Getting out of the house - 24 May 2007
May. 25th, 2007 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptSpent much of the day with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greyweirdo, hollygrahm and droewyn talking and watching a movie. Crank, it was. The movie itself has basically a paper-thin plot and lots of guns. greyweirdo tells me that if I were a film student and knew what to go looking for, I’d find that there are homages and such in there, but I’d have to know what I was looking for. I didn’t. Ah, well. Some good news out of this, though - I finalized when I will be in Washington state at the beginning of June, so those wishing to know my itinerary are welcome to contact me off-journal. I also got a call back confirming that I have one of the other two possible interviews set up while I’m out there. This makes me happy. I’m hoping that the other library will also call and agree to a time where an interview can be set-up and completed. Taking three shots at finding a job in the area would be much more preferable to two. So, we’re all for more interviews.
Since it will be the 25th by the time you see this, it’s Towel Day today, you hoopy froods. Make sure you have yours with you.
Following up on a previous story - the trooper that let the porn star off when she did him a sexual favor has been dismissed. Looking for confirmation of the act or the blog where it was supposedly reported, however, is a bit more difficult. At least, while I was trying to confirm that the blog posts mentioned actually did exist. Perhaps, after this dies down some, they will return.
Going from there, we’ll start with a joke that had to be said. Namely, snakes. On a plane, no less. 700 snakes on a plane. In other animal stuff, a German zoo has hired a clown to keep the monkeys in good spirits. The tactic appears to be working. Last in the animal category is a winged cat in China. The person taking care of the cat claims that they appeared after being harassed, Those studying the cat suggest that this was a mutation. Still, interesting to see a cat grow wings. Would be even more interesting to see the cat fly with them and know how to use them properly. Assuming that there’s sufficient skeletal and muscular structure in place that the cat can actually use the wings.
From the funny to the serious, Jesus’ General offers a list of innocent mistakes that have been made by the current Administration (in five minutes’ thought) after Monica Goodling testified that she hired people based on politics, but didn’t really tell all that much in her testimony. To which the Congresspersons are probably saying “We gave her immunity for this? If that’s all she did, then why was it like pulling teeth?” Is there something else Goodling knows?
The Army's demand for small caliber ammunition will delay other customers, like police departments, from receiving their shipments. I suppose it’s a good time to be a bullet maker.
The IAEA says that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and expanding their activities in defiance of U.N. sanctions. The results that are likely from this? More sanctions from the U.N. Which doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective deterrent at this point in the game. Maybe some other offer will be able to bring Iran on board for open inspections and peaceful uses.
Worried about the machines taking over? Well, nOtbOt, a self-playing videogame, requires and accepts no human input to do its work. I don’t necessarily know if the joystick and the computer can play the game intelligently or not, but it would be interesting to sequence it so that “bots” had to display their moves (and if possible, actions) using controls like the players do. I wonder if it would make even the best bots vulnerable.
The ever-publicity-seeking Jack Thompson has personally told Bill Gates to ensure that Halo 3 can't be sold to minors, or he'll sue Microsoft to ensure that it happens. To which we smile and say, “That’s nice, Jack. But if you really wanted to stop minors from playing Halo 3, you’d have to sue to prevent Microsoft from selling it at all.”
In more wonderful people-to-people interactions, a man was arrested for pouring urine 169 times on his neighbor's house, with the total damages coming up to about 650,000 yen. It’s always nice to know that neighbors get along in such a spirited manner. At least he’s not shooting the kids that walked on his lawn. (Older story - man who did it has been convicted of murder, which is what the article’s really about.)
Google refuses to run advertisements for web sites that offer research papers to students. I have no idea at all, though, whether a Google search for such services will turn up results. Such is the wonder of the Intarwebs. Seriously, though, it would always be best for someone to write their own papers - there’s a large amount of knowledge yet undiscovered and connections not yet made.
A prototype object from Microsoft’s adCenter Labs is a demographics predictor for search queries and websites. So if you want to know who’s likely to be searching for various queries to tailor the page to them, this might be a useful tool.
Cellular phone headaches are all in your head, scientists report - if you expect something negative to happen, then it’s likely to happen to you. This seems to be a large part of other symptoms, if I recall correctly, as well. Perhaps being primed for it, you notice more when it happens and less when it doesn’t? In other statistical matters, which may or may not change depending on how you squint at them, a study correlates Wal-Mart's expansion with increased poverty levels in the country - basing it mostly on Wal-Mart forcing out competition that might pay a higher wage, and then hiring on those people for less than they were making before.
In health matters - binge drinking in college makes for worse decision-making. The study involved, notably, could not say which came first - the poor decision-making or the heavy drinking. But the two do seem to link hand-in-hand. Might be part of that whole “killing brain cells” bit that some people joke about when they go drinking. Something coming out of the University of Michigan, about psychological health, says what a lot of people who were teased in their earlier years (and later years) already know - Psychological bullying is just as nasty as physical bullying. So girls don’t get a free pass because they’re not physically butting heads with each other. Relational aggression causes problems. Bullying of any sort is not the correct course of action. Now, if we could just figure out some way of making that stick in the places where it’s most likely to happen. Anyway, last out of health, since there’s a thirtieth anniversary of the Star Wars franchise on 25 May, Anakin Skywalker is possibly borderline personality disorder, bipolar, and/or a narcissist, according to psychologists taking some time out to analyze he who would become Darth Vader.
A piece from 2004, that may be in some way useful for those who believe or connect with the parts of their minds (or of other worlds, depending on how you look at it) that hold fantastic creatures. It’s an explanation of where all the fairies, elves, gnomes, and other beings went, although, according to the piece, it’s not them who moved, it’s humanity, and it’s very difficult for many humans to get back in touch with reality.
The last part for tonight, however, is the top ten finalists in the Best Visual Illusion contest for 2007. The top prize winner doesn’t need Flash, but most of the rest do. Be forewarned.
Anyway, bed time. Will likely be away from the Intarwebs for much of the weekend, in No-Net land, celebrating birthdays among my family and extended family. (And apparently, even though I’m pretty sure I did, I must have forgotten to hit post last night.
greyweirdo, hollygrahm and droewyn talking and watching a movie. Crank, it was. The movie itself has basically a paper-thin plot and lots of guns. greyweirdo tells me that if I were a film student and knew what to go looking for, I’d find that there are homages and such in there, but I’d have to know what I was looking for. I didn’t. Ah, well. Some good news out of this, though - I finalized when I will be in Washington state at the beginning of June, so those wishing to know my itinerary are welcome to contact me off-journal. I also got a call back confirming that I have one of the other two possible interviews set up while I’m out there. This makes me happy. I’m hoping that the other library will also call and agree to a time where an interview can be set-up and completed. Taking three shots at finding a job in the area would be much more preferable to two. So, we’re all for more interviews.Since it will be the 25th by the time you see this, it’s Towel Day today, you hoopy froods. Make sure you have yours with you.
Following up on a previous story - the trooper that let the porn star off when she did him a sexual favor has been dismissed. Looking for confirmation of the act or the blog where it was supposedly reported, however, is a bit more difficult. At least, while I was trying to confirm that the blog posts mentioned actually did exist. Perhaps, after this dies down some, they will return.
Going from there, we’ll start with a joke that had to be said. Namely, snakes. On a plane, no less. 700 snakes on a plane. In other animal stuff, a German zoo has hired a clown to keep the monkeys in good spirits. The tactic appears to be working. Last in the animal category is a winged cat in China. The person taking care of the cat claims that they appeared after being harassed, Those studying the cat suggest that this was a mutation. Still, interesting to see a cat grow wings. Would be even more interesting to see the cat fly with them and know how to use them properly. Assuming that there’s sufficient skeletal and muscular structure in place that the cat can actually use the wings.
From the funny to the serious, Jesus’ General offers a list of innocent mistakes that have been made by the current Administration (in five minutes’ thought) after Monica Goodling testified that she hired people based on politics, but didn’t really tell all that much in her testimony. To which the Congresspersons are probably saying “We gave her immunity for this? If that’s all she did, then why was it like pulling teeth?” Is there something else Goodling knows?
The Army's demand for small caliber ammunition will delay other customers, like police departments, from receiving their shipments. I suppose it’s a good time to be a bullet maker.
The IAEA says that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium and expanding their activities in defiance of U.N. sanctions. The results that are likely from this? More sanctions from the U.N. Which doesn’t seem to be a particularly effective deterrent at this point in the game. Maybe some other offer will be able to bring Iran on board for open inspections and peaceful uses.
Worried about the machines taking over? Well, nOtbOt, a self-playing videogame, requires and accepts no human input to do its work. I don’t necessarily know if the joystick and the computer can play the game intelligently or not, but it would be interesting to sequence it so that “bots” had to display their moves (and if possible, actions) using controls like the players do. I wonder if it would make even the best bots vulnerable.
The ever-publicity-seeking Jack Thompson has personally told Bill Gates to ensure that Halo 3 can't be sold to minors, or he'll sue Microsoft to ensure that it happens. To which we smile and say, “That’s nice, Jack. But if you really wanted to stop minors from playing Halo 3, you’d have to sue to prevent Microsoft from selling it at all.”
In more wonderful people-to-people interactions, a man was arrested for pouring urine 169 times on his neighbor's house, with the total damages coming up to about 650,000 yen. It’s always nice to know that neighbors get along in such a spirited manner. At least he’s not shooting the kids that walked on his lawn. (Older story - man who did it has been convicted of murder, which is what the article’s really about.)
Google refuses to run advertisements for web sites that offer research papers to students. I have no idea at all, though, whether a Google search for such services will turn up results. Such is the wonder of the Intarwebs. Seriously, though, it would always be best for someone to write their own papers - there’s a large amount of knowledge yet undiscovered and connections not yet made.
A prototype object from Microsoft’s adCenter Labs is a demographics predictor for search queries and websites. So if you want to know who’s likely to be searching for various queries to tailor the page to them, this might be a useful tool.
Cellular phone headaches are all in your head, scientists report - if you expect something negative to happen, then it’s likely to happen to you. This seems to be a large part of other symptoms, if I recall correctly, as well. Perhaps being primed for it, you notice more when it happens and less when it doesn’t? In other statistical matters, which may or may not change depending on how you squint at them, a study correlates Wal-Mart's expansion with increased poverty levels in the country - basing it mostly on Wal-Mart forcing out competition that might pay a higher wage, and then hiring on those people for less than they were making before.
In health matters - binge drinking in college makes for worse decision-making. The study involved, notably, could not say which came first - the poor decision-making or the heavy drinking. But the two do seem to link hand-in-hand. Might be part of that whole “killing brain cells” bit that some people joke about when they go drinking. Something coming out of the University of Michigan, about psychological health, says what a lot of people who were teased in their earlier years (and later years) already know - Psychological bullying is just as nasty as physical bullying. So girls don’t get a free pass because they’re not physically butting heads with each other. Relational aggression causes problems. Bullying of any sort is not the correct course of action. Now, if we could just figure out some way of making that stick in the places where it’s most likely to happen. Anyway, last out of health, since there’s a thirtieth anniversary of the Star Wars franchise on 25 May, Anakin Skywalker is possibly borderline personality disorder, bipolar, and/or a narcissist, according to psychologists taking some time out to analyze he who would become Darth Vader.
A piece from 2004, that may be in some way useful for those who believe or connect with the parts of their minds (or of other worlds, depending on how you look at it) that hold fantastic creatures. It’s an explanation of where all the fairies, elves, gnomes, and other beings went, although, according to the piece, it’s not them who moved, it’s humanity, and it’s very difficult for many humans to get back in touch with reality.
The last part for tonight, however, is the top ten finalists in the Best Visual Illusion contest for 2007. The top prize winner doesn’t need Flash, but most of the rest do. Be forewarned.
Anyway, bed time. Will likely be away from the Intarwebs for much of the weekend, in No-Net land, celebrating birthdays among my family and extended family. (And apparently, even though I’m pretty sure I did, I must have forgotten to hit post last night.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-26 12:49 pm (UTC)so if a cat's been found with wings, does that mean my typical costume is now "normal"? (kitty ears and fairy wings)
Can you really sue a video game maker over their game being sold to someone underage? wouldn't that more be the fault of the retailer? I mean, Microsoft can give orders not to sell the game to minors, but that's not something they can actively police, since they sell their product to retailers to sell it --nor can they guarantee that the over 17 yr old is really going to play the game themselves. Seems a little silly to me.
The thing with Wal-Mart that also isn't mentioned in the article, but certainly is a contributing factor is the lack of health insurance if you DO work part time. These people either have to pay more out of pocket for health care, which contribute to their having lower income to pay bills with, or they go uninsured, praying that nothing bad ever happens...and if something bad DOES happen, well, then they get further into debt trying to pay off thousands of dollars in heath care bills.
I love Star Wars, but why waste time psychoanalyzing a fictional character?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 11:23 pm (UTC)I can't say that I've ever heard of them having that problem before!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-28 06:58 am (UTC)The conclusion you've come to about it being rather silly is one that other people have come to as well. the best they can do is try to run spot checks on retailers to ensure that compliance with any applicable laws about M-rated games are being enforced, in much the same way laws about selling cigarettes or alcohol are enforced. Mind you, if Jack thinks he can get the precedent from the tobacco settlement to help him, I suppose he can go after game manufacturers. But I think he'd need some stronger evidence that computer games like Halo are "murder simulators", in the same way that there's strong correlations between tobacco use and cancers. And again, he can't ensure that the legally-able-to-purchase 17-year old isn't going to let his 13-year-old brother or sister play.
A lack of insurance is causing a lot of problems in this country. Remember the article I linked about a hospital having to recoup $250,000 U.S. for a tooth that got infected, when if the family could have gotten dental insurance for, say, a small premium and some form of co-pay, it could have been prevented? Those billions being spent in Iraq could have insured every man woman and child in this country for a year.
Because people identify with fictional characters, for one, and for another, a good, believable character (which Anakin Skywalker was not, most of the time) has motivations and psychoses and syndromes and behaves in what is hopefully a consistent manner (even if that manner is in itself, inconsistent.) If they do their job well, then some of those characters are worth analyzing.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-29 07:33 am (UTC)