Haha! Finished! - 23 April 2007

Writing this entry, even though the Internet has been sporadically cutting in and out. Perhaps when it comes time to post, it will have restored itself to former glory. If not, you’re probably seeing this in the morning. And there are likely to be angry housemates that want to know why the connection is misbehaving so badly. In that sense, I’ve been seeing timeouts. Perhaps later I’ll start seeing 404 errors.

The monumental accomplishment of today: Dropped off the final release for the project. I am now, officially, finished. There are no more assignments to complete, nor classes to attend. I have achieved a thing that looked daunting at the beginning of my undergraduate, and has had much needless stress (and perhaps a little needful stress) associated with it. I win. (Assuming, of course, that a grade doesn’t surprise me in being lower than it should be.) I claim victory.

Boris Yeltsin, a previous president of the Russian Federation, has passed away. The country still needs work, though.

Happy Sixtieth Birthday, Iggy Pop. Here’s to sixty more years of punk.

alcarinhwesta took a picture of a church sign. (Or had one made up.) The Church's position on Sunday services as opposed to other types of service.

The greatest revelation of them all. If more people were enlightened to this, the world would probably be a better place.

Perhaps another apocalyptic sign? Rush Limbaugh says not to scapegoat video games for the Virginia Tech shooting. Meaning, not only did Rush say something sensible, he made a logical argument and followed it through to its conclusion. You can either take this as a “See? We’re not all whackjobs” or “Well, a blinking clock is right twice a day.” In the Washington Post, even more sane behavior is exhibited in What the Killers Want, which cautions against what will likely be the response to the Virginia Tech incident - some extreme form of action, one way or another.

In Iraq, the neighborhood-separating barrier has been ordered to stop by the Iraqi prime minister.

Domestically, the Bush Administration agrees to let the pentacle appear on government memorial markers for soldiers. This makes many happy.

In other religious affairs, the Catholic Church has officially given up on limbo, officially making Dante’s work a fanfic. However, noticing a good bargain when they see it, the Discordian Church has purchased and will operate limbo from now on.

Burt Prelutsky, in Townhall, claims he can't wrap his head around the idea of pacifism, because he believes that wars fought to overthrow tyrants are just wars and that pacifists would just sit on their heels and endure them. I’m not sure if that’s being fair to pacifism, but I do wonder whether the gains achieved through nonviolent resistance have been bigger and longer-lasting than those effected by violent overthrow.

Improvements in technology are making music recognition and playback much more varied. A machine being able to transcribe is still a ways off, but there might be software that lets a soloist figure out what they would sound like with an orchestra accompanying them, regardless of how fast or slow they take the piece. Add in technology for making digital doubles, and a composer and an actor or two could very well make a CG movie all by themselves with a full score and animation.

Next to last for this post is something a bit odd. Apparently, goatse.cx is for sale? But truly last is Adobe's page telling us that we can't use Photoshop as a part of speech. So no Photohopped, Photoshop, Photoshop’d, nothing like that. Instead, we’re supposed to use the trademark in the way they intend. I’m afraid that won’t really be followed... and besides, I don’t hear the company behind Kleenex complaining about how their mark has become a regular noun. Or Fark.

Anyway, now to go about my day and try to amass sufficient linky-stuff for tonight.

Another side, another story - 24 April 2007

Whee. Another grade in the books, and it’s a good one. That’s two of three, and the only one left I’m not horribly worried about. So, one day more, one step closer to it being final and graded. Good to know. Today also meant that my ear-wings, Dorian-style, are now ready for Anime Central. And they look fantastic. (Well, I think they might look a little silly by themselves, but when in the right context, they look awesome.)

First up, if you’ve been around the stellar greyweirdo and appreciate his work, go take the poll about whether he should have a fan club established. If you don’t know who he is, he’s fantastic - go become part of his fan club.

I’ve heard it twice now, on the National and on the Hour - namely, that a mineral bearing the exact chemical composition of the fictional material Kryptonite has been found. It will not be known as such, however, because it contains no Krypton in it. So it’ll be called Jatterite, or something like that. Which is unfortunate. But rather interesting. (Thanks for the link, sdaisyk!)

The increasing amount of pet food recalls has triggered a criminal investigation once it was confirmed pigs that had eaten tainted fodder made their way to human dinner plates. So once it gets to the human part, the FDA steps in with force. Would the FDA have done anything if it hadn’t? Or would that have been some other agency’s problem? In other food-related matters, the FDA is considering redefining what constitutes chocolate. Which will no doubt have purists in a rage.

High noon approaches the White House as a bill intending to limit the United States mission and presence in Iraq, and eventually remove U.S. presence entirely, passed a conference committee between the United State House and Senate. The compromise bill will go to the two houses for voting, and if it passes, it will be presented to Mr. Bush, who will likely veto it because of the timeline provisions. The Guardian makes mention of 10 easy steps to turn America into something resembling the authoritarian regimes of past and present. Some of which are more apparent than others, or which are on the way. It’s always a slow slide, if it’s happening. And the problem is that we can’t tell whether it is or isn’t.

An Army sergeant would like us to fly the flag at half-staff for all servicepersons killed, since we accord that respect to those killed in civilian affairs. I agree that flying the flag at half-staff is a respect we should accord them. I don’t think it would change anything, though.

Those across the pond, can we get a word on this? EU Observer says that there could be legislation in the works that would make public inciting to violence or hatred based on race illegal, with a penalty of one to three years in jail for doing so. Is this likely to pass? And what would someone like Don Imus, who Lip Magazine suggests is a visible symptom of an underlying, still unaddressed by media and society, racism, get as a punishment for his commentary?

A large chunk of tiny things with great promise - nanotech may be able to stimulate regeneration of tissue to fix injury or degeneration of the neural system, one pill is claiming to work against many genetic disorders by changing the genetic code to prevent harmful mutation, and Time claims that we're fast approaching the time of the designer gene. How much of all this nanonews is important and how much is just nanohype?

Oh, dear goodness. A gentleman entered a restaurant and then proceeded to slash and stab himself in the groin, severing his penis . If that’s trying to commit suicide, it’s probably a rather painful way to go. If he’s trying to cut off his sex drive, I don’t think it’s going to work there, either.

MIT will soon unveil Mark III of their holographic projector, which is capable of running with modern computer/console graphics hardware. It’s still a long way off from creating our three-dimensional desk holograms of The Future(TM), but if it can be done, and then in color, and then at a reasonable size, we might finally be able to get the displays on the desk that science fiction has had for a long time. Although, it could go the way of videophones, too. Maybe if we could combine this with haptic technology, then manipulating holograms could make for quite the computing technology.

The Force is strong with these hot-air balloonists. The shape of Vader’s head is a great thing to have staring at you from the sky. Maybe there will be a flotilla of them for those who want to reinforce the cameras?

Neat picture of a praying mantis at close range.

The Jawa Report linked to an organization calling itself SANE, and a project they have called Mapping Shari'a in America, a project that aims to gather the presence and position of mosques, schools, and Muslims in the country, as well as any large or interesting things nearby, so that they can inspire fear and spread rumors that terrorists are living near upstanding citizens and important landmarks. Or to inspire fear and spread rumors that all Muslims want to take over the government and institute Shari’a in the country, and that they’re just waiting to have sufficient numbers in sufficient places to take over. And, no doubt, if that project succeeds and produces their list and maintains it, there will be several who consult it regularly and wring their hands that the Muslims are taking over.

The last bit for tonight is Fifteen things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Everyone Else Ever Has Or Will, which is a bit pretentious in title, but the quotes that are selected are definitely useful to all our lives. Always seems odd that all the good stuff comes out after someone’s died.

So, going to bed. Tomorrow is apparently the last day of exams, so by Friday, the day of the ceremony, I’ll know about all the grading things. It should happen well before then, though. I’m not worried, I just want to see it recorded for posterity.