for career advancement and increased funding and whatnot, it’s probably not the best use of our tax dollars.
In other words, these actions will never be subject to legal scrutiny.
The only fix here is broad adoption of real encryption without back doors for snoopy LEOs. It’s not a question of stopping terrorism. It’s a question of preventing the state from having to much power with too little oversight.
Also, the excellent video features Tilda Swinton.
The prosecution of Aaron Swartz was overtly, deliberately political, and had nothing to do with right or wrong.
Yet another reason why everyone involved in that railroading effort should be shunned forever from all reasonable society.
Twice this week I’ve encountered some amazing photography of the tunnel-building process underneath Manhattan. I urge you to check these out:
Let’s hope they avoid awaking any ancient & unspeakable horrors.
Down in Chile, there’s a hotel made of pure awesome in a region known for its staggeringly clear night skies. Heathen Agent R, who did some work down there, notes that the time lapse footage here is more or less exactly what it looks like in real life.
Direct link to the hotel is here.
As it turns out, I really AM riding the MS150 this year. Here’s my personal page, wherein you may support my efforts. Expect periodic hassles, and some of you will be getting email.
A special to loyal Heathen, and in the style of Kickstarter, I am offering the following entirely ephemeral and intangible benefits:
Grudging acknowledgement.
For each donor at this level, I will post to the Internet one picture of me after a training ride, sun- and wind-burned, covered in road grime and sweat, and wearing cycling clothing.
Lovelorn admiration (silent).
For each donor at this level, I will remove from the Internet one picture of me after a training ride, sun- and wind-burned, covered in road grime and sweat, and wearing cycling clothing.
Lovelorn admiration (effusive, on this blog).
I will kiss you SQUARE ON THE MOUTH (no tongue)
Jonathan Coulton is using a picture I took on his home page today, in his post about the cruise:
Go me!
What of it, Judgey McJudgerson?
Mostly, yeah. But I also travel a bunch. There’s a place for junk food in one’s diet.
No idea what you mean. See, this is the one where Reacher ends up investigating an improbable conspiracy, and then has to take it down more or less single-handledly.
Um. Right. Still, good fun. This one was mildly different because it was the first written post-9/11, which forces some changes on Reacher’s behavior. Also, I was on vacation. There was drinking. And a beach.
I’m so behind on this; I actually finished Horns before the cruise.
I’d read one of Joe Hill‘s books before — Heart Shaped Box, his debut novel — but somehow missed out on Horns when it was released, and then it went into the perennially sifted “I’m gonna read that…” pile. I shouldn’t have delayed.
Horns is great fun from the start. Instead of slowly building to a monstrous development after hundreds of pages of hinting, Hill drops us right into the mess from page one. Ig Perrish wakes up with devil’s horns. They have odd effects on people. Given the immediate past circumstances of his life — everyone thinks he murdered his girlfriend Merrin a year before — there’s plenty of opportunity for these effects to create amusing developments.
It’s only after you’re hooked on the story that Hill paints the rest of the picture — Ig’s childhood, his family, his friends, his relationship with the dear, departed girlfriend, etc. — and if I have a complaint here it’s that these sections kind of drag a bit, and I felt at times like I really wanted to get back to the first story thread, which I was sure would be full of righteous retribution. And then, in those moments, you realize that you are reading a book that has you rooting for the devil.
Nice work.
Here’s a little bonus, btw: Horns is already being made into a film, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Ig and Juno Temple as Merrin. Principal photgraphy started last September.
In St. Maarten, because we elected to go sail this:
We were unable to partake of this:
Still, I’m pretty sure we made the right call.
(Hodg-photo by Angela Brett, a fellow-Sea-Monkey, CERNite, and cam-fez manufacturer, also pictured here during a game of CAH.)
St. Maarten:
The future-amazing part of this? I took it with my phone.
This is ridiculous, and MUST be protested and stopped:
The Department of Homeland Security’s civil rights watchdog has concluded that travelers along the nation’s borders may have their electronics seized and the contents of those devices examined for any reason whatsoever — all in the name of national security.
The DHS, which secures the nation’s border, in 2009 announced that it would conduct a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” of its suspicionless search-and-seizure policy pertaining to electronic devices “within 120 days.” More than three years later, the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties published a two-page executive summary of its findings.
“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.
Seriously? Without SUSPICION? Whisky. Tango. Foxtrot.
In years past, when you bought a piece of software, you owned a perpetual license. If your computer died, you could install it on your new computer without a hitch, because of of this license.
Microsoft has decided not to do it that way anymore; new versions of Office will now be bound to the machine they’re installed on, so that when you move to a new computer you are expected to buy another copy.
Fuck. That.
Stay with this video long enough to see them deploy, and use, the shock collars.
Also: you are in NO WAY surprised that it’s in German, are you?
Elizabeth Warren went knives out the other day, asking the SEC some very, very difficult questions about their “oversight” role.
It’s rather a bigger set than I usually post, but we were gone for a whole week: Pictures from JoCoCruiseCrazy 3.
FIRST
We have returned from the mountaintop. We will now resume normal shenanigans, just as soon as our inner ears stop telling us that our townhouse is gently rolling in the blue, blue seas of the Caribbean.
SECOND
This month, it has been ten years since this happened. Accompanying us on our pilgrimage was John Roderick (among other amazing artists), who performed (among other things) this terrific, and terrifically moving, song apropos of 1 February 2003:
(Updated: Replaced original video with actual footage of the performance we saw last Tuesday.)
THAT IS ALL.
You should go read the hero of Midway‘s obituary. Like, now.
From Twitter:
Even if you’re not a Unix junkie, open a Terminal and type this: traceroute 216.81.59.173 DNS tells a story… /via @gravax @AlecMuffett
Right now. Immediately. (On Windows, use the CMD prompt and “tracert” instead, I believe.)