sullust.org

Blargh... I was going to do this thing about the "Ten Commandments For God" with catchy numbers like: Though shalt not covet they fellow God's followers, but after not much time it stopped being funny and started sounding political. Oh well, one more "had it in the car" idea down the tubes.

On a happier note, I remain unequivocally not dead.

Hmm... This isn't nearly bloggy enough. You see, I can't claim to have the most fascinating life what has ever been lived. Indeed, were I to recount the many adventures I had this day you would no doubt utter "My God! What a fucking loser!" Instead I remain a loser, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a rather nice shirt, wrapped in a web page. You are left only to wonder how truly loserish I can be.

I guess I could regail you with tales of the lovely black bean and mushroom rice I made today, or the devilish chocolate cake I prepared. You know, I'm beginning to notice that a great deal of my spare time is being spent in the kitchen. I guess it's not a bad way to spend my time, it's a decent skill I suppose. Yet I'm forced to wonder if my culinary excursions are really going to do much more than kill said time and keep me well fed. It's a bit hard to work Salmon Patt'e into a conversation when chatting up the ladies.

Lets consider a scenario:
Me: Your eyes, they are like the moon. Big and round and... umm... yellow?
Her: Your breath smells like fish.
Me: Aha! I'm glad you noticed. It is because I have eaten a bit of Salmon Patt'e which I myself have made.

See, it just doesn't work. Well, if all else fails I can quickly generate some content (and possibly some hits as well) by doing a review of some god awful tv dinner or of some nasty confection. It certainly seems to work for other sites. Really all you need is an idea, a digital camera, and some time. Lest we forget the Stinky Meat Project. Perhaps I could do a round up of those health drinks in tiny cans like Ensure or Geriaid. Or perhaps I could mock the whole process by taking something completely mundane and writing a bile filled review with outlandish comments like "Upon putting the Spaghetti-Oh's in my mouth it was assaulted by a flavor known only scat fiends in a cholera ward. Without a trace of hyperbole I can say that this was 1,000,000 times worse eating the puss filled leg of a dog slowly dying of infection. It made me want to dig out my eyes with very small screwdrivers just so I could replace the pain with something more tolerable." Yeah... that's the ticket! Create funny by satirising existing funny. It's the wave of the future boys and girls, and I'm on it!

What I really need is a hobby that gets chicks, and let me tall ya, computer science ain't it. I tried the musician thing too. Hell if it worked for Mick Jagger it can sure as shit work for me. But girls these days, they don't want to listen slow ass dissonant crap with no melody. Then again, I'm not sure I do either. No, they wanna rock, and I can't blame them. But until I learn to play the guitar or become the front man for an indie punk band I'm out of luck. On a side note, you would not be the least bit surprised to learn how many indie punk bands there are in Mississippi.

Well, I've prattled on for quite long enough I suppose. It's time to spell check this bad boy and move on.

After learning that a project I was working on can no longer be done in the language I'd hoped, and after overcoming the cascades of depression which accompanied that discovery I'm left not wanting to work on it any more tonight. That leaves me with a little time to discuss an issue which has be bothering me of late. It's something which comes along in every man's life sooner or later. Some of us may not want to talk about it, but it's true, it's there, and we simply cannot go on ignoring it.

Free T-Shirts.

Somewhere in the bible days it was decided by the Pharaoh that his peoples were too poorly clothed. Just look at all those pictures, nobodies got no clothes on! Just a little waist wrap thing and a sash. What kind of look is that for a people capable of producing such technological marvels as the pyramids and cat mummification. I'll tell you what kind, no kind! So the Pharaoh declared that at every public gathering, where his many loving followers gathered to praise his name, he would hand out T-Shirts to everyone in attendance. The Pharaoh however was surprised to discover that nobody took one! Who, after all, wanted a cheaply made T-Shirt with the words "I ♥ The Pharaoh" on them when they had spent so much on their finely tailored waist wraps and sashes? It was then the Pharaoh had an idea, what if he made getting the T-Shirts more like a competition? What if at every gathering he got an attractive young woman to hurl the T-Shirts into the crowd so they would have to fight over them? It was an amazing success! People fought and jumped and crawled on the ground for the T-Shirts trying to get their grubby hands on one. After all, this was a rare commodity indeed! Who knew how many T-Shirts the young lady would throw, this might be their only chance!

Time passed slowly (as time is want to do) and the tradition was altered here and there. It traveled west into Europe, then hopped the ocean into America. Legend has it that when The Declaration of independence was read before a crowd for the first time, many T-Shirts were cast into the crowd proudly declaring "We the people mutha-fucka!" Martha Washington was known to wear a very large version of this shirt to bed at night, and George found it "very hot." Americans however are not content to leave well enough alone and technology soon entered the fray. As venues for gatherings grew larger the attractive young women were no longer capable of throwing the T-Shirts to the farthest people in the crowd. The natural solution was soon discovered and the young ladies were given guns. Amazing guns capable of hurling a T-Shirt as far as the eye could see! Or at least all the way back to row 75-F. Many have tried to hurl other less expensive items into crowds to save money: tiny footballs at football games...

Let me digress for a moment. Football is by far the most insidiously evil sport to have ever been invented by mankind. Now I know what your saying, your saying "Justin! What about that game the Mayans played where the losing team were all killed? Or rugby?!" To which I reply "What's that?!" and run away. Those two sports excepting, Football... hmm... having introduced rugby I guess I have to clarify and say "American football." Jeesh... just because every other human on the face of the Earth calls soccer "football" they expect us to call it that too... we're America for God's sake! Anyway, football is a horrid and grotesque act whose sole function is to inflict as much physical pain as is humanly possible. We rejoice in players who despite injuries that would cripple me, continue to go outside and present their fragile bodies for to be hit upon. Hit upon, I might add, by 300 pound (that's 136 kilograms for all you "rest of the world" people) men who do not wish them well. You see, once upon a time, football was much like rugby or soccer. Gentlemen wearing little more than shorts and a nice shirt would get together a play a game. Then one day somebody said "You know, this sport isn't nearly painful enough. Lets get some really huge guys to hit us, then it will really hurt!" Many broken ribs later their plan had worked perfectly. Too perfectly it would seem because they could only play for so long. Enter padding, stage left. Padding allowed these quick moving piles of man meat to hit each other very very hard, cause a great deal of pain, but not so much that the other player could no longer stand (usually). Thus the modern age of football was born. Over the years the science was improved upon, and is being improved upon still, with the ultimate goal being to combine the largest men, the proper rules, and just enough padding so that as much pain as possible is spread over 60 minutes without actually forcing anyone to quit. Torn knee ligaments excepting.

Back to free shit. So they tried the toy footballs, and the toy basketballs, but nobody wanted them. They saw through the farce, they wanted T-Shirts god dammit! And T-Shirts they have received. I have to admit that I myself have succumb to the allure of the free T-Shirt thrown into the middle of a throng of men. At Quake-Con there many and sundry free garments to be had. Most were merely given to anyone who asked and unless they were especially cool, there wasn't too much joy in getting them. None of them were especially cool. However, at one event they did not have enough free T-Shirts for everyone, this being by design of course. So they followed in the fine tradition of tossing them into the crowd. I myself waited anxiously for my free shirt, a shirt which never came. I did however get a toboggan that had it been thrown to me I probably would have rather liked. Instead they had enough of those to give to everyone, which they did. They didn't even bother pretending to throw them out, instead just handing them to anyone who bothered to show up. There is no joy in that, none at all. I felt like I was doing the guy a favor just for taking it. I've no idea where it is now, I probably threw it away. And that is the issue at hand, it is an axiom which should probably exist but doesn't: "Give a man a fish and he'll say 'Thanks for the fish.' Throw a fish into a crowd of men, and they'll kill their mothers to get a hold of it."

On the topic of cooking again, for two nights in a row now I've managed to produce a rather tasty fried rice thingy with garlic and onions. I keep meaning to put some bacon in it (thus completing the holy trinity) but I also keep forgetting. Oh well, it's got some kick to it, but I like it pretty good.

I'm also starting to think that rosemary is highly over rated. I keep adding it/leaving it out of dishes and I never notice a difference. I'm probably just using it wrong.

p.s. I'm just a chatty little bitch today.

Slashdot | SunnComm Says Pointing to Shift Key 'Possible Felony'

Excuse me for a minute while I commit a felony. SunnComm produces anti-copying software which has been distributed on Anthony Hamilton's (whoever the hell that is) new cd. This software will install itself on your computer when you first insert the cd, then start itself every time you boot the computer. With this software running, you will be unable (at least in principle) to copy the cd.

However, this is a simple auto-run utility. If you disable all auto-run programs, auto-run in general, or hold down the shift key while Windows is loading, Windows will not load any auto-run programs including the anti-copying software included on the cd. Without the software running, you may listen to, copy, and rip the cd as much as you please. This is a standard function of Windows, not some shifty haX0r exploit.

Believe it or not, according to the DMCA, I have just committed a felony. I could go to jail for many years. Should I be caught and prosecuted for this heinous act I would never again be allowed to vote, work for the government, or any other company that tends to not hire felons (read: all of them). And people wonder why I boycott the RIAA.

Ars Technica: Sony to start Cell production in 2005

While an interesting post about the Cell chip towards the bottom the author begins to surmise about the possibility of scaling with the chip. Sony has claimed a given machine will be able to have any number of processors (Cell is a multi-processor architecture by design, hence the name) and that (I presume system level) software will be able to scale the rendering quality to whatever those chips are capable of doing. What this allows for Sony is the ability to create (say) two systems, one with two Cell chips and another with four. The two chip system would be less expensive than the four, but would have significantly less graphic quality. Of course there could then be the supremo system with eight processors etc...

Some people of course think this is horrible and I can imagine why. For starters every PS3 commercial will have lots of asterisks pointing to tiny messages saying that what's on your screen is from the supremo model, but that aside I understand many teenagers and young men (most of the people who use these systems) can't stand the idea of somebody buying their way into, what is essentially, a bigger dick. Mostly because the people who bought their big dicks wave them around message boards like fools. It's everywhere with regards to computers, people saying "Well, on my P4 3.2 GHz and Radeon 9800 the game runs fine! Your system must just suck." That can't exist with the current generation of consoles. The best a dick waver can do now is own lots of games or all the consoles. Even that isn't too impressive.

I on the other hand love the idea. Assuming Sony prices things at a sane level where the mid range unit is a logical upgrade from the PS2 and is around $300 then it's great. If the entry level machine is $300 and it goes up from there then I'm not sure how consumers are going to react to that. I know I sure wouldn't buy one. Assuming it looked pretty good with all games I wouldn't mind getting the entry level machine. Hell if it was down around $150-$200 I'd probably buy one in favor of the mid range machine. However I can't fathom buying the entry level machine if it's priced at the same level as others best (and only) offerings.

Thankfully Sony isn't stupid and I'm confident that after the initial capitalization on early sales prices will drop down to something like

Entry: $150-$200
Mid Range: $300
High End: $500

which sounds pretty good for me. There's no way in hell I'd buy the high end model but then I'm not a big graphics monkey. My favorite games have tended to be a little low on the eye-candy-o'meter. Not because they don't look top notch, but because they're just good games and as long as the presentation is serviceable I'll enjoy the game. Specifically I'm thinking of GTA:3/VC, Amplitude, and BF1942 (which, lets face it, wasn't going to win any beauty contests).

So I'm personally looking forward to this brave new world of scalable hardware, where I can decide how much money the graphics are worth to me, and possibly even upgrade in the future. I would also like to be the first to welcome our new Cell overlord and would like to invite both him and #13 over for a tea party any time they'd like.

Whelp, I made the old switcheroo.

I'll see how I like it after a while, it's certainly not going to hurt anything as is. If you're desperate to get back to the old site (and you know who you are) there's a link to it up there in the top right.

Perhaps for my next post I'll mention what an odd run in I seem to have with the Ausies and the Kiwis. Not least of which is the booger who owns sullust.net and won't be losing it until 2005. But one day... yes... they will all be mine! Muaaaahahahaha! Maybe even sullust.cc (it is available)! That way they'll all be held by one guy so when George Lucas' army of attack lawyers come swooping down they'll only have to file one lawsuit.

I bought sleeping pills for just such an occasion

Lets talk about my cooking. It is, dare I say, nothing short of craptacular. Sometimes, rarely, I produce an amazing dish which makes me think "Damn! I can cook pretty good!" Then, on more frequent occasions, I make something so bland and lifeless than I begin to question the whole adventure. At times I ponder large and ornate meals that I feel would be wonderful, and no doubt they would if I could cook them. I cannot.

Lets get to the seasoning first of all. I either completely forget to put anything on the food at all, what an Iron Chef challenger would call "expressing the soul of the ingredient." Well that asparagus' soul can kiss my ass. If you don't put at least some salt or butter on that bad boy, it tastes like a delightful combination of mustard greens and dirt. That would be highly descriptive of what I made tonight. What promised to be a delightful quiche of bow tie pasta (it works I promise), blanched asparagus, bacon, and cheddar cheese (it would have been smoked Gouda but I forgot to grate it until it was time to put everything together). What I forgot to put in there were the little things like... salt! or... pepper! or... (god forbid) rosemary or parsley or god damned anything! So it came out of the oven mostly bland. You couldn't taste the bacon , the cheddar was... well cheddar, and the asparagus was that afore mentioned combination of mustard greens and dirt. At least that's the way it should have tasted, but I yanked that sum-bich out of the oven about 15 minutes too soon. That's because...

Problem 2: I can't tell when anything is done. Not chicken, not pie, not eggs, not nothing. The instructions say to poke it, and if it feels like set jello it's done. What the fuck?! It's egg! Egg will never feel like set jello! Ever! The other doneness check was "poke a hole in it and press, if no liquid oozes out it's done." Guess how much liquid oozed out of my quiche. You got it. None. Why? Because I covered the top of it with cheese. It seemed like a good idea at the time. That cheese kept all that nice liquid tightly locked inside. Once I sliced it open though, ooze all over the place! So in desperation (and hunger) I stick it back in the oven for another 15 minutes or so and it comes out pretty crappy still. I eat until I don't want to eat any more and throw the rest away. Joy.

So that's my story. One of these days I'll learn proper seasoning so as not to make a delightful sauteed parsley dish with just a hint of chicken, but also avoid the "soul of the ingredient." As for checking doneness... not sure what to do about that.

http://ntwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021102.html

Just look at it for a minute, and think... what do you see? If you don't get it, then you've apparently been spared one of the great horrors of the internet. If you do get it, then it's pretty damn funny isn't it :D

A few points of interest (to me anyways):

Magnatune is pretty sweet I have to admit. Theres a writeup of it here on Slashdot. The short version, they're a record company that lets you listen to all their music before you buy it (in mp3 format) and 50% of the music goes to the artists. Plus they've got a "radio station" that will randomly (or not so randomly if you don't want it to) select the different songs they've got and stream them to you. Oh, and they're slogan? "We are not evil." neat :-)

Second, I'm sick as shit. This happens to me every other year or so, the doctors tell me it's just alergies but I'm more inclined to think it's the Bavarian Death Plague. Or at least the 48 hour version. In a related story, the equate version of Claritin sucks and does not work (at least not on the Bavarian Death Plague).

Most importantly, somebody posted a comment! and... it was a girl
OMGOMGOMG A GRL!!! A/S/L plz! ur cute cn we meet in rl? kthxby!*

*i kid.. i kid...**