boy on a stick and slither

This is insightful: “People don’t stop pretending. They just pretend really boring stuff.”

its like ,274 kelvins out nthereus like ,274 kelvins out nthereu

Ever tried to tiyype with gloves on? it’s fun. but when ‘it ‘ss cold, what can iyou do?

note to self

How to make Ben Rhodes whimper like a little girl: do philosophy really really badly.

Are the Father and the Son ontologically different? No.
Are this man and this man ontologically different? Um….

whimper

thou shalt not commit seppuku

yuletide once more

I welcome in the advent season with festive colors! Unfortunately it meant the emblems just had to go, which is sad. Still, revel in Christmas cheer.

watch out for that physicist!

Wow. Seriously, just wow.

I got a chance to play it about half way through…. simply amazing. The beginning is especially a treat as they get that distopian feeling just right: the propaganda and omnipresence is just overpowering. And the terror of Ravenholm is just so thick.

But the most amazing part is the interactivity. Everything can be played with. There’s a playground in the city near the beginning, so I got a chance to mess around a bit. The swing swings; the teeter-totter totters; the merry-go-round…. goes ‘round. I gotta tell you though: putting the doll on one end of the seesaw and then tossing a brick on the other end is loads of fun. (Hint: it goes flying! Hehehe.)

While there were a few dragging points, overall the immersive experience kept my interest the whole time. Even when the gameplay was slow, it gave me a chance to take a look at the level of detail present in everything. Amazing.

newfound respect for moms

Unlike Jonathan Rowley, I have a renewed respect for mothers everywhere. This mostly comes from cooking a respectably complete Thanksgiving dinner at the Manor. Whoa. Lots of effort. We had the works: turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and some wicked-awesome “international” green bean casserole.

In closing, our house rules.

msn, say hello to robots.txt

Hi, msnbot. Nice to see you here. Let me introduce you to a little friend of mine that I like to call the ‘Robots Exclusion Protocol’, or ‘robots.txt’ for short:


User-agent: *<br />
Disallow: *.cgi<br />
<br />
User-agent: *msn*<br />
Disallow: *<br />

The idea is that you do as I say, but hey, if you’re not cool with that, screw you.

events

My roommate just got engaged a couple of days ago. Go read the story! Congrats and mad props to him.

In closing, my other roommate:

E.Z.L.A.

Here I am, never thought I?d be
Among the drifters and directors, a place for me.
It?s nothing like I thought it was after all.

Feel the ground; it?s always moving.
Down a mountain through a valley watch it all collide.

Hear the other ocean churning.
Helicopters up above.
While another canyon’s burning,
Rain could wash the hill away.

Easy LA, it?s another beautiful day.
LA, alright, cold like the desert at night.
Cold like the desert at night.

Without the seasons will I know how to change?
Are we helpless to the wind?
Give me something to blame.
For broken promises, smile like the ruthless sun.

Did the money cut the city in pieces?
Take the water from wherever it flows.
Feel the ground, it?s always moving.
Down a mountain, through a valley,
Watch it all collide.



-The Folk Implosion

hungry

Ever have one of those days when it’s 3:00 pm, and you realize you haven’t had lunch yet?

....

No? Well, I guess it’s just me then.

dumb

One button….

It’s just not enough.
Please, think of the users.

by Eternia, what a surprise!

In our house, we have a collection of Masters of the Universe comics. (Don’t ask how we got them.) Now, thanks to the wonder of the internet, you too can enjoy access to the entire series! Cheer as He-man defeats Skeletor over and over again! Gasp as He-man and his heroic friends seem close to defeat! Writhe in agony as they end the comic with groaners:

Um…. yeah.

/pics/haha.jpg /> />

Xanga is currently offline while we perform unscheduled maintenance to the site. [...]

Thanks for your patience,
The Xanga Team

hm, yes.

Two pictures that sum up the online music business:




From this NYT article.

nameless

It’s amazing what a difference seeing a movie in the theatre can make from the DVD. I don’t usually get the chance to see a movie before it comes out in theatres, but I got the Hero DVD from my brother a few years ago before it was released in the US. It’s a great movie. The most significant difference on the big screen apart from just the level of detail visible was the sound (you could hear practically every raindrop in the Go scene) and the translation was worlds better. (With the notable exception of ‘tian xia’ becoming the much weaker ‘our land’ instead of ‘all under heaven.’)

I had come up with the beginnings of a theory of colour in the film on my first two viewings of the DVD, but I wasn’t really able to complete anything until seeing the more insightful translation of the American release. (Possible spoiler warning)


Basically the narrative can be divided into five threads: black, red, blue, green, and white. Each thread is vividly dominated by its color, especially in background setting and costume. The black thread is ‘the present’ in the film’s narrative. The white thread begins as a flashback, but catches up to the black thread and becomes the present at the end of the film. The red, blue, and green threads are all flashbacks, with the green being a flashback within the white.

I believe the key to interpreting the narrative is through an understanding of the five Chinese elements: fire, water, wood, earth, and metal.

The red thread obviously represents fire. In it, the characters are portrayed as passionate, and there is a great deal of rage. This is the only thread in which blood is shown.

The blue thread stands in stark contrast: the characters who were previously portrayed as rash fighters are shown to be calm and collected. The water thread ends around a fight over a stunning mountain lake. Even though the scene is a sword battle, there is a remarkable amount of tranquility shown.

The third and shortest thread is the green. It is a flashback to what is chronologically the earliest point in the story in which two of the characters begin to expand in their skills and mature a great deal. Growth is the dominant theme in the wood thread.


Where I got confused in the Chinese DVD is how the last two threads. Now I think I understand that the black thread represents the earth element. In the film, black is always associated with the Qin empire. It really makes sense for this to be the earth element, since land is what Qin seeks to control. The white thread which comes to meld with the black is that of metal. At first I didn’t understand this, but the white metal is that of swords. It is the thread in which the truth is revealed, and it also concludes with the laying aside of the sword. In the end, the Hero(es) must sacrafice everything for the good of ‘all under heaven.’ White gets subsumed into Black.

There’s more to be said, like which of the three main flashbacks fit into which of the three stages of swordsmanship, but you can figure that out on your own.

If you’ll pardon me, I’ll close with a quotation from Jet Li on Hero and its meaning: “Whenever I work in the United States, the young people say, ‘Yeah, Jet Li! You kick ass,’ because I’ve only shown them that martial arts hurt people. I haven’t had the opportunity to show them that the important thing is not kicking people’s asses. If you understand the yin and yang balance maybe you will grow up.”
How’s that for a positive action-hero role model?

happy deepavali

Today is Deepavali, the Indian festival of lights.

I didn’t see many lights (more than usual), but that is ok. It commemorates the new year in a certain Indian calendar and also celebrates the triumph of their hero Rama.

More on Deepavali.

waiting more....

Fifty more days....

Hurry up and be over, school!

spreading new knowledge

I put up an article on GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection. These are articles I’m writing for my Operating Systems class, but perhaps someone may find them useful outside of that. And then Google will love me.

....waiting.

So, it’s finally November 9th. Where is Firefox 1.0???

Sorry, I’m just impatient. I suppose I should just go to sleep, and then in the morning it will be there. Fine.

some people just dont get it....t get it....

This is just wrong:
http://www.ilovegod.info/

as if anyone needed more reasons

You know if Microsoft claims that their motivation to do a certain thing is “so we can support standards better,” you should probably take a second look.

Here’s a story of how they botched MSN and why their cover-up story was so outlandish. An excerpt which I challenge you to read out loud without laughing:


?All of our development work for the new MSN.com is … W3C standard,? said Bob Visse, the director of MSN marketing, referring to the World Wide Web Consortium, which is developing industry standards for web technologies. ?For browsers that we know don?t support those standards or that we can?t insure will get a great experience for the customer, we do serve up a page that suggests that they upgrade to an IE browser that does support the? standards.

the election is officially over

kill tally

It doesn’t really matter if you think Iraq was handled in the worst possible way. Count the numbers. In Iraq, about 15000 people died in almost two years. Let’s take a look at what Kerry believes in. 857475 people died in one year for his cause. For those of you who are bad with numbers, here’s a visual aid.

Kill count

People killed in the Iraqi war zone in a year and a half:

15000

People killed in American hospitals and clinics in one year:

857475

That’s not even making a distinction between innocents and combatants. Then again, perhaps that’s good. From what I can tell, voters aren’t very good with distinctions of subtlety such as this.

sighted on Biola

Two girls walk into the Student Union Building. They approach everyone they see:

“Are you a Democrat?”
“Are you a Democrat?”

Not having much luck, they move through the building:

“We need to talk to a Democrat.”
“Are you a democrat?”
”...Really?”
”...No, we need to talk to someone who’s really a Democrat. You can’t just pretend you are.”
“Are you a Democrat?”
“Where are we going to find a Democrat?”


They left the building with their search unsatisfied.

i have a test tomorrow

I hate 8:00 am classes. Linear Algebra: no thank you.

tomorrow

I’m not going to say anything about the election yet (except for “Sorry,
Phillipe, maybe in 2008”.) However, I think Abe Lewis has a reasoned, non-frantic explanation of things, which is a rare and valuable thing.

ha ha ha

Q: Why does Michael Moore have a beard?

A: Because he’s never heard of Occam’s Razor!