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Stickies
Lobsters, huh?
Posted in Gross vs. Good
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DaDutch
I‘ve been following the ‘Dutch Immigration’ debate via the regular channels (which is at the ‘uitzending gemist’ site [Dutch]). The embracing of Hirshi Ali by the blogosphere’s ‘right’ is, so to say stunning. Anyways, I see that laws can be mended to fit the need of one single person.
And before you start cheering hurray, most likely Ali will be the center of another round of controversies when she starts to work at the AEI. There’s a couple of word that describes that behaviour, and I think it’s called ‘political opportunism’. A perfect match one would say.
Good news though: The Dutch were kicked out of the semi-finals of the Eurovision Songcontest! I think they were beaten by a Finnish Hardrock band that uh… well: Think of it, surely these tough looking ladies would have never made it against a bunch of orcs? Where’s Gandalf?1
Oh: so much for the cheers on the news of the capture of the ‘one-legged’ Taliban. As you know, Afghanistan’s world-famous landmines fields have made plenty of victims, most of them having lost limbs. Like-uh, legs, likely. In a way, I feel sorry for the mix-up. Imagine you being the guy they were looking for and trying to explain the media that you’re still out there. Isn’t that a scene from ‘Back To The Future’?
And via Alan, this remarkable note about a ‘living fossil’, soon to be featured at your local ‘McLobster’ reseller. And that’s it for now. Have a great morning.
1 Update: It looks like that the Finnish band (‘We are the orcs’) Lordi has won the 2006 Eurovision songcontest. Bonus link at Metafilter. More bonus link at AskMefi.
Posted in We-reflect-news
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The Next Tech Revolution
Soon you can buy these 8 MP cameras with built-in GSM capable phones: why do you want to have a crappy 1.2 MP fuzzy-camera-phone, while the real-deal is just around the corner. Soon available with keyboard and extra wireless mouse. Demand action from your camera maker now.
Imagine what an Apple-produced SLR camera-phone would look like!
Posted in xsamplex
6 Comments
A seamless stream of
Most likely not related: The McCartney’s split after they were unable to save the poor Canadian seals (earlier). Why I’d mention it here? For some kind of reason, I’ve been humming ‘Mull of Kintyre’ the last couple of days.
Dreck? The ‘DaVinci Code’ movie faced a tough (Cannes) crowd today:
I kept thinking of the Energizer Bunny, because it kept going and going and going, and not in a good way.
Energizer Bunny: Meet Tom Hanks!1
If you stick around Yahoo (after clicking the link above-above), you may notice that Yahoo! has changed their homepage. It makes you ‘search smarter’, ‘faster’ and ‘get personal’. That’s short for ‘Internet’, I hear.
Good news: the human genome has been sequenced. However, more interesting is the following item about how humans separated from their closest relatives, the chimpanzees.
1 I mean, admit it: the bunny is a lot more fun to watch than Hanks, no?
Posted in Hyperlinks
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Ahead of the head
This week,
will mark the official release of the ‘DaVinci Code’ movie (worldwide release). Religious people may avoid it, conspiracy fans will love it. I says ‘meh’. Meh. I still think of the lousy ‘puzzles’ in the book. Hey, I’m not the only one that was looking for mistakes.
‘Munich’ will be released this Tuesday. Spielberg’s ‘darkest’ movie, did pretty good at the box office and probably will also do good in the DVD sales.
Here be a virtual tour of Macchu Picchu. Don’t bother: it’s so popular that the site has exceeded all bandwidth limits you can ever dream of1.
The Invasion Of The Ticks! Blame the hot weather. My prediction seems to be still standing. It’s going to be a hot Summer.
1update 05/19: They’re back!
Posted in Hyperlinks
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The House of Munch
Back
when I was younger, I walked to school through 10 foot of snow, in -30 degrees Celsius, 10 miles each day (that is 100 kms in your puny metric system). And back. 390 days a year.
When I was younger, there were actually 390 days in a year. That’s 2 extra days of ‘older days’ a month. Being tired had a completely different meaning too.
Back in the days, it used to rain that much, that water was aplenty. That’s exactly why there are dikes. Mind the revisionists who’ll tell you that dikes are there to protect against the seas. They’re flat-out wrong: they’re there to contain the water from flowing back into the sea!
When I was a kid, a 1.5 Volt battery kept its charge for 16 days. There’s an ingenious formula to calculate those number of days, and naturally, I will not reveal anything about that formula. You wouldn’t even comprehend.
Daylight Savings Time was invented by the economic institutions in the world. Think about it again: the more light, the more often people go to banks. I have no statistical data to back me up, but you have to believe me on this.
The Internet was invented by a secret religious society. The members of this society all wear glasses and have beards. Their average age is 52, which is exactly the number that represents the number of weeks in a ‘normal’ year (the one that has 365/366 days, not the one that has 390 days). They also believe in Booleans, which is just another way of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Or I mean, either yes or no. Or neither.
1. Bonus link: Boolean Algebra
Pro Evolution!!
Actually, this is not going to be a pro-rant about evolution, rather a posting in praise of Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer, or (as we know it in North America) Winning Eleven 9.
Previously, I used to play FIFA Soccer, which I discussed here. If you have an XBOX or Playstation, don’t bother going for EAs FIFA Soccer series. They’re boring and repetitive: WE9 closely mimics original gameplay. As an example: in real-life soccer it’s considered to be ‘courteous’ to kick the ball out of play if one of the opponent’s players gets injured. When the game continues, the opponent returns that favour. I was shocked to see WE9 players do actually the same: this is not only ‘smart programming’ (it’s a minor change in code, I presume), it adds to the gameplay.
And yes, at least there’s a referee running around on the field, something that’s amiss in FIFA. OK, you can continue reading the rest of the web now.
Posted in Ordinateurs
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3 for 5
Actual conversation: the ones you have at home or around the kitchen table:
– Did you buy any pop?
“Yes, they were on sale this week: 3 for five dollars.”
– That’s a good buy. Wait. Didn’t that use to be 4 for four dollars a couple of years ago?
I think it’s the price of oil.
Posted in Truro NS
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McAfee
Way earlier (must have been last year), I bought and installed McAfee’s on my main computer during the days my dad was over. Precautionary, more or less. When installing the venerable Civ 4, I decided it was time to get rid of it. Which still means that I get all the e-mails from McAfee: the ones that tell about new/special deals and that.
Just a day ago, I received a mail that my virus subscription ran out, however, apparently I was subscribed as someone else, since the e-mail address in that mail was apparently not mine. Oh: here it comes, today McAfee’s sent out another mail to apologize for the mix-up, in what appears to have been a mailing directed to others who may have had the same mix-up:
In the past 24 hours, you may have inadvertently received a McAfee(r) service notification regarding the status of your McAfee(r) VirusScan(r) product.
Good news then: my virus subscription did not run out yet, which means that I can keep pretending I run McAfee’s!
Posted in Truro NS
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Civilization 4 (IX)
After playing a couple of quick rounds of Civ4, I noticed that the latest patch had been released last month: version 1.61, which you can grab from the 2K Games site (maps can also be downloaded separately, Europe, US, Asia, Africa and South America). I see the patch includes a couple of new maps, plenty of multi-player fixes and some random changes to the gameplay like um…. ‘SDI cannot be built before the Manhattan Project’.
SDI? What was that again?
Patch discussion here. Should see if I have some time to install it.
Posted in Civilization
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A Yellow Flower
The Garden Awash
Yellow flowers, many, fast
Whippersnip now!
Posted in Haiku
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International Cuisine
The words ‘International Cuisine’ remind me of a couple of things:
- If ‘American Cuisine’ is hamburger with french fries, ‘International Cuisine’ is that dish you get shoved in front of your face that features not one but two green beans, 1 tiny (boiled) patato and a couple of millimetered strips of meat. While I’m a great fan of presentation, thinking only of your restaurant’s bottomline is a culinary sin.
- ‘International Cuisine’ reminds me of that restaurant where a specific meal you ordered took three days to make. No, make that: to eat a specific meal, you had to order it three days in advance. Almost Monty Python-like.
- The waitress is ‘dilly-dalling’ around and ends up bringing (either) a cold or overdone steak, which leaves you wonder what the waitress was ‘dilly-dalling’ about. Oh: and the dessert, it came straight from the freezer. You know that, because you notice crystalized water in the cream or pie.
Oh. And mind the coffee: there’s a Horton’s around the corner anyways.
Posted in Truro NS
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National Denim Day
Via a colleague (and commercials, I saw the other day) I was notified of ‘National Denim Day’, which will be next May 16th. Denim Day is an initiative of the Cure Foundation, which raises money (and awareness) for various breast cancer research institutions.
Update: Correction in date. (Initially I had written down 13th, thanks for the reminders)
Posted in Hyperlinks
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