Gadget Whore

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH


About 2 1/2 years ago, I got my first Apple product. It was a sexy, 30GB video iPod. Signifying just how lame I, er, still am, I had it engraved with the words 'luceo porro immortalis,' using Apple's free engraving service if you ordered it through their web site. It was, at the time, the best technological event of my life.
Then, a little over a year ago, wearied by the trials of my Windows machine, perpetually crashing like a planeful of jihadis, I decided to cast my lot with the sleek, seductively stylish MacBook.
I wasn't disappointed — The spare, yet classy design won me over from first click; my boot time decreased by what must have been an order of magnitude; and I was no longer forced to support Bill Gates' coke-off-a-Lamborghini's-muffler habit. I could even run Windows on the same computer — and did so for a while, until it was doing nothing but taking up space.
In January I was back in California trying to wash the cabbage smell out of my hair, entrusted by my roommate with $400 and instructions to pluck the latest fruit from the Apple tree, that is, the sumptuous new iPhone.
I never even knew I needed an Internet-enabled, music-device, touch-screen phone with a user interface that was smooth as as a ...
But enough with the smilies ... the point is that what I didn't know could have filled its 16 gigabyte flash drive. Before I was content in my ignorance, content to stay in touch with a device that in hindsight was hardly discernible in form or features from an overdone beef fillet... Smugly assured that I didn't need gadgets to give meaning to my life.
And that's the problem with ignorance: the self-satisfaction you gain from refusing to pluck the Apple of knowledge. Pride is, after all, a deadly sin.

Prometheus Unbound

Roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania create a robot that can self-assemble.



The Japanese love their robots, fine. But then they get the bright idea to equip them with lasers.



Via Endgaget.

Back in Blog

I haven't blogged in a while, largely because of being busy, but I also lost interest for a short time.
But anyway, I will try to keep up with my bloggy duties a bit more often now, especially in light of recent events.
In particular, I will be instituting a few new series:

1. Prometheus Unbound: This series will chronicle humanity's foolish attempts to unmake itself as the moment of singularity draws nigh. In particular, we will follow the follies of those who have ignored the warnings of Terminator, Battlestar Gallatica and The Matrix and are making ever more powerful and intelligent robots.
2. Inferno Politicus: This series will document the craven, power-mongering depravity of those who seek public office, with an imaginative appendix predicting precisely what their fate will be in hell. First up: Tom Harkin chained to the wheel of a moving tractor as steroid-enhanced hens peck at his eyeballs throughout eternity.
3. The Russophone: Man, this country is bizzare. I should be writing about it more.
   

nomina nuda tenemus

Peter
Pete
Petey
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
Centimeter Peter
Pedro
Pyotr
Petya
France
Francy-Pants
Young Buck
Mini-Beast
Medved
Big Head
Chief
Weasel
Duder
Old Man Pete
80s Pete
Fat Feet Pete
Big Feet Pete
Poppet
Peter Piper

Isolde u down teh rivers.

This is the most brilliant thing I have ever seen.
Ever.

Dude

I'm not sure exactly how long I've been waiting for a movie that has Sam Elliott, Eva Green and bad-ass warrior bears all wrapped in to one awesome package, but I'm pretty sure it's been a long time.
Anyway, the time has arrived:



'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' got close with the polar bears that pulled the White Witch's chariot, but it didn't take the obvious next step - which was to have the yoke's bolts come loose somehow, and the terrible duo go on and wreak their ursine havoc on the advancing Narnians.

Creativity is hard like that. Things that seem so obvious to us now - Newtonian mechanics, sterilization, warrior bears - are in truth nontrivial summits to mount, requiring a few exceptionally inspired souls to look up from the confused morass that defines their world and step beyond.

Bold Move Pays Off

Bold Move Pays Off
Originally uploaded by 4durt

Hmm...

Maybe Fred isn't so strange after all...


Natural Born Killer?

Cats kill "not only for sustenance, but also seemingly for the sheer pleasure of it. 'Even when fed regularly by people,' Temple and Coleman wrote, 'a cat continues hunting.' ... Various studies credit alley cats with up to 28 kills [of birds] per year. Farm cats, Temple and Coleman observed, get many more than that. Comparing their findings with all the available data, they estimated that in rural Wisconsin, around 2 million free-ranging cats kill at minimum 7.8 million, but possibly upwards of 219 million, birds per year.
That's in rural Wisconsin alone."

-Alan Weisman, The World Without Us

Campaigning

Sick of the presidential campaign already? Not sure if you can take another 14 months of inane sloganeering and ridiculous posturing?
Then rejoice that you don't live in Russia, compared to which American elections look downright subtle and thoughtful.


"Putin's plan is the victory of Russia!"
-The United Russia Party