February 2007 Archives
Amazing what you can come up with on YouTube late at night.
Hey Dylan, check it!
ObWikiLink
My quote is up on Overheard in New York. It's the one with Barn in the title. One or two down from the top. Thing was I lied and said it was on the F train... it was actually on the L, I don't know why I did that. I guess the F train has more street cred?
That an original gameboy. Total brick.
Nice city
From today's NYTimes:
Tezuka sought out a Japanese computer scientist, Ryutaro Himeno, to test his theory. They published a book in 2001 called “Makyuu no Shoutai.†Translated, the title of the book means, “Secrets of the Demon Miracle Pitch.â€
The other day, a regular employer asked me my IQ. I didn't know. My parents never had me tested, and I never contested the decision. I think their rationale was that an IQ test was an essentially useless metric that had no real bearing on my potential for success in life. Which is kind of what I think.
But since Simon asked me, I've been wondering. So, out of curiosity, I went to a couple online sites to get tested. I scored 141 and 139 at http://www.iqtest.com/ and http://www.iq-testing-online.com/ respectively.
I want to take the Stanford-Binet test, but I can't find a place to take it online or any place in the city that offers a paid sit-down test. I could buy a testing kit, which would allow me to take the test myself and administer the test to people, but that would cost me $1000.
Which I don't want to pay. I nearly didn't pay the $6 required for the second IQ test's results.
The scores I got were about what I expected. Over the course of my life, people have often estimated my IQ in the 'high 130s to mid 140s'.
After taking the test and confirming their suspicions, I don't feel any different. It's about what I expected, plus it's kind of arbitrary. It doesn't measure my ambitions, effort, or amiability, which are all important factors in personal success.
But now I know.
This week the Apophis fans at the Association of Space Explorers (ASE) are petitioning the UN for contingency plans for the 1 in 45,000 chance of a collision on April 13, 2036. Apophis was first spotted in 2004 by astronomers worrying about a collision in 2029, but this was later discovered to be nearly impossible. However, after it passes us in 2029 it will swing around again be much closer to hitting us. Contingency plans may include the use of a gravity tractor to push it off course. The Planetary Society is also offering a $50K prize for planting a tracking device on the harbinger of doom. If it does in fact hit us damage is expected to do between 800 and 1400 megatons worth of damage, roughly twenty times the damage of the largest nuke ever made, possibly creating impact winter. Mark your calenders!
You are sitting in the dessert hanging out with your buddies Achyuta and Jagadeep, checking out the old clothes you just traded for a sack of utensils, and then you get hit by a fucking meteorite. From The Hindu news:
" Jaipur: A suspected meteorite today Thursday claimed the lives of three nomads and injured four others at Banchola village in Rajasthan's Bundi district.
Two persons died on the spot and the third at a local hospital, police said.
A crater was formed due to a blast-like situation, police said, adding it might be a blast in explosive scrap which the nomads or `banjaras' had collected from somewhere.
According to fellow nomads, the victims, who used to sell utensils in exchange of old clothes, were sitting in a field when an `ulkapind' (unknown flying object) hit them around 9 a.m., police said. "
Sucks so hard. Interestingly, this would actually be the first recorded case of death by meteorite. Although there are some unconfirmed possible deaths by meteorite, which you find out all about after the click.
My book collection, which I will be adding to LibraryThing book by book as I sorrowfully pack them all away, in preparation for Budapest.
Also video of the Inaugural Kircher Society meeting I cut and thatsplenty founder Steve helped shoot got boingboinged today. So that's fun.
“I’m reading about George Washington still... My attitude is, if they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it and just do what he thinks is right, and make the tough choices necessary.â€
another edit: saw this in last week's times. don't you associate with these people?
Addendum from Book Review Ron Jeremy has a half blind, hairless rat named Fetus.
Highlights:
The word 'scrotum' is ruining this year's Newburry Award winning novel's sales as grumpy elementary school librarians ban the book. The word scrotum is overheard by the main character about a dog getting his scrotum bit by a rattlesnake. The author says this is a true story. Kids get some awesome books. And now it's new with a bunch of folks.
The navy will be deploying dolphins. Linking to dot mil sites makes me nervous.
Non NYT stuff follows including a J. Mann update.
I'm probably running the risk of blogging about stuff no one but me cares about here. I spend literally hours a day on the Guitar Geek guitar rig database. If you fetishize musical gear in any way you must do yourself a favor and check this page out. It is the shit. What makes it so cool is it has handy little pictures of individual player's gear set-up, including signal flow. All the gear is cross referenced. Shown here is the Joy Division guitar set up. Awesome
Last week I attended, Dorkbot NYC, the dorkbot that spawned a million dorks. This was my first time, though I had been meaning to go for ages. To be honest, I was a little disappointed. Although I enjoyed the overall feeling of crowding into a room packed full of people who get visibly excited at the words Arduino, Bandwidth, or soldering, the presentations fell a bit short. I felt a bit guilty because of the four presentations, only one was done by a guy, but that was the one I liked. Oops. His presentation was a kind of data art where he took every State of the Union address and made a visualization tool to that shows everything from language complexity to word frequency and location in the speech. So without further ado I present State of the Union, my fave from the last dorkbot.
....will you be my valentine?
Yesterday, six people were murdered, and many others wounded, by a (as of this writing) random gunman who walked into a mall that I worked at for two years, and drank at for three, and started shooting. When you read this, I'll be on my way back to Salt Lake for the completely unrelated funeral of an overly talented painter and dear friend (see below). Its not ironic, but its still seven more people dead. This has nothing to do with comics.
Is there a more ironic way for humans to die? On the Canary Islands from toxic gas in a tunnel? I'm going to hell, but when I get there, all my little yellow friends who have been subjected to the same fate as these poor people will be there with me.
There's a reason I will never be rich or successful, and I think that reason lies somewhere in my confusion about what this ad is all about. Do people in their parents' basement really need alot of tax help? Can you write off bags & boards now?
Yesterday I received some mail I'm sure we've all had before. A call to donate money and save a starvin marvin, complete with a free gift just for opening the envelope of address labels. I always felt a little guilty when I used those address labels to sticker my father's face during his naptime, knowing that the money used to make those stickers should have gone to the needy children, but that wasn't enough for Unicef. They had to push my self loathing a step further. Yesterday, along with the address labels, came a nickel. A REAL NICKEL. They sent me actual money. With a little note that said, "As a sign of your support, please return this nickel with your contribution -- it might be enough to save a child's life!"
So now if I don't donate, not only am I an asshole, I'm also a theif. Stealing the real actual money straight from their emaciated little fingers. I wonder how many nickels they sent out to people who didn't even bother to open the envelope. If this nickel could save a child's life, why the hell are they sending it to me? I suddenly have this weird feeling that my minimum of a $25 donation would just end up broken down into tiny incriments which would end up in the trashcans of families who already have many many nickels and no starving children.
Poor form, Unicef. Poor form.
...and even if you didn't, the Zoological Society of London has launched the most wonderful site, called EDGE (which stands for Evolutionarily Distinct & Globally Endangered). It was created to raise awareness of unique and critically endangered animals that you have probably never heard of. Two-thirds of the top 100 EDGE mammal species are currently receiving little or no conservation attention. Little guys like The Indri, pictured at left The Long-beaked echidna, and The Long-Eared Jerboa could be DEAD FOREVER, but at least their pictures will live on in the Information Super-highway. However, the point of the website is not to delight us for years to come with its funny little pictures of animals soon to be DEAD FOREVER, but to implement the research and conservation actions needed to secure the little fella's future. It's also a place one can donate money to support local scientists in the conservation effort. Specifically, they aim to see that every animal in their Top 100 most endangered receive attention within the next 5 years.
I wandered into work at four on Monday with a terrific hangover and very little sleep. I was informed by my boss that the woman who was throwing an event for the Climate Project (an event that would be held at my studio the next day) had seen my drawings around the office and was wondering if I could create a large display all along the entryway into the event. I was kind of freaked out, but who could turn down the opportunity to make art all night long, especially for an organization that spreads the teaching of our should-be president, Al Gore.
Long story short, I worked straight from four in the afternoon until one in the morning, got home by one thirty, got three and a half hours of sleep, and went right back to work, painting and hanging from six-thirty until ten in the morning. I don't think I've ever been this productive in my entire life. I'm exhausted. Go to my flickr account to see the rest of it (for a size reference, the giraffe is about as tall as me if I stretch my arms up all the way)
ALSO: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM'S DAD
Combing the NYTimes and BBC as part of my daily ritual of doing as little actual work as possible before noon (this is one of the five Esoteric Tenets of Producing, the remainder of which I'll endeavour to sketch for you in successive posts), I came across not one, not two, but four blog-worthy fuck-ups from around the world:
1.
Two-time Italian Pime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on reason why foreigners should invest in Italy: "Aside from the good weather, we have beautiful businesswomen and also beautiful secretaries."
Mr. Berlusconi can now been seen from space, he's so fierily blazing with embarrassment. His wife just published an editorial in one of Italy's biggest papers asking him for a public apology for publicly flirting with so many women. Berlusconi apologized, publicly. Critics wonder why Hillary never asked Bill for a public apology. The public wonders why Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, isn't smart enough to flirt privately.
2.
An Arizona 12-year-old named Casey Price was just arrested... for actually being a 29-year-old convicted sex offender. Apparently, he was "quiet," so no one noticed, you know, the lack of interest in Spongebob, the raunchy stubble... or the boy-touching.
3.
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden of Delaware announced his bid... right after he said Barak Obama is: “The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.â€
Wow. I wouldn't have the heart to announce my next trip to the shitter after that, but this guy's asking people to vote him into the Oval Office. That's not kablamo.
4.
Finally, and best of all, the city of Boston is suing Ted Turner over Aqua Teen Hunger Force ads that use harmless magnetic lights to, well, light up Err and Ignignot as they flip off passing motorists. But no one's mad about the Mooninites' vulgar hand motion; Boston's mayoral office is mad because they mistook the remarkably cartoonish and non-terrorizing ads for terrorist "devices," a vague term that leads me to think more of my boss' broken Powerbook than of dirty bombs.
