leet for dummies?

Posted on Monday, 2004 October 18 by Anton

I wonder whether anyone has published a book with a title like 1337 Programming Tips.

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Hello world!

Posted on Monday, 2004 October 18 by Anton

Coming to you almost live on WordPress, because one host ought to be enough for anyone. Even cooler, it’s all written in PHP; no Javascript needed.

Conversion from Blogger was surprisingly easy. Now to customize it — because I really dislike the present look [i.e. the default template of the then current version]. How do I undo whatever makes class storycontent look compressed, when I can’t find storycontent in the CSS file?

I also wonder if I can turn off “smart” punctuation, which, in my default font, messes up the line spacing.

I’ll also have to go through the archives and remove all the line breaks that I put in to make the source more legible. sigh

Posted in blogdom, neep-neep | 2 Comments

naughty

Posted on Sunday, 2004 October 17 by Anton

proposed design for Louisiana quarter

2006: that site apparently no longer exists, so here’s a copy of the item.

Posted in general | 1 Comment

wahoo!

Posted on Thursday, 2004 October 14 by Anton

We have broadband! Mainly because my housemate wanted to listen to BBC without glitches, but hey, I’m not kicking it out of bed. For the first year it’s cheaper than dialup plus the extra phone line.

Posted in me!me!me!, neep-neep | Leave a comment

can you say it with a straight face?

Posted on Thursday, 2004 October 14 by Anton

Forensic theology. (Cited by Travis.) (Link updated 2006.)

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politics in spaaace

Posted on Thursday, 2004 October 14 by Anton

The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids declarations of national sovereignty off Earth (according to something quoted by Travis). But can that be a serious barrier to imperialism?

Suppose you have political debts to more people than can plausibly be appointed ambassadors to Paris and the like. The rest of them declare themselves kings of whatever asteroids you’d like to exploit. You give them diplomatic recognition, foreign aid, and military advisors.

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movies rented recently

Posted on Tuesday, 2004 October 12 by Anton

The Bad Seed (1956).

The Seventh Seal (1957).

蜘蛛巣城 (Spiderweb Castle) (Throne of Blood) (1957). Having seen it once before, I watched it only with the commentary track on, and learned some interesting details about Kurosawa’s technique. For example, he liked to shoot with multiple cameras; besides being a relatively cheap way to get more footage to cut together, this prevents the actors from “playing to the camera”.

Nights of Cabiria (1957).

Silk Stockings (1957). I endured the tedious dialogue only long enough to see Cyd Charisse’s first dance.

どん底 Donzoko (The Lower Depths) (1957). When the characters had vented their frustrations at each other for about twenty minutes, I dropped out.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Damn fine picture. I saw it just once before, in 1976-7, dubbed in French.

I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street) (1958) may replace The Lavender Hill Mob as my favorite caper comedy.

Posted in cinema | 1 Comment