Preference Personnelle
"I believe that God wants me to be President."
This
Frontline, 'The Jesus Factor,' about Bush and religion, is definitely worth seeing. And by that I mean infuriating. They don't even know how much money--at least a billion dollars, though--has gone to faith-based charities. They do know, however, that, although groups representing non-Xian faiths have applied for some of this loot, none of them have gotten paid. Here's a
page suggesting that Bush is using religion as a factor in appointing people, which is, of course, illegal.
I wonder if it'll air opposite this '
Nightline,' with the reading of the names of the dead soldiers. I also wonder about
ratings. Oh, here's an anti-PBS
op-ed, via mefi.
Hey, another BlogSpot page:
Supermodel Personals.
"You are spending all your money on presents. You get a book that you like very much. At last you are relieved of the terrible itch that has been bugging you for so long. You are afraid to get locked up, but there is no reason to be afraid. Kicking under pressure is nothing for you."
--via Harper's, a
horoscope from Dutch magazine
Mainline Lady.
Also, I read last night, in an Arkansas newspaper, that Roberta Flack's '
Killing Me Softly With His Song' is actually about
Don McLean and '
American Pie'. The paper, actually, said that the Flack/Fugees song is about McLean, which might be stretching things a bit.
The Tech:I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?
Jack Valenti: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.
The Tech: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?
Jack Valenti: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.
The Tech: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.
[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “
qrpff” DVD descrambler.]
The Tech: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.
Jack Valenti: You designed this?
The Tech: Yes.
Jack Valenti: Un-fucking-believable.
Via
slashdot, here's an
interview Jack Valenti did with an
MIT student
newspaper.
"Miguel, you want to know what the South is like, ask me, or any Southerner. We'll tell you, and it will be simple, concise, and true."
Here's a good CJR
article, great mefi
discussion.
Make your own
kaleidoscope. No,
really. And
perpetual-motion machines. No,
not really.
Also: a
lyrics site that isn't a big scamola? Okay, I guess I'm not sure, but give it a
shot.
Ooh, I sure do like
Kenneth Snelson's sculptures. Here's a Slate
slideshow. And he may have discovered/invented
tensegrity, though
Bucky Fuller seems to have coined the word.
I also remember reading about
tensegrity in relation to
noted fake anthropologist Carlos Castenada (same word, entirely different context--this tensegrity is, like, Yaqui yoga. Forgive my editorial laugh.), probably in Amy Wallace's
book about her years with the, uh, guru. This is something I have not abandoned my plan to write an entry about, though, like, yeah, it's not like anyone gives a shit.
As long as we're looking at Slate slideshows, here's
John Currin. Oh, and that wonderful SFPL exhibit, '
Reversing Vandalism,' which is why I started this post in the first place.
When you hear the phrase 'red versus blue,' what do you think of? Maybe the recent discussion about liberal vs. conservative states? Maybe those short
films made with Halo? Maybe something else? In any case,
here's
a link.
Is there a blog that just posts links to silly Flash games? If not, why the hell not? Here's
another, at any rate, via
mefi.
Also,
Kirk Cameron.
Hey, here's a benefit to being a longtime Blogger user: I just signed up as a
Gmail beta tester. Wanna help me fill up that gigabyte of storage space? It's easy. Assume, of course, that any messages you send have no security or privacy whatsoever.
Also, Doonesbury's B.D. just lost a leg in Iraq. Here's
mefi discussion.
Via
metafilter, a
Slate series about the Nobel Prize sperm bank (not its actual name.)
Also, a bunch of
Bulwer-
Lytton contest stuff (the last one's an
imposter--San Jose State had better watch its back).
Mefi bonanza:
The Simpsons and...;
The Counter-Clinton Library;
ruins and
decay.
And, a slashdot post about random shuffle, organizing large mp3 collections, iTunes,
etc., and related info from
MacSlash.
All this said, I'm pretty content with
Winamp 5 myself. That
Media Library is ni-i-ice. Also, I just switched my
iRiver to shuffle-all mode. I am already wondering how long the experiment will last.
Here's another
recent-lj-photos page. Prediction: Someday fairly soon,
Livejournal will offer this service themselves.
Update: Here's
another. And now I'm going to lunch.
Google
Google-Watch
Google-Watch-Watch
Touched off by this Metafilter
thread about Amazon's new
A9 search engine.
And here's
Grow, a bewildering, compelling Flash game.
That Donald Trump show, The Apprentice? Here's a Morning News
article, apparently about someone who lives near one of the contestants. Here's discussion on
Metafilter and
Television Without Pity. Also,
vintage glasses. Where can I get some '80s Mikli frames like Keith Haring, or perhaps some '80s Cazal frames like the Fat Boys?
This documentary,
Dark Roots, about Anna Nicole Smith, is really entertaining. And VH1 is re-running it as an episode of that
Driven show.
Ooh, the iRiver folks announced a schedule for
firmware updates. I wonder if they'll stick to it. I also wonder, much more avidly, how people are doing porting
Rockbox.
Also, here's a mefi
thread about that recent-lj-photo page, and one about the old
jesus petition email harvest scam. Wild thing: the privacy policy seems to be getting updated as I write this.
I had no idea that Slate writes about food so much.
Healthy fast-food offerings,
haute cuisine, they've got it all (the latter via
Metafilter). And more mefi stuff:
Japanese porn dictionaries, and a great
Law & Order site. Ooh, and
kanji tattoos. Also,
dumb tattoos (Steve-O).
One of my coworkers has been on a personal phone call for over a little over half an hour.
More more more:
Annotated Beastie Boys lyrics. It's gotta be better than
OHHLA.
Recently-posted lj pictures, and
Random Personal Photo Finder, which I may have linked to before. Both via the underrated
memepool, though the former has come up on linky sites before, and the latter got posted to the
lj_nifty community.
Wow, how often is it that there are two television programs that I'm interested in watching, airing at the same time? Pretty frequently, probably, I just never notice. In this case, it's Condi Rice and a
Frontline about obesity and the diet industry. Sample quote: "What's amazing is that people can live in this environment and
not become obese." Will they come around to saying that fat people are themselves to blame? Yes. We've just got to eat healthier, and less, and exercise more. Eureka. "Nobody ever got rich selling self-control." Ooh, if things keep going the way they are, obesity will pass smoking among preventable causes of death for Americans.
Update: there's also an episode of
Making the Band II on. I should watch more television. Or much, much less. Also, how silly is the lightly-customizable
Toyota Scion?
And, upon some recommendation from who knows where, probably one of
these places, I decided to listen to Beatallica. Let me diplomatically say that one would have to be a very, very big Metallica fan to find this even slightly enjoyable. It was like... was anyone, I mean anyone in the world, watching
Jim Breuer's bit on MTV's
Metallica tribute program? I thought pot was supposed to make things funny.
Colin Quinn said that, about Breuer, at a Comedy Central roast for himself. And
Colin Quinn, I think we can all agree, knows something about not funny.
Though not perhaps as much as
Dennis Miller. Have you seen that talk show of his? Nobody else has, either. It's like the
Daily Show, only it's on
CNBC, it's just
Dennis Miller and it's just not funny.
I seem to recall posting about this a long time ago, but here's another
50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers (via
mefi), and a quiz about the
coelocanth (
ditto). And
eyeball jewelry. And here's a page about
linguistic variance. Aunt and aunt, and like that. Ooh,
Trackmania, apparently a racing/puzzle game. I've yet to try it. And Twisp and Catsby
wallpaper.
Also, note to self: write about Amy Wallace, Carlos Castenada, etc. Also, is this the
fan I want?
Maybe. I hear good things about Panaflo fans from folks at the
Sudhian forums, and I am, after all, something of a fan of Matsushita/Panasonic/Technics/etc. products. Next step after the replacement 80mm fan will be a quieter
power supply (or maybe just a replacement fan for the existing one), and after that replacing the
northbridge fan, either with a quieter model or with a
Zalman passive cooler. Aww yeah, quiet computing.
Here's a
RealAlternative link.
Via
slashdot, here's an article about
bizarre old-school video game plots. Also, an essay about life after the
video game crash, which is scheduled for sometime shortly after the current next-gen consoles come out.
What kind of teenagers have the highest rates of smoking? Why,
minority-sexuality girls, that's who. Also, John Stossel writes about rich
assholes getting
fatter off of Uncle Sam's teat. Both via mefi.
Also, related to my ongoing shell-replacement quest, here's a page about
BlackBox for Windows.
I just got one of
these, and lemme tell ya, it's one snazzy lighter. It's a sort of hybrid, half one of those modern jet-burner lighters and half a traditional flame, and let me tell you, this is definitely a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Combined with my
Zippo MPL (for candles), I think all my flame-creating needs will be met for the foreseeable future. I'd strongly recommend both.
Ooh,
newsmap, that's snazzy. Via
slashdot. And from mefi,
littlefluffy.com. It's Flash-game city.
