Jury duty

It's kinda like a game show. A computer draws names at random. These people show up at a selected destination and wait in a big room. From the people in this room a group are selected to sit in another room with less comfortable seats. These people are interviewed one at a time over the course of several hours.

Then comes the big moment. Everyone gathers at the uncomfortable chairs at a set time. They sit for another hour and watch as groups of people in expensive suits huddle around tables and deliberate over how everyone answered their questions. The tension slowly builds as the time passes. From time to time the groups of suits stand and address the host. Everyone looks up and scoots forward. Then the suits sit back down and everyone relaxes.

Finally, the host steps up to the microphone. One by one he calls out numbers. If your number matches you step out of the crowd and get a comfy swivel chair with arms. The sad part is that the people who get the comfy chair are the losers of this game. They've been selected for JURY DUTY!!!

I lost at jury duty yesterday. I lost big. It's a malpractice case. The judge expects it to take fifteen days. This means at least three weeks, probably four, possibly five.

Airport - A Bruce story

Three years back I had the back of my house replaced. This is not a story about that.

For the first week that I was cast out of my house I took a vacation to visit my parents in Kansas. This is not a story about that.

For the remainder of the time that I was without house I was going to live in my office. This is a related story.

Bruce had agreed that he would pick me up at the airport and help me smuggle my luggage onto base. Yeah, that's as in Army Base. I mean, what guard is gonna let some guy with a suitcase through the gate?

I'd also left my key with him so that he could get my bird into my office and feed it while I was gone. I will freely admit that I gave him the wrong key. That's my bad. So Gandolf's cage was set up in the main office instead of mine. So, props to Bruce for smuggling the cage onto base. Annoyance for him losing fully half the bolts.

Bruce didn't show up to meet me at the airport as promised. Instead we had a conversation like this:
ME: Bruce! It's Ibid. You at the airport?
HE: Yeah!
ME: I'm down at luggage claim, where are you?
HE: I'm on the highway.
ME: Oh. So not actually at the airport.
HE: I'm going to see a movie.
ME: Did you say you're going to see a movie?
HE: Yeah.
ME: You said you were gonna pick me up at the airport.
HE: I'm going to see a movie.

So I took the subway from the airport to the nearest Metro stop. I dragged my suitcase to the front gate at about 10:30 at night. The story I told the guard was that some coworker was supposed to pick me up at the airport but decided to go see a movie instead and had left my house keys in the office. He let me in. It was another half mile to my office building.

I checked the building over until I found a door that was locked but hadn't latched. I navigated a maze of stairs, elevators, and locked and unlocked doors to get to my office. Since I still had the key to my specific office I got in.

I called him the next day (Saturday) and asked him to bring me my keys. He says they're sitting on the bird's cage. That would be the bird cage two rooms over. The room I want the keys to get in to. He said he'll be in Monday.

I had 7 cookies left, 3 packages of instant oatmeal (microwave is inaccessable), and the better part of a box of Mt Dew. I already ate a package of Skittles, three packages of Twix, and several cookies. Bruce says he left the bird with lots of food, but his definition of lots is in question. I didn't dare leave the building to go get more food because the doors may well lock behind me so I'd be without shelter. The tap water is barely potable so we keep bottled water in the fridge. I couldn't get there, either.

Monday:
HE: You should be grateful!
ME: Grateful? Grateful that I almost got to know what it's like to sleep in a gutter!?
HE: Fine! No more favors!
ME: That's for sure! If you call failing to be where you said you would and forcing someone to choose between food and shelter a favor the please don't do anyone any favors!

Hypothetically...

Pretend for a moment that you find out that all the global warming stuff is not just true and the 100 year predictions are closer to 5 year predictions but there's nothing you can do. Anything that could have been done needed to be done before Reagan took office and we've just been coasting along all this time with all our actions having zero impact on what is going to happen. How do you live your life differently?

Friday links: Sept. 11

First, yesterday was the one year anniversary of when Yummy and I met.

Now, what you came here for.

Build a Faraday generator to replace the batteries on your remote control. [link]

Neil Gaiman's bookshelves. [link]

Al Franken talks health care reform to both sides of the debate. This is what you get when you don't have disruptive GOP plants. You have to listen carefully to hear over background noise.

Al Franken, comedian, Senator, cartographer.


Why the intelligent designer makes such crap designs.

New orbital photos show how close the Apollo 14 astronauts got to Cone Crater before being forced to turn back. 30 meters. Click on the orbital image to blow it up and look close. You can see a dark, wiggling line that shows their footsteps. [link]

A closeup of a letter in an old "Leave it to Beaver" episode. [link]

I love/am horrified by this idea. [link]

If this steel Velcro stuff can support so much weight how do you take it apart? [link]

Technology of THE FUTURE! No. Come on. Say it right. "THE FUTURE!" [link]

Music for monkeys. [link]

The artistry of corridors in science fiction TV and movies. [link]

Just for the weirdness of it.

Now you know who to blame. Blame Drew's Cancer. [link]

A report about profits made from the bailout of the banks. [link]

Obama's diplomacy and war having a greater effect on terrorists than Bush's "fuck you" and more war. [link]

How to drill a square hole. [link]

Game: Equanimity - Tetris with balance. [link]

The future of our star system. [link]

Shaping pears into Buddha. [link]

Purebred dogs being bred to death. [link]

Lots and lots of steampunk adaptations of movie. [link]

Nature videos with narration. [link]

A 92 year old who was in Hitler's suicide bunker talks about what he saw. [link]

The story of a blind phone hacker. THE blind phone hacker. [link]

Modern children review The Beatles. [link]

Game: The Wizard's Notebook - 11 levels long. Type words that become what's needed to solve the puzzle. [link]

Exerpts from old conversations - part 1

While cleaning out my inbox I found lots of old conversations with bits worth keeping. Here's the first batch of several.


From a friend checking Match.com after moving to the deep south.
"Southern Bells? Only describes their shape, I think."


Her lawyers say no no, but her eyes say yes yes!


Their printers are good, the scanners are iffy, the scanner/printers were smashed together and the drivers written by 100 monkeys given a week to work.


JC: I saw the Pixies for the first time at Camden's infamous punk club City Gardens. I was 13 (so 1988), and I'd just started my regular habit of telling my parents I was going to play D&D over at a friend's house, then grabbing a bus to a rock show with friends -

ME wrote -
10 years from now:
JC: Hi, honey. How was game night?
LC: Ok. My Paladin made level 23 and I got the +3 Sword of Holding from the Caverns of Cannibal Lilliputians.
JC: Paladins can't use Swords of Holding. Where were you really?
LC: No, we were using 5th Gen rules.
JC: No self respecting Dungeon Master would ever use 5th Gen rules. You were out with that boy with the piercings weren't you?
LC: Daaaaad. That's not a piercing, that's his cellphone.
JC: That's a cellphone? It's huge.

JC: I would expect nothing less.


RM: [I'm] stewing about the idiot co-worker who thought wrapping a Rubik’s cube in duct tape wouldn’t ruin it...
*sigh* What the hell am I supposed to do with 17 white squares?
JC: Osmond Family Reunion?


For the humbler origins section of my campaign for President:
I was born a poor black woman in a log cabin that I helped my father build. Alas, my father died in childbirth. The next morning, when the immigration agents came for my mother I slipped out the window and hid in the woods until they were gone. I was adopted by a flock of baby harp seals who raised me in the Arizona rain forest. I learned to read by studying the hieroglyphics in the old neanderthal cliff dwellings
where we lived. My family took turns clubbing each other and selling off each others skin to pay my way through college.


All over Army and Air Force bases you see signs telling soldiers not to shake a baby. This came from telling non-military employees about the posters.
JC: Shaken... Baby... Syndrome? It's a syndrome? No it's not - it's assholes who assault an infant. Or, are they calling neck strains and such from unsupported heads SBS? That's just weird.
ME: It's the brain and neck damage caused by shaking a baby who wakes up every half hour all night long screaming it's lungs out for no good reason other than it feels like it and I really don't need this shit right now because I just spent the last 2 years dodging bullets and explosives come to think of it you're probably not even my kid that cheating bitch and for the love a god would you just shut up you screeching howling little monster WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU...
oops.


What do I look for in a woman? A chest that disturbs the Earth's orbit and a mind that can calculate by how much.


In a meeting:
Boss: I just got off the phone with the World Health Organization.
ME: Wait. The who?
Boss: The World Health... shut-up, [Ibid].


Response to a rumor that a Harry Potter game for the Wii would have the player shout the names of spells while waving a "wand".
"Assio Firebolt!"
" Shutting down."
"NO! Fuck! Cancel!"
"Launching Photoshop!"
"You're a Wii! Where did you get Photoshop?"
"Mailing kiddie porn to Mom."

Calendar: A Bruce Story

So Bruce calls me over because he's having trouble printing his calendar. The boss wanted him to make her a calendar.

First he's trying to print the calendar using the techniques he used to print the brochure on the old (and now scrapped) printer. No. That doesn't work now and your old setup failed on every other printer except for our POS.

I try it the correct way but the printer flashes a few times and then denies you ever tried to print. We used to get that if there was a Postscript failure, but I haven't seen that trick in years. Still, I'm having to assume there's a flaw in the file.

A calendar is a simple thing. Boxes, numbers, a bit of text. Not hard. He could have developed it in InDesign (layout software). Instead he developed it in Photoshop (photo editing software). Illustrator (drawing software) I could understand. Photoshop is probably the hardest environment to develop something like a calendar in.

And instead of developing 12 months on 12 files he put them on 6 files each with two months. Then he puts it in InDesign in a 2 page spread and puts the picture across both pages. That was wrong and met with disaster even when he was doing it with the brochure. He had to put each file in twice and crop off what he didn't want. But he doesn't remember the many, many complete and total failure each time he tries.

I'm telling him that he has to start over and rebuild in InDesign. I'm making sketches so he can just built one and modify it a few times. Then our resident bureaucratic savant comes over and tells me that what Bruce is doing isn't what the boss wants anyway. Bruce is trying to build a book style calendar that folds in the middle and shows two months at a time. What the boss specifically asked for is something that can fit this three month display with hooks that everyone in the office has. It's designed to show three separate pages in a column. Bruce's calendar wouldn't work at all. And, yes, she had spelled it out for him

So in the end Bruce can just print what he has and take a paper cutter and hole punch to it.

I really hate working with him.

Camping

Over Labor Day weekend Yummy and her friends (and their friends) took me camping with them in Catoctin Mountain Park. It's about half way across Maryland and just south of the Pennsylvania border. This would be the same park that houses Camp David. Obama is said to have been spending the weekend there, but I didn't see half of the President related air traffic that I see around DC.

Their definition of camping and mine differed a bit. I've grown accustomed to digging a latrine, chopping and lashing together a toilet, sterilizing water, etc. I feel I was able to adapt well to their pro-bathroom and well water philosophy.

I introduced a few things to their camping repertoire, too.

Yummy planned chili for our first night. It was her recipe, her ingredients, and my stew pot. Luckily it's easy to get guys to take over the cooking so long as there's that danger element involved (i.e. fire). It turned out really well. I would take it over the stuff from Ben's Chili Bowl any day. What was even better was that it could have doubled as sloppy joe filling.

We brought along two pie irons [link]. They're two concave metal squares with long handles coming off of them. You butter the concave side, put in bread, add pie filling (or whatever), close it up and jam it in the fire until it's charred and you have to do another one. After 4 or 5 you should figure out how long to leave it in.

One of the other camper supplemented my pie irons with a doodad from Pampered Chef that allowed us to do much the same thing, but the slices of bread were crimped together and the crusts removed before it was put in the pie iron. That, combined with practice over the fire, did a great job making pies.

We brought along a cast iron griddle, too. It was flat on one side and grooved on the other. So we could make pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc. on one side, and flip it over to make steak.

Yes, I seasoned it before we left. Just slathered it in Crisco and left it in the oven at 300°F for an hour. Keep away from soap, clean by wiping it down.

We also brought along a camp percolator. It says it makes 9 cups, but in reality it was 5 half cups. The first use involved everyone sitting around the fire wondering if we needed to lower the grill, build the fire, sacrifice that screaming child a few sites over, or just wait. We built up the fire (when guys are involved that's always the answer) until it started boiling over. It worked great, but we should have gotten a larger pot.

I introduced them to hobo dinners, too. This is where you lay out some aluminum foil, make a hamburger patty and put it on the foil, add carrots, potatoes, onions, whatever you want around the patty, close the foil so ash can't get in and juice can't get out, then toss it in the hot coals of your fire. Burying it coals is optional. After 15-20 minutes you dig it out with a shovel, open it up, and eat. I've hear about similar tricks used to cook on a car engine during road trips.

Alas, not everything we tried was a success. I tried to make ice cream in coffee cans. You put the ingredients in a small coffee can, put on the lid, duct tape it down, put it in the larger can, fill the gap with ice and salt, duct tape that lid on, and roll it around for 30 minutes. I got frost to form on the outside of the can, but inside we only got sweet, frothy milk. I'll have to work on this and try it again next year.

Oh, and the birdies got to come, too. Gandolf was willing, if not eager, to share Bixby's cage for the car ride and stay in there at night. Like a fool, I left the carefully packed bird food at home. Bixby is willing to eat everything and anything. She felt obliged to notch every piece of bread for grilled cheese. Gandolf is more picky. We had to go shopping to get her crackers, Skittles, a seed log, egg noodles, and a bag of bird food. She ate the crackers, the Skittles, the egg noodles, and any chips that were offered to her. She was hungry enough that she tried to steal a bagel from the camp 3 year old on the last morning. Two and a half crackers fixed that.

Yummy came with a new two person tent and an air mattress that fills the tent perfectly. The mattress has an electric pump that had it up and useful in no time. I definitely prefer it to blowing up the mattress myself, but it does seem like a bit of a cheat.

Friday Links: Sept 4

Sci-fi author Frederick Pohl finally gets his high school diploma at the age of 89. [link]

Weird Al and Danny Osmond doing an early version of the "White and Nerdy" video.

The latest text from Richard Dawkins. He talks about the torture of teaching high school science class when even the most basic facts are constantly challenged. [link]

Make a camera lens from an old DVD lens. [link]

New Jersey attempting to take an adopted girl from her family because they're atheists. [link]

Lots of free targets. [link]

Just to piss off the Catholics among you.

The one and only Twitter feed I bother with. [link]

Tossable Army droids. [link]

Air Force needs video game players. [link]

The complete H.P. Lovecraft. [link]

The head of the GOP spreading lies on Fox. Specifically, that the VA is encouraging vets to just die already. [link]

Sculptures on the head of a pin. [begin]
Hulk SMASH puny pin! [link]
Alice, maybe you should lay off the drink. [link]

I saw this in the Hirshhorn Museum some time back. It's the Khaaaan! clip from "Wrath of Khan" with tiny bits played back and forth so the whole thing lasts 15 minutes and you can study every twitch of Shatner's face as he says it. [link]

Yankees suck.

The Legos must flow. [link]

The ISS as seen from Earth. [link]

Aluminum + rust + fire = data security

Disney bought Marvel. A few years back I'd be happy because it meant they had a big movie maker helping them like DC has Warner Brothers. But Marvel has been setting up something that promises to be great. Disney can't even do cartoons without some outside company (Pixar) taking over. Please don't screw up Marvel more than it already is.
In the meantime, check out these visions of projects to come. [link]

Another Star Wars deleted scene - Luke's first try with his lightsaber.

For 12 years this guy has been working on an ASCII version of Star Wars. I check in from time to time. He's up to "Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?" [link]

Game: Fig. 8 - ride an architectural drawing of a bike around an architectural city without hitting anything. [link]

Odd new musical instrument.

Cars made from beer cans. [link]

Picture taken of a molecule using an atomic force microscope. [link]

So, Disney bought Marvel. How will this affect the movies? [link]

A couple of you should get jazzed that someone is remaking the game M.U.L.E. [link]

Game: Canabalt - jump over stuff. Run as far as you can. [link]

A conversation at work

This was a few years back.

I got called over to B's space to help him figure out how to make an "é" (that's an e with an accent in case this doesn't translate). So we switched to Word so he wouldn't screw up what he was working on in InDesign (layout software). We did that. Then he started in on the special characters menu.

"Ok, B, you need to go into InDesign."
I don't even know what he started doing.
"...you need to go into InDesign."
"Uhhhh."
"...In. Design..."
He goes to the Finder.
"...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign..."
He goes into Word.
"...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign..."
He goes into Photoshop.
"...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign..."
"I went into InDesign".
"No, Bruce, I've been watching. You went into Photoshop. You need to go into InDesign."
He goes into Word again.
"...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign...you need to go into InDesign..."
The woman who he's been working with starts laughing.
He finally makes it into InDesign.
"Ok. Now you need to go into the "Type" menu."
He starts studying the "Edit" menu intently. I finally start getting annoyed.
"B! The type menu! Right there!"

I'm sure I'm the asshole here.

I don't get subjugation

I don't get Muslims. Granted, I don't get most religions but this one is extra odd. They subjugate the women but make them cover themselves from head to toe. Who's idiotic idea was this?¹ Dammit, if I was gonna do some subjugating I'd be giving the women something more revealing. The local grocery store would look like Daytona Beach during Spring Break or a rave instead of a photo negative of a Klan rally. Bikini's and/or washcloths and dental floss would be the order of the day. If you've got it, flaunt it.² And if you don't got it then go be a Muslim. At least with my plan you won't need to buy all new berkas if you put on 30 lbs.

¹Most Christian religions have similar restrictive clothing selections. I just picked the most restrictive I could find.

²The author wishes to note that he does not, in fact, got it.

Visits with Gandolf

I'm going through my Gmail and weeding out old messages. Along the way I find things worth saving. Like these old lines from Gandolf (my parrot).

Written 15 September 2005 -

Last night Gandolf started using a new word. "RADIO!"
I was getting ready to go upstairs and put out my hand for Gandolf to climb on so she could come with me. She refused and clearly wanted to stay in her cage. As I was leaving the room she yelled "RADIO!" So I turned on the radio.

This morning before I left she reminded me "Food", "Water", and "RADIO!"


Written 6 March 2007 -

I got season two of Justice League on DVD.
In the previous episode Green Lantern and Hawkgirl finally admitted they had feelings for each other. In this episode a fleet of ships from Hawkgirl's home planet of Thanagar showed up announcing that she's a spy sent to see if our defenses could stand up to the mortal enemies of the Thanagarians.

GL: So you've been a spy all this time? Why didn't you tell me?
HG: I was on a military mission. I'd sworn an oath. You're a military man. I thought you'd understand.
GL: What else aren't you telling me?
HG: Well...
The leader of the Thanagarian fleet flies in and kisses her.

Gandolf: Ooooh. That's hard.


Written 4 August 2007 -

Monday morning I was getting ready for work and NPR was playing on the radio. They played a clip of this really high strung guy. He was speaking in a rather high pitch, barely controlled rage, monotone. His every syllable was slightly separated and enunciated.

"Con-gress needs to re-qui-re pow-er com-pan-ies to use fif-teen per-cent re-knew-a-ble en-er-gy by ..."

Gandolf jumps in with

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

It took me a minute to catch my breath I was laughing so hard.

Lord of the Ringing

Yummy and I went to a concert Saturday night. I'd bought the tickets something like five months back so I was happy that I'd even remembered that it was going on.

The concert was a live orchestra performing the soundtrack to "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" while the movie played on a big screen that hung over the stage. The only problem was that it was so easy to forget the orchestra was there. You'd get caught up in the movie and periodically notice that the music track was turned up a bit too loud.

I was fascinated by one piece of equipment that the conductor had. It was computer screen that had a flashing white dot in the middle. I wanted it to be counting off the beat, but the flashing wasn't regular enough. From time to time you'd see lines wipe across his screen. There'd be a red line or two followed by a green line. When the green line made it to the right side of the screen the conductor would start a new song.

The choir was in the back whispering in the bog of the dead, singing strange languages, and I think that they were stomping when the Orcs were running with Merry and Pippin. There were two soloists that sat at the edge of the stage for most of the show. One woman with a serious tan going on and a neckline that ran down to her belt. The other was a little kid who looked to be about ten years old.

I chose wisely in picking the area with the seats instead of a spot on the lawn. It rained before the concert, probably during, and was flashing lightning the whole time.

This show is one of the reasons I think that movie theaters will never die. The audience experience is too much a part of the show. Everyone was excited and cheered both the movie and the orchestra.

The show was all around awesome. If this show comes to your area you'll want to go. If you're in the New York area they have "The Fellowship of the Ring" with orchestra performing at Radio City Music Hall in late November. "The Return of the King" should be starting a tour next year.

Friday links: August 28

How to be the office tech. Seriously, this is all there is to it. [link]

Legos rock it 8-bit style.

I almost want to see this loon win his election just so everything he wants can be broken and destroyed over the knee of reality and the Constitution.
Just in case you can't make out what he's saying among the praising of Jesus, this is Glenn Moon running for Livonia, Michigan city council on the issues of abortion, littering, and paying city employees a salary of $1 per year plus the love of Jesus Christ.


A teenager explains how Christian lying to students turned him to actually want to learn the facts and straight into being an atheist. [link]

Penn & Teller cut a woman in half.

The shadow of Jupiter's moon passing over another of it's moons. [link]

Iron Man to play Lestat in a re-try at Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. [link]

Speaking of vampires... this is the trailer for the movie "Let the Right One In".

The best way to deal with right wing loonies.

Land speculation fail. [link]

More reasonable talk about vaccines. [link]

Games: Cisco Systems has a bunch of games on their site. You need to become a member, but it's free. I haven't played them all. There's a binary game and some network building games, and one game that I can't figure out what to do at all. [link]

An interview with David (Dr Who) Tennant and Russell T. (Dr Who resurrecter) Davies.

Clippy goes down. [link]

Disney gone bad. [link]

Low cost, but high labor construction. Or, how to build a house for $3,000. [link 1 link]

An officer in the US Army writes about his experiences of Fundamentalist Christianity being forced on him. [link]

New names for groups of things. [link]

Why is Spiderman poor. [link]

That bit about America being founded on Christian principles? Bullshit. [link]

The full run of the web cartoon Starship Regulars. Starring Michael (Worf) Dorn as Captain.

Road trip!

Like I was saying yesterday, Yummy and I went to visit an old roommate up in Ithica, NY. He's going to Cornell. He just got his PhD in BioNeural Programming or words to that effect. He has crashed on my couch several times and was returning the favor.

Most of the area is shale. Shale erodes fairly easily. So the area is lousy with ravines and waterfalls. There's a path from Mark's neighborhood to the campus that runs along a stream with several levels of small falls. You just don't want to go in winter when everything is icy.
The river shown above is home to some impressively large crawdads.
This is Taughannock Falls not too far north of town. You may be able to make out a tiny bridge down below that allows people to walk to the foot of the falls. The falls are a bit higher than Niagara Falls.
We went swimming here. It's on the edge of town. There's an abandoned factory at the top of that cliff that used to use the river for power. Their dam provides a nice straight fall at the top. It's followed by several levels of natural, jagged, and shallow slate formations. The sun warms the slate and the water runs over the slate so we had a ... warm wouldn't be the right term ... a not very cold pool to swim in.
If you look at a map of New York state it looks like something with really big talons drug them across the state. They call these the finger lakes. If you start driving up the shore of one of these lakes you'll hit one winery after another. At these wineries you pony up $2 and you can sample some of their wines. We hit two wineries and a hard cidery (sp!). At one we got to choose 5 from a list of 8, the next we tried all 7 ciders, the third lets you pick all you want from among 16, and for an extra dollar you can try something from the blueberry wine list. Since we knew what we were getting we got 8 different bottles to bring home. One just to serve poured over vanilla ice cream. We might order some of the stuff that goes with fudge down the line.
I also took the opportunity to teach Yummy about how to mess with the depth of field on your camera. After a few tries she got what you see below.

All pictures can be enlarged by click on them.

Graphic novel review: The Order of the Stick - Start of Darkness

Last weekend I took a 3 day weekend so that Yummy and I could take a trip. An old college roommate has been going to Cornell in Ithica, NY. He and some friends have crashed at my place in DC a couple of times so it was time for a little payback. But more about Ithica when I get around to uploading my pictures.

While there we went into a comic book store. When traveling you want to hit the local comic book and video game stores. It's amazing the difference in selection you can get in different areas. This comic book store was remarkably well stocked in bound collections of online comics. The sort of stuff that's usually available through someone's website or from a comic convention, but not at your local Borders. I debated a bit whether to get some. Typically the cartoonist gets more money when you buy direct than when you buy through a store. However, I also wanted to support the shop owner who took a chance in selling what's available for free online. And since he probably had to buy from the cartoonist there was likely healthy profits all around.

Last night I finished reading the first of my purchases, "The Order of the Stick: Start of Darkness".

"The Order of the Stick" is a stick figure based comic that typically updates a few times per week. Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons type paper and dice games, this comic takes place inside the game. The characters even concern themselves with multiclassing and HP from time to time.

More importantly, the comic is engaging. It pulls off the long term saga while still remaining funny on a per-strip basis.

Don't let the stick figures throw you. It's another example of how the art isn't important to the story. Pixar films would still be good if animated like South Park and this would be good as sticks or with a team of classically trained artists.

You can read the strip online by visiting http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript. You'll want to start at the beginning.

What I picked up was the second prequel - The Order of the Stick collection negative one. It's not available for free online. You have to enjoy the comic enough to want to pay for the extra material. And I do! It tells the back story of the villains of our story going back 130ish years ago and up to the present.

It's got comedy, drama, evil schemes, piles of goblin corpses, and semi-noble creatures turning to the dark side against their own best intentions.

I recommend this book, but only after you've spent some time in the online archives. Or, you can go to the website store at http://www.giantitp.com/Shop.html for a version you can stuff in a bag.

hypothetically...

A machine comes out that can make any food programmed into it. It's very Star Trek food replicator-ish. Unfortunately, it takes up most of your kitchen. You have to get rid of your oven and refrigerator and dishwasher just to make space. In short, you can't do your own cooking. Do you buy one?

The food isn't quite right. It tastes similar to normal food, but it's a bit flat. It tastes like colors in a photo left in the sun look. Does this change anything?

hypothetically...

Several decades ago your country sent several rockets to the moon and then stopped. Since then you haven't sent people beyond low earth orbit.

You have just become President. You discover that aliens made a deal with one of your predecessors. In short, they keep feeding technology to you at a rate to make it seem that your people could be developing it on your own. In exchange they get to mine the asteroids, the gases around your gas giants, the various moons, etc.

Do you push for a return to space or do you continue the current policy?

Friday Links: Aug 21

Hubble looks at "empty" space for 10 days.

How squids change colors.

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Prison inventions. [link]
a.k.a. Top 7 ways I'mm'a fuck you up

Origins of names of days of week. [link]

The most awesome wine you can't buy. [link]

Sorry, Texas, but you have to burn now. You really have it coming after this. [link]

Dr. Who cakes better than my Dalek. [link]

The teeniest laser. [link]

I want so much for this to be a spoof, but I don't think it is. A girl video taped a religious conversation between two friends - one indian and one "regular". The "regular" ones can't understand the concept of India, let alone other religions.

Remember what I wrote recently about loving to hear about celebrity fanboys? Here's an example. The woman from Heroes who ran super fast reads the Bad Astronomy science blog. She was at Comic-con with the Bad Astronomer, who watches Heroes, and they spent a couple minutes together.

Australian anti-vaccine people finally crack. [link]

Aw, look. Baby smoke rings.

Bill in the Bahamas making it illegal to rape your wife meets resistance. WHY IS THIS EVEN A QUESTION!?! [link]

Check the password on these nuclear weapons. [link]

Elephant gets a prosthetic leg. [link]

Michelle Bachmann continues her campaign to drive away her supporters. [link]

Long exposure of a helicopter landing. [link]

I'm loving these bricks. Might wanna use them when/if I redo the front of my house. [link]

Flowing pitch experiment at 80 years and counting. [link]

Self-winding clock. Only needs the temperature to vary by a degree a day. [link]

Coin flipping machines made in the quest to make one that gets consistent results. [link]

Legends of Jack Daniels. [link]

How various types of steak got their names. [link]

Fall TV Season

The fall TV season has already started. Who knew? You can see the premier schedule at http://www.thetvremote.com/2009-fall-premiere-schedule/.

I'm just posting my favorites

September 10
Supernatural (The CW), 9:00 PM/ET [link]

September 17
Fringe (Fox), 9:00 PM/ET [link]

September 21
Heroes (NBC), 8:00 PM/ET [link]

September 23
Eastwick (ABC), 10:00 PM/ET [link]
A "Witches of Eastwick" based series. I'll give it a look.

September 24
Flash Forward (ABC), 8:00 PM/ET [link]
The Mentalist (CBS), 10:00 PM/ET
I saw 3 episodes of The Mentalist online last season before they switched to TV only broadcast. I hope they change their mind. It's good, but not good enough to schedule around.

September 25
Smallville (The CW), 8:00 PM/ET [link]
Dollhouse (Fox), 9:00 PM/ET [link]

September 27
The Simpsons (Fox), 8:00 PM/ET [link]
The Cleveland Show (Fox), 8:30 PM/ET [link]
Family Guy (Fox), 9:00 PM/ET [link]
American Dad (Fox), 9:30 PM/ET [link]
Seth Macfarlane owns Fox Sunday

October 2
Stargate Universe (SyFy), 9:00 PM/ET [link]

November 3
V (ABC), 8:00 PM/ET
I'll give it a shot.

See a trend?

p.s. Eureka is already back up. [link]

Space culture OF TOMORROW

When Isaac Asimov wrote about space travel he'd send out the best and the smartest. His universe is full of lightly colonized planets with some of the best educated humans and tons of robots¹. Most of Earth's brightest have been lost to the stars while the poor, the uneducated, and miserable are stuck on the home world. That leaves a planet crowded with the people most likely to have more kids while those least likely to have a bunch of kids are out on empty planets. Earth has few robots because the humans need the work. Despite having more people, the people on Earth are pretty much stuck since the brain drain has allowed all the people who could develop advanced weapons and fighters to live elsewhere.
OK, that was a bit more than needed for my original point. The so-called best and brightest are on the ships. Space travel is expensive so they want the best trained to get the most for their money.

Heinlein was in the Navy until some lung condition forced him out. He views starships more like Navy vessels. They're crewed largely with people you're more likely to find in a bar than in a lab. Crude, loud mouthed, and handy with a wrench. The planets have people who are indentured servants. People you're likely to see working the fields or the mines on modern Earth. Hopefully when you've finished your contract you have enough money left to pay your way home or else you have to sign on for another contract.

Gene Roddenbury's universe (Star Trek and Next Generation) was more like Asimov's not because only the smartest got to move away but because he made everyone the smartest. The education system worked, the government was benign, and they'd achieved the perfect balance of capitalism and socialism to see that everyone had the chance to be something great.

I'm not sure what my point is other than to notice that difference between these different visions of the future.

What's your vision?

¹Discounting the Foundation series.