Well, this is a bit of a gauntlet.

[silveradept]

When I said if I made it to the end of November, I’d be fine, I think I lied. Unintentionally, of course, but fibbed all the same. Examinations, presentations, and a host of other work conspires to ensure that I will be dancing on very sharp objects this week. I hope I get it all done in time. My work ethic is interfering with my sleep ethic. This cannot bode well.

News Flash: Peace symbol may be Satanic. Just so you know. First I’ve heard of this. I think. Maybe it was in a Chick tract somewhere. Anyway, there’s a significant chunk missing from this article, but from the writer’s and the plaintiff’s viewpoint, apparently being an atheist and asking your classmate to stop saying that leprechauns are scientifically proven gets you expelled. As I said, there are chunks missing, like whatever these supposed “previous events” were that led up to this. From what’s presented, it looks like the school overstepped. What’s missing, then?

Another Day at Minitrue, working hard to ensure that the Party is always correct, or at least close. We suspect that Students for an Orwellian Society are pleased with this. It appears that the Mainstream media is also compliant with the Ingsoc way, repeating what Big Brother decides as complete truth.

The Zune is a complete and total disaster, at least according to the Chicago Sun-Times. They said the same about X-Box, but it manages to continue to hold on to things. For me, though, I’ll keep with my DRM-free, needs no special software player, thankyouverymuch.

Rolling up a really big joint. Hey, if you can get it to work, and don’t get busted, go for it.

Going for geoengineering: desperate times and desperate measures? It’ll be vital practice for terraforming later. But that assumes we survive our own experiments. Do we need to go this far yet? Then again, with the outgoing chair of the environmental committee disbelieving in global warming, maybe we do need something that radical.

Public, hydraulic, only available at night urinals. To combat the problem of people pissing anywhere they can. Maybe some college towns could use these, especially on nights where there’s going to be lots of drinking (which means most nights, in case anyone wonders).

More and more, stocks are being picked and traded by AI. More sophisticated AI, in fact. Maybe soon it’ll be a completely machine-dominated field, with people just putting their money in and expecting some sort of return on the other end. Not quite a slot machine, but something akin to it. Maybe with better odds.

Fewer people in the stores after Thanksgiving, but more money spent. Big-ticket items and on-line shopping, I suspect. Less people wanting to camp out and get crushed (that was for the PS3 and the Wii, anyway, which happened beforehand), but more money spent. Either we’re getting smarter or we’re burning bigger holes in our pockets by melting the credit cards.

Finally, some nice scientific things - scientific instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, for those who want clocks, navigation devices, and other very interesting things. In a more modern incarnation, rewritable paper (although with some high costs), and storing nearly 256GB of data on a single sheet of A4 paper. Good compression on that data, definitely.

That’s what I’ve got for today. Bed should be following soon. Since I have to get up in the morning. Maybe afterward I’ll be able to do some work. Or prepare for doing some work. Or something.

Also, reminder to self - the Great Big Book of Ancient Semi-Coherent Wisdom is out. You should get it.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

You need your sleep so you can stay alert enough to get your work done. Please try to get at least eight hours of sleep no matter what, Dear.

uhm. what she said.

[urbankotq.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It says in an "update" in the middle of the 256GB on paper story that they've debunked such a claim since the article came out.

Oh well.

[shadesfox.livejournal.com]

"News Flash: Peace symbol may be Satanic"

I think that there are groups that considered the peace symbol satanic for a while. Looks like a broken upside down crucifix. Though other groups consider it a holy symbol of St. Peter. It is said St. Peter was crucified upside down. This is all dispite the fact that the symbol has no Christan origin. Things work out funny like that.

Still I would put good money saying that the members of the homeowner's association were just being asses.

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

I know not what anyone else may have done for Black Friday, but I used my Old Navy card online and scored some nice layering pieces for cheap. I suppose I contributed to that statistic.

Of course, my shopping would be over, if I hadn't taken so long deciding what color cashmere my sister would like...

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

I just want to say (probably for the fourth time now) that your LJ is not only entertaining but also a service to your friends and whoever else reads it.

Bravo, sir.

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

No matter how good the encryption, the most you can store on a piece of paper is in the form of a pixel-by-pixel encoding, the resolution of which is the lower of your printer resolution or your scanner resolution. Of course, assuming infinite printer resolution and infinite scanner resolution, you can have infinite storage, but that's obvious to anyone.

[silveradept]

Ah rats. Must have missed that somehow. Not too surprising that I did, but still, I try for timely information, that's still good.

[silveradept]

It does sound like a case of the president of the homeowner's association deciding she doesn't like the color of your pink flamingo, yes. That she fired all of the other members of the board when they wouldn't go along with it makes the "arsehole alert" go off.

But it's so much more fun to be as wildly sensational as the media article is. After all, it's long been established that fewer and fewer of them, if any, are in the business of telling us the truth and letting us draw our own conclusions.

[silveradept]

Heh. I'm not making any judgments on the matter. In fact, it may be a benefit to all concerned that more people went on-line for their shopping. It meant leisurely breakfast and better temperaments for most, I would say, than standing in line at five in the morning waiting for the store to open.

[silveradept]

Aw, thanks. I try to make things entertaining enough that you'll want to click on what amounts to a giant list of links daily.

[silveradept]

True enough. Being able to back up one's hard drive to a few sheets of plastic, though, would be pretty interesting. (Assuming, of course, that said plastic didn't degrade and could be reaccessed in several year's time.)

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

On the news on friday evening there was a story about people over at Circuit City getting rowdy, cutting in line, and in general shoving people around and the police had to be called to do crowd control!

Over at Target, their line to get in was all the way down the building, past the Kohl's it's adjacent to, and goin gdown the side of the kohls.


This is why I went to craft stores on Friday. no lines, but fantastic sales.