December 2007 Archives

• Daily Kos: State of the Nation
  Adam Curtis exposes the public manipulation we sense but usually don't understand. His BBC documentaries are legendary in Britain but practically unknown in the US. An American network executive who wouldn't even let his name be used said "we would be cru
  (tags: politics media propaganda)

When entering a HEX WEP key, it needs to be preceeded by a $ and all in caps.

via Fake Steve Jobs.

Like pTerry, I aten't dead. The long hard slog down under is finished for the moment and we're off en famille to visit the ancestral pile. I get to go from Queensland in the summer to Ireland in the Winter in the space of a week. Niiiiiice.

Unfortunately, we have go there via the armpit of the known universe, London Heathrow (LHR), usually voted "worst airport in the world".

I haven't been through that place for nearly ten years, and it was a chaotic and poorly managed mess back then too. I doubt that it's improved, and they seem to have adopted the American attitude to security: Let's force people to abide by stupid rules and have thugs with guns shouting at stressed passengers. It's only when you deal with security theatre in other places that you realize just to calm and efficient Hong Kong International Airport really is.

Here's hoping we get through unscathed, and I'm looking forward to a piont mór dubha as we'd say back home if anyone actually spoke the First Official Language.

Oh, and the pint is Murphy's, not that foul Dublin muck.

UPDATE: We're here, and LHR was a surprisingly efficient experience. I was quite surprised by it really, as I was expecting the worst.

• Across the Universe: Planetary Politics - Books - Review - New York Times
  GEORGE W. BUSH [POTUS] Should tell reporters he’s read “Ender’s Game,” by Orson Scott Card: A gifted child from a privileged family defeats a race of inhuman warriors without ever having to leave the comfort of his war-simulator machine.
  (tags: books news humour politics)
• SCMP.com - the online edition of South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's premier English-language newspaper
  Particularly damning were comments by lawmaker for the social welfare sector Fernando Cheung Chiu-hung [...] The girl, now eight, had improved markedly since she left the family and was displaying no signs of physical or mental disabilities or problems...
  (tags: news hongkong child_abuse)
• The Galactically Hot Women of Star Trek TOS - a photoset on Flickr
  (tags: geekery pics star_trek startrek photos scifi)
• Convert WMA to MP3 - LinuxQuestions.org
  (tags: article audio hacks howto linux multimedia music tips)
• YouTube - Mat Ricardo on "Raymaan is Laat"
  (tags: funny magic)

• Juergen Specht - Photographs - True Story 1: A Photographer's Quest for Perfect Light
  The true photo-geek is incapable of humiliation
  (tags: flash photography lighting howto photographer humour)

• Pratchett announces he has Alzheimer's | News | Guardian Unlimited Books
  Terry Pratchett, the bestselling author of the Discworld fantasy books, is suffering from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's.
  (tags: pterry medical sad)

• The Standard - Hong Kong's First FREE English Newspaper
  South Korean consulate officials are wondering why a Dutch couple who adopted a Korean baby, rejected her seven years later. The adoptive parents, a Dutch diplomat and his wife have cited cultural shock and the girl's unwillingness to eat the food they p
  (tags: racism whiskey_tango_foxtrot)

• Radical Christians blame sinners for drought | NEWS.com.au
  A RADICAL Christian group with the ear of prominent politicians has blamed "sinful" Australians for the nation's record drought.
  (tags: drooling_cretins, magical_thinking, whiskey_tango_foxtrot)
• Parents return unwanted girl | Herald Sun
  The wife since had two children and decided to hand the girl to social workers because the diplomat said the adoption had gone wrong, the Sunday Morning Post reported.
  (tags: child_abuse whiskey_tango_foxtrot insanity)

• YouTube users prefer lousy science over the real deal
  A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at this from the perspective of immunization information and finds that the cranks may be winning; videos with a negative depiction of immunizations had higher ratings and more vi
  (tags: youtube health science whiskey_tango_foxtrot)

What kind of drooling cretin would take medical advice from a YouTube clip?

• BBC - Blackadder - Quote Generator
  (tags: bbc comedy funny humour quotes)

Or: Security Theatre in Action

• Lunch over IP: Larry Brilliant: Can the Internet help stop pandemics?
  (tags: TED world_changing data_mining)
• Lunch over IP: INSTEDD status report: first pilot project
  (tags: TED world_changing data_mining)

• Micromat - Syphone 0.99b11
  (tags: apple iphone sms)

• The Standard - Hong Kong's First FREE English Newspaper
  A sequel to the blockbuster thriller The Da Vinci Code is set to lift the veil on mysterious Freemason symbols carved into the very fabric of the historic streets and buildings of the US capital.
  (tags: crap godawful_writing drivel)

• Three Panel Soul :: Archive
  heh
  (tags: webcomic funny gaming)

• Armagetron Advanced :: a Tron clone in 3D
  A little Tron lovin' (via MacBreak Weekly)
  (tags: 3d games mac linux)

• The Rapture Index
  When the fundies are all taken up by the Rapture, can we have their Stuff?
  (tags: news tools funny christianism)
• Progressive Boink on Rob Liefeld
  (via making light)
  (tags: comics funny snark)