Polyamorous Vegan Cryptographers
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| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
rm
|
5:23p |
weird world
There is a whole lot of crazy out there today.
Including:
- Horrid yuppie dude with his horrid wife and horrid child on line in front of me to donate some stuff to a community thrift shop. They take FOREVER because the wife has to keep rechecking the stuff she's handed in to make sure she wants it to go. As they finally leave, the guy claps me on the back and says, "thanks for your help." Buh? I was just standing there. Also is this how men interact with women (as I clearly am today)? I don't think so.
- But that was NOTHING compared to the guy who stopped me on the corner of 97th and B'way for this exchange:
Him: You don't have a name.
Me: Excuse me?
Him: Have a nice day!
Yeah, I don't know.
- Dear Bed, Bath and Beyond: More people will shop in your store if the entire establishment doesn't stink of wet dog.
- Dear scamster dude with shitty industry party invites: "you're invited" not "your invited"
- Dear Borders: Blasting Abba for the win!
I rewarded myself for tedious errands with a Whole Foods shopping trip. I now have:
- chimichurri sirloin
- potato zuchini pancakes
- lemon and garlic roasted carrots
- goat cheese
- cream cheese (where that craving came from, hell if I know)
- dinosaur-shaped gluten-free chicken nuggets.
- lemon pepper mayo
- chipolte mayo
and a much better attitude, even if the people in that particular Whole Foods need harming. Also old lady in fabulous boy drag! |
oldbloke
|
7:41p |
Had to happen sooner or later
Do you remember that time when you were knee high to a grasshopper and you were in a shop or somewhere and you turned round and MUMMY|DADDY WASN'T THERE ?!?!?!?!?!
In Morrison's this morning, Jack was being helpful [FSVO] and going from one of us to the other - I generally go and get fruit while L gets veg. And there was a short time when we both thought he was with the other, but actually he was at (or on the way to) Customer Services...
Apparently he did everything right: he didn't panic and tear round the place (though he'd surely have found us if he had), or just stand there crying, he grabbed the nearest staff member and explained the situation.
He clung onto me pretty tight for quite a while. |
sbisson
|
10:56a |
Catch the action  A kite surfer makes a high speed turn across a wave... Highway 1, California July 2008 Current Mood:  awake |
sbisson
|
10:47a |
Skyline grasses  The two colours of California at the height of summer. Page Mill Road, California July 2008 Current Mood: awake |
rantuss
|
4:55p |
In order not to murder my errant father in cold blood I'm trying to bond with the fellow via music. We are both partial to a tune. I gave him some Felice Brothers stuff and put it on his iTunes. I can't work PCs and it took ages. He's the biggest Dylan fan ever and they are Dylanesque, but the guys can write. He seemed pleased and we talked about Leonard Cohen for 45 minutes. As a kid I could sing The Sisters of Mercy. No one wants to hear a 5 year old sing Cohen. Embrace The Felice Brothers or you are dead to me. Ignore the twat in the video and just listen. |
rm
|
11:02a |
briefly - Six hours of sleep and I feel a lot better than I did yesterday. Yes, six hours is a big deal. Which is horrible. I just kinda don't really sleep in the summer. And it's not an insomnia thing, because it's not like I'm trying. I just wake up really early and go to bed really late and it is what it is. I don't know why. - Also this? Made my day. Of course, my day started like five minutes ago, but still. Small victories. - I am trying to come up with the most strategic order to do today's tasks in. - If you are a salad bar user, Do not use the tongs outside of their specific area! I was going to get the same thing for lunch yesterday I had had the day before. In fact, I had decided that this would be the one thing that would comfort me in my shitty shitty day -- carrots with dill and lemon and garlic and chicken, eaten with fucking chopsticks. It was all I wanted. But some ASSHOLE used the carrot tongs in the pasta salad next to the carrots, eventhough they had their own tongs, so guess who had to have thai fucking noodles instead? I know it seems like a simple unimportant thing. And a silly thing for me to get worked up about. But every minute of every day is about what I can't have because someone else was lazy for a fraction of a fucking second. And if I don't notice? Sick for DAYS. |
matt_ruff
|
7:38a |
The Dark Knight Lisa and I caught a mid-afternoon showing of this yesterday, and liked it a lot. My faith in Christopher Nolan wavered briefly at the hour-and-a-half mark, during an action sequence that I thought was going to be the climax of the film -- and which, if it had been, would have left me saying "That's it?" -- but then the story went on for another hour and concluded very satisfactorily. Now that I know what happens I want to see it again, preferably at an IMAX theater. I also want Rhapsody to license the movie soundtrack. |
rantuss
|
3:17p |
When people in the UK are terminally ill there is a group called the Macmillan Nurses who come to your house and tend to you. My mother died at home over the christmas period and they'd come three times a day to administer pain relief and make sure she was as comfortable as is humanly possible under the circumstances. They are the S.A.S of the nursing profession. The service is completely free and all they do is tend to the terminally ill 24 hours a day. They were out of this world brilliant. Anyway, I've found myself donating money to their charity. Before I had dealings with the Macmillan Nurses I'd only hand over money to charities caring for orphaned orangutans, various dog charities and the World Wildlife Fund. I didn't have much empathy for the human race as a whole. My problem lies with the logo the Macmillan Nurses are currently using. I was buying art equipment a few months ago and noticed a charity box for Macmillan as I was paying for my stuff. I dropped £1 into the box and the woman serving me told me to take a badge. This is the badge.  I pinned it to the lapel of my denim jacket and went about my day. Since then EVERYONE I meet gives me a baffled look when their eyes happen upon the badge. The expression is always several shades of WTF? I have no idea why a charity caring for the terminally ill with cancer have chosen to have a Space Hopper as their logo. The last thing I'd want to do as I shuffled off this mortal coil while cancer ravaged my body is climb atop a Space Hopper. The badge has the hue of baby snot and discombobulates everyone. It now sits in front of my computer mocking me . |
major_clanger
|
1:29p |
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waistcoatmark
|
9:43a |
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waistcoatmark
|
9:21a |
Book recommendations I have a father in law and a 12 year old nephew who are both really rather interested in maths (albeit at somewhat different levels). Can anyone recommend some good books on the topic that aren't by - Douglas R. Hofstadter - Martin Gardner - Simon Singh ('cos I already know about those). As you can tell, my knowledge of good books aimed at pre-GCSE levels of maths is a little slimmer than those aimed at post-GCSE level. Of course if any of Johnny Ball's "Think of a Number"-type series were available on DVD that would be ideal. But they don't appear to be. In exchange, I recommend Mike Carey [EDIT Not John Carey as originally written]'s Felix Castor series of books. A series of books, starting with The Devil You Know. Carey's the author of the "best comic since The Sandman" series, Lucifer, and spent some time writing Hellblazer as well, where he obviously enjoyed writing about under-powered London magicians just scraping through situations by the skin of their teeth. For non-comics fans, think of Felix Castor as a London equivalent of The Dresden Files (which are well worth reading in a White Wolf Mage sort of background, low-level mage/PI in America kind of way). Felix Castor is a exorcist who wanders around a London where the dead are becoming increasingly keen on wandering about. He generally takes a case, ends up investigating why someone's being haunted, gets beaten up a fair amount and just about puls solves the case with the help of some chums. While not quite as eager to betray said chums as Hellblazer's John Constantine, many of them end up worse off for knowing Felix. Each book is fairly well self-contained, but there's enough referring to previous events that it's preferable to read them in order. As of book 3 there's hints of an arc plot which explains why the dead are returning in increasing numbers. |
undyingking
|
7:48a |
Cheeky swabs
Does anyone know, or can find out, the details of a service to which one can send a DNA sample and get back a report about one's ethnic mix -- a seen on that TV programme from last year or whenever it was?
I would expect it to be commercially available by now, as all sorts of other DNA-related stuff seems to be.
Current Music: The Radio Dept. - Keen on Boys |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
perdita_fysh
|
11:20p |
View from the balcony Having found the 'blog this' feature of flickr you can expect more photo blogging from me from now on *&)
This is the view from our balcony here, you can see one of the two hot tubs at the hotel just below on the right of the picture. Next to it is a pool and another hot tub. We're spending a lot of time in these - much more than any other holiday, because the view from them is what you can see to the left of the picture - the bottom of the Bike Park! Sitting in the tub (and boy are they hot!) and watching people come down the new dual-slalom course 'double dipper', or off the crankworx stunts at the bottom (the bits that are open to the public anyway) is brill. And G will watch for hours, hence my ability to get sunburn the other day! Usually on biking holidays my skin doesn't actually get to see much sun for all the body armour and padding *&)
Across the way you can see the red awnings and yellow umbrellas of the Longhorn bar, the one that gave Vista it's codename while in development (Microsoft like to bring their people here). They do awesome 'hot' buffalo wings and make a decent cup of tea. The Irish bar underneath our hotel don't make good tea, oddly. They do serve good beer though and have lots of live music on. We took an american couple there last night and startled them by singing along to 'black velvet band' 'dirty old town' 'irish rover' and that old favourite 'seven drunken nights' *&) The guy went on to do yellow submarine and a bizarre mashup of neil diamond, some country and god knows what else! Last year they had a good irish band on called 'Murphy's Law' but they don't seem to be around this time.
The Irish bar do 'Irish Scramble' for breakfast, which is three eggs scrambled with sausage, tomato and mushroom mixed in and cheese melted on top. It's very nice, but is it authentic? They do such fabulous food here, it's a torment to choose where to eat. |
perdita_fysh
|
10:29p |
Jump little grasshopper We had a great day today, we've been riding with some friends we made here last year for the last couple of days and today we spent some time sessioning the two practice jumps halfway down the mountain with the cameras on. We got one or two great shots, but this is my favourite!
I'm loving jumping this year, I only really cracked it last year and it is quite strange. The last three years I've been all about the drops. I loved drops, they held no fear for me, but I hated jumping because I found it really scary riding fast at something that was effectively vertical and expecting it to work out ok. At least with a drop you expect to go down! Then last year at Spokeswoman camp they 'clicked' for me and I was off and racing. And then just after I stacked it big time on a drop!
So this year I started out with no problems with jumping but a real inner demon to battle over drops. The brain is a wonderful thing *&) I went to the smallest drop zone and while I could roll and then drop the tiniest smallest drop, I couldn't make myself do the next one which was still pretty tiny! It took a lot of effort, and some very patient cajoling from G, to get over that mental hurdle. But since then I've nailed the third drop there and the first on the bigger drop zone so I'm nearly back to where I was (the second on the bigger zone is usually my comfortable limit).
Anyway, I'm loving those jumps! |
| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
oxfordslacker
|
4:05a |
Preserved Ephemera Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter |
| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
james_nicoll
|
11:22p |
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| Saturday, July 19th, 2008 |
tinyjo
|
12:48a |
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| Friday, July 18th, 2008 |
ortho_bob
|
4:48p |
deadly finns
Paavpharju are a very strange Finnish band. Here they sound like first album era Faust with Kate Bush on vocals. You can also drop the names of Arial Pink into the mix if you want.
Some of their stuff sounds a lot more straightforward. Although straightforward what, I'm not sure as listening to their current album is like hearing half a dozen off-station radios in the mist. Some times things will suddenly clear up and a lilting folk melody will come through only to be drowned out by scuzzy electronics or fade to bird song or an off-key toy piano will beat it into submission with some insidious techno riff. Curious and evocative stuff.Try Es and Nau Hau too if you like it weird and Finnish. |
hoiho
|
11:00p |
Gonna leave a greasy trail, gonna travel the world Three days of work done, and I’m absolutely exhausted. I haven’t done much, if anything, other than work, eat and sleep. The one advantage of being dog-tired is that the drugs can’t stop be sleeping, although they do tend to wake me in the middle of the night.
Tomorrow morning, very early, it’s off to the airport, and a flight to Innsbruck. I still don’t speak German, and I have no idea what to expect. Might be interesting. Especially if I can stop the drugs and start drinking again. Current Mood: tiredCurrent Music: Franz Ferdinand / this boy |
major_clanger
|
10:04p |
I have seen the future, and it will make copies of itself. Years from now, I will point to this picture, and say "that's me, at the place it all began, with one of the very first RepRaps."  I could hardly write a dissertation on the intellectual property implications of low-cost rapid prototyping without making an effort to see the technology itself, so a little while back I got in touch with Dr Adrian Bowyer, originator and leader of the RepRap project, to arrange to visit him at the University of Bath. As it turned out, he got asked to give a talk on the project to the Environment Agency's 'Horizon Scanning' team at Bristol today, the date we'd agreed, but no problem - he invited me to come along. So down it was to Bath, and to the lab where the first RepRaps are being assembled. (Note that if you click on any of the pictures you can then click on 'all sizes' to see higher-resolution versions. I've left the originals of the parts pictures at full resolution so you can see the detail if your want.) ( The future, in more detail. )I'm very glad I arranged this trip, as it's fired up my motivation for the final push of turning my outline dissertation and research notes into the final product, and even in to looking at what I might do in this area beyond that. I can understand why people get excited at the RepRap project; seeing the actual machine and holding RepRap-printed test pieces, you have a real Also sprach Zarathustra moment - if this pans out, it could be where we take as big a shift in human society as the one resulting from the Industrial Revolution. It's an incredibly exciting time to be involved, even very tangentially, and I'm very grateful to Dr Bowyer for accommodating my request for a visit. And yes, he is interested in potentially giving a Hay Lecture. |
rm
|
3:32p |
sundries
- I know it is just PMS. I know it is just gluten poisoning. I know it is just not enough sleep and a lot of stress, but my ability to cope right now is extremely limited and I don't like it.
- I saw Gridlock from DW, series 3 last night and despite knowing all the spoilers, it fucking broke me. |
jwz
|
12:07p |
ninety-sixopus Current Music: The Oohlas -- Octopus |
jwz
|
12:04p |
"George W. Bush Sewage Plant" makes the ballot Satire at the ballot box to 'honor' Bush They want to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant come January, when the next president is sworn in. During the inauguration, the group also wants supporters to participate in a "synchronized flush" -- a way to send a gift to the renamed plant, which supporters say, would be a "fitting monument to this president's work." It sounds like a harmless joke, or maybe a college civics lesson gone awry. But they have already collected 8,500 signatures in support of the plan - 1,300 more than the minimum needed to put the question to city voters in November. The biggest opposition in this Democratic stronghold, McConnell said, is people who oppose naming anything after the 43rd president. Officials at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which owns the plant, say they get the humorous intent. But they note that the plant is an award-winning facility that keeps the city's streets and the ocean clean. "If you are looking for a place to make a negative statement about the Bush administration's impact on the environment, this would be the last place to do it," agency spokesman Tony Winnicker said. Current Music: Placebo -- Brick Shithouse |
jwz
|
11:54a |
smoking ban: level up! HELL YES: San Francisco smokers are already banned from lighting up inside restaurants, bars and public buildings. Now Supervisor Chris Daly is proposing tougher restrictions, including no smoking in taxicabs, at outdoor cafes, in lines at the ATM, at farmer's markets and within 20 feet of the entrance to businesses. The city's Department of Public Health says there's no safe level of second-hand smoke. "There's been research that shows the exposure in outdoor areas. The levels can be as toxic as indoor levels," said Alyonik Hrushow from the San Francisco Health Department. Smokers may feel like pariahs in this city, but according to the American Lung Association, San Francisco is behind other cities including Belmont, Berkeley and Ross when it comes to trying to limit second-hand smoke. This will be a slight hassle for us at the club, since we'll have to make people move farther down the block to smoke, but that's fine with me, because I find it absolutely disgusting to have to walk through that gauntlet of stench on the sidewalk in front of the exit door. You're welcome to smoke, and to play with your own poop. Just keep your smoke, and your poop, off of me.
Current Music: Alien Sex Fiend -- Smells Like... |
ortho_bob
|
1:18p |
the last words of lee hazlewood
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