bring on the obscene teddy-bears

Posted on Monday, 2002 October 21 by Anton

PVP takes on the tough issues

Posted in cartoons | 2 Comments

bedfellows

Posted on Monday, 2002 October 21 by Anton

Andrew Bulhak observes:

(The identity of heroes/villains in films can be telling; for example, there’s Four Feathers, which glorifies the British Empire (which can be seen as a rather prestigious model to proponents of a a global American empire) and its doings in the Middle East, only a few years after pre-9/11 film The Patriot painted the British as the original Nazis (somewhat slanderously, apparently). I wonder whether we’ll see any metaphorical films about straight-dealing, heroic apple-pie Romans (played by Ben Affleck or Brendan Fraser) doing battle with treacherous, Taliban-like Visigoths.)

Also from Andrew, a link to Earth Erotica, worth a chuckle

Posted in cinema, history | Leave a comment

a use for the stuff

Posted on Sunday, 2002 October 20 by Anton

George Byrd, who has contributed to this space before, comments on the urine item below:

I recall reading somewhere that during the last years of the Civil War, some southern cities instituted regular collection of urine from chamber pots, from which they extracted nitrates for gunpowder manufacture.

I don’t know whether it is true or not, but if true, it would be “a use for the stuff”.

Posted in history, technology | Leave a comment

million-dollar idea

Posted on Thursday, 2002 October 17 by Anton

Holster stickers (only a philistine would glue anything to the gun itself): sticky-back strips 1cm high by about 7cm wide, imprinted with humorous phrases.

My Other Gun is an Arbalest
Make a Joyful Noise
One Round at a Time
Just Happy to See You
As a Matter of Fact, I Do Own the Whole Damn Range

Posted in arts, weapons | Leave a comment

they see you when you’re sleeping

Posted on Tuesday, 2002 October 15 by Anton

I go to sign up for a Berkeley Extension course and find:

The University is required by federal law to report your Social Security number and other pertinent information to the Internal Revenue Service pursuant to the reporting requirements imposed by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. The University also will use the Social Security number you provide to verify your identity. Social Security number disclosure is mandatory. This notification is provided to you as requested [sic] by the Federal Privacy Act of 1974.

The IRS wants to know who’s taking “Unix System Administration I”?

I’m tempted to take the money I was going to spend on the course and send it to Ron Paul.

Next day: The course is taught by a private firm, though under UC auspices; so, on my One True Ex’s suggestion, I contacted that firm directly. Problem solved, so long as I don’t care about formal university credit.

Posted in tax+privacy | Leave a comment

render unto pixels

Posted on Saturday, 2002 October 12 by Anton

The Virtual Terrain Project collects links about the state of the art in realtime simulated environments, from “why can’t you make better trees?” to “how do you decide when part of the field of view can be rendered more sloppily?”.

Posted in eye-candy, technology | Leave a comment

a name

Posted on Friday, 2002 October 11 by Anton

I was thinking about English spellings of Indian names when this hit me:
Does Chatterjee mean something like quadruply honored ?

Posted in language | Leave a comment