Thursday, May 31, 2012

News On Shuffle

I'm visiting fewer websites directly for news and using an RSS newsreader to skim headlines. Unfortunately I had a hard drive die and I hadn't exported an OPML file from the program I'm using, so getting all my feeds back as they were will likely never happen. I suppose that I wouldn't have had a problem if I used Google Reader, but why encourage those fucks?

So, for the Mac folks out there, what I use is NetNewsWire, which at this point is adware: a corner on the bottom left is an ad until you cough up dough. Not too bad. It has a built-in browser but I have it spit the linkage into Firefox, which I have set to open new tabs when another application knocks on its door: do a little headline skimming and soon you have 50 tabs loaded up in the background and you close tabs as you're done with the items. If you're on some kinda portable thingie that's going to be out of range of wireless for a while that's pretty useful.

So about the feeds: I did have a very old OPML file around so I added that, and then I found a bunch of news and photography and design and geek stuff. Most of the nifty OPML files you can find around are pretty old though, as it seems to have been a Hot Thing for a little while and then people forgot they could share. This is one of the easiest-to-find files out there, but it's got a lot of computer stuff and business stuff and a bunch of the feeds are dead (NetNewsWire is pretty good at letting you know which feeds are toast).

The real strength of NetNewsWire is this: it can line up all the headlines from every feed in alphabetical order.



Here you can see that only news organizations start items with quotes.

Mashing all the headlines together means that it isn't absurd to have a bazillion feeds, because you're skimming every feed at once and the luck of the draw pushes items to the top of the list. As with iTunes and shuffle it suits the way I like to do things in any case, and it pushes things in front of my eyes that I otherwise wouldn't choose to navigate to out of the blue.

So: this may be unwise to download and use unless you're some future version of me with the same kind of reading style, as adding thousands of feeds to the average newsreader might not work out so well and I haven't yet deleted all the .NET developers and venture capitalist assholes, but all of these feeds have been updated in the last three months. There's a bunch of news, a far larger amount of geeks (geeks are good because they can't maintain a focus and throw out good links now and again), a bunch of pretty graphics stuff for computers, some photography, some chemistry for some reason, and god knows what else. Instapundit I think, HA HA. Nearly nobody from my blogroll: I like to actually visit those sites and not lose them to the chaos of thousands of other items.

If I have any sense I'll post an updated version once I've done some more culling. If you can export an OPML file share it: I will incorporate it into this mess and maybe post a consolidated file one day.

ALSO:

But for the single item in the feed for A Welsh View I would never have seen this:



Boy am I grateful.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Another Kooky Libertarian Thread at Crooked Timber

Given that the title is "Fuck me or you’re fired!" it could have been far worse, but comments are still open.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

News

From here.



Even worse:
“Rudy was not a face-eating zombie monster,” said his high school friend Victoria Forte. “The Rudy we know was a nice gentleman with a warm smile, and funny.”

Sequencing

The little black bits from the Conrad Black post were actually supposed to make a travelling line: the GIFs are really three layers, two transparent and one black layer in the middle, and I change the timing of the preceding and following layers while keeping the total timing the same. It seems most web browsers just won't load the fucking things in order though, and maybe can't keep them in sync anyway. You may put them in proper sequence if you wish.

The Hideous Rebekah Brooks

Via Crooked Timber a story about Rebekah Brooks:
He said: "It was hardly appropriate... At that time, [September 12, 2001] [when] we were working on the assumption that up to 50,000 people had been killed, I was required to parade myself around morning conference dressed as Harry Potter.

"What person with any journalistic integrity can be humiliated like that or told to perform like that?"

Begley then told assistant news editor Greg Miskiw: "I don't want to criticise [Rebekah] in a phone call, but I can't see how the editor of the - as we're always reminded - best paper in the country could expect a reporter to do that... That was just too much."

When Miskiw asked Begley to return to work, Begley refused, stating: "I haven't toed the line for the editor's pet project. I didn't prance around while the World Trade Center was being bombed for her personal amusement. I can't just stroll in."

Miskiw responded: "Why not? Charles, that is what we do. We go out and destroy other people's lives."
The problem with suicide is that it requires you to feel bad about yourself. How can we encourage the people without any feelings at all to kill themselves?

Monday, May 28, 2012

The Business


Let's guess!
It was close, but no cigar for former media baron and convicted felon Conrad Black at this year’s XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX Book Award ceremony in Toronto.
This year's what? Oh right, that's the guessing part.
Black, one of three nominees, was a candidate for the prize for penning A Matter of Principal, an autobiographical yarn about his conviction and 42-month jail sentence in the United States for fraud and obstruction of justice. The award, sponsored by XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, was given out Monday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel.
Well done, Toronto Sun! I believe A Matter of Principal is Seymour Skinner's autobiography.
The 67-year-old Black, who returned to Canada on May 4 after serving time in a Florida prison, told the Toronto Sun he was “astounded” he had been nominated, and never expected to win.

“I’m not disappointed,” said Black, who lost to veteran XXXXXXXX and his book, XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX: XXXXX XXXXXX XX XXX XXXX XXX XXXX, XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX.
Whoa, that is a long title for a book competing with Mr. Black's no-doubt succinct boo-hoo for getting caught on video carting off evidence.
“I was astounded that I was nominated ... I didn’t expect to win. I don’t win an awful lot of CanLit awards, you know,” said Black.
Are you Canadian or something?
Also nominated was XXXXX XXXXXX for his book, XXX XXXX: XXX XX XXXXXXX XXX XXXXXX XX XXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX.

Last year’s winner was XXXX XXXXXX for his book, XXXXXXX XXX: XXX XXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXXXX.
All right then, three books with colons in the title and at least one written by an asshole can only mean Conrad Black was nominated for the National Business Book Award. I may have to borrow the Riddled Time Machine and steal the American Psycho manuscript for nomination at next year's ceremony.

ALSO:

Love! You don't love anybody! Me or anybody else! You want to be loved - that's all you want!
Black said he intends to apply for full citizenship in two years when "it is clear that I don't have cloven feet and wear horns."

He said he would reconsider applying to regain his citizenship if there were significant public backlash against his bid.

"I am not going to do anything that is going to lead to gratuitously antagonistic people making apparently plausible claims that I am morally unsuited to be a citizen of this country," Black said.
NDP leader Thomas Mulcair:
“Mr. Speaker, the member for Trinity-Spadina and I last year asked why Gary Freeman, who lived in this country peaceably for 40 years and had several children, was not being allowed back in the country. The answer was an event that happened in Chicago in the sixties and he had served a short jail time. They said that because he was not a Canadian he was not allowed back in,” the leader of the opposition recounted.

“We just learned that the British criminal Conrad Black will be allowed in despite serving a second term in a federal American penitentiary,” he reported. “Why the double standard?”

The New Democrats seated around him stood to applaud.
If that keeps Conrad Black out of the country Mulcair will win votes.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

How to Improve Pornography

Saturday, May 26, 2012

It WAS Natural

Today I was driving around and getting shit done before a wedding with the lovely daughter.

On comes this:



Quoth the lovely daughter:

"Who is this rapping?"

WEDDING UPDATE!

Not a bad place to get hitched. Join me, won't you? It's just down here...






The last time I was in this room I had to sneak by security to do it. Oh hey, there's a balcony down at the end:

Lions left, sulfur pile right, Stanley Park foreground, West and North Van background.
Further left.
Even more leftist.



Have I mentioned that I moved to Vancouver because it was pretty? And you can score heroin only four blocks to the west.

The Beclowning

John Nolte:
The evolution of CNN's ongoing collapse can be found here, here, and here. Even during an election year, the "most trusted name in news" is imploding and as I've mentioned numerous times before, the reason for this is obvious. CNN insults their audience -- left, right, and middle -- on a daily basis with their superior and utterly false pose that it is an objective outlet for news.
Am I missing something? The first link is to a piece noting that Breitbart supporters cheerfully call Meghan McCain "Porkchop Barbie". Which they do.

Anyway, yes, CNN is bad. What is making Americans turn away from it?
But dishonest, left-wing CNN and Brooke Baldwin beclown themselves from behind their phony shield of objectivity when, among other things, Tony Perkins is asked, when did you stop beating your wife? "Why do homosexuals bother you so much?" And then CNN acts all surprised as their brand swirls the drain.
I had been under the impression that homosexuals bother Tony Perkins. Doesn't he lead a lobbying effort against gay marriage? In any case, the assumption that asking honest questions of Tony Perkins is a negative for CNN may be changing.

THINKING BETTER THOUGHTS UPDATE

Look behind me. It is a nice day.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Kill Everything



I think I may have hurt my ears this morning listening to this over and over again.

Trolling continues:

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Damn Yankers

Hustler photoshopped S.E. Cupp with a cock in her mouth. That's not nice and Hustler is not very nice, is it?
Cupp essentially laughed off the idea of any feminist organizations coming to her defense.

“The National Organization for Women, NOW, will not come out and say liberal women deserve more respect than conservative women and we are not going to defend conservative women. They’re not going to admit to that but let me tell you that is exactly how they feel,” she said.
In the event that a feminist organization comes to her defense, they can't mean it! After all, she hates them and they hate her and nobody can want the rules to be the same for everyone, can they? A fairly old link:
b. As usual, you're looking for any way to discredit NOW. You claim we care and work only for liberal women, but that's a LIE. We have defended Sarah Palin and other conservative women from sexist attacks. Maybe not on your schedule, but we've done so. And by the way, all those laws we advocate for -- we don't ask that they include a clause saying only certified liberal women can benefit from them. Conservative women benefit from them, too! Just because we don't open up a Palin wing on the NOW website doesn't mean we don't think that every single woman -- right, left and in-between -- deserves equal pay, full reproductive rights, justice in the courts, etc. So knock off the facetious whining that right-wing women are not represented by NOW's work.
That was easy. A simple site search of now.org would come up with quite a bit on sexism directed at various conservative women if anyone bothered to look.
“The outrage of Sandra Fluke will not be matched on my side,” Cupp told The Blaze. “It seems that feminism has devolved into an institution that has picked losers and winners and has decided that some women qualify for respect and other women do not.”
Indeed, it might be a different situation if a nobody is attacked by The Voice of the Republican Party vs. a celebrity columnist/radio host objectified by a porn magazine. And John Hawkins and Jim Hoft and David Limbaugh and Adam Baldwin and assorted other nitwits. Mind you they'd never imagine getting a blowjob from a cute girl would they?



The Blaze does investigative reporting:
A copy of the image was sent to the National Organization for Women. A press aide told The Blaze she was not authorized to speak for the organization and could not say whether NOW would speak out against it.
Geez, if you can get paid for trolling I'm gonna get to work.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Sweet Gig

TPM:
Not to be outdone by the Arizona secretary of state’s recent flirtation with birtherism, Sheriff Joe Arpaio escalated his probe into President Obama’s birth certificate this week by dispatching a deputy from his “threats unit” to Hawaii.

[...]

The Star-Advertiser reported that Zullo and Mackiewcz flashed badges on Monday when they showed up at the Hawaii Department of Health. Mackiewcz apparently also handed over a business card showing he is part of the Arizona sheriff’s “Threats Management Unit.”
Lots of crime and threats in resorts in Mexico too. Any threats in Bangkok?

Contingencies

Remember that stupid Keystone Pipeline? It was going to send even-more-planet-destroying-than-usual oil products south from Alberta to various places in M. Bouffant's United Snakes with the ultimate purpose of shipping the crap to China just a little bit more cheaply. Filthy hippies and grasping bastards were outraged - OUTRAGED I TELL YOU - so Mr. Obama has put decisions on hold until 2013 so the disappointment can be post-election.

But what if the disappointment happens to the right people and not the wrong people? Build another pipeline. Once I had some irrelevant thoughts about how the obvious destination for such a pipeline was the politically-untenable Vancouver: we have infrastructure and rail and a decent port and so forth. Also a lot of hippies who would make such a thing impossible, including a well-dressed hippie mayor (he owns a fucking hippie juice company). Of course I was right about Vancouver in a sense (not even on the drawing board) but I did not remember the alternate outlet of tiny Kitimat which has to have one of the cutest town names ever. It also has a giant aluminum company and export facilities to help it do its thing.

Now I gather the big deal around the contingency plan is to avoid the United States, and I suppose pie-eyed optimists are hoping that's the result of the pipeline's potential environmental impact, locally and globally. But hey, what's that yellow line just 150km northwest of Kitimat and along one of the potential routes for the toxic sludge everybody wants?



Why that is the border of Alaska, which as far as I recall has had no issues whatsoever with oil shipping. Plus we got other pipelines on the go already so nyah.

Monday, May 21, 2012

I Don't Understand Either

Sounds like he's kidding, right?
Dear Mr. Goldberg

Allow me to express my heartfelt congratulations on your two successful books. Since I am an illustrator, and it falls within my professional interests, I must profess admiration for the covers of both your books. The smiley face with the Hitler mustache is iconic and jarring. Furthermore, the cover’s simple design intertwines nicely with the books academic leanings, but the smiley prevents it from appearing humorless.
...

I just can't tell these days.

Anyway, it gets more graphic later on:



Shoulders!

As usual, the internet provides a rejoinder:



GREENVILLE SOUTH CAROLINA UPDATE!

Talented yet incomprehensible illustrator Zach Franzen, author of the work above the shitty picture I did, lives in Greenville, South Carolina. Where that asshole George Tierney lives.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Telepathic Ed is Not Dead

Welcome back Ed:
I just got back from a combo Greyhound with a 60 day Pass and 20 days in the Caribbean a total of 50 days of travel. I was in Barbados, Grenada, St. Vincent and St. Lucia. When I was in Cincinnati I met a Black Girl who went to Ohio State who was making her first Greyhound Trip going from Atlanta to Columbus and she told me that she had just called her girlfriend to say that a lot of Trashy People take the Greyhound (I don't know where she got that idea) she told me that some guy with half his teeth missing had asked her if she wanted to smoke reefer in the bus' restroom and that after sitting next to some other guy that she had washed her arms (maybe that'll make its way into the common parlance He Made Me Wash My Arms).
Bathrooms in bus depots are unsavoury places.

Friday, May 18, 2012

George W. Bush

Uhhhh...
This is the inbuilt crisis of tyranny. It fears and fights the very human attributes that make a nation great: creativity, enterprise and responsibility. Dictators can maintain power for a time by feeding resentments toward enemies—internal or external, real or imagined. But eventually, in societies of scarcity and mediocrity, their failure becomes evident.

YOU


FUCK.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Hazards of Education in Russia



The words at the bottom right read "MOBILE TV DINNER! SCORE!"

Things You Can Steal

This seems like a pretty good plan if you're skilled:
Greenwich police have arrested a Bridgeport man linked to diamond thefts in three other area towns after he allegedly swapped out the valuable stone from a Greenwich resident's ring and replaced it with a fake while working in the victim's home as an exterminator.
In the hierarchy of things you can steal, diamonds seem to me to be of about the import of a loaf of bread, particularly if they're already in a setting and you can get those nice cubic zirconia replacements. Once purchased, they do nothing but assure people that they spent money once. I endorse diamond theft.

Maybe there should be a list of the relative awfulness of items to steal. Worst comes first, suggestions for items and reordering welcome:

1. Children
2. Houses
3. Vehicles
4. Livestock
5. Money
6. Computers
7. Televisions
8. Phones
9. Alcohol
10. Drugs
11. Books
12. Gasoline
13. Clothing
14. Jewellry
15. Food
16. Candy

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Unfortunate Word Choices

Hmm:
Mr Brooks said he had been used as a "scapegoat" to "ratchet up the pressure" on his wife, who he claimed was the victim of a "witch-hunt".

Mrs Brooks was editor of the News of the World (NoW) when voicemails on murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone were allegedly intercepted.

The Crass Menagerie

Michael Reagan:
Sheep and chickens.

That's what America's greatest corporations have become.

Whether it's in California or nationally, it's the same sad story.

America's best and biggest companies -- the banks, the energy corporations, the computer giants -- are refusing to stand up to the bully governments in Sacramento and D.C.
If only they had guts the CEOs could blow cigar-smoke into the faces of everyone and store all their oil by floating on the Gulf of Mexico and steal houses and destroy the economy of the world. BUT THEY DON'T HAVE GUTS. So they should lead America once they've had a pep talk from Michael Reagan, who insults them.
We have the same problem nationally -- a flock of corporate chickens.

Why is it that the only voices we hear fighting against Washington are talk radio and Fox News?

Where are Exxon and Apple and Ford and Wells Fargo? Why aren't they standing up for what's left of free enterprise in America?
Yes, where are those corporations? Heard of any of 'em lately? No you haven't because they're sitting at the back of the class trying not to be noticed while Washington Fat Cats™ totally don't ask them for bags of money.
It's time corporations start standing up for themselves. Talk radio and Fox News' 4 million viewers can't save a bunch of sheep and chickens. No one can.
Can millions of people led by major media corporations save a chicken when it is determined to blow its head off with a shotgun? NO. Similarly there is nothing millions of people led by major media corporations can do when a sheep wants to drive down the highway at top speed into a telephone pole. What are millions of people led by major media corporations gonna do, call the sheep's cell phone? THE SHEEP HAS NO HANDS.
There's a scene in the "Avengers" movie where the people are told to kneel down to show their subservience to their ruler. But one brave man stood up and said he refused to kneel any longer.
That man was fired.

An alternative to sheep and chickens:

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Piggybacking

More Jonah, outsourced to Susan!

All right, that's bad and yet perfect for Jonah.

Hot on its heels? THE SAME MISTAKE.

You peel back the layers of Jonah and there's just more Jonah in there.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Busy Busy Busy

Getting a surprising amount of stuff done despite apparently poisoning myself. So have some video:



Has there been more forward progress in heavy metal than in electronic music over the past 20 years?

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Things That Collide

While working on the problem of cool black-and-white GIFs I was also doing the usual on-the-bus composition, this time with a kind of restriction in trying to mash together songs without effects or playing with pitches. That's a bullshit rule, but so's a rhyme scheme, jerks!



Given the songs I was playing with, some business about a birthday had to happen, and coincidentally today is The Lovely Daughter's birthday, so I suppose this auditory and visual failure is for her. She will pay zero attention to it, but pointless effort is what being a parent is all about.

Sources:

50 Cent
Raymond Scott
Jurassic 5
Tenacious D
The Kinks
T'Pau
Silkk the Shocker
Andrew W.K.
Solvent
Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
Some country song I'll figure out later Lefty Frizzell, Lost Love Blues, but no YouTube so here.

The Church on Avenue Q

I left this in a comment at Roy's in response to this line from Jeffrey Kuhner:
Homosexual behavior, especially sodomy, is unnatural and immoral.
What makes the saints
Fall down in faints
And hallucinate rivers of blood?
Homosexual acts!
Gay beasts with two backs!
The writhing of hot stud on stud!

But of all the acts we take the time to contemplate...
There's but one for which the Godhead squirts out perfect hate...

It's sodomy!
Especially sodomy!
If your brown eye has a need well
Through it no man should pass!

You stop that sodomy,
Said my God to thee,
It's not for laughs
That we come with
Our rods and staffs
And smite! That! Ass!

__________

I've really got to put nonsense like that to music. This one should have a martial/marching zippiness.

Friday, May 11, 2012

How to Write Unmaintainable Code

Given that there's a somewhat geeky discussion going on here I think I should add a dated but still truly excellent item. This is the sort of thing that makes me proud to be a Canadian.
Naming

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
- Lewis Carroll -- Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6

Much of the skill in writing unmaintainable code is the art of naming variables and methods. They don't matter at all to the compiler. That gives you huge latitude to use them to befuddle the maintenance programmer.

New Uses For Names For Baby

Buy a copy of a baby naming book and you'll never be at a loss for variable names. Fred is a wonderful name, and easy to type. If you're looking for easy-to-type variable names, try adsf or aoeu if you type with a DSK keyboard.

Single Letter Variable Names

If you call your variables a, b, c, then it will be impossible to search for instances of them using a simple text editor. Further, nobody will be able to guess what they are for. If anyone even hints at breaking the tradition honoured since FØRTRAN of using i, j, and k for indexing variables, namely replacing them with ii, jj and kk, warn them about what the Spanish Inquisition did to heretics.

Creative Miss-spelling

If you must use descriptive variable and function names, misspell them. By misspelling in some function and variable names, and spelling it correctly in others (such as SetPintleOpening SetPintalClosing) we effectively negate the use of grep or IDE search techniques. It works amazingly well. Add an international flavor by spelling tory or tori in different theatres/theaters.

Be Abstract

In naming functions and variables, make heavy use of abstract words like it, everything, data, handle, stuff, do, routine, perform and the digits e.g. routineX48, PerformDataFunction, DoIt, HandleStuff and do_args_method.

A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S.

Use acronyms to keep the code terse. Real men never define acronyms; they understand them genetically.

Thesaurus Surrogatisation

To break the boredom, use a thesaurus to look up as much alternate vocabulary as possible to refer to the same action, e.g. display, show, present. Vaguely hint there is some subtle difference, where none exists. However, if there are two similar functions that have a crucial difference, always use the same word in describing both functions (e.g. print to mean "write to a file", "put ink on paper" and "display on the screen"). Under no circumstances, succumb to demands to write a glossary with the special purpose project vocabulary unambiguously defined. Doing so would be an unprofessional breach of the structured design principle of information hiding.
I'm positive I've linked it before. I like sending it to our IT people, which is probably why I've been testing one thing across a span of years.

Oops

Pratfall!
A JP Morgan trader, Bruno Iksil, has been accumulating a giant bet on U.S. corporate bonds. He used derivatives to do it, and he messed up the bet and lost $2 billion for the bank. He could end up losing $1 billion more if the market doesn't cooperate.

[...]

  • How did no one know about this?

Oh, they did. Everyone knew. Thousands of people. Iksil's bets have been well known ever since Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle broke the news in early April. A trader at rival bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote to clients back then, saying that Iksil's huge bet was attracting attention and hedge funds believed him to be too optimistic and were betting against him, waiting for Iksil to crash. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Merrill Lynch trader wrote, "Fast money has smelt blood."

When the media, analysts and other traders raised concerns on JP Morgan's earnings conference call last month, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon dismissed their worries as "a tempest in a teapot."

From Dimon's perspective, and for all the harm it's gonna cause him, that is true.

Wow

How long is this "entrepreneur" going to remain unidentified?
ORLANDO, Fla. - An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin's death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who's death has sparked a nationwide controversy.

Although Martin's face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

The Boss is Full of Shit

Look! Is this my first EVER mailto link?
How angry are Yahoo employees over Scott Thompson lying on his resume?

Reports are: very.

We're curious. Let us know: nicholas@businessinsider.com or 646 376 6014.

We'll keep you anonymous.
More here, but the gist is that the asshole said he had a computer science degree until last week when a bunch of hedge-fund assholes noticed that his college didn't offer that degree until four years after he graduated; he's really a graduate of an accounting program.

Big whoop as far as CEO scandals go - although he should be fired of course - but if the Yahoo internal reaction is really that pissy about it then I kind of surprised at the amount of credentialism involved, given my own stereotypes about the Silicon Valley tech sector. Mikey knows more about the milieu I'm sure, but I'd imagined that the laborers involved were not really interested in qualifications as such. I mean, by the time your four-year degree is over technology has moved along, and those who can program are out there doing it aren't they? Mind you those guys are easily distinguished from management.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

My Shame



The curse of the indiscriminate downloader strikes again.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Time-Killing and Sniffles

Home sick today, and as I was clearing out old files I found an old version of Unity, a game-design program. As with Daz 3D and Bryce Unity now has a free license; it's less functional than the full version, but it lets you do some interesting things (with a big learning curve involving scripting), the idea being that you might also want to buy content from their online store.

It ships with a playable and exportable shooting game - you can turn it into an .exe or .app - so you can get a look at how things are built, which is kind of fun. Other than that game and other demos you can find elsewhere you have to import stuff into it to use it (it'll take various kinds of 3D objects and images and sounds from every other program I mention in this post). Figuring out how to wrap 3D objects is not something I have a handle on, so maybe I'll learn. I think I may try to have my little shooting guy in the provided game have a Santorum Gun. Runs on Macs and Windows, and compared to Daz (character models) and Bryce (environments) it's a comparatively zippy little program on my underpowered second-hand machines. The interface is good compared to the other programs, although "better than Blender" is not really that much of an endorsement. Still, the documentation is clear and the process of GETTING the thing was easy in comparison to the weirdness of trying to get Bryce and Daz.



Monday, May 7, 2012

People Who Conspired Against Lyndon Larouche

The Evil Cabal:
GOP establishment operatives
Sara Fagen, George W. Bush’s political director
Bill Schneider, Politico
McCain handlers
Steve Schmidt, McCain campaign
Nicolle Wallace, McCain campaign
Politico
The Democrat-Media complex
John McCain's mercenaries
Professional operatives
McCain operative Brian Jones
Ana Marie Cox
Chris Cillizza
Mike Allen
Jonathan Martin
Mark Halperin
George Stephanopolis (sic)
Chuck Todd
Mark Murray
Carl Cameron
John Heilemann
The mainstream media elite who go to "Game Change" premieres
The mainstream media elite
The mainstream media
Many on this list:
Kevin Madden, Alex Castellanos, Ron Bonjean, Barbara Comstock, Jim Dyke, Tim Griffin, John Feehrery (sic), Rich Galen, Ben Ginsburg, Amy Holmes, Leslie Sanchez, Andrea Tantaros, and Ken Mehlman
CNN's John King
CNN's Dana Bash
"60 Minutes"
CBS
Gloria Borger
Karl Rove
The Wall Street Journal
The Legacy Media
Ho ho ho, the article's not about Lyndon Larouche, it's about Sarah Palin, who is totally going to run for president if you keep giving her $100 bills.

Sarah Palin hentaiSarah Palin hentaiSarah Palin hentaiSarah Palin hentai

Bonus dead-horse flogging:
Andrew Breitbart would have fiercely combated this pro-establishment whitewashing of history.
Let's all be true to Andrew Breitbart's memory by yelling and lying.

THANKS BOUFFANT!

BREAKING: PUNDIT LOSES JOB

Naomi Schaefer Riley no longer posting at the CHE.

Some back-story.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Austerity

Enjoy, London:

There seems to be no limit to the efforts of Lord Coe and his friends at the International Olympic Committee to bring this summer's London Games into ridicule and contempt. A week-long "military exercise" is currently under way in the capital. RAF Typhoon jets are to scream back and forth over the Thames. Starstreak surface-to-air missile batteries are being set up in East End parks and on flats in Bow, with 10 soldiers manning each one. Army and navy helicopters will clatter back and forth, with snipers hanging from their doors "to shoot down pilots of terrorist planes".

Machine-guns will for the first time be toted by guards on the London tube. Police special forces, "trained to kill", will wear balaclavas to avoid identification. There are to be naval landing craft roaming the coast off Weymouth and submarines at the ready. The Olympics have become a festival of the global security industry, with a running and jumping contest as a sideshow. No one in government dares call a halt. Nero in his prime could not have squandered so much money on circuses.

Need we add a "FUCK THE OLYMPICS" to this?

FUCK THE OLYMPICS

Saturday, May 5, 2012

40 Reasons I Suck

I know what you're thinking.

39 more here, mostly of an eye-gouging black-and-white variety. A lot of them are within reach for me with a little programming, but if I did that I wouldn't suck and we can't have that.

UPDATE:

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Try as I might, I just end up with dancing cuttlefish.

Old Person Dreams

I dreamed I was going with a friend to a retirement home to see a performance by Agnetha Fältskog. I remembered that she did "There's Something Going On" so I was excited and my companion and I were thrilled to bump into her and try to help her figure out where she was going, as old people are wont to do. The dream ended before the show.

Which is kinda good, because I woke up to discover that song was an Anni-Frid song.



Looking pretty energetic, Anni-Frid.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Sheer Looksism

mikey said...
Maybe I'm just feeling my mortality a little more than usual today, but honestly, life is too short to watch Jonah Goldberg fart.
Sorry mikey, EVERY LITTLE THING about Jonah is fascinating.

Below, an annoying ad notifies the world that Jonah's book will, by hook or by crook, be "popular":



Not the sea monkey pictured in the ad:



Have some decorations.

Sarah Palin hentaiSarah Palin hentaiHello, I am Newt Gingrich and I am walking for president.Hello, I am Newt Gingrich and I am walking for president.Cars 2 hentai right here, freaks!Cars 2 hentai right here, freaks!They hurt me SO BAD.They hurt me also too SO BAD.Image and video hosting by TinyPicImage and video hosting by TinyPicImage and video hosting by TinyPic

Service:



Hmm, needs just a smidge more Hitler.

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