Yearly Archives: 2006

31 Dec 2006
Fuck 2006. And fuck the 21st Century.

That is all.
Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

Lynchian Mary Worth insanity

29 Dec 2006
tritone wrote:

A live-action version of a month's worth of Mary Worth strips, shot using the actual "camera angles" of the original strips. (If you want to subject yourself to the rest of the episodes, they're here. For some reason I had to watch all of them.)

Maybe this would make more sense if I had ever seen this strip, but jesus fuck is this shit weird...

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Current Music: Veruca Salt -- Circular Trend

delete yourself from the internets!

29 Dec 2006
From: Jim <JimHudock@comcast.net>
Date: December 26, 2006 3:27:26 PM PST
To: jwz@jwz.org
Subject: I mneed your help

I do not quite know what I am doing when I get to your site. I want to download the 200 screen savers. I'm running fedora core 4 on and hp computer. What ever I click it doesn't give me the option to install, can you give me a little help please?

From: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
Date: December 26, 2006 9:53:40 PM PST
To: JimHudock@comcast.net
Subject: Re: I mneed your help

Fedora packages a version of xscreensaver for you. Just install the Fedora "xscreensaver-base", "xscreensaver-extras", and "xscreensaver-gl-extras" packages instead of downloading the source code.

From: "Jim" <JimHudock@comcast.net>
Date: December 28, 2006 10:04:16 PM PST
To: "'Jamie Zawinski'" <jwz@jwz.org>
Subject: RE: I need your help

Why don't you just tell me how to get them from your site, because it takes too long to reinstall the software?

From: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
Date: December 29, 2006 2:50:42 AM PST
To: Jim <JimHudock@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: I need your help

Because if you didn't understand the instructions on the download page, that means it will be far, far simpler for you to figure out how to install Fedora's binaries than compile it from source. It's not easy.

From: Jim <JimHudock@comcast.net>
Date: December 29, 2006 12:14:59 PM PST
To: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
Subject: Re: I need your help
Reply-To: JimHudock@comcast.net

Then you should remove yourself from the download site, if you don't have the patience to tell me.
Since it took you so long to answer me, I had time to figure it out for myself.
I do not need your help anymore.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 40 Comments
Current Music: Ladytron -- Commodore Rock

2006 music wrap-up

28 Dec 2006
Yes, it's that time again...

In only approximate order of favoriteness, here is my year-end wrap-up. As in previous years, a few of the entries on the following list were released earlier than 2006, but that is when I discovered them, so I'm allowing a little slack.

In 2006, I bought in the neighborhood of 180 new-ish albums (I also picked up about an equal number of rather old releases, but those don't really count for this exercise.) That's a whole lot more than last year, and the success ratio was higher. Though 2006 blew chunks by just about every other measure, it has been a very good year for new music. I actually had kind of a tough time trimming this list down to a comparable number of entries as previous years.

(  --More--( 6%)  )
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Current Music: Shiny Toy Guns -- Le Disko

recent movies

28 Dec 2006
I think I've seen more movies than this lately, but I can't remember any others, very probably because they all sucked.

The Prestige

    I loved the book, and I thought the movie did a good job of capturing it. It must have been tricky to adapt, since the book is, basically, two diaries, the first half of the book being the story from one guy's point of view, and the second half from the other's. The movie followed a more linear structure, and I think pulled it off pretty well without screwing up any of the revelations. But, if I hadn't read the book, I'm not sure I would have really understood what was going on: a lot of it seemed pretty glossed over.

The Fountain

    I liked this a lot. It's weird in the way that 2001 is weird, and the effects are great in the way 2001's effects are great. There are 3 interleaved stories, some of which might not really have happened. It's a cool structure. I also liked that the connection between the "present" and "future" stories -- the part where the protagonist finishes his project and changes the world -- is left completely implied.

Eragon

    I only saw this because it was the only movie starting that day at 2pm. Even with my expectations wedged firmly down in the fifth sub-basement, this movie is complete crap. It's approximately as bad as Harry Potter, possibly even as bad as Dungeons and Dragons. Though at least Dungeons and Dragons had beholders. This has no beholders. And the dragon has feathers. Feathers!

Casino Royale

    Certainly the best Bond movie in recent memory, though it gets a little too talky and spends a little too much time psychoanalyzing him. I like that it is not smirky and stupid like most Bond movies, and that the violence is actually ugly. This Bond acts like the thug that he is.

    The "parkour" stuff at the beginning was a pale shadow of District B13.

The Good Shepherd

This is the one about the founding of the CIA. From this movie we can learn that: A) secret agents are emotionless bureaucrats, B) anyone who ever tells you the slightest fib is probably going to try and get you killed, C) LSD is not a good truth serum, D) senators and spies like playing homoerotic scat games. It's long, and didn't quite put me to sleep, but only just.
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Current Music: I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness -- The Ghost

I, for one, welcome our new reptilian savior

20 Dec 2006
Virgin Komodo dragon is expecting
Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

"Those genetic tests confirmed absolutely that Flora was both the mother and the father of the embryos. It completely blew us away because it [parthenogenesis] has never been seen in such a large species," Buley explained. "God is not mocked," he added. "He knows our business."

"The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island," Buley said.

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Current Music: well, obviously

suffering locks in the flavor.

20 Dec 2006
Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds
A species of moth drinks tears from the eyes of sleeping birds using a fearsome proboscis shaped like a harpoon, scientists have revealed. The Madagascan moths were observed on the necks of sleeping magpie robins and Newtonia birds, with the tip of their proboscises inserted under the bird's eyelid, drinking avidly. This was during the wet season, so the scientists think the insects wanted salt, as the local soils are low in sodium.

But sleeping birds have two eyelids, both closed. So instead of the soft, straw-like mouthparts found on tear-drinking moths elsewhere, the Madagascan moth has a proboscis with hooks and barbs "shaped like an ancient harpoon", Hilgartner says.

The team does not yet know whether the insect spits out an anaesthetic to dull the irritation. They also want to investigate whether, like their counterparts elsewhere, the Madagascan tear-drinkers are all males who get most of their nutrition from the tears.

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Current Music: Ministry -- The Nature of Love

bring that beat back

15 Dec 2006
Man with no pulse considered a medical breakthrough
Dr. Renzo Cecere implanted the "Heartmate II" mechanical heart into Gerard Langevin in an three-hour operation Nov. 23. The device, which is about the size of a flashlight battery, could last up to 10 years.

The new mechanical heart, which is powered by batteries located in pouches on Mr. Langevin's body, provides a continuous flow of blood so the patient has no pulse. "Mr. Langevin happens to be the only individual currently living in Canada without a pulse and without a measurable blood pressure," Dr. Cecere said Wednesday.

Previously, previously.

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Current Music: The Spores -- Dr. Rhythm

Putin visits the Batcave

13 Dec 2006
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Current Music: Naked Ape -- Zombie Ape Landscape

bin packing is NP complete.

12 Dec 2006
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Current Music: Veruca Salt -- Blissful Queen