March 2012

"[It's] the start of busy times for dozens of egg vendors across the city, deep in coastal Zhejiang province, who ready themselves to cook up a unique springtime snack favored by local residents. Basins and buckets of boys' urine are collected from primary school toilets. It is the key ingredient in "virgin boy eggs", a local tradition of soaking and cooking eggs in the urine of young boys, preferably below the age of 10." [Reuters]

Wait, ie6 still has *how* much marketshare?

Triaging security@ is so much fun!!!

I played an awful lot of Asteroid on my Atari 2600 this weekend. This inspired me to make a little wallpaper for my desktop to remind me how much I enjoy the game. So here it is, my Atari 2600 Box Art Wallpaper.

I played an awful lot of Asteroid on my Atari 2600 this weekend. This inspired me to make a little wallpaper for my desktop to remind me how much I enjoy the game. So here it is, my Atari 2600 Box Art Wallpaper.

This is going to sound stupid, but nothing makes me feel cooler than hauling arcade games around on the back of my truck. So many collectors never get to show off their collections to outsiders — and when they do, typically it’s done online. Seeing pictures of someone’s collection can be kind of neat, seeing an item in real life is much cooler, in my opinion. I’ve never been hunting so I don’t really know what it’s like to take down a big animal or anything, but … I don’t know, I have this visual image of a caveman returning from the hunt with a saber tooth tiger hoisted up on top his shoulders or something. And the caveman enters his cave where all the other cavemen are hanging out, and throws down the carcass on the floor and it goes BAM and … in that one little moment, he’s the MAN. And that moment, that feeling … that’s how I feel when I’m driving slowly through the neighborhood with an arcade game on the back of my truck. It’s like I’m the caveman. And the arcade game is the saber tooth tiger. And my club is … well, a credit card. And I know deep down that 99% of the people I pass could not care less about the fact that some random stranger is driving around with an arcade game in the back of his truck. When I think back to when I was a kid … there was this family that lived in our neighborhood, the Sloans, and one time we went over to their house and they had an arcade game in their house and I remember thinking that they must be rich. And maybe they were, I don’t really know, but … the point is, especially as a kid who hung out in arcades and liked playing arcade games, the thought of actually ever owning a real, full size arcade cabinet was like … indescribable. It would have been the ultimate toy and the ultimate status symbol all wrapped up into one 300 pound chunk of wood and electronics. It’s not that way any more, of course. I mean, the people I’m impressing, or at least the people I think I’m impressing, it’s not the 10-year-old kids out playing in their front yard. To those kids, I might as well be hauling antique junk off to to the dump. Those aren’t the kids that grew up feeling like a rock star because they got to enter their initials into a Centipede cabinet for achieving the high score. It’s the people my age I get the looks from, the people like me who saved a little bit of their lunch money so they would have an extra quarter or two in their pocket the next time they ran across an arcade game in the grocery store, or the convenient store, or the laundromat. The other day I was delivering a couple of machines over to a friend’s house. Facing to one side of my trailer were two machines, Speed Buggy and Karate Champ. I pull up to a stop light and can feel the guy next to me at the light waving, so I look over and this guy is at first waving, then he points to the arcade games, and then he gives me two thumbs up while he’s grinning from ear to ear. He was obviously pretty excited to see them (I’m guessing he was excited over Karate Champ; nobody gets that excited about Speed Buggy). And then I gave him a nod back and a smile, acknowledging that, at least in that moment, I’m the caveman with a couple of saber tooth tigers on the back of my trailer. And then the light turned green and I turned left and I never saw him again. The funny thing about this encounter was, I think I paid a hundred bucks for that Karate Champ machine. The last time I filled up my truck, the day I was moving those games, it cost me $112. I was literally carrying more money in gasoline in my truck right then than I had invested in that machine. Of course, nobody has good memories of spending their formidable years playing with gasoline … unless they were a pyromaniac or something. Or maybe they sniffed a lot of gas as a kid, and even then, they may no longer have any memories of those years. Over the past decade and a half I bought somewhere around 60 machines, give or take. Of those, 2 I had delivered; the rest I moved myself. Many of those games were located out of state and purchased through eBay. I’ve hauled games from Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. When we sold our old house, I had to move the 30 machines I currently owned to storage. Of those 30, I ended up moving 15 or so to my new house. Of the ones I’ve sold, I’ve delivered many of them. During my time in this hobby I’ll bet I’ve moved 200 machines, maybe more, and every time I drive through my neighborhood or down Main Street with a machine or two in tow behind me, I get that same feeling. And part of it, I won’t lie, is wanting to be seen with those machines, but another part of it, the bigger part of it, is wanting those machines to be seen. Similar Posts: Sayonara, Shinobi. Weekend Summary Cactus Jack’s Arcade Visit Share on Facebook

German publication B.Z. has shed some light on the apocalyptic coming together of the Manilow*, Manson, Del Rey trio, pictured together at the Echo Music Awards in Germany: Marilyn Manson and Lana Del Rey are dating. B.Z. is supposedly in possession of photographic evidence that the once-rumored Wonder Years star and forever-rumored self-fellating rocker is having hotel sleepovers with Lana Del Rey. More »

Today’s Photo of the Day was posted by xnedski and shows a very young programmer learning basic on the Apple ][. I love the ghostly bit of code overlay and of course the all denim outfit. If you take away the computers, this could have been my hometown high school around that same time.

Today’s Photo of the Day was posted by xnedski and shows a very young programmer learning basic on the Apple ][. I love the ghostly bit of code overlay and of course the all denim outfit. If you take away the computers, this could have been my hometown high school around that same time.

bunnyfood: I want to go to the Bear playground

all glory to hypnotic walter white

Best viewed with this song in the background.

Handlebars provides the power necessary to let you build semantic templates effectively with no frustration.

Handlebars provides the power necessary to let you build semantic templates effectively with no frustration.

Those brief stints in which we must turn off our machines—the few minutes between push back from the gate and the extinguishing of the seatbelt sign, and the corresponding blackout at landing time—are something almost unique in modern life. Those rare moments in which our entertainment must come from within, not without. This is a perfect time to reflect on the journey ahead or the trip just taken. An all-too infrequent opportunity to quietly contemplate the world we live in and our place in the universe. A brief calm juncture in our otherwise hectic lives.

The renewed appeal of the Old Fashioned comes as no surprise, Knox says. If anything, this most simple of cocktails makes perfect sense in an increasingly Byzantine world. "Cocktails are getting so complicated," he says, with bartenders using smoke guns, centrifuge-separated juices and barrel-aging behind the bar. "Sometimes you need to step back, and just have a simple, strong drink. You can really appreciate something like that."

he managed to misplace the original source code for that first Prince of Persia game and has been searching for it ever since. Yesterday he found it, and the discovery is all thanks to his father. The three packs of 3.5″ Apple ProDOS disks had been safely stored away in a brown box along with a load of Amstrad copies of his 1984 game Karateka. The problem he faces now is how to extract the code from those old 3.5″ disks to his MacBook Air, but he has a friend on board with the requisite skill set.

he managed to misplace the original source code for that first Prince of Persia game and has been searching for it ever since. Yesterday he found it, and the discovery is all thanks to his father. The three packs of 3.5″ Apple ProDOS disks had been safely stored away in a brown box along with a load of Amstrad copies of his 1984 game Karateka. The problem he faces now is how to extract the code from those old 3.5″ disks to his MacBook Air, but he has a friend on board with the requisite skill set.

COMING IN APRIL! Torani Chicken n' Waffles syrup adds that “is it chicken or is it waffles” allure to cocktails, lattes, sauces, and any deserving recipe. Just add 1/2 - 1 oz. of syrup to any 6-8 oz. beverage, and sandwich your taste buds in history’s stickiest love affair.

@cocktailchron: A poorly made Old Fashioned is the sweatsuit-clad mall-walker of the cocktail universe. http://t.co/Re4qWHZb

In 2006, the Bush White House and Congress whacked the post office with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act — an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who'll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who're not yet born!

It aims to give an interface to git repos (both local and remote) that doesn’t call out to git directly but instead uses pure Python.

It aims to give an interface to git repos (both local and remote) that doesn’t call out to git directly but instead uses pure Python.

BrowserQuest is a tribute to classic video-games with a multiplayer twist. You play as a young warrior driven by the thrill of adventure. No princess to save here, just a dangerous world filled with treasures to discover. And it’s all done in glorious HTML5 and JavaScript.

BrowserQuest is a tribute to classic video-games with a multiplayer twist. You play as a young warrior driven by the thrill of adventure. No princess to save here, just a dangerous world filled with treasures to discover. And it’s all done in glorious HTML5 and JavaScript.

So, a bunch of us made some interactive fiction games, one game per track on the album Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants. The regular tracks are generally short games. The Fingertips tracks are one-move games (however the authors interpreted that). Here’s They Might Be Giants. They have lots of great albums besides this one, and you should go buy them all. Here’s the original post about the tribute, and here are the games. You can play them online via the links below, or you can download them to play offline (updated March 26, 2012, 1337 EDT). See “How Do I Play?” at the left if you’re unsure what to do.

So, a bunch of us made some interactive fiction games, one game per track on the album Apollo 18 by They Might Be Giants. The regular tracks are generally short games. The Fingertips tracks are one-move games (however the authors interpreted that). Here’s They Might Be Giants. They have lots of great albums besides this one, and you should go buy them all. Here’s the original post about the tribute, and here are the games. You can play them online via the links below, or you can download them to play offline (updated March 26, 2012, 1337 EDT). See “How Do I Play?” at the left if you’re unsure what to do.

With Lana Del Rey’s meteoric, blog hype-fueled rise and rapid, SNL -catalyzed descent, the mere existence of MTV’s I Just Want My Pants Back and the trendy…

There was yet another Rush reference on FX's Archer during last night's Season 3 finale Space Race: Part 2 (thanks to Eric at Power Windows for the heads up). In this episode the mural on Krieger's van gets updated with a Caress of Steel-themed mural with the lettering reading Caress of Krieger (screenshot here). This makes the 3rd such Rush-themed mural that has appeared on his van; on the finale of season 2 the van had an Exit ... Stage Left-inspired mural which read Exit ... Van Left (screenshot here), and earlier in season 3 the mural had been updated to a Rush Hemispheres theme (screenshot here). There was also a major Rush reference on episode 8 of season 3 just a few weeks ago. In that episode Kreiger is trying to learn YYZ on his Neil Peart-inspired drumkit. ...

There was another Rush reference on FX's Archer during the latest episode Skin Game (Season 3, Episode 8) which aired last night (thanks to Eric at Power Windows for the heads up). Towards the beginning of the episode, Archer is accompanying Krieger to his lab to see a surprise. When they enter the room there's a large Neil Peart style drumkit in the middle of the room. The conversation proceeds as follows: ...

scary panties

FROM THE APRIL 2012 ISSUE Back to The Final Frontier Neil deGrasse Tyson—the acclaimed astrophysicist, writer, and director of the Hayden Planetarium—lays out…

A paraplegic man claims in court that GameStop and Marshalls violated his civil rights by refusing to let him enter their stores with his assistance animal: a miniature horse named Princess who pulls his wheelchair. Jose Estrada sued GameStop and Marshalls in separate complaints in Superior Court, claiming they denied him and Princess access to their stores in Downey last month. Estrada, who says he "has been a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair, and suffering from overuse syndrome of the elbows, shoulders, and wrists," seeks injunctions and damages of $4,000 from each store. "Plaintiff's miniature horse, Princess, has been individually trained and certified by a professional trainer to assist him by pulling him in his wheelchair," the complaint against GameStop states. "The training further consisted of behavior modification, leading and heeling, turning on forehand and haunches, sidepassing, laying down on command, standing still, entering a handicapped-accessible van and confined spaces, and desensitization." Estrada says that both stores "refused to permit said animal to accompany plaintiff therein, even though they were told that the animal in question was a service animal." The complaint adds: "Princess' height is 29 inches. Her width is 12 inches. Her length is 31 inches. Her weight is 115 pounds. Plaintiff has been professionally trained to control Princess and can do so without difficulty. Defendants' facility is large enough to accommodate Princess. Princess is housebroken. Princess' presence in defendants' facility does not compromise the legitimate safety requirements that are necessary for its safe operation." Estrada seeks damages for violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. Estrada's attorney Morse Mehrban of Sherman Oaks said that neither business was in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). "They haven't been training their employees efficiently to be knowledgeable about people with service animals," Mehrban said in an interview. "But the ADA requires that you implement a policy and train your staff regarding admission of service animals into your place of business. Including miniature horses. Miniature horses are not pets. They're specifically trained to assist a disabled person."

An elderly German man fed up with local children pilfering his Easter decorations has been accused of poisoning a 10-year-old boy with a spiked chocolate bunny. Each year 68-year-old Joerg-Werner Lubbe from the town of Markneukirchen, in southeastern Germany, decks out his yard with tasty Easter treats. And every time, the decorations prove irresistible to children in the neighbourhood, who help themselves. Determined that this year would be different, the Easter scrooge allegedly laced a batch of chocolate bunnies with ammonium hydroxide and hung them from a tree in his front yard. A sweet-toothed 10-year-old fell for the trap and gobbled down a baited bunny. He was violently ill and had to be rushed to the hospital. Police said they were investigating Lubbe for grievous bodily harm and said they found six more poisoned bunnies in the yard. They said adults would have immediately noticed the smell of the chemical, but a hungry child may have been unable to resist the lure of chocolate.

spiritual90s: anorable:amysticism:90s90s90s: Jessie Pinkman (Aaron Paul) from Breaking Bad in a Corn Pops commercial (1999)

source: http://static.tumblr.com

thedailywhat: Animated GIF of the Day: Neil deGrasse Tyson brings his “badass” reaction meme to life at the behest of The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky. [kym.]

teamcoco: From Animal Expert David Mizejewski’s Baby Brown Bear Visit

He-Man has been around since 1980, and it's high time he got a wardrobe update. Illustrator Fabian Ciraolo is happy to oblige, designing new looks for the prince of Eternia and other cartoon favorites: the Thundercats, Jem, Captain Planet, and She-Ra all earn themselves a fashion makeover. Ciraolo's Oldschool Heroes series does look like it came from the Instagrammed pages of an Urban Outfitters catalogue, but he's come up with some fun color schemes for his cartoon fashion play. I can't help but wonder, were spots for Cheetara just too much on the nose? [Fabian Ciraolo via Geek-Art] Some images at both links are NSFW

（╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch: A Visual Examination.

this is not a caterpillar [via]

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.] wait… what is in her mouth?

@mitchellh: Just made eye contact with a child picking her noise then eating the result. Not a single fuck was given by that child.

@cstross: Hysterically (unintentionally) funny Rick Santorum election video: http://t.co/WtGsWdmd - spot the stupidly cheap petrol price halfway in!

@verge: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's life as a meme: On The Verge teaser http://t.co/b8Z099uP

@joshuatopolsky: Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on what it's like to be a meme. A taste from our forthcoming show! http://t.co/H0ppN4hj

Favorite: Robert, in awe!, by nitot

Visual editor sandbox

Cartoonists, illustrators and other artists have used nerds to mean eraser crumbs for more than sixty years. When I worked at newspapers in the sixties, we had a special brush for getting rid of nerds before inking a drawing because the tiny pieces of rubber would cause blots and blobs on the art.

Robinson writes: “If they came to work that drunk, we’d fire them — we’d rightly see them as a manifest risk to our enterprise, our data, our capital equipment, us and themselves. But we don’t think twice about making an equivalent level of sleep deprivation a condition of continued employment.”

Robinson writes: “If they came to work that drunk, we’d fire them — we’d rightly see them as a manifest risk to our enterprise, our data, our capital equipment, us and themselves. But we don’t think twice about making an equivalent level of sleep deprivation a condition of continued employment.”

This introduction to text manipulation on UNIX platforms provides an overview of some common commands widely available and installed standard on most UNIX-based releases. Many times these standard utilities are ignored in favor of more modern text-processors such as Perl, Python, or Ruby, which are not always installed on a system. An introductory review of these tools helps practitioners who are learning UNIX or Linux or those who may be looking to renew forgotten knowledge.

A small library for manipulating the favicon, in particular adding alert bubbles and changing images

fuck this shit

take this [via]

According to Stuff We Like, Bay was speaking at the 2012 Nickelodeon Upfront in New York last week when he said that the Turtles are really ... aliens! Don't believe it? Watch the video below to see for yourself.

@tigerstripe: My cats are my best friends when I'm making Gray's lunch. They're like Bumpus hounds for the turkey.

@johnolilly: Archer in space. That's all you need to know.

Cool. If you have Windows 7 now then you can "boot to a virtual hard disk (VHD)" and get all the loveliness of Windows 8 running on hardware without any risk to your hard drive. Don't like it? Delete the VHD and update your boot record.

Lets walk through a basic node.js program using Test Driven Developement (TDD) and nodeunit. This program asks the user to enter a number, doubles it and returns the result.

As it turns out, regular natural clay litter is made of the same kind of clay that is used in a lot of mud masks you'd pay tons of money for. This isn't going to help your crazy cat lady rep, but hey, nobody needs to know.

I included the image of the Nerf dart next to the Jolt EX-1 in the above picture so you can see the size of this new gun. It's tiny. It fits in your hand, it's easy to conceal, and you can whip it out quickly and shoot someone in the face with it. I would not suggest doing so in a social situation unless you are much larger than the victim. This is why I chose, once again, to test the gun on my children. The surprising thing about the gun, which sells for around under $10, is that it's powerful. Read the comments on this post

Coffee is an amazing drink, isn’t it? I can think of few other drinks that can take on such a spectacular range of flavours and change so dramatically in character with tiny changes in preparation method. And that’s before you think about changing the way in which the beans are roasted. I have been steadily learning how to get good espresso from my Rancilio Silvia, but while the coffee has become much more consistent and pretty good, I knew it could be better. The fruity, acidic, winey flavours of the beans were too dominating, so that the coffee tasted a bit unbalanced. It wasn’t unpleasant at all, but I personally like the more earthy, chocolate, caramel and spicy kinds of flavours to be a bit more prominent. I had got to the point where I could produce the same quality of coffee pretty consistently, which when you consider all the variables involved (grind, dose, distribution of grounds in the basket, tamping pressure, water temperature, extraction time and so on), is something I view as quite an achievement in itself. How could I get more of the rich and sweet flavours in the coffee? After reading what felt like every article ever written on the internet about coffee1, I stumbled on a suggestion that higher brewing temperatures can bring out the ‘darker’ flavours, while lower temperatures emphasise the more delicate, fruity ones. I had to try it out. Keeping all the other variables as constant as I possibly could, I changed the set point of my PID to 3°C higher than its previous setting. I did this in the evening before going to bed, so that I wouldn’t forget to make the change in the morning. It’s an indication of how sadly nerdy, I mean, deeply fascinated I have become with the whole process that I fell asleep thinking about what the coffee was going to be like, and bounded downstairs the next day like a child on Christmas morning. Well. It was like night and day. I could tell it was going to be good from the way it was rolling languidly from the spouts of the portafilter and by the heavenly smell, but the first sip confirmed it. It was rich and spicy with lovely bitter chocolate notes, but that was balanced by the fruity tang I had before. It was even a different texture, with much more body and viscosity. All that transformation from a change of 3°C. This morning I even managed to produce the kind of crema on the top that you see in all the coffee pr0n photos and videos: a deep, caramel or hazelnut coloured gloopy liquid, spotted with paler colours. I was so excited that I yelled at Mr. Bsag, “COME AND LOOK AT MY CREMA! LOOK AT IT!”. He humoured me with a ‘yes it’s a lovely crema darling’ look, but I could tell that he just wanted to drink some coffee. He does agree that it’s dramatically better than before though, so I know that it’s not just my wishful thinking. Next, I will conquer microfoam! Oh dear. I think I may be hooked. On the positive side, it does make getting up at a stupidly early hour much more interesting. Edited to correct the temperature difference, because apparently I can’t do arithmetic when highly-caffeinated. A number that seems to tend towards infinity.↩

@cupofT: Been married for over six months and I still keep looking at my ring and giggling.

Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.

@ejacqui: Welp, fitbit just fell into the toilet.

"(The student now) fears that the school could make her give up her passwords at a moment's notice, at any time, for any reason," the lawsuit claims. It also alleges that password prying is standard practice at the Minnewaska Middle School, which the student still attends. "(Officials) have compelled other students to disclose their private information and have accessed students' online accounts on multiple occasions," it states.

RED is a robot that checks HTTP resources to see how they'll behave, pointing out common problems and suggesting improvements. Although it is not a HTTP conformance tester, it can find a number of HTTP-related issues.

RED is a robot that checks HTTP resources to see how they'll behave, pointing out common problems and suggesting improvements. Although it is not a HTTP conformance tester, it can find a number of HTTP-related issues.

@stlhood: My mother has started calling *me* for cooking advice. I've somehow crossed a life threshold that was never meant to be crossed.

As darkness is covering the multiverse, far away in the galaxy of the wild stallion, a spark of hope is born. Guided by the light of Mother Mustang, the Space Stallions must defeat the Demon of darkness, Destructo.

@ozten: Logging into my cat's Gmail and Twitter accounts. Shocked at the amount of activity.

@ccooper: This beer isn't doing it for me, but perhaps the next one will. #mfbt

Favorite: Mass Effect 3 - Blasto 6 Easter Egg, by IGNentertainment Check out the Blasto 6 Easter Egg that can be found in the Presidium Commons in the Citadel. We've collected every single walkthrough video in this handy playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8MJChLTX_g&list=PLE9A662E2ADBC192C&index=2&feature=plpp_video And if you're just looking for side quests or achievement help click here! http://www.youtube.com/masseffectign For more Mass Effect 3 tips and guides, check out our wiki: http://www.ign.com/wikis/mass-effect-3/Walkthrough

Badassfully, Blasto, you son of a...

@lemay: My future fabulous office will of course need a special place to store my large collection of bubblewrap.

Mass Effect is epic. It's the product of the best parts of Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and more with a protagonist who could be the love-child of Picard, Skywalker, and Starbuck. It's one of the most important pieces of science fiction narrative of our generation. Mass Effect goes so far beyond other fictional universes in ways that you may not have yet realized. It is cosmic in scope and scale.

buttduchess: michael reaches out

Good Guy Lucifer

FireLogger is a server-side library, which provides logging function similar to Firebug's console.log. It sends logging events to client-side (encoded in HTTP headers).

FireLogger is a server-side library, which provides logging function similar to Firebug's console.log. It sends logging events to client-side (encoded in HTTP headers).

Favorite: I Hanker for a Hunka Cheese, by SatAMBrainFood Time for Timer and a nostalgia-coated message from 1970s and 80s ABC Saturday mornings. See more Saturday Morning Brain Food at, fittingly, SatAMBrainFood.com!

Favorite: "Sunshine on a Stick", by halrkane http://www.youtube.com/user/halrkane?feature=mhum Link Sponsored by: NEXXUS INTERACTIVE MEDIA CORPORATION "Time for Timer was the collective title for a short series of public service announcements broadcast on Saturday mornings on the ABC television network starting in the early 1970s." - Wikipedia MESSY, FROZEN, JUICE BRICKS I love the fact that Timer thinks 12 orange juice cubes are a weeks supply of snacks. At 6 years old, I was so impatient that I never gave them the chance to freeze completely, and would scarf them down immediately! My little sunshines on a stick where effected by global warming! I'd check on them every 2 minutes, and after checking on them 5 times, well, they seemed frozen enough to me. I'd "carefully" remove the plastic wrap, which in-turn, would dislodge ALL of my "sticks", and after popping them out of the tray, I was left with 12 messy, partially frozen, ice juice cubes on a sticky dinner plate. There was orange juice still sloshing around inside of them! After picking one up, the juice cube would collapse sending a trail of orange juice cascading down my arms that would pool up under my elbows and drip to the floor. "SPLASH!!!" 12 orange juice cubes didn't last for a week, they lasted 5 minutes! And as far as nutrition goes, I was lucky if I received even .0000002975% of my daily requirement of vitamin C from those messy, frozen, juice bricks! But that was okay, because I was proud to have made a "healthy after school snack" for myself, thanks to some helpful advice from a weird little lemon-drop named, Timer. I hope that you enjoy this treasured blast-from-the-past as much as I do. Best wishes, ~ Hal R. Kane Check out this link for more animated fun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ApKlFduvMA Link Sponsored By: NEXXUS INTERACTIVE MEDIA CORPORATION

A simple implementation of Firebug's Wildfire protocol for node.js

Client: I am calling you about the folders you designed and printed. Me: Yes… Client: The prints are exactly as you showed us in the concept. Me: Yes… Client: We don’t want that.

The majority of the American Juggalo population only gets together once a year, at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos in Cave-in-Rock, Ill., and so it makes perfect sense that the community has now established its very own online base: JuggaloBook is the Juggalos' very own Facebook. More »

"I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke. My remarks about her were false, cruel, and repulsive. There’s no excuse and I offer none. I seriously crossed the line and I am sorry." That's how Limbaugh ought to have apologized, says Emily Yoffe, who writes Slate's "Dear Prudence" column. I agree. A real apology will win you points on both sides. I wonder what prevented Limbaugh from doing this? How Not To Apologize: Rush Limbaugh’s statement on Sandra Fluke was a textbook example of what not to say.

AOL is the latest advertiser to bail on radio host Rush Limbaugh following his description of activist Sandra Fluke as as a "slut" and "prostitute". Reuters' Anthony De Rosa cites an AOL source as saying it's "working on" removing Rush-linked promotions from the site. It's strange to think of website so vast and operationally complicated that one is literally incapable of changing what's on it in a hurry. Perhaps the servers are ringed by moats of lava and defended by crocodiles. Don't you just hate it when that happens? UPDATE. Say hello to bg_hero-NoRush.jpg, who lacks Rush's weirdly coquettish stance, but hints at a greater majesty with his purple attire and Mediterranean countenance.

According to multiple sources both inside and outside the Silicon Valley Internet giant, Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson is preparing a massive restructuring of the company, including layoffs that are likely to number in the thousands. Go to Blog Post

According to multiple sources both inside and outside the Silicon Valley Internet giant, Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson is preparing a massive restructuring of the company, including layoffs that are likely to number in the thousands. Go to Blog Post

Albatros is an incredibly clever adhesive bookmark that automatically marks the page as a reader progresses through a book (video). Albatros was created by French designer Oscar Lhermitte. He’s raising funds for the project on IndiGoGo.

Albatros is an incredibly clever adhesive bookmark that automatically marks the page as a reader progresses through a book (video). Albatros was created by French designer Oscar Lhermitte. He’s raising funds for the project on IndiGoGo.

In other words, get ready for some big shoes to start dropping and very soon.

In other words, get ready for some big shoes to start dropping and very soon.

In case you haven’t heard the news, the PHP project released version 5.4.0 last Thursday. Naturally, I decided it was time to install and give it a try. I chose to install to a clean and bare-bones CentOS 6.2 virtual machine using VirtualBox. I did this for two reasons: 1) I wanted a clean environment for the build, and 2) I wanted to play with CentOS. At the time of this writing, there are not yet any official CentOS RPMs for PHP 5.4, so I had to build PHP from source. What follows are the notes I took during the installation and build process. I hope you find them helpful. Set up a CentOS virtual machine First of all, go grab the CentOS 6.2 netinstall ISO. Depending on the mirror, it will likely be located somewhere like centos/6.2/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.2-x86_64-netinstall.iso (note that I’m using the 64-bit version). Following that, create a new basic VirtualBox VM (512 MB RAM, 8 GB HDD, 12 MB video RAM) for your CentOS installation (use “Red Hat (64 bit)” as the Version) and follow these instructions for a CentOS 6.2 netinstall. I chose the 64-bit version, using the netinstall URL of http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.2/os/x86_64/. Since the VirtualBox video RAM selected is only 12 MB, it won’t boot into the graphical mode shown in the netinstall installation guide. Don’t worry about this. Also, it will make some assumptions (e.g. it won’t install Gnome or KDE), since you aren’t in graphical mode. What you’ll have at the end is a very bare-bones server installation. After installation, I like to power down the VM and adjust my settings to set up port forwarding so that I can shell into my VM from my Mac terminal. Feel free to configure things as you like. See the screenshot for an example of forwarding ports in Virtual Box. Once set up, you can boot the VM and then use your favorite local terminal to SSH to the instance: 1 ssh -p 2222 root@localhost You’ll probably want to create a user for yourself, so that you’re not using root all the time, but since this is a VM on your local machine, it’s not a huge deal. If this was a box out in the open, I’d recommend locking it down and creating a user with much more restricted permissions. Install packages needed for PHP Once logged in to the VM, you’ll need to install some basic build stuff, like gcc, etc. 1 2 yum install man wget yum groupinstall "Development Tools" Next, update iptables to allow connections to the VM over ports 80 and 8000. 1 2 3 sed -i '/22/ i -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT' /etc/sysconfig/iptables sed -i '/22/ i -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 8000 -j ACCEPT' /etc/sysconfig/iptables /etc/init.d/iptables restart For the PHP configuration that I’m using, install the following packages. There will be a bunch of dependencies it will ask you to install. Just say yes to them all. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 yum install libxml2-devel httpd-devel libXpm-devel gmp-devel libicu-devel t1lib-devel aspell-devel openssl-devel bzip2-devel libcurl-devel libjpeg-devel libvpx-devel libpng-devel freetype-devel readline-devel libtidy-devel libxslt-devel For some reason, libmcrypt isn’t available in the main CentOS repositories, so add the RPMForge repo to install it. 1 2 3 4 5 wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm rpm --import http://apt.sw.be/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt rpm -K rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.*.rpm # Verifies the package rpm -i rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.*.rpm yum install libmcrypt-devel Now, the environment is all ready for building PHP 5.4! Build PHP 5.4.0 All that’s left is to get the PHP 5.4.0 release package and build it. Choose a mirror closest to you and run the following commands to configure, make, and install PHP. 1 2 3 wget http://www.php.net/get/php-5.4.0.tar.bz2/from/this/mirror tar jxf php-5.4.0.tar.bz2 cd php-5.4.0/ What you want to enable and build into your PHP installation will vary, but here’s the configure line that I used for this build: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 ./configure --with-libdir=lib64 --prefix=/usr/local --with-layout=PHP --with-pear --with-apxs2 --enable-calendar --enable-bcmath --with-gmp --enable-exif --with-mcrypt --with-mhash --with-zlib --with-bz2 --enable-zip --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --with-iconv --enable-intl --with-icu-dir=/usr --with-gettext --with-pspell --enable-sockets --with-openssl --with-curl --with-curlwrappers --with-gd --enable-gd-native-ttf --with-jpeg-dir=/usr --with-png-dir=/usr --with-zlib-dir=/usr --with-xpm-dir=/usr --with-vpx-dir=/usr --with-freetype-dir=/usr --with-t1lib=/usr --with-libxml-dir=/usr --with-mysql=mysqlnd --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --enable-soap --with-xmlrpc --with-xsl --with-tidy=/usr --with-readline --enable-pcntl --enable-sysvshm --enable-sysvmsg --enable-shmop Assuming the configure script ran perfectly, you’re ready to make and install PHP. 1 make && make install Now, you’ve got a fully-functioning build of PHP 5.4.0 on CentOS 6.2! Trying out the build Now, that PHP is installed, it’s time to try out a few things. Create a simple phpinfo() script, make sure Apache knows to parse .php files as PHP, and start Apache. 1 2 3 echo "

In case you haven’t heard the news, the PHP project released version 5.4.0 last Thursday. Naturally, I decided it was time to install and give it a try. I chose to install to a clean and bare-bones CentOS 6.2 virtual machine using VirtualBox. I did this for two reasons: 1) I wanted a clean environment for the build, and 2) I wanted to play with CentOS. At the time of this writing, there are not yet any official CentOS RPMs for PHP 5.4, so I had to build PHP from source. What follows are the notes I took during the installation and build process. I hope you find them helpful. Set up a CentOS virtual machine First of all, go grab the CentOS 6.2 netinstall ISO. Depending on the mirror, it will likely be located somewhere like centos/6.2/isos/x86_64/CentOS-6.2-x86_64-netinstall.iso (note that I’m using the 64-bit version). Following that, create a new basic VirtualBox VM (512 MB RAM, 8 GB HDD, 12 MB video RAM) for your CentOS installation (use “Red Hat (64 bit)” as the Version) and follow these instructions for a CentOS 6.2 netinstall. I chose the 64-bit version, using the netinstall URL of http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.2/os/x86_64/. Since the VirtualBox video RAM selected is only 12 MB, it won’t boot into the graphical mode shown in the netinstall installation guide. Don’t worry about this. Also, it will make some assumptions (e.g. it won’t install Gnome or KDE), since you aren’t in graphical mode. What you’ll have at the end is a very bare-bones server installation. After installation, I like to power down the VM and adjust my settings to set up port forwarding so that I can shell into my VM from my Mac terminal. Feel free to configure things as you like. See the screenshot for an example of forwarding ports in Virtual Box. Once set up, you can boot the VM and then use your favorite local terminal to SSH to the instance: 1 ssh -p 2222 root@localhost You’ll probably want to create a user for yourself, so that you’re not using root all the time, but since this is a VM on your local machine, it’s not a huge deal. If this was a box out in the open, I’d recommend locking it down and creating a user with much more restricted permissions. Install packages needed for PHP Once logged in to the VM, you’ll need to install some basic build stuff, like gcc, etc. 1 2 yum install man wget yum groupinstall "Development Tools" Next, update iptables to allow connections to the VM over ports 80 and 8000. 1 2 3 sed -i '/22/ i -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT' /etc/sysconfig/iptables sed -i '/22/ i -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 8000 -j ACCEPT' /etc/sysconfig/iptables /etc/init.d/iptables restart For the PHP configuration that I’m using, install the following packages. There will be a bunch of dependencies it will ask you to install. Just say yes to them all. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 yum install libxml2-devel httpd-devel libXpm-devel gmp-devel libicu-devel t1lib-devel aspell-devel openssl-devel bzip2-devel libcurl-devel libjpeg-devel libvpx-devel libpng-devel freetype-devel readline-devel libtidy-devel libxslt-devel For some reason, libmcrypt isn’t available in the main CentOS repositories, so add the RPMForge repo to install it. 1 2 3 4 5 wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.x86_64.rpm rpm --import http://apt.sw.be/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt rpm -K rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.*.rpm # Verifies the package rpm -i rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.*.rpm yum install libmcrypt-devel Now, the environment is all ready for building PHP 5.4! Build PHP 5.4.0 All that’s left is to get the PHP 5.4.0 release package and build it. Choose a mirror closest to you and run the following commands to configure, make, and install PHP. 1 2 3 wget http://www.php.net/get/php-5.4.0.tar.bz2/from/this/mirror tar jxf php-5.4.0.tar.bz2 cd php-5.4.0/ What you want to enable and build into your PHP installation will vary, but here’s the configure line that I used for this build: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 ./configure --with-libdir=lib64 --prefix=/usr/local --with-layout=PHP --with-pear --with-apxs2 --enable-calendar --enable-bcmath --with-gmp --enable-exif --with-mcrypt --with-mhash --with-zlib --with-bz2 --enable-zip --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --with-iconv --enable-intl --with-icu-dir=/usr --with-gettext --with-pspell --enable-sockets --with-openssl --with-curl --with-curlwrappers --with-gd --enable-gd-native-ttf --with-jpeg-dir=/usr --with-png-dir=/usr --with-zlib-dir=/usr --with-xpm-dir=/usr --with-vpx-dir=/usr --with-freetype-dir=/usr --with-t1lib=/usr --with-libxml-dir=/usr --with-mysql=mysqlnd --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --enable-soap --with-xmlrpc --with-xsl --with-tidy=/usr --with-readline --enable-pcntl --enable-sysvshm --enable-sysvmsg --enable-shmop Assuming the configure script ran perfectly, you’re ready to make and install PHP. 1 make && make install Now, you’ve got a fully-functioning build of PHP 5.4.0 on CentOS 6.2! Trying out the build Now, that PHP is installed, it’s time to try out a few things. Create a simple phpinfo() script, make sure Apache knows to parse .php files as PHP, and start Apache. 1 2 3 echo "

Op-ed found on internet: "Who is speaking up for the mothers who, under HHS mandate, have been falsely coerced into feeling that to be a woman means to have 'control' of their own bodies?" Okay, so the author of that op-ed is a fringe Lutheran. Doesn't make it all right, though. Once again, I feel the need to shout: The Handmaid's Tale was written as a warning, not a road map! He goes on to define contraceptives as "death-dealing prescriptions". It would appear that the junior anti-sex league has a posse. (Moderation note: refer to this blog's moderation policy before commenting. Also note that yr. hmbl. blggr. is of the opinion that any quibbling over the absolute right of a pregnant woman to demand an abortion, for any reason, at any point during pregnancy, is symptomatic of misogyny: it implies at a minimum that the quibbler doesn't credit pregnant women with being able to make an informed decision about a matter of pressing personal importance, which is pretty much the bedrock of civil rights.) PS: Don't mind me, I'm just having a bad news week. This nonsense follows hot on the heels of the government deciding that the Way Forward requires them to privatise the Police. Science-fictional dystopias? Take your pick!

“Tourney” is a game that barely exists. It’s the shadow of an idea that slipped into the world last week during a free-wheeling conversation about design, agency, failure, and whether games can make meaningful statements about the nature of tragedy. To help the discussion along we invented a few imaginary games that could serve as stable reference points in unfamiliar terrain. One of the things we dreamed up is Tourney, a game about maintaining one’s integrity in the face of inevitable decline.

“Tourney” is a game that barely exists. It’s the shadow of an idea that slipped into the world last week during a free-wheeling conversation about design, agency, failure, and whether games can make meaningful statements about the nature of tragedy. To help the discussion along we invented a few imaginary games that could serve as stable reference points in unfamiliar terrain. One of the things we dreamed up is Tourney, a game about maintaining one’s integrity in the face of inevitable decline.

If you are a fan of Back to the Future, you may have already heard that last week Mattel began accepting pre-orders for Hoverboards! Other than the fact that they don’t actually hover, these new replica boards from Mattel reportedly look indistinguishable from the ones appearing in the films Back to the Future 2 and 3. Prior to last week, the only way to get one of these was to either order a non-authorized unofficial replica prop or build one yourself. The official boards from Mattel are currently available for pre-order from now through March 20th for $120 (plus tax and shipping). Anyone pre-ordering one of the boards will also receive a scaled-down version of the board, suited for 6″ action figures. As a guy who just dropped $100 on a Wampa rug for his den, I’m still on the fence in regards to this one. While it’s a good looking replica, I’m thinking about waiting until 2015 for the ones that hover to arrive. ;)

If you are a fan of Back to the Future, you may have already heard that last week Mattel began accepting pre-orders for Hoverboards! Other than the fact that they don’t actually hover, these new replica boards from Mattel reportedly look indistinguishable from the ones appearing in the films Back to the Future 2 and 3. Prior to last week, the only way to get one of these was to either order a non-authorized unofficial replica prop or build one yourself. The official boards from Mattel are currently available for pre-order from now through March 20th for $120 (plus tax and shipping). Anyone pre-ordering one of the boards will also receive a scaled-down version of the board, suited for 6″ action figures. As a guy who just dropped $100 on a Wampa rug for his den, I’m still on the fence in regards to this one. While it’s a good looking replica, I’m thinking about waiting until 2015 for the ones that hover to arrive. ;)

Surely it's just a coincidence that Tiana, the only black princess in the storied history of Disney animated films, is the face of Dig 'n Dips watermelon-flavored candy? And that Cinderella Aurora of Sleeping Beauty is the vanilla-flavored dipping stick? Yeah, that's totally a coincidence. Right, guys? Guys? [via Sociological Images] More »

best magneto quote ever

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now. How to make a double racist-grandma: 2 parts whiskey 1 part lemon juice 2 parts seltzer 2 healthy dashes of bitters stir and pour over ice regret your decision

New Comic: Configuration

I received an email from a potential client. My name is Jose. I live in California.  Client: I am interested in one of your illustrations. I have a budget of $30 U.S.D. Me: I am truly sorry sir, but that budget isn’t adequate for my illustration services. Client: I don’t think you understood, thats $30 dollars American, not pesos, amigo. I need that illustration done by tomorrow, in other words…pronto. can you do it? Me: Wow. Client: Yeah, now you get it. That should pay for a whole month of cerveza and tacos.

What we are saying is that Mr. Limbaugh has abused his unique position within the conservative media to smear and vilify a citizen engaged in the exercise of her First Amendment rights, and in the process he debased a national political discourse that needs no further debasing. This is not the way a decent citizen behaves, much less a citizen who wields significant de facto power in a major political party. While Republican leaders owe no apology for Mr. Limbaugh’s comments, they do have a responsibility to repudiate them — and him.

Rick Santorum wants to bring sexy back ... to the 1950s, when he was born.

Marriage is a sacred commitment; it's no kind of small thing to consider. You need to show you mean business. You need to put some effort into a proposal. Jered McFerron did when he decided to rewrite the code for the 1986 NES classic, Metroid, in the C++ programming language. This undertaking wasn't initially to propose to his love, Jenni, but struck as an inspiration mid-project when he knew she was the gal for him.

Marriage is a sacred commitment; it's no kind of small thing to consider. You need to show you mean business. You need to put some effort into a proposal. Jered McFerron did when he decided to rewrite the code for the 1986 NES classic, Metroid, in the C++ programming language. This undertaking wasn't initially to propose to his love, Jenni, but struck as an inspiration mid-project when he knew she was the gal for him.

IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (T-CIAIG) Call for papers: Special Issue on Computational Narrative and Games Special issue editors: Ian Horswill, Nick Montfort and R. Michael Young Stories in both their telling and their hearing are central to human experience, playing an important role in how humans understand the world around them. Entertainment media and other cultural artifacts are often designed around the presentation and experience of narrative. Even in video games, which need not be narrative, the vast majority of blockbuster titles are organized around some kind of quest narrative and many have elaborate stories with significant character development. Games, interactive fiction, and other computational media allow the dynamic generation of stories through the use of planning techniques, simulation (emergent narrative), or repair techniques. These provide new opportunities, both to make the artist’s hand less evident through the use of aleatory and/or automated methods and for the audience/player to more actively participate in the creation of the narrative. Stories have also been deeply involved in the history of artificial intelligence, with story understanding and generation being important early tasks for natural language and knowledge representation systems. And many researchers, particularly Roger Schank, have argued that stories play a central organizing role in human intelligence. This viewpoint has also seen a significant resurgence in recent years. The T-CIAIG Special Issue on Computational Narrative and Games solicits papers on all topics related to narrative in computational media and of relevance to games, including but not limited to: Storytelling systems Story generation Drama management Interactive fiction Story presentation, including performance, lighting, staging, music and camera control Dialog generation Authoring tools Human-subject evaluations of systems Papers should be written to address the broader T-CIAIG readership, with clear and substantial technical discussion and relevance to those working on AI techniques for games. Papers must make sufficient contact with the AI for narrative literature to provide useful insights or directions for future work in AI, but they need not be limited to the documentation and analysis of algorithmic techniques. Other genres of papers that could be submitted include: Documentation of complete implemented systems Aesthetic critique of existing technologies Interdisciplinary studies linking computational models or approaches to relevant fields such as narratology, cognitive science, literary theory, art theory, creative writing, theater, etc. Reports from artists and game designers on successes and challenges of authoring using existing technologies Authors should follow normal T-CIAIG guidelines for their submissions, but clearly identify their papers for this special issue during the submission process. T-CIAIG accepts letters, short papers and full papers. See http://www.ieee-cis.org/pubs/tciaig/ for author information. Extended versions of previously published conference/workshop papers are welcome, but must be accompanied by a covering letter that explains the novel and significant contribution of the extended work. Deadline for submissions: September 21, 2012 Notification of Acceptance: December 21, 2012 Final copy due: April 19, 2013 Expected publication date: June or September 2013

IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games (T-CIAIG) Call for papers: Special Issue on Computational Narrative and Games Special issue editors: Ian Horswill, Nick Montfort and R. Michael Young Stories in both their telling and their hearing are central to human experience, playing an important role in how humans understand the world around them. Entertainment media and other cultural artifacts are often designed around the presentation and experience of narrative. Even in video games, which need not be narrative, the vast majority of blockbuster titles are organized around some kind of quest narrative and many have elaborate stories with significant character development. Games, interactive fiction, and other computational media allow the dynamic generation of stories through the use of planning techniques, simulation (emergent narrative), or repair techniques. These provide new opportunities, both to make the artist’s hand less evident through the use of aleatory and/or automated methods and for the audience/player to more actively participate in the creation of the narrative. Stories have also been deeply involved in the history of artificial intelligence, with story understanding and generation being important early tasks for natural language and knowledge representation systems. And many researchers, particularly Roger Schank, have argued that stories play a central organizing role in human intelligence. This viewpoint has also seen a significant resurgence in recent years. The T-CIAIG Special Issue on Computational Narrative and Games solicits papers on all topics related to narrative in computational media and of relevance to games, including but not limited to: Storytelling systems Story generation Drama management Interactive fiction Story presentation, including performance, lighting, staging, music and camera control Dialog generation Authoring tools Human-subject evaluations of systems Papers should be written to address the broader T-CIAIG readership, with clear and substantial technical discussion and relevance to those working on AI techniques for games. Papers must make sufficient contact with the AI for narrative literature to provide useful insights or directions for future work in AI, but they need not be limited to the documentation and analysis of algorithmic techniques. Other genres of papers that could be submitted include: Documentation of complete implemented systems Aesthetic critique of existing technologies Interdisciplinary studies linking computational models or approaches to relevant fields such as narratology, cognitive science, literary theory, art theory, creative writing, theater, etc. Reports from artists and game designers on successes and challenges of authoring using existing technologies Authors should follow normal T-CIAIG guidelines for their submissions, but clearly identify their papers for this special issue during the submission process. T-CIAIG accepts letters, short papers and full papers. See http://www.ieee-cis.org/pubs/tciaig/ for author information. Extended versions of previously published conference/workshop papers are welcome, but must be accompanied by a covering letter that explains the novel and significant contribution of the extended work. Deadline for submissions: September 21, 2012 Notification of Acceptance: December 21, 2012 Final copy due: April 19, 2013 Expected publication date: June or September 2013

California-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. makes its own (alcohol free) Cascade Hops-N-Mint lip balm and they sell it at their online store. Made using Cascade hop oils and all natural ingredients, this mousturizing balm is a lip saver for all seasons. via Emily Winston photo 1 by boogi & photo 2 by James Peterson

California-based Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. makes its own (alcohol free) Cascade Hops-N-Mint lip balm and they sell it at their online store. Made using Cascade hop oils and all natural ingredients, this mousturizing balm is a lip saver for all seasons. via Emily Winston photo 1 by boogi & photo 2 by James Peterson

Bongo Comics has just released Ralph Wiggum Comics #1, a comic book that features The Simpsons nose-picking character Ralph Wiggums. It is part of Simpsons One-Shot Wonders from Bongo that will also include Milhouse #1 due out in April 2012. In the first of Bongo Comics’ soon to be legendary Simpsons One-Shot Wonders, Ralph Wiggum takes center stage. In his first solo outing, Ralph has a day off of school, is left home alone, and becomes a role model to a new kid in town. Add in some short features by Sergio Aragonés and watch the chaos ensue. via MTV Geek!

Bongo Comics has just released Ralph Wiggum Comics #1, a comic book that features The Simpsons nose-picking character Ralph Wiggums. It is part of Simpsons One-Shot Wonders from Bongo that will also include Milhouse #1 due out in April 2012. In the first of Bongo Comics’ soon to be legendary Simpsons One-Shot Wonders, Ralph Wiggum takes center stage. In his first solo outing, Ralph has a day off of school, is left home alone, and becomes a role model to a new kid in town. Add in some short features by Sergio Aragonés and watch the chaos ensue. via MTV Geek!

A Scottish Fold gives a friendly tap on the arm requesting to be pet. via Daily Picks and Flicks

A Scottish Fold gives a friendly tap on the arm requesting to be pet. via Daily Picks and Flicks

How To Get Coffee on Toothpaste For Dinner

How To Get Coffee on Toothpaste For Dinner

The Art of Video Games is an upcoming Smithsonian exhibit on the evolution of video game art over the past 40 years (video). The exhibit will be on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, March 16 to September 30. For more info on the exhibition see this preview article by Smithsonian Magazine. The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. It features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers. image via Smithsonian American Art Museum, video via Smithsonian Magazine

The Art of Video Games is an upcoming Smithsonian exhibit on the evolution of video game art over the past 40 years (video). The exhibit will be on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington DC, March 16 to September 30. For more info on the exhibition see this preview article by Smithsonian Magazine. The Art of Video Games is one of the first exhibitions to explore the forty-year evolution of video games as an artistic medium, with a focus on striking visual effects and the creative use of new technologies. It features some of the most influential artists and designers during five eras of game technology, from early pioneers to contemporary designers. image via Smithsonian American Art Museum, video via Smithsonian Magazine

Lamar Smith (R-TX), author of the ill-starred SOPA Internet regulation, has an even dumber idea for the Internet. In the name of fighting child pornography, he wants to force ISPs to log everything you do online, then make it available to police and government agents without a warrant. Leslie Meredith has a writeup on the mounting opposition to Smith's latest act of unconstitutional lunacy: However, under Smith’s bill, records of both suspects and ordinary citizens would all be available to any government agency at any time, no warrant required. "This type of legislation goes against the fundamental values of our country where individuals are treated as innocent until proven guilty," Reitman said. "H.R. 1981 would uproot this core American principle, forcing ISPs to treat everyone like a potential criminal." The bill has been forwarded from committee to the full House of Representatives for consideration, which is expected later this year. There is no sign of a Senate version at this time. If the past is any indicator, Smith may be in for a hard fight with activists. He was also sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill that would have shut off access to foreign websites accused of hosting pirated content. But he was forced to withdraw the legislation after massive protests by many of the same opponents who likewise thought the remedy was too harsh for the problem. Child porn law could affect everyone's privacy

Final reminder! I'll be speaking at TEDxCMU tomorrow, and there will be livestream available here.

'Brogrammers' challenge coders' nerdy image Danilo Stern-Sapad writes code for a living, but don't call him a geek. He wears sunglasses and blasts 2Pac while programming. He enjoys playing Battle Shots - like the board game Battleship with liquor - at the office. He and his fellow coders at Los Angeles startup BetterWorks are lavished with attention by technology-industry recruiters desperate for engineering talent. "We got invited to a party in Malibu where there were naked women in the hot tub," said Stern-Sapad, 25. "We're the cool programmers." A poster recently displayed at a Stanford University career fair by San Francisco social-media analytics company Klout tried to woo computer-science graduates by asking: "Want to bro down and crush code? Klout is hiring." Mirrored from jwz.org.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

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epic4chan: Best thing found on chatroulette ever.  画

Sci-fi and action movie fans fixated on the ’80s might want to relocate for the summer to Austin, Texas, where the Alamo Drafthouse will revive Blade Runner, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and other blockbusters from 1982 on the same day as their original releases 30 years ago. The nostalgia-inducing montage video above — made by Tommy Swenson and set to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” (what else?) — powers through a formidable stream of big-budget gore, sci-fi and action spatter from that epic year. “A generation of imaginations were set aflame, and there has never been another stretch of cinematic dynamite to match it,” said Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson in a statement. “These movies endured beyond their opening weekend and decades later they’re forever tattooed on the hearts of movie fans across the globe.” The Summer of 1982 slate, which begins May 18, will also include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, Poltergeist, The Thing, Rocky III and Tron.

Sci-fi and action movie fans fixated on the ’80s might want to relocate for the summer to Austin, Texas, where the Alamo Drafthouse will revive Blade Runner, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and other blockbusters from 1982 on the same day as their original releases 30 years ago. The nostalgia-inducing montage video above — made by Tommy Swenson and set to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger” (what else?) — powers through a formidable stream of big-budget gore, sci-fi and action spatter from that epic year. “A generation of imaginations were set aflame, and there has never been another stretch of cinematic dynamite to match it,” said Alamo Drafthouse programmer Zack Carlson in a statement. “These movies endured beyond their opening weekend and decades later they’re forever tattooed on the hearts of movie fans across the globe.” The Summer of 1982 slate, which begins May 18, will also include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, Poltergeist, The Thing, Rocky III and Tron.

@PaulSharer: I'm developing an eye twitch, it's sort of like a rite of passage in the IT world I think.

Stay energized, healthy and productive while you compute—change from a sitting to a standing position whenever you want. This height-adjustable workstation moves your keyboard and display in one simple motion, making computing comfortable for prolonged periods.

GitHub gives us almost everything we need to do code reviews. Commit, file and line level comments, comment notifications, plus everything else that makes the GitHub experience great. The only thing missing is an easy way to initiate a review. If I want my code to be reviewed, I’ve got to go to GitHub, get the URL (and any other info), then compose an email to everyone I want to review it.

GitHub gives us almost everything we need to do code reviews. Commit, file and line level comments, comment notifications, plus everything else that makes the GitHub experience great. The only thing missing is an easy way to initiate a review. If I want my code to be reviewed, I’ve got to go to GitHub, get the URL (and any other info), then compose an email to everyone I want to review it.

@niseema: I just had to file a bug report for our remote control. @sparklebunny @lmorchard

Juju is DevOps DistilledTM. Through the use of charms, juju provides you with shareable, re-usable, and repeatable expressions of DevOps best practices. You can use them unmodified, or easily change and connect them to fit your needs. Deploying a charm is similar to installing a package on Ubuntu: ask for it and it’s there, remove it and it’s completely gone.

WebDAV implemented as a Django application. The motivation for this project is to allow authentication of users against Django's contrib.auth system, while also exporting different directories per user. Many Django tools and app can be combined with this such as django-digest etc. to provide a powerful WebDAV server.

WebDAV implemented as a Django application. The motivation for this project is to allow authentication of users against Django's contrib.auth system, while also exporting different directories per user. Many Django tools and app can be combined with this such as django-digest etc. to provide a powerful WebDAV server.

Mission Statement: The Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America's great pastimes.

Mission Statement: The Pacific Pinball Museum (PPM) is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America's great pastimes.

Favorite: Looping catsplosion, by 271kochu The perfect ambiance for late-night study. Should loop. Original version with howto http://youtu.be/iNw2YcAK9Wc Looping animated gif http://imgur.com/uWQEI Reddit thread http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/q8h0h/

Under the new PayPal policy, Mark Corker of Smashwords told all the Smashwords authors they would also have to remove paranormal romance that included shape-shifters - if the shape-shifters were to have sex in their non-human forms.

Atari's legendary Pong has captured plenty of hearts and minds over the years. Now, to celebrate its fortieth birthday, the gaming stalwart is offering up $100,000 for you to re-invent it for iOS as part of its Indie Developer Challenge. To be in with a chance of winning the cash, developers are being asked to recreate the time-honored classic in a new and original way. Then, simply submit your idea, or playable demo and keep your paddles crossed. Those creations that make it to the final will get published under the Atari brand as an official release, and you get eternal bragging rights (and the cash). The competition is open now, and you've got until March 31st to be in the game. Feel like a winner? Then bat your eyes down to that source link for the full deets.

SpeechJammer: A System Utilizing Artificial Speech Disturbance with Delayed Auditory Feedback Abstract: In this paper we report on a system, "SpeechJammer", which can be used to disturb people's speech. In general, human speech is jammed by giving back to the speakers their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This effect can disturb people without any physical discomfort, and disappears immediately by stop speaking. Furthermore, this effect does not involve anyone but the speaker. We utilize this phenomenon and implemented two prototype versions by combining a direction-sensitive microphone and a direction-sensitive speaker, enabling the speech of a specific person to be disturbed. We discuss practical application scenarios of the system, such as facilitating and controlling discussions. Finally, we argue what system parameters should be examined in detail in future formal studies based on the lessons learned from our preliminary study. Mirrored from jwz.org.

Red Lobster Offers New 'Top Hat Full Of Shrimp' To Attract Wealthier Customers

Red Lobster Offers New 'Top Hat Full Of Shrimp' To Attract Wealthier Customers

Rush Limbaugh's trembling jowls think Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown grad student who was denied the right to testify at the House Oversight Committee's hearing on contraceptives, is a big fat slut. A whore. A harlot. A big time prostitute. More »

Today’s Photo of the Day was posted by Alice Tiara and shows who I think is a young child (maybe Alice?) playing on the greatest gift a young kid could get in the 1970s and 1980s, a Commodore PET. Since this is how many kids from that generation were introduced to computers, this should be have been the photo they used in the ad for the PET.

Today’s Photo of the Day was posted by Alice Tiara and shows who I think is a young child (maybe Alice?) playing on the greatest gift a young kid could get in the 1970s and 1980s, a Commodore PET. Since this is how many kids from that generation were introduced to computers, this should be have been the photo they used in the ad for the PET.

I have never received what I liked to call a “fancy cake” for my birthday or any other special event. Every week I spot one online and think, “that’s the one I want!” This week, it is this delicious and well made cake that was posted by Mazola1980 of everyone’s favorite robotic hero, R2-D2.

I have never received what I liked to call a “fancy cake” for my birthday or any other special event. Every week I spot one online and think, “that’s the one I want!” This week, it is this delicious and well made cake that was posted by Mazola1980 of everyone’s favorite robotic hero, R2-D2.

Loft Apartments Converted Back To Mayonnaise Factory

Loft Apartments Converted Back To Mayonnaise Factory

Bronies are on the march. One of the strangest, most volatile fanbases on the internet has exploded over a tiny change to a beloved character on the children's cartoon "My Little Pony." More »

Yep. Sorry to have to inform you. REST is totally over. The cool kids are moving on. We're building "Hypermedia APIs" now. Such is life.

Originally, this post was titled "A RESTful Reading List," but please note that REST is over. Hypermedia API is the new nomenclature. I've been doing an intense amount of research on Hypermedia APIs over the last few months, and while I didn't save every resource I found, I've made a list here of the most important.

Favorite: Catsplosion, by 271kochu A superstructure, kept upright by a constant flow of cats. I'm kidding, it's just a fountain of cats. Jump to 1:48 if you just want to watch the cats pourr Looped animated gif http://imgur.com/uWQEI Looped video of just a stream of cats http://youtu.be/Pad-a98MV78 Reddit thread http://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/q8h0h/

The Binding of Isaac is only $4.99 on Steam, and it's available for both the PC and Mac. We won’t be seeing Edmund McMillen’s The Binding of Isaac on 3DS, unfortunately. McMillen revealed over Twitter that Nintendo has denied the game’s possible port over religious concerns. “Attention: After a long internal debate Nintendo has decided NOT to allow the Binding of Isaac on the 3ds. :(“ said the designer. “As many assumed the reasons were due to the games "questionable religious content". Thank GOD Steam exists!” The Binding of Isaac is not the next game from Team Meat, McMillen’s other outfit that produced 2010’s Super Meat Boy. Team Meat is working on another project, and McMillen made The Binding of Isaac as a post-release breather. The game’s best described as, well, a Zelda-inspired roguelike. You should really play it.

The Binding of Isaac is only $4.99 on Steam, and it's available for both the PC and Mac. We won’t be seeing Edmund McMillen’s The Binding of Isaac on 3DS, unfortunately. McMillen revealed over Twitter that Nintendo has denied the game’s possible port over religious concerns. “Attention: After a long internal debate Nintendo has decided NOT to allow the Binding of Isaac on the 3ds. :(“ said the designer. “As many assumed the reasons were due to the games "questionable religious content". Thank GOD Steam exists!” The Binding of Isaac is not the next game from Team Meat, McMillen’s other outfit that produced 2010’s Super Meat Boy. Team Meat is working on another project, and McMillen made The Binding of Isaac as a post-release breather. The game’s best described as, well, a Zelda-inspired roguelike. You should really play it.

bullseye

joost5: Here’s Ricky!

I’m on JoCoCruiseCrazy 2, and I’m taking an Internet vacation until I get home. So every day while I’m gone, something from my archives will post here automatically, for your entertainment. I had a lot of fun picking these different things out, and I hope you enjoy them again, or for the first time. This isn't a book; it's a time machine. Originally published March 2009. This is where it all began for me: the D&D Basic Rules Set. When I opened this book in 1983, I had no idea that it would change my life. Back then, if you told 11 year-old me that I'd be 36 and wiping tears from my face because reading it brought back so many joyful memories, he would have called you one of the names the cool kids called him for playing it. (Don't judge him too harshly; he's only 11.) My original D&D Basic set was a garage sale casualty, but the book in this picture is a first printing that I bought at a game store about ten years ago. It's perfect in every way, except for a missing character sheet in the middle, which I printed from the PDF copy I bought from Paizo last year. The Keep on the Borderlands module beneath it belonged to someone named Randy Richards, who wrote his name and phone number (as we so often did in those days) on the cover. I don't know who Randy Richards is, if he cares, or if he'll even read this, but if he does, I want him to know: your book is in very good hands, Randy, and its current owner loves it as much as anyone could. I've been on a real D&D kick lately (blame the Penny Arcade podcast, and how much I love 4e) but I hadn't actually gone back to the beginning and read the Basic Rules for a very, very long time. So late last night, after my family went to sleep, instead of watching TV or reading blogs, I went to my bookshelf and grabbed the Player's Manual you see in this picture. I read it cover-to-cover for the first time in over 20 years, and played the solo adventure, which was the very first dungeon I ever visited. I named my fighter Thorin, just like I did when I was a kid. I made a map on graph paper, rolled dice on the floor, and felt pure joy wash over me. I scared off a Giant Rat and killed the remaining two before I failed – like I did when I was 11 – to solve the riddle of O-T-T-F-F-S-S, losing all my treasure. I tried to talk to the Goblins ... before I killed them and took their treasure: 100 sp and 50 gp. I battled the Rust Monster, who was just as tough and unreasonable an opponent for a first level fighter as I remember. Thorin eventually managed to defeat it with some ... creative ... trips back to town to replace his armor and weapons, just like he did a quarter century ago. Luckily for him, the Rust Monster didn't heal between battles ... just like the last time he faced it. I decided to leave the skeletons for another time, and walked back to town with my 650 gp and 100 sp. When I calculated my XP, I had earned 1084 ... not too shabby. I closed up my book, and went to sleep happy. When I was a kid, the D&D Basic Rules Set was never just a game to me; it was my portal into a magical, wonderful world that I still love. Now that I'm an adult, it isn't just a couple of books to me; it's a time machine. The world I live in is filled with uncertainty and occasionally-overwhelming responsibility, but for an hour or so last night, I was 11 years-old again, and I went back to a world where the biggest problem I faced was trying to save up for a Millennium Falcon. When I read "You decide to attack the goblins before they can get help..." I could hear my Aunt Val tell me “That’s a game that I hear lots of kids like to play, Willow. It’s dragons and wizards and those things you liked from The Hobbit. The back says you use your imagination, and I know what a great imagination you have.” I could feel the weight of my Red Box, which I carried with me pretty much everywhere I went, and how huge the thing felt in my tiny arms. I could feel it get heavier as I added modules and characters, and my own dungeons, drawn on graph paper. I could hear the snap of the thick green rubber band I eventually had to wrap around it, and I could see the yellowing scotch tape I added to the corners. I enjoyed it so much, I'm going to reread the Dungeon Master's Rulebook next, and run the Group Game adventure it contains, "for use by a beginning Dungeon Master." Then, it's time to go back to the Keep on the Borderlands, using just the Basic Rules, where Magic-users can't wear armor, Fighters have 8 HP, Dwarf and Elf are classes, and everyone dies at least once before finally taking a character to second level, because that's where it all started for me, and sometimes you just have to go back to your roots.

@dreid: I get a little sad when I run across a project on bitbucket…

A LOT of people are having the problem that the xbox turns on automatically when you plug in the power and then they must unplug it to turn it off. This is going to help most of those people I hope.

A LOT of people are having the problem that the xbox turns on automatically when you plug in the power and then they must unplug it to turn it off. This is going to help most of those people I hope.

It has been pointed out by chunkhead from the afterdawn.com and llama.com Forums that some X-Box motherboards have a corrosion problem on some traces. This corrosion is due to some sort of contamination from the factory. Due to this corrosion, it was found that some X-Boxes affected can produce the following symptoms: (1) The X-Box fails to power down using the power on/off button on the front panel. The power cord has to be pulled out to shut it down. (2) As soon as the power cord is plugged in, the X-Box powers up without pressing either the on/off or eject buttons. (3) While the X-Box is on for a certain amount of time, it shuts down by itself for no reason. The time factor before shut down can vary wildly.

Favorite: , by mozillaeu

GrabBox is a utility that reacts to the screenshots you take. It automatically copies the screenshots to your Dropbox Public folder, and then copies the URL to the clipboard – ready to share with friends or strangers!

GrabBox is a utility that reacts to the screenshots you take. It automatically copies the screenshots to your Dropbox Public folder, and then copies the URL to the clipboard – ready to share with friends or strangers!

@devonpersing: @chtxristina Suggested new rule: don't drink a full pot of anything before bed.

Patents are supposed to reward innovation, but in the software industry, they are having the opposite effect. The patent system has become a minefield that punishes innovators who accidentally infringe the patents of others. There are now so many software patents in force that it is practically impossible to avoid infringing them all.

So of course I was super excited when I saw these for Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes on Cupcakes Takes the Cake. The cupcakes were made by Zoey Cakes in Baldwinsville, NY.