J-Walk Blog: March 09, 2004 Archives

9 March, 2004

Flags Of The World

From the CIA World Factbook: Flags of the World. This planet has some very cool flags. I really like the flag from The Isle Of Man.

Flag Description: Red with the Three Legs of Man emblem (Trinacria), in the center; the three legs are joined at the thigh and bent at the knee; in order to have the toes pointing clockwise on both sides of the flag, a two-sided emblem is used

Posted on 9 March, 2004

First Double Murder, Now TV Theft

Poor O.J. From The Smoking Gun:

Yes, O.J. Simpson's been accused of worse crimes than stealing satellite TV. But that's exactly the charge leveled against the acquitted killer by DirecTV, which alleges that the former athlete swiped its service through the use of two illegal access devices in his Miami home.

In the federal lawsuit, the company is seeking damages of $20,000 (and $850 in legal fees) from Simpson.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Reduce The Voting Age?

From SFGate: California lawmakers propose lowering voting age to 14 for state elections.

A proposed amendment to California's constitution would give 16-year-olds a half-vote and 14-year-olds a quarter-vote in state elections.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, among four lawmakers to propose the idea on Monday, said the Internet, cellular phones, multichannel television and a diverse society makes today's teens better informed than their predecessors.

No, this is not a joke.

A Republican colleague said it was "the nuttiest idea I've ever heard." Said Assemblyman Ray Haynes: "There's a reason why 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds don't vote. They are not adults. They are not mature enough. They are easily deceived by political charlatans."

And adults aren't easily deceived by political charlatans?

Posted on 9 March, 2004

VBA Humor

I compiled this VBA Humor page a few years ago, and then I forgot all about it. If you're a VBA (or VB) programmer, you might find it amusing. Stuff like this:

Dim Everything as Object
If Everything Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "This is a paradox of the Object-Oriented universe."
End If

If IsMissing(InAction) Then GoTo MilkCarton

If IsNull(Warranty) And Void Then BuyaNew1

Cocktail = Abs(Vodka)

Synergy = Whole > Application.Sum(ItsParts)

Lubricant = Shell("Oil")

Mismatch = Round(Sqr(Peg), 0)

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Identify the States

Can you identify the 48 contiguous states in the U.S.? In other words, can you pass the third grade?

First of all, I don't think they teach this in the third grade. But in any event, I failed with a score of 24 out of 48. Those eastern states are killer.

(Thanks Kevin Stecyk)

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Unusual Baseball Cards

This is a great idea, even if you're not a baseball fan: A collection of funny and strange trading cards.

(via Tom McMahon)

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Mexican Jumping Beans

If you've ever watched any old cartoons, you're familiar with Mexican Jumping Beans. From How Stuff Works: How do Mexican jumping beans work?

The thing that makes these beans jump is a tiny moth larvae that lives inside the bean. The moth lays its eggs in the flower of the plant, and the eggs are incorporated into the seeds. The larvae then eat out the interior of the bean and live there. When the larvae move, so does the bean. Eventually, the larvae turn into moths that emerge from the beans to repeat the cycle.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Blog Impressions

This morning's assignment: find a new blog to read. I went to Weblogs.com, and started clicking on recently-updated blogs that caught my attention. I kept doing this until I found one that was worth a re-visit.

A PowerPoint Blog: Clean layout, but the content is over-powered by the obnoxious animated banner and the Google ads. I stayed about two minutes. I would have read it a bit longer, but I don't have much interest in PowerPoint. And that banner was driving me crazy.
Law Is Fun: Another one of those "gray text on a dark background" blogs. Not very readable. Greg is a CPA and law student, and his favorite color is blue (or maybe black). Scrolling down, I see he recently visited San Diego.
Report From Tokyo: It's in Japanese, with a few photos. It looks like a relatively new personal blog.
Easily Amazed: This seems to be a personal blog, with posts by ashley and Rebecca. I know it's very hip and modern, but typing in all lowercase letters drives me crazy, Ashley. Other than that, it's readable, with a few images thrown in to break up the text.
Turn On Tune In Burn Out: Written in German, all upper case. Grey text on a black background. Even if I could read German, I would hit the Back button immediately.
BatCave: A personal blog by an unknown person. Today was the first update since last December.
Leaving Los Angeles: Another personal blog by an unknown person. I think you would have to know this person to find it interesting.
Found On The Web: True to its title, this blog has brief entries that contain links to other sites. It's done by Bill Brown, and he provides lots of personal information, including a resume.
Cultivated Stupidity: A blog by Josh, who appears to be a film student who's "living the high life in New York City."
Allah Is In The House: I don't know what this is about, but it doesn't look very interesting to me.
Yellow School Bus: It's in Japanese. And I don't think it's about school buses.
Coffeehouse At The End-Of-Days: A blog by a "I'm a semi-retired consulting geek." I found this link to a laser baseball. Not bad, but I don't think I'll be back.
The S.S. Fun: A blog by Jordan Hoffman. It seems to be filled with photos of his friends.
Mama Blog: A personal blog by Christy.
Postcards From Nowhere: The background colors just don't work for me. UPDATE: Now they are fine.
Cory Doctorow, Unofficially: This seems to be another blog by Cory Doctorow (the Boing Boing guy). It's basically a listing of things that are going on for him professionally.
One Lazy Blonde: A personal blog by Kimmie, age 28.
Eat Electric Death: A gaming-oriented blog.
The City Stories Project: I found one!

I have this idea. There is a thing that I call city-based storytelling. It's somewhere in between a personal journal and a city guide. It's a series of personal stories where the city itself becomes a character in your story. SF Stories is basically my long love letter to San Francisco. What city do you love?

Wow, that took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Cable Mess

I wonder if using retractable cables would help cure this cable mess behind my computer?

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Dead Mouse Art

From SFGate: The Art of Dead Mice.

Jeanie M. (a.k.a. Mouse Girl) purchases dead "feeder" mice, skins them, stuffs them with cotton balls and adorns them in meticulous costumes. Her imagination and taxidermist skill transforms the macabre medium -- rodent carcasses -- into whimsical, beautiful art.

The article is an interview with Mouse Girl.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Steve Martin On That Mel Gibson Movie

Item: Martin mocks Mel's Passion.

Steve Martin has launched a biting satirical attack on Mel Gibson, mocking The Passion of the Christ as money-making showbusiness and suggesting it should have been called Lethal Passion.

The 58-year-old actor, who starred in films such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Father of the Bride and himself earned a reputed $7 million for his lead role in Sergeant Bilko, penned a sharply worded column on the The Passion of the Christ for The New Yorker magazine.

While Mr Gibson, who made the film with his own money, claims that his intention was to produce a profound statement of his religious beliefs, Mr Martin - influenced, perhaps, by the film's ticket sales - appears to disagree.

The New Yorker article is reprinted here: Studio Script Notes on "The Passion". An excerpt:

Could the Rabbis be Hispanic? There's lots of hot Latino actors now, could give us a little zing at the box office. Research says there's some justification for it. Is there somewhere where Jesus could be using an IMac?

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Bad Album Covers

Here's another collection of bad album covers: Worster Album Covers Ever II.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Goodbye Encyclopedias

From the Calgary Herald: Encyclopedias lose to the Net.

In the age of the Internet, encyclopedias are gathering dust, and most families with young children don't even consider buying the space-hogging printed sets anymore. Even digital versions struggle for attention.

When I was a kid, I used to read the encyclopedia for fun. Nowadays, kids access the Web for fun. But I doubt that they're learning the same type of things that I did.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Xerox Art

Check out the First Annual Xerox Art Show. Yes, it's one of those Web sites that makes you scroll horizontally.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Philosophical Disclaimers

A collection of philosophical disclaimers. Such as...

Knowledge-Definition Warning:
Because knowledge is defined for the purpose of this product literature as "justified true belief", the manufacturer cannot prove that they "know" any of the information provided with this product to be true, correct, complete, or consistent because they cannot demonstrate their internal belief states through the principle of Philosphic Privacy.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

A New Look For Google

If you'd like to experience a new look for Google, go here and read the instructions.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

How News Travels

From Stephen VanDyke: How News Travels on the Internet.

I read the Wired article Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious, and though it was informative. But it seemed to be lacking the big picture view of how the news travels. The Blog Epidemic Analyzer was also amusing and showed how attribution is underrated, but it too seemed sorely lacking cohesion, nor was it a very new topic. So I thought to myself: "Hey this isn't all that complicated, I should make a visual diagram to illustrate this". And this infographic was born.

In an interesting twist of self-reference, the article itself is becoming widely cited. At this very moment, you're reading about it in the "Lesser Blogosphere."

Posted on 9 March, 2004

HTML Humor

HTML geeks might find this amusing: HTML-HUMOR. Here's an example:

(via Sugar'n Spicy)

Posted on 9 March, 2004

A Setback For The RIAA

From Wired: One File Swapper, One Lawsuit.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the music industry cannot sue over 200 alleged file sharers in one swoop and that the companies must sue each defendant individually.

The music trade group must pay court fees for each of these cases. Filing each lawsuit will cost $150 in court fees, for a total of over $30,000, according to the EFF.

The RIAA would not say what it plans to do.

Here's an idea: Drop the lawsuits and focus your corporate energy on improving your image and making music affordable.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Spepper

Seasoning food has always been such a chore. First the salt, then the pepper. Then maybe a bit more salt... By the time your food is properly seasoned, it's cold -- and it usually just ends up in the garbage.

Forget all that, and pick up a bottle of Spepper.

Spepper in it's simple form, is a precise GOURMET mixture of flake salt and fresh cracked pepper in the same shaker. (We know... simple huh?) Spepper has been blended precisely to offer it's user a perfect blend of Salt and Pepper everytime!!! Spepper uses BIGGER holes on it's shakers so you don't have to shake whatever shaker it is you may be using for 3 minutes to get an "iffy" amount!

Yeah, but can you use it any food?

We suggest Spepper on the following foods.... STEAK, MACARONI AND CHEESE, EGGS, CHICKEN, SALAD, POTATOES (of any form), BURGERS, HAM, FRIES, FISH ... Wait a minute...... WE RECOMMEND Spepper on anything you would normally use salt and pepper on.

(via Pop Culture Junk Mail)

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Fun With Propaganda

From Worth 1000: Fun With Propaganda.

Propaganda images are generally used during wartime to turn public sentiment against one's enemy, or to paint one's own side in a better light. In this contest, we have another use for them- make us laugh. Your task is to use any typical propaganda type image as the basis for a humorous (and well done) photoshop.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Fooling Dear Abby

From Snopes: A 'Dear Abby' advice column was pulled because it included a letter taken from an episode of The Simpson.

In a column entitled "Wife meets perfect match after husband strikes out," Abby proffered advice to a woman who signed her letter "Stuck in a Love Triangle." Mrs. "Stuck" described herself as a 34-year-old woman with three children who had been married for 10 years to Gene, her "greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude" husband. So inconsiderate was Gene that his birthday present to his wife was a bowling ball - one drilled to fit his own fingers, with his name embossed on it (and presented, of course, to a woman who didn't even know how to bowl).

�That letter was written by Marge Simpson in the first season.

Posted on 9 March, 2004

Google Vs. Yahoo

This is interesting. Enter a search term, and compare the results found by Google and Yahoo.

Posted on 9 March, 2004