Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Two Versions of Bones

People uploading to YouTube don't necessarily get the conversions right.

This is too slow:



This is what I remember:



Looped for your listening pleasure. Listen as they go in and out of phase! Exciting!

UPDATE FOR EXTRA DUMBNESS!
In 2005 Fred Frith released a remastered version of Killing Time on CD on his own label, Fred Records with the six extra tracks from the RecRec reissue, plus two previously unreleased tracks, "Third Street" and "F.B.I." (live Paris 1981). This edition includes the following note: "In contrast to previous CD and LP versions, the Killing Time LP cuts are heard here as originally intended, at the correct speed and pitch and without added reverb."
Yeesh. It seems the slower version is "correct". CURSE YOU GEORGE LUCAS FOR STEALING MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES!

Monday, November 29, 2010

ЗОРБ Deviltry



Goddamn, lining that little bugger up is a pain in the ass so this is as good as you get. Here are a bunch more:

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Being Talked About

An entertaining story about a horrible person:
[Vitaly Borker] stumbled upon the upside of rudeness by accident.

“I stopped caring,” he says, and for that he blames customers. They lied and changed their minds in ways that cost him money, he says, and at some point he started telling them off in the bluntest of terms. To his amazement, this seemed to better his standing in certain Google searches, which brought in more sales.

Before this discovery, he’d hired a search optimization company to burnish his site’s reputation by writing positive things about DecorMyEyes online. Odious behavior, he realized, worked much better, and it didn’t cost him a penny.

“Look,” he says, grabbing an iPad off a small table. He types “Christian Audigier,” the name of a French designer, and “glasses” into Google. DecorMyEyes pops up high on the first page.

“Why am I there?” he asks, sounding both peeved and amazed. “I don’t belong there. I actually outrank the designer’s own Web site.”

The only explanation, he figures, is online chatter about his appalling ways. He swears that a vast majority of his transactions are amicable, and he is adamant that all of the customers he verbally attacks deserve it.

Volunteering to Serve Your Community

The NRO interviews John Bolton on the Wikileaks business:
Former ambassador John Bolton tells National Review Online that he would charge Pfc. Bradley Manning with treason for sharing U.S. intelligence with Wikileaks. “I believe treason is still punishable by death and if he were found guilty, I would do it,” Bolton says.
Would he could he with a gun?
Would he find some other fun?
Would he could he with an axe?
Would he pound in carpet tacks?
Would he kill him with a car?
Would he use an iron bar?
Would he could he gas him dead?
Or use a rock to crush his head?
He does not like this Private Manning:
Who can tell what death he's planning?

Shame and Embarrassment

Max Boot on Wikileaks:
OK, that’s not quite fair. There are some genuine revelations in all these documents. I, for one, didn’t realize that Libya’s head kook, Muammar Qaddafi, spends a lot of his time with a “voluptuous blonde” nurse from Ukraine or that he uses Botox. Of course, just because information is new doesn’t make it consequential, and this type of information is of interest primarily to editors and readers of Gawker, the gossip site (where I ran across it).

There was a time when editors and reporters thought of themselves as citizens first and journalists second. There were damaging leaks even during World War II, but when they occurred they were generally denounced by the rest of the press. We now seem to have reached a moment when the West’s major news organizations, working hand in glove with a sleazy website, feel free to throw spitballs at those who make policy and those who execute it. This is journalism as pure vandalism. If I were responsible, I would feel shame and embarrassment. But apparently, those healthy emotions are in short supply these days.



[Note that I beat Tintin to this item. The timestamp on his shows he won't even think of it until this evening.]

The Art of Google Street View

I can't stop scrolling.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Theft of Wood

Opposition to the police in Russia:
In a video, made while they were hiding in the forest, the young men wear army fatigues and hold guns. Stripped to the waist, Alexander Kovtun, the group's leader, directly addresses the police:

"This is not some spontaneous act," he says. "No. We planned it and did it on purpose, to kill you gangsters, because you are the real criminals. You provide cover for drug-trafficking, prostitution and the theft of wood from our forests."

Okay Wiki, Do Your Thing

Saturday, November 27, 2010

I Am Such a Whiner

Complain complain complain. It's like I'm Sarah Palin!

Anyway, this was surprisingly easy:

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ЗОРБing devil at some point.

God's Wrath

An omnipotent God wreaks havoc again!
A debate over Sunday shopping has led P.E.I.'s transportation minister to suggest God had struck down the leader of the Opposition, who fell and injured herself after introducing a bill to allow Sunday openings year-round.
God also steals socks - JUST ONE MIND YOU - and puts your keys not on the table but ON THE COUNTER.

IT IS GODDAMNED NOVEMBER.

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown write a column with the strength of TWO CONSERVATIVES:
During this Christmas season of cheer and good tidings, a universal message is going forth. They are all united from Barack Obama to Martha Stewart to Wall Street Banks, the Federal Reserve and even your local mall agrees: please borrow to spend more this Christmas.
Okay then, will do.
Americans since 2008 have been tightening their belts, and they have paid down over 150 Billion dollars in consumer debt. This is a remarkable feat and a testimony to the diligence, hard work and frugality of the American citizen. In contrast to the people, we are embarrassed that our government is encouraging irresponsible and spendthrift behavior.
I have no idea what 150 billion (or in Germanic Important English "Billion") they're talking about and will not search for it. But I have this idea that the shape of the economy since 2008 may enforce some diligence and frugality that was not present previously. Here is a graph stolen from Calculated Risk:



In short, I got nothing, but I owe a post. Look! A video! Maybe they know this one at N__B's office.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Fundamentalist Christians = Hate Group

This is interesting. I'm quite happy that the Family Resource Council will be getting more bad press for good reasons. At the same time, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a funny sort of organization. Certainly this opens up other avenues for funding; maybe they can get some of that plentiful Pixar money.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Defining Conservatism

Jonah Goldberg:
From what he could tell, [my father] liked this new pope too. "We need more rocks in the river," my dad explained. What he meant was that change comes so fast, in such a relentless torrent, that we need people and things that stand up to it and offer respite from the current.

I loved the literary quality of the expression "more rocks in the river," even though the imagery doesn't quite convey what my dad really believed. Dad was a conservative, properly understood. By that I mean he didn't think conservatism was merely an act of passive and futile defiance of what Shakespeare called "devouring time." You see, unlike human institutions, the rocks do not fight the devouring river of time, it just seems like they do. My dad believed that conservatism was an affirmative act, a choice of prudence and will. In the cacophonous din of perpetual change, the conservative selects the notes worth savoring and repeats them for others to hear and, hopefully, appreciate.


Below are many ocarinas for Jonah to tootle as he drowns. They kinda look like submarines so it fits the underwater music metaphor.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The Evolution of Comedy

November 16, 2010:



Someone spies with their little eye:



November 22, 2010:



Apparently the image is from here, older site referred to here.

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

Might this have transcription errors?
Sarah Palin: “As for doing an interview, though, with a reporter who already has such a bias against whatever it is that I would come out and say? Why waste my time? No.”

“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported. And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.”

“So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will, no doubt, spin and gin up whatever it is that I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you, I will not my waste my time with her. Or him.”
Probably not. To air in two hours, for those who have the stomach for it.

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The Legacy Defined

Via Taegan Goddard, by all means display this:
As former president George W. Bush broke ground Tuesday in Dallas for his presidential library, officials weighed whether or not to display one item that few know is being held in storage there: the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
SOMEBODY evidently treasured it.
More than 3,000 people, including friends, supporters and former administration officials attended Tuesday's ceremony. Outside, there were about 100 protesters joined by a handful of counterprotesters. "It is hard to believe there is this much excitement about shoveling dirt," Bush said.
Dirt?

Let me be moderately fair and acknowledge that Bush said that banner was a mistake in some stupid interview with Matt Lauer, but, you know, he's a big fat liar.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Truth in Labelling

Here is the story of a monster:
TWO dozen cancer patients, including a six-year-old Sydney girl, died after treatment ordered by a doctor who is a convicted fraud.
What is his name?
Hellfried Sartori is the Austrian at the centre of an inquest into the deaths of five people in Perth in 2005.
And the treatment?
Mr Sartori replied that 50 per cent of the cure for cancer was positive thinking by the patient. He conceded he had exaggerated about the efficacy of his treatments, insisted he could cure cancer and admitted lying to Australian authorities. ''If any treatment has proved benefits, it is this treatment,'' he told the court. ''And I have not violated my Hippocratic oath.''

...

In other evidence yesterday, Mr Sartori admitted lying when he applied, unsuccessfully, to register as a doctor in Australia. He also conceded that academic articles about caesium chloride treatment, which he published in 1984 and which had been peer-reviewed, did not include crucial material that about 10 of 50 patients he treated with caesium in 1981-982 had it administered intravenously. Of the 50, 25 died within a year.

His evidence has contained sweeping references to statistics available on the internet, the laws of physics, and his claims that 10,000 people were alive because of his caesium chloride remedies.
Unkind people might want to note here that Australia sanctions all kinds of bullshit in accredited health education.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

I'm Interested in Eating My Cookie

Somehow Albertans hired an Australian to do something and did not understand the importance of the cookie to the life cycle of kangaroofuckers.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Schrödinger's Cattiness

What I think I know about theoretical physics is a teensy tiny fraction of what an interested reader of pop science books must know, and what I actually know is of course a more embarrassing subset of that.

But I think I know mean gossip.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Prima Donna and Child

Here is a presidential portrait:



Christ what an asshole. Who does he think is gonna be sitting in those chairs back there? Angela Merkel maybe?

Wait, what's this?



Okay then.

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Consulting the Irkle

S.E. Cupp on what irks liberals:
And then it hit me. The reason Palin has become such a lightening rod*, a kingmaker and a punching bag, a celebrity and a power player, is simple. It's because she's so gosh darn happy.

For her fans, like the ones I had the pleasure of meeting in Chicago, she's refreshingly upbeat and resilient, the bubbly friend from childhood who was always great at cheering you up and cheerleading you on.

But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some.** And without anyone's help.
Below, no help at all:

Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life.

Thus Palin is a real threat to front-office operations.
Her happiness REFUTES YOUR STATION IN LIFE.
If Palin's critics really want her to go away, they don't have to worry about her politics, her faith or her folksy rhetoric. They need to worry about her boundless happiness which, like her favorite hunting weapon, is poised to be a warm gun for anyone who dares cross her path.
Also her happiness will kill you. Inspired yet?

*Some sort of engorging rod joke here.
**HA HA HA.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Alinsky on Steroids

K-Lo quotes Breitbart:
.@andrewbreitbart: what msm did to george w for 8 years was “alinsky on steroids. It was to destroy the man, a wartime president.” #nrcruise
Also a wartime president:

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

What's In Sarah Palin's Mind?

K-Lo:

In light of that post yesterday, I note that Lisa Murkowski accuses Sarah Palin of not enjoying governing (during an interview with Katie Couric).

Perhaps she stepped down because she didn’t need to be governor, she knew she could do more for more out of office. And in her mind there aren’t the governed and the govern-ers, we tend to be one in the same in our representative system.

I don't think I have anything funny to say here, I'm just amused at the combination of witlessness and telepathy and pretend-egalitarianism required to justify the actions of Sarah Palin.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Just Because

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∈☀∋


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The Thomas Sowell Wish-It-Was-A-Memorial Award For Anti-Intellectualism

Guess the writer!
Postgraduates, by which I believe the AEI analysts mean those with something more than a bachelor’s degree, were 20 percent of the electorate. They went for Democrats by 52 to 46 percent. No surprise there. Obama, after all, is himself a creature of the university ecosystem, and the way he talks reminds me of nothing more than a professor at a faculty meeting talking about changes to the grading curve. All those folks out there with M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s know one of their own when they see one.

Voters without a high-school diploma were only 3 percent of the electorate, and they voted Democratic 60 to 36 percent. Presumably, this group benefits the most from the redistribution of income going on under the Obama administration.

Everyone else (high-school grads, some college, college degrees) voted Republican. Democrats lost the middle class and more.

I’ve been trying to figure out what this means (aside from the amazing educational achievements of the electorate — 97 percent had a high-school degree or more). Does it mean that the over-educated have no more common sense than those with no education? Does it mean that Obama only really appeals to the extremes of the educational distributional curve, because neither end is really responsible for making ends meet and balancing budgets?
Who, pray tell, is enlightening us as to the depravity of the over-educated? Why it is Professor John Yoo.

They Would Like Me If They Really Got to Know Me

A tangent from a Big Hollywood article by some dope:

It’s been tried before, though the project never got off the ground. In 2004, screenwriters Mark Legan and Mark Wilding collaborated on a spec sitcom pilot called The Cell, about a band of inept Muslim terrorists sent to America to blend in with the culture and ultimately blow up a power plant. The comic twist is, the jihadists are unable to resist being seduced by American pop culture – Domino’s pizzas, big-screen TVs, talk shows and bowling leagues* – and have to conceal their unwillingness to carry out violent jihad from a ruthless superior who shows up to check on their progress. Legan and Wilding wrote it for themselves with absolutely no expectation that any studio would run with it – and they were right, no one would touch it. But the unproduced script (you can download it here) was an “underground” hit with enough executives throughout Hollywood that the writers were offered other work.

Although the concept is funnier than their execution of it, those writers found humor in a subject of the most tragic gravity through sympathetic characters whose totalitarian ideology is defused safely by American freedom and abundance. Toothless? Perhaps, but it would have been a start had not political correctness buried it.
I'm not sure how far this guy is going in the advocacy of the script which I am unlikely to read - does he mean he is a Free Speech Advocate of the highest order or does he think the premise is somehow true? In either case the thing that undercuts the comedy somewhat is that the guys who took down the World Trade Center managed to both experience America and devastate it.

*Such delights or reasonable facsimiles thereof are available in other countries I swear.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Wikipedia Edit Required Immediately

July 1973:



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Solar Energy WILL KILL YOU

Beware!
An event designed to showcase a new era of renewable energy vehicles was brought to a sudden halt when one of the automobiles collided with a bicycle.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I Just Love This Rhyme Scheme

There are strange things done by conservative sons
As they scrabble and scrape for gold;
The blogosphere’s links are full-up with dinks
Who’ll worry their mother’s not sold;
The NRO’s Corner has liberal scorners,
But the dumbest they have on their roster*
Is the tubby green fright who smokes just for spite
The knee-jerker Daniel Foster.

*Good rhyme, but it just can't be true.

Where, Where Are You Tonight?



You took off your peg leg your wig and your glass eye
You were surprised at the look on my face
I wanted to kiss and hug you my darlin'
But you were scattered all over the place

And He Should Know

John Nolte on Kanye West:
Good to know Kanye West is capable of shame. There might be hope for him yet. Who would’ve ever guessed that after eight years of the worst kind of cruelty and vitriol aimed at President Bush that West would be the first to publicly take it back. Knowing the left as we all do, Kanye is likely to be the last.
Comment #1:
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More on the book that is REHABILITATING GEORGE W. BUSH!!!
The best part of the read is how the President’s voice comes through on every page. Like the man, the prose is direct, humble, frequently funny, and always humane. He’s probably one of the most decent men to ever hold that office and if you think you miss him now wait till you read “Decision Points.”
How do you sleep you cunt?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Knowladge

It's tough to remember what was going through my head yesterday let alone the forever ago of programming for JanusNode, but I'm pretty sure that this list from a possibly-not-entirely-fictitious-quack-university was influential.

Since the days of retina-burning websites have passed us by, they've modernized a little: