What be yer favorite ports o’ call? Where would ye want to hoist a mug’o’rum, were ye given a large pile ‘o’ booty to finance yer stay? I may not be an official Friday Five member, but sometimes the questions are interesting. I’m going to be more specific than some of the other people who posted about this. I’m going to talk about establishments… 1. Coffee Beans, a little coffee shop in Iksan, South Korea. It’s the best coffee shop in town. Now, wait, which one am I talking about? There are two, an old one where I have lots …
Category: WTF
Who Can We Blame for the Power Failures in Canada A While Back?
Yeah. You just knew it, didn’t you? Damn Microsoft. This comes to you courtesy of Dan Hon’s ext|circ. And yes, today seems to be trackback day. I’ll stop after this and go watch a movie and get to bed. I swear. I won’t even reinstall my aggregator. I can do that tomorrow. Really!
Celestial Music
I’ve heard of celestial music, but I’ve never heard of the music of black hole. And of course none of us will ever heard it, since it’s way too deep for any of us to hear… 53-odd octaves below middle C. But it’s there, and it’s a B-flat. Then again, apparently the Earth has it’s own music, too. And Myoung says that some Russian Symphony orchestra’s gonna make music in Jeonju next Wednesday. Smetana and Dvorak and all… so even Jeonju has celestial music of a sort.
Human Cargo and the Limits of Domestic Security
AP Wire | 09/10/2003 | Man Charged for Shipping Himself As Cargo Yes, really. I found this on Epiphany in C. Here’s the thing. I wrote this article right after September 11th, arguing that the problem is, there are weak spots all over in the armor of the American system. I really do think they exist in such massive numbers that for the American government to find them all is impossible. Maybe with enough encouragement and publicization, enough cranks and loudmouths will think up the crazy things terrorists might do, and if the government listens to them (instead of arresting …
Smashing a Stupid Argument Against Gay Marriage
Gallamine.com – William Cox I was following one of the blogsnob links served up to my webpage when I came across William Cox’s page Gallamine. While looking about I came across a ludicrous little article on why banning gay marriage is just. So I posted the following comment there, responding to others comments and then to the article itself, and decided to reproduce it here because it’s long enough to warrant reposting and because I think I argue well.
Declinism and America
Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / That sinking feeling Is America on the decline? That’s the premise of the novel I am working on, but it’s not as if I came up with the idea. Here’s a fascinating article looking at the various theories alleging America is, or is not, on the decline. I agree with the final point, at least, which is: Maybe civilizations do not devolve, as theorists of decline fear, but rather evolve, as from Darwin’s tangled bank where there is no perfection, merely complexity and fluxand where there is always something growing where …
Why George Bush is a doubly a C*NT
The update first, so I don’t get a bunch of corrections. Yes, I checked with Myoung Jae and he’s pretty sure joji is a slang word for a boy’s naughty bits and not a girl’s naughty bits. So this story is slightly less funny. But I’m leaving it up since it still means George Bush is a dink and a p*ssy. And I am censoring this to avoid getting porno search freaks bombarding my site with complaints.
Chinese On The Moon? Indians in Orbit?
Sure, everyone’s heard about the Chinese Space Program and the Manned Missions they’re planning, right? And the Moon Base they want to build? Whether as the butt of jokes around the world, or the subject of excitement (mainly on the part of the Chinese), it’s hardly escaped notice. But I hadn’t heard about India’s program until today. Indian Prime Minister Announces Mission to Moon Bangalore – Aug 20, 2003 The Chandrayan-1 mission, announced by the Prime Minister yesterday (August 15, 2003) during his Independence Day address to the nation, represents India’s foray into a planetary exploration era in the coming …
Earthstation5: Palestinian P2P
WELCOME TO EARTHSTATION 5!! Here we go. I’ve been expecting this for a while, though I guess I was imagining it would be in Turkish Cyprus or maybe Uzbekistan. Where’s the best place to run a P2P system from? To launch the updates and administrate the whole thing? Why, from somewhere where the lawyers and suits daren’t go. Napster had reappeared as a for-pay network? Pbbbbbbt. No, no no, they have it all wrong. See Earthstation5: We’re in Palestine, in a refugee camp,” said Ras Kabir, the service’s co-founder. “There aren’t too many process servers that are going to be …
Letters to Bush
As part of a letter-writing lesson at the school where I was teaching until last week, my young students wrote to George Bush during the outbreak of the Second Gulf War. Recently, someone commented that he would like to see some of the letters my students wrote to George Bush. Now, they’re a bit dated, as they were written on March 22nd of 2003, but, I think they’re still interesting. Sure, some kids are only repeating (via translation) what they’ve heard from their parents, or on the news… but the anger they’re expressing is surprisingly strong considering how far away …