etcetc

nerd-gras space-opera

2005-05-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

uh oh, natural death preferable to cruxifiction.

how i wish I coined those words. Which word has
the power of nuclear blast.

npr news story

2005-05-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

where in jungle once realm of tigers,
hunters now hunted by illegal poachers.
to india's most beloved brand,
makes tata an offering grand,
of its own best development engineers.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/05/13/PM200505134.html

Letter from slashdotter wondergibbon(original?) to Mr Bush

2004-11-30T01:23:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr Bush,

We, the authors of the CIA World Fact Book, were under the mistaken belief that it was the People's Republic Of China (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /ch.html [cia.gov]) - "mainland China" - who asserted sovereignty over Tibet, not Taiwan, (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /tw.html [cia.gov]), which is an island off the south east coast of PRC. Thank you for the clarification. We must have overlooked the invasion of the mainland while we were looking for those pesky weapons of mass destruction.

We've got a small favor to ask - can you state that Palestine and Israel are in fact several thousand miles apart, and thereby ending one Middle East conflict? Oh, and the Department of Defence would like to know if you could move Iraq and Afganistan to a more temperate climate, and prefeably to somewhere where the transport costs are lower.

We have also liaised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan pn your behalf, and report that the translation the speaker was looking for in that awkward silence was "idiot."

Thanks.

------------
This is apparently a response to Mr Bush's speech:
Recently, during a seminar about Taiwan, I fought for the Tibetans by demanding that the speaker (who is an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan) explain why Taiwan continues to insist that Tibet is part of "One China".

New Bible more faithful to original Hebrew than King James version

2004-11-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

Alter said he was especially pleased with restoring all the "ands" back in a passage where Abraham's servant is sent on a mission to find a wife for Isaac and encounters Rebekah:

"And she came down to the spring and filled her jug and came back up. And the servant ran toward her and said, 'Pray, let me sip a bit of water from your jug.' And she said, 'Drink, my lord,' and she hurried and tipped down her jug on one hand and let him drink. And she let him drink his fill and said, 'For your camels, too, I shall draw water until they drink their fill.' And she hurried and emptied her jug into the trough, and she ran again to the well to draw water and drew water for all his camels."

The 15 "ands" manage to build a picture of what Alter calls "the closest anyone comes in Genesis to a feat of 'Homeric' heroism' -- especially when one considers how much a camel drinks.
-----
Other points of fine debate:
"Updike also took exception with some of the translation. For example, he is a lot happier with the King James version in which "the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water" than with Alter's version of the same sentence: "God's breath hovering over the waters."

But Alter, in a recent interview with Reuters, said he used the phrase "God's breath" rather than the "spirit of God" for a simple reason: "The Hebrew word means life's breath, a constant moving of oxygen in and out. The body-soul split of early Christianity is something not imagined in the early Hebrew."

Alter said his task was to find the English equivalents of the Hebrew. "Hebrew is filled with concrete images. For example, the King James translates the famous lines of Ecclesiastes as 'vanity of vanities ... all is vanity' but the closest word in English to the Hebrew is 'vapor, vapor, all is mere vapor."
"

segway meet roomba - the rest is history

2004-11-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

At a conference for geek products & future:

"There were some spectacular collisions, but none topped the moment that a fast moving Segway, slightly out of control, met Roomba, zipping across the floor like a suicidal squirrel. Amazingly, neither seemed the worse for the wear. The Segway popped up and over while Roomba emitted a few beeps from button presses but both continued on their way. Impressive engineering on several levels, actually. Roomba, for surviving the impact unharmed and Segway for not tipping over. "

blah blah conference blog

Soldier, Militia, Child and Dog

2004-11-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

soldier and stray dog	Iraqi militia
Kodak? Fuji?

A cave a plugin and canada

2004-11-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I need to curl up in a cave to sleep out this 4 years. I need a browser plugin to substitute all "Bush" into "Kerry", and replace the photos too. I need to up north and marry one of those sweet canadians who understood my pain and answered the call to sacrifice, according to www.marryanamerican.ca .

And it's apparently not a new idea. On an average day some 20,000 people in the United States log onto the Web site, www.cic.gc.ca -- a figure which rocketed to 115,016 on Wednesday Oct 4th. The number of U.S. visits settled down to 65,803 on Thursday, still well above the norm. More surprisingly, New Zealand immigration website also skyrocketed in the same period (5 fold).

Oddly enough marches on. A lion took a bite out of religion; A National Guard F-16 fighter plane mistakenly fired off 25 rounds of ammunition at the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School in South New Jersey on Wednesday night, causing minimal damage, but pauses in children's "Read Books, Get Brain". "After exhorting citizens to smile more, flush toilets after use, be courteous on the road and to have more babies, Singapore [government lead Singapore Kindness Movement] is zeroing in on tardy wedding guests in its latest bid to improve etiquette, launching a "Punctuality Drive at Wedding Dinners" campaign. Elsewhere, Roman cosmetic cream (40% animal fat, 40% starch and tin-Oxide) are found in a tin canister.

nursery rhyme

2004-11-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

First you're sick and then you're worse
And then it's time to call the hearse

They put you in
the cold, cold ground
with all your relatives
standing around.

The worms crawl in
The worms crawl out
The worms they crawl
all about

The worms crawl in
The worms crawl out
They play pinochle
on your snout!

Collection of other delightful children's verse

To the oddball news I missed

2004-10-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Faith:
"Faith the service dog phoned 911 when her owner fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help. Then the 4-year-old Rottweiler unlocked the front door so the responding police officer could come in." To top that, she was able to smell the difference in the body chemistry of her owner and anticipate seisures. Faint - I feel so inadequate.

Raining on the parade:
After redsox's world series win (for the first time since 1918), a new york (yankee funded?) psychiatry professor warns of the deleterious effects of winning: the identity of redsox is that of long suffering losers - what will happen to that identity when it starts winning, however ephemeral it is (snickers)

Man living in cave on los alamos land:
He had lived there for years, his cave equiped with wood burning stove and a glass door. (Possible mad nucular scientist turned hermit?)
"it was impossible to see the cave or any sign of Moore from the edge of the 75- to 100-foot cliff above, which is inaccessible because of a tall fence."

Expiring, expiring, expired:
"A train conductor carefully stamped the ticket of a slumbering passenger without realising the man was dead."

"Stark raving mad" US election expected

2004-10-30T09:38:00.000-07:00

Killer Yard Signs:
A man was spotted stealing Kerry yard sign on Sat and when police nabbed him, he was lying unconscious apparently knocked out by another Kerry yard sign he was stealing.

Killer Yard Signs wanted:
I don't see many Kerry signs where i liv. Two days after I proudly planted one outside my apartment (with manager's approval), it's gone. And the republican signs remained.

Charisma:
Former Mn governor Ventura showed up at a Kerry rally one day and was mum at length when reporters showered him with attention and inquiry. Finally giving up, the reporters directed their questions to the event organizer (or his friend), "Does it mean Ventura supports Kerry?", who replied, "I guess it does"

Robotic Clicker:
Bored one day, I sat clicking on Kerry slideshow for 10 minutes straight.

Journalist, I feel thy pain:
Bush blasts Kerry...
Kerry blasts Bush...
Candidates blast each other...
replace "blast" with "rip", "accuses", "charges", "trade charges",
"admonishes", "chides", "slugs it out" "fires off" "battle out" "trade barbs", "spar over", "draws fire", "drops zingers"... All day, every day.

Indian, Chief and judge

2004-10-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

Indian

chief

judge

The never ending marvels

2004-10-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

News today:
Wales sank into an enlarged Irish sea, on a EU-stat published map;
Ghenghis Khan palace found in Mongolia; this along with the fremont people's ruin from a colorado ranch is the archaological discoveries of the year.
Mt St helen's eruption risk is back down, after several days of huffing and puffing, and my spending 6 hours in pursuit - darn.

More Hurricane

2004-10-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

nasa vehecle assembly

interstate 10

Original of Murphy's Law

2004-10-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

The main character is actually J Stapp Awarded a Ignoble prize

I watched a taped talk by Robert oppenHeimmer of the Manhattan project. Only turned out it was actually done by Clay Jenkensen, who did a great job, even took audience's questions. I'm thinking of getting that tape

I wish I have a simple brian on these issues. (I am not saying your guys have a simple brian, I am just putting more thought on this kinds of issues).
-Yant

From Yahoo news:
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A 20-month-old boy wandered for 5 1/2 miles through the scorching desert of southeast Iran before his parents followed his footprints and found him sitting in an open irrigation channel, police said on Sunday.

Errant toddler Ali Esfandiarpour had been playing at home in a small village near the town of Sirjan when his parents realized he was missing on Tuesday afternoon. He was tracked down late that night.

"His family, relatives, and other villagers started walking out into the desert to look for him," said Abdolhossein Moghaddas, a police officer from the southeastern province of Kerman.

"Police and villagers followed his footsteps with torches until they found the boy sitting in an open channel used for irrigation. The boy started crying when he saw his parents," he added.

Esfandiarpour appeared unscathed by his trek.

-----------------

Awaken midnight by the crow of a chicken, A elderly Romanian man mistook his penis for the said chicken's neck, cut it off and his dog rushed up and ate it. Chuckle of evil chicken...

----------------
Japanese Emerald Cowboy Stars in Own Colombia Film
While the real Hayata represents himself for much of the movie, his youthful self is played, somewhat disconcertingly, by a local actor who assumes a Japanese accent despite typically Colombian features.

Playing Hayata, the actor imitates a foreigner's clumsy attempt to sway his hips dancing salsa but shows greater agility dispatching rivals with karate punches.

Hayata admits to three small "lies" in his movie. One of these is at the end, when a black screen announces that he has been shot in a firefight with Marxist guerrillas and is in a coma.

When asked why this is so, he replies "for security," so potential kidnappers think he's no longer a target. He doesn't explain why he still gives interviews if he wants people to think he is dead.

DIY

2004-09-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

http://web.media.mit.edu/~dmerrill/other.html

Lifted from a slashdot post on DIY projects.

Creative people and projects:
- http://www.diyaudio.com/ (DIY audio equipment forum)
- http://sound.westhost.com/projects.htm (audio stuff schematics)
- http://headwize.com/projects/index.htm (DIY headphone stuff)
- http://www.hauptwerk.co.uk/pedalboard.html (DIY MIDI pedalboards, just add keyboards and software and you have a MIDI organ)
- http://www.diysubwoofers.org/ (what it says)
- http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm (DIY ionic tweeter)
- http://www.mini-itx.com/
- http://www.linux-hacker.net/
- http://www.robotroom.com/
- http://www.tinaja.com/

Places to buy stuff:
- http://www.goldmine-elec.com/
- http://www.newark.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.mouser.com/ (major electronics retailer)
- http://www.tubesandmore.com/ (components for vintage electronics)

Getting stuff made:
- http://www.olimex.com/ (cheap PCBs)

Interview questions:
http://netblitz2.dartmouth.edu/files/dave/files/interview.html

2004-09-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

after us the deluge

Fox Trot Fridays
Thank the stars there's a day
each week to tuck in

the grief, lift your pearls, and
stride brush stride

quick-quick with a
heel-ball-toe. Smooth

as Nat King Cole's
slow satin smile,

easy as taking
one day at a time:

one man and
one woman,

rib to rib,
with no heartbreak in sight—

just the sweep of Paradise
and the space of a song

to count all the wonders in it.

- Rita Rove

2004-09-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ad for Manix lube.

My reading list:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,
my wounded heart

2004-09-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

sink hole formed when ground water level collapses

man looking in home after hurricane induced flood

Cited from Business week article about Spam's relationship with Hurricane
Steve Delgado, the marketing manager of Arial Software, got a pleasant surprise when he checked his e-mail Monday morning, Sept. 13. His in-box had only 70 spam messages. "My e-mail [address] is all over the Internet, so I usually get about 200 over the weekend." And he has a theory to explain it: "I believe that the slowdown of spam e-mails in my in-box is directly related to the adverse weather in Florida," he says, "and that the hurricanes are disrupting spammers in Boca Raton and other cities with spammy reputations."

Delgado isn't alone. Anti-spammers have been batting the idea back and forth on Internet newsgroups and in chat rooms since last week. One contributor went so far as to compare the hurricanes to Noah's flood: "And God saw that the wickedness of spam was great in Florida," he writes, "[and God said] 'I will cause it to rain upon Florida forty days and forty nights; and every living spammer that I have made will I destroy from off the face of Florida.'"

2004-09-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

florida 2004 after the nth hurricane

cow on a patch

A poem by Gwendolyn Brooks

2004-09-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

recipes

2004-09-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

delicious gumbo

recipe for engineers

2004-09-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

sumod

code names

2004-09-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

Entirely quoted from this article:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=9&u=/latimests/codenamegeekfun
------------
In 1993, Apple managers who were unsure whether the Power MacIntosh 7100 would ever make it to market named it Sagan, after the popular but speculative astronomer Carl Sagan. When the human Sagan got wind of the mock tribute, he asked Apple to drop the name.

So Apple renamed the machine BHA, which Sagan correctly surmised was short for Butt-Head Astronomer.

Sagan sued for libel and lost.

But after Apple attorneys settled other aspects of the case, the engineers promptly changed the code name a final time — to LAW, short for Lawyers Are Wimps.

After that, "the lawyers became involved and started having guidelines, saying the term has to be so generic that you don't have a possibility of getting into trouble for it," said a former marketing executive at Apple, which declined to discuss its process. "It was a lot more fun before."

accents

2004-08-31T15:42:00.000-07:00

My brain is too old and lazy to pick up other languages.
So i'm going to pick up accents instead.

gheto, hong kong, british,
irish, indian, russian, german,
austrilian, southern

I'm starting with australian first. very hard :(

movie list

2004-08-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

----- ones i like ----
Amadeus
Kill Bill
Bladerunner
Lawrence of Arabia
Spirited away
Bonnie and Clyde
Toy Story
O Brother where art thou
Romeo&Juliet (Leonardo DiCaprio)
Farewell concubine
Maurice
Blues brothers
Godfather
Lord of the Rings
Tarzan/Little mermaid/Fox and Hound (Disney)
Star Wars
Good bad & ugly
An affair to remember
philadelphia story
to be or not to be (1942)
blazing saddles
blithe spirit
pygmalion (1938)
black adder, mr bean
austin powers
some like it hot

---- ones i want to watch ----
Akira
Metropolis (sux)
Steamboy
Ghost in the shell
Taste of Cherry
Big fish
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey