a new twist

Each month I check my HTTP referral logs, and find that nearly all of the “referring” pages that I haven’t seen before are spam. Usually there are also a few sites showing one of my images as examples of some theme or other. Now here’s one of both classes: a page of auto-generated SEO drivel containing one of my pix, apparently because the description contains the word “binary”.

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sic transiverunt webcomics

About a dozen years ago I made a page of links to my favorite webcomics. Looking at that list now, I find that twelve that are still going (though a few are very sporadic), ten have stopped but remain accessible through a system of tubes, and eight have vanished:

  • Fluble by Christopher Mastrangelo
  • Bobbins by John Allison
  • When I Grow Up by Jeff Rowland
  • JoBeth by BJ Hiorns and Joey Hetzel
  • Shaw Island by Zach Stroum
  • The New Adventures of Bobbin! by Joycelyn Yik
  • Catharsis by Jen Boeke
  • Everyone Drunk But Me by Laura Beth Brandt

Other favorites now missing include

  • Malfunction Junction by Matt Milby
  • As If! by Amy Hebberson
  • Life on Forbez
  • meh~! (mathematically enhanced hares) by wing mui
  • Warp 9 to Hell
  • Knowledge Is Power by Laura Chapple
  • Yourmometer by Hobbes (Laura LeGault)
  • Killer Robots from Space by Adam Greengard
  • Don’t Forget to Validate Your Parking by Mike Le
  • Cyberbooty by Tony B
  • everything at Graphic Smash, Modern Tales, ComicSpace, Webcomics Nation, Girlamatic, Activate, and (in about 2021) Smackjeeves

Maybe when a favorite series stops updating for a year I ought to save the content for myself before it vanishes!

Posted in cartoons | 2 Comments

ringy-dingy

My new telephone has dozens of ringtones and I hate them all: Newagey lo-fi orchestral crap, mostly laden with snare drums for some reason.

My last phone played the sound of an old-fashioned mechanical bell; the one before that, a pizzicato passage from a Ravel string quartet; before that, the quick part of Pachelbel’s Canon – in frankly electronic timbres that did not pretend to be an orchestra.

I want a ringtone that says “a digital device seeks your attention,” not one that sounds like something overheard on a cheap radio belonging to someone with no taste.

Posted in music+verse, technology | 1 Comment

a slave to pussy

I was in the kitchen. Rocky came in, crying. I scritched him. He ran to the comfy chair, stood beside it, looked at me, called once again. I went and sat in the comfy chair, and Rocky jumped up to claim his usual seat on my knee.

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logarithmic birthday

I’m exp(4) years old!

Posted in mathematics, me!me!me! | Leave a comment

were-worms?!

Watched The Battle of the Five Armies. How many ways would the author be appalled?

Puppy-love between a canonical Dwarf and a non-canonical Elf. Their pheromones cannot be compatible.

There’s a Laketowner named Percy, a family name from France. (The other Laketowners at least have Nordic names, consistent with the author’s usage for Men and Dwarves of that region.)

The Orcs sneak up on Erebor using tunnels bored by non-canonical sandworms “were-worms”. Etymology time, since etymology was very much Tolkien’s thing: the first element of werewolf does not mean anything like ‘magical’ or ‘demonic’; it means ‘man’ (cognate to virile). Do these monstrous worms turn into men at other phases of the moon?

Posted in cinema | 2 Comments

belief in one’s own immortality is immature

Would not a government prudently looking to the wellbeing of its people, like a prudent parent, encourage the people to learn to provide for themselves in its absence – i.e., encourage private provision of vital services – rather than risk sudden failure of those services in some political crisis?

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