Haha! Finished! - 23 April 2007

[silveradept]

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.

Comments

[nebris.livejournal.com]

"..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."

*snicker*

~M~

goatse.cx is for sale!

[nebris.livejournal.com]

Fifty G's, my ass! lol

~M~

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Google have also told people that they can't use "Google" as a verb, for similar reasons. It's one of the problems of being near-ubiquitous.

[silveradept]

So that's trademark violation? Weird. One would think they liked the publicity that results from that kind of ubiquity.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

The impression that I got was that it's not so much direct violation as a "weakening" of the trademark as it becomes "just another word".

[silveradept]

And the only way to keep one's trademark is through vigorous defence against all commmodification of the word?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

sort of like calling tissues "kleenex" and zippered platic bags "Ziplocks"?

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Something like that, yes. Google's lawyers appeared to believe that the use of noun-trademarks as verbs was an important element of this...

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

death to the router!

Also, Sarah did take that photo, just an FYI :D