This is probably irrelevant for anyone reading this (I suppose it might have been when whoever you all are were in university), but that's okay. I have found that I do not like receiving paper assignments torn from a spiral notebook that hasn't been properly trimmed or torn along the perforation. It's just plain annoying (uncomfortable to handle, ( Read more... )

So, you know what takes up time? A dissertation prospectus. But hey, that's done with! Now I just have so much time...

Let's see how short I can make this ( Read more... )

Okay, so first I was at Language Log. I followed a random link to Josh Millard's blog, and from there to his project: Garkov, which generates new Garfield strips from a Markov model trained on previous strips. On that page there is a link to Lasagna Cat, which does reenactments of Garfield strips. Those are hilarious in their own way, but the best ( Read more... )

I've spent a good part of the past week watching all of season 5 of 24 on DVD (don't worry, this will be basically spoiler-free). At one point, it comes about that most of LA's streets are empty of vehicle traffic except for police and military traffic. Then, when it comes time to do some tracking of vehicles, there is, as usual, scrambling to get ( Read more... )

Yes, I still exist ( Read more... )

AMC is playing Terminator 2, and there's a part where he's explaining to John Connor how he was sent by the future Connor, and then a bit after that he's explaining the abilities of the T-1000, and I just had a vision. What if the Terminator was retroactively a politician? You could get lines like, "Don't worry John. In the future I will cripple ( Read more... )

Ah, coincidences. As it turns out, one of the more memorable lolcat photos I've seen, INVISIBLE SWIMMING POOL, was taken by someone I know! Actually, it was my girlfriend who noticed the striking resemblance to the cat found by a couple of our college classmates when they were in Egypt. Personally, one of my favorites is this one.

Up there in the idiotic marketing taglines and slogans is Splenda's "made from sugar so it tastes like sugar." The inference is false, and as far as I'm concerned, Splenda tastes pretty damned bad (whereas sugar as a sweetener is just about okay ( Read more... )

A couple weeks ago I got my first car-related ticket: missing a front plate. Since this is the sort of ticket, as my girlfriend so kindly informed me, that can have its fine reduced if you fix the problem, I had that fixed and prepared myself to get official approval from a law enforcement officer, as the ticket instructed me to. So I went to the ( Read more... )