Virtual Apple 2 - Oregon Trail

Ahh... Oregon Trail... what memories I have of this goddamned game. Not surprisingly, it only takes about 20 minutes to play all the way through. It is so nice that all I need to relive my youth is MSIE6 and my keyboard.

Click the title to be transported back to a simpler time... and watch out for thieves stealing your oxen!

Mitch Hedberg Dead of a Heart Attack at 37

mtv.com - News - Comedian Mitch Hedberg Found Dead In New Jersey Hotel Room



Mitch Hedberg was a funny man.

His jokes had a simple eloquence; the joke was often the implication of the one-liner, or what was not said. His jokes went far beyond the explicit--they pulled from the listener's childlike innocence and their dreams of the fantastic.

Simply put, they were funny because they resonated with something internal on a basic level.

I saw Mitch twice: once opening for Dave Attell and Lewis Black (where he outshone both by an order of several magnitude) and once as the headliner at a brand-spankin' new comedy club.

I can't even remember the name of the club I saw him at... it was near the monorail tracks and the downtown Bon. It was the skinniest, longest little club I have ever seen. It may have had the worst seats imaginable in comparison to the small size, since the club was nothing more than a glorified hallway. I spent $45 bucks to see him, with two free drink tickets, and my seats were just a few feet away from the front.

Mitch came out and started right in to his repertoire; he bashed the venue and another venue in Seattle that "ripped off" his fans. Eventually, after telling some jokes, it came out how much the tickets cost at the show, and he was livid with anger... well, if you have ever seen Mitch, you would realize that he couldn't be livid, but he was fuming in a very downtrodden, beaten-cat sort of way. He went on and on about how upset he was and threatened to walk...

He walked away from the stage and had a public talk with the management right next to where I was sitting... There was much discussed, and eventually he returned to the stage... but he wasn't really into it. He kept on derailing and was genuinely upset.

The set was okay... I felt a little let down, but I realized that he really cared about the audience; not just lip-service; he wanted people to have a good experience and get their money's worth. As I left, I said something to him, it seems like something either to say "it was okay and thanks," or perhaps a slur on the shitty management--hell, probably both. He just kinda smiled and nodded and I walked out of the club. I left disappointed, but I knew I would go and see him again...

But now I never can.

As I was remembering this incident, I checked Mitch's webpage (actually a cached version), and he had actually written an explanation and apology. The man did care.

37 is too fucking young.

hedberg comedy eulogy

The Long Tail of Google News Sources...

I saw this a few days ago on Waxy.org's link page. I took the information from the url linked to the title of this post and created an Excel spreadsheet to look at the frequency distribution for these data.

Just since I threw it into a spreadsheet, I realized I would love to share a simple frequency histogram and throw out some descriptive stats (arbitrarily chosen by the author):

These numbers are as of 8PM on 3/28/2005... they are constantly changing (bastards):

1172 total sources cited
7770 total stories

Mode of 1
Median of 2
Mean of 6.629692833
Standard Deviation of 17.8597173

The top thirty sources have a minimum of 50 stories cited from their pages and make up 2.56% of the total sources cited, yet have 35.44% of the stories (2,754) cited on Google News by volume.

The top 164 sources have a minimum of 10 stories cited, making up 13.99% of the total number of sources, yet have 69.14% of the stories (5,372) cited by volume.

The bottom 506 sources have one story cited by Google News, making up 43.17% of the total number of sources, but only having 6.51% of the total stories cited by volume.

Here is a snazzy graph showing the long tail and the distribution skewed to the left with a long tail to the right...



Fun With Scraped Data... 

google news sources citations

Welcome to Pez.com Bitches!

Pez might be the greatest candy ever...

They may not be low calorie but they are negligible in calories due to the fact that it takes the same amount of energy to open a packet of candy, insert them into the damned machine and then use it to laboriously eat them one by one...

It is a zero-sum.

I love the machines... but the candy is best eaten outside of the machine, in the packet. Just open the damned candy packet, eat it and get it over with... The reason you bought the machine was so that you can place it next to the others anyways, then quickly forget it altogether.

If you did want to know the best way to insert them in the machine (in case you are a glutton for punishment dealt at the hand of the Pez sadists):

1) open candy on the long, skinny side... just split the paper down the center.

2) open the foil wrapper down the side, exposing half of the length of each PEZ candy piece from its aluminum covering.

3) open your Nermal, Vader, Garfield, Skeleton, Clown, Santa, etc. and pull it until the candy-holding mechanism is fully extended.

4) push the partially opened Pez packet into the opening that will hold the candy, starting with the opened side (exposed candy goes in first)...

5) Push the candy into the machine, sliding off the foil wrapper as it is inserted fully.

6) Snap closed the infernal machine and pretend that you are performing CPR on the cartoon character and gasp as a single, tiny piece of PEZ candy slides out of your cartoon characters neck.

7)Eat the damned candy you fool!

8) repeat about 30 times

An alternative step that can be performed at any time in this sequence is to just open the packet and eat them all at once!!!

Perhaps I will post pictures to accompany this guide if I can find a packet...

PEZ candy FAQ

Sleep... good...

Worked for a bit today... long enough that I cannot post anything of any value today.

Looking forward to sleep.

Shark Bunnies and the Failure of the "NEW" MSN Search...

Hey look, its webtoons showing 30 second reenactments of movies featuring bunnies: Angry Alien Productions, Sase and Topsie

You may ask how I found out about such a thing... well, I went to a movie and I saw an ad for "the NEW! MSN Search featuring an everyday person describing the hilarity of JAWS being reenacted by bunnies. The end of the ad tells the movie viewer to go and search for "shark bunnies" on MSN. I thought nothing of this, until I walked out of the theater following my movie (Million Dollar Baby - pretty good flick... a couple of weeks later I even like it more than while I was watching it). There were movie posters as I approached the exit of the theater showing "shark bunnies" @ MSN Search...

This made me want to boycott MSN search for using such a despicable "viral" type of advertising campaign... rather disingenuous I thought (and continue to think). It was rather obvious to anyone that pays attention to trends and advertising. I knew that MSN was going to try to promote their NEW! search engine (which looks like Google and Yahoo mixed... on the rocks), but I was surprised that their big campaign was so obvious. I make a concerted effort to not use a product for which I remember the ad (unless it is a good product--advertisement should never factor into a purchase or use by a cognizant consumer--but I know it still does).

A couple of days later, I found a link to the actual site that had these bunnies reenactments (the link is above... they are actually pretty funny). I can't remember where I saw it, probably on DIGG (actually, it was... I searched and attributed it as such under the word "Digg"). They were on a mildly commercial site, and not linked to MSN whatsoever.

This was the last I thought about this, but I did not use MSN search (like most everyone else that searches... MSN is a joke).

I went and saw a movie with my wife yesterday, and I saw the same ads (I went and saw Robots - pretty animation, lame character design and one of those scripts that relies solely on shallow pop-culture references, cliches and scatological humor as its base for narrative advancement). I thought again about how stupid this advertising campaign was... it was focused on people like me, that enjoy satire and creativity, but simultaneously hate ads. They should have been making shit-jokes for the 4-17 year olds and middle-aged cretins that enjoy Britney Spears jokes and Robin Williams rehashing outtakes for Aladdin (y' know... the audience for Robots) instead of focusing on a demographic that hates to be manipulated and knows why to use a search engine (the reason is not advertising... BTW).

I think this campaign misses the mark... it is too thin to hit the web-savvy (who use google, clusty, yahoo or some other meta-engine) and too far out from the mainstream audience, who are the people that would potentially use the bastard search engine.

I tried searching for "web bunnies" in google... I get nothing fro the first few links. The first google reference to these cartoons is the ninth reference... a person's blog devoted to bunnies(probably not actually devoted to bunnies... but they had a bunny avatar and had a link to "shark bunnies..."), and using MSN Spaces (fucking tool). Here is this person's site. He/She references the MSN site that hosts a WMP encoded version of the flash toon (in lower resolution) and says, "under that big tittle [sic] in white, it says: MSN Search: Shark Bunnies.......ok so now i went there and u guyz have to go there to! ok, ready?" So, obviously I am wrong... some fool has discovered the power of the NEW! MSN Search through the ad and gone to the site, but this person is already using MSN Spaces, and he/she probably is just a person that already used the engine. Google found the toon, but it was not the first response.

So, I decided to try the NEW! MSN Search to see how it can find "shark bunnies" better than google... aren't they searching the same internet? I typed in the key words and watched the responses come up slowly... and then displayed in an unappealing and difficult to read page (I am sure that it looks better in IE). As they said, the first response is "shark bunnies..." but it is an ad for MSNFOUND. It was "found" by "Tad," who just happens to be the everydayish, hipster that is featured in the movie ad. I searched for "Tad" as MSN search prompted me... and he was the first response (with an image next to it that was blocked as being an advertisement... one of those damned ads that look like search results and people click on thinking that they are what they searched for). The link from the original ad has an "email a friend" link. I e-mailed myself (I am my own best friend) and soon received an MSN Search box and info about MSNFOUND in my inbox (ironically, it was delivered to my hotmail spam box...). There is an ad that links to the WMP version (low quality, streaming) of the flash toon, not even attributed to the people who made the webtoon...

I decided that wasn't using the search engine though... lets see how well MSN fares against google in a search for "shark bunnies"... I didn't find it on page one... nor on page 2... MSN stopped giving me results on page 25. I just went through 250 searches and found nothing that linked to these toons... not even the February 27th posting by a person on the MSN blogging software that had the words "shark bunnies" right next to each other!!! It actually stopped giving me results at page 25... even though it said there were 82,000 references for "shark bunnies!" I was willing to look at all of the goddamned pages just to prove a point!

So... the thing I learned from this ad is that MSN sucks at finding anything... even what it is advertising itself as being able to find.

MSN... I am going into my firefox profile and deleting your search engine from the search bar. Piece of shit, lying, useless software...

HOW CAN GOOGLE EVEN FIND IT ON ONE OF YOUR OWN PAGES WHEN YOU CAN'T!!??!??!

Oh yeah... because google rocks (and searches based upon word proximity).

Technorati tags: MSN, lies, google, shark bunnies

Perhaps I will be linked on MSN search eventually for "shark bunnies"... fucking someone has to with all of those people searching MSN for "shark bunnies."

Death on the highway...

I wish I could type in the car... the boredom induced by the same stretch of I-5 must cause my brain to generate ideas to combat the (new) sensory deprivation. Instead, I am left with the remnants of an idea, which I will now have to recreate from the central theme.

If I could type in the car, I bet I would still be a safer driver than half of the people on the road--Occasionally it strikes me that people have become rather detached from the reality that they are steering a giant metal projectile down the road... that they are literally feet away from death at any time (I am referring to being on the freeway, of course. Not city streets--that is just unsafe for pedestrians). The only thing dividing the vehicles are the lines... a tenuous barrier that relies upon the assumption that both yourself and the person next to you agree that you will not cross it when you are occupying the space adjacent.

I wonder how these people mentally represent their driving... I assume that they have placed it into the category or functional definition of "driving" and have forgotten the physical reality of it. It is similar to the idea that as something becomes proceduralized, they lose conscious awareness of the components that comprise the whole. In this case, a part of "driving" that is lost in the simplification is the reality of their situation.

A side note... although I would describe lines on the street as an abstract and artificial notion that delineates division... I have seen crows on the road not fly away when a car approaches them and they are near the line. Instead, the crow will just make a couple of hops to the safety of the space on the opposite side of the line from the vehicle. It surprises me in two ways: 1) crows have a capacity to understand that the line is a barrier that the vehicle will not travel outside, and 2) even a crow will trust that a person will follow the social contract, adhering to the vehicular laws, and not make them one with the ground.

I would postulate, following these two observations, that this behavior by crows is perpetuated by the belief that the division is tangible--that the line is a physical barrier that vehicles will not cross. I am basing this upon the limited cognitive capacity of the obsidian avians. The crows have made observations of vehicles traveling on roads within the lines with enough frequency to make a rule that the vehicles must travel in the lines (which is true most of the time). What a surprise it must be if a person were to drive off the road, through the lines, in order to flatten it.

I cannot see into other people's minds, but I would venture that people eventually believe the lines to be a barrier, in a similar manner to the birds. Without counterfactual evidence to refute this idea, people apply this heuristic (that cars drive in the lines) and feel safe.

Of course I am not saying to be scared while driving... I am just stating that people seem to be mentally divorced from the physical reality of driving. This is more than likely a fantastic thing, since it allows people to focus on staying in the lines (which, of course, is the only place that a car travels... caw).

I never did get to my idea I gained while driving... it was on citizen journalism as news. What is the division? My great idea that the division is money... but I won't say more lest I take away the impact.

Overwhelmed by information...

I must admit it; I am an information junkie. I love the profusion and amalgamation of ideas on the internet.

Ideas make me hot... like excited and shaky if I get the right one. There is something beautiful about a new idea with potential... like it has gained physical momentum in your head and the thoughts are gathered and carried by their movement... towards the future. A new idea that I have not thought is instantly assaulted and merged and torn asunder by competing ideas... compared to others and incorporated into the tools with which I perceive the sensory stimuli that surround me.

RSS feeds may be the death of me... I just read a several page article about the creation of XML here [via]. Metainformation, contextual tagging and the resemblance of the semantic web to human thought may consume me in the end... I could see how the interplay could propel both into unexpected change.

I drive in the morning and I think of so much to write... I just want to spew the wortds from my fingers and have them land on a page, but I am just left with ideas after the commute... perhaps I should just record them in audio... but who would want to listen to that... my broken staccato ramblings... full of emotive voice and non-cued data.

Maybe I will keep a pad with me again to record my thoughts.

To sleep... perchance to dream.

Sleeping has always seemed like a waste of time to me. I have had the opportunity to be up at all hours... and an additional 5-8 hours in a day can alleviate stress and allow you to do the things you always desired.

Perhaps I should spend more of my waking hours actively participating in life and not battling the plague of sleep. Perhaps I would sleep better as well.

I find that I lie in bed, when awakened from my slumber, thinking about how I cannot think too much or I will never fall asleep. Perhaps I should just get up and give-up after being awakened... how bad is being sleepy if you do not focus on trying to get back to sleep?

To dream... sometimes the images in my dreams irritate me. They are obviously remnants of the subconscious playing with each other... toying in the confines of my skull. I wish that they would be less abstract at times... I try to control them, but that just becomes boring (or the little mind me trying to just stay asleep and stop realizing that I am sleeping and not interfere with the creatures that live in the land of dreams).

My title is not very fitting. I am still looking at my fingers (perhaps through them would be a more apt description...). Looking at the keys instead of my words will not keep me from committing typographical errors. Not that I really care (intent is much more important than silly errors), but I would like to become a more prficient typist. Perhaps I should get a keyboard that is meant for speed... learn something that is the antithesis of the QWERTY style... I should eschew tradition and go for something completely different.

Or perhaps I will continue to hammer away on these keys... The keyboard is rather attractive...

To sleep... the chance to regenerate; for my neurons to fix in place the thoughts and events that have occured in the course of my day... I will be sure to remember that nap (then again, probably not).

North Korean Sexual Equality

North Korean Sexual Equality

Obviously this is primarily intended for humor, but the statements about sexual freedom, or the lack thereof, in a capitalist society are fascinating [via].

I was wary during these, the Ides, of March

I have no idea why, but I saw the date and instantly realized it was the time of the year in which Caesar was killed (according to the Daily Rotten, this was in the year 44 A.D. on this day).

Prescient visions of the future are far and between in this age of skepticism and religion (opposing forces that both preclude the existence of knowledge of the future that is not predictive or deity-derived/linked). Although I am not a follower of prophesy, or a seer of future events per se, there is something hopeful and vibrant about the idea of a vision of things to come.

I think of Martin Luther King's re-telling of a dream that he had. His vision was a device used to promote a political and social agenda, not a true vision of the future. yet by framing it as such he hoped that he could instill this possibility and give others the ability to envision the future in this manner.

There is the idea of a person imbued with vision. These individuals are seen only as such after their vision has manifested. Without the predictive ability, these goals would not have been achieved. A vision has an aspect of bi-directionality to it; the projection of oneself and others into this conceptualization leads to its manifestation.

Opening others minds to the possibility can allow it to happen, since the possibility now exists.

A new vision...

If I ever am able to clarify, refine and put into place my vision, perhaps I will delete these first few posts.

Ideas of content; most will more than likely be included (looks like a quote... but it is actually just set off):

Reviews - movie and especially book reviews. What I personally gained from them following their ingestion... then how to go beyond upon further thought following posting.

Ideas - flow of ideas between blogs and across the internet and into society. Perhaps classification and follow-up on ideas in society and the bi-directional influence of the news and the colloquial-societal definition of words and ideas as they become conglomerated to become something more than the original idea.

Words - The tools that humans employ to describe their world and the perceptions thereof to others--how these functional definitions describe and exert influence over the defined entity.

Links - What bog lacks links and commentary on things the blogger finds interesting?

F.A.Q.s - mini-guides on things in which I have some expertise - probably in other blog (such as p2p progs, online grammar and etiquette - capsule explanations that embody the whole without summarization - the idea)

Weekly feature - either created from the prior week... or leading into a theme for the following week.

Politics - ? perhaps not, but the problems I have with the status quo... attempting to coalesce various ideas about social issues looking for a direction for change.

critical evaluation and engagement with the world that surrounds a person - main theme

Girl Scout Cookie Drive...

I don't know what my problem with the Girl Scout Cookie Drive is, but it drives me mad. Doe-eyed, innocent, affluent children allowed to go anywhere to raise money for their exclusionary group... They are everywhere--any store has them in front, waiting until you leave to make their teary plea for your money. You can say they are offering something in return, but those are just overpriced cookies; you are serving to support their group.

Why should people have to see these children? Why is this exclusionary club allowed to bother people so? Homeless people (who need the money) are turned away from stores, even arrested, for doing something similar. I find that the public subsidization of this group is senseless.

These girls are getting money to do things so that their parents do not have to pay for them. They masquerade this as:

The Girl Scout Cookie Program is not just about cookies. These annual activities offer many opportunities for hands-on entrepreneurial program activities. We find that most girls in Girl Scouting thoroughly enjoy this activity and look forward to it each year. Participation in this activity is voluntary and requires written permission by a parent or guardian.
- from the girl scout website faq

I find it duplicitous that children are forced to cover the costs of their club membership, not to mention their indoctrination into female roles ascribed by the group.

I am sure that the Girl Scouts have dues and requirements in order to become a member. Actually... it is a quite reasonable $10.00, with an option for assistance.

As I am reading and trying to make my points about this practice, I realize that the Girl Scouts aren't all that bad:

--They allow you to substitute the word "God" with whatever you would like in their promise... describing the usage as:, "...'God' can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word 'God' with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate."

--They are not sex-discriminatory or intolerant of race or sexual orientation

Perhaps I am too hard on them... they are unwitting participants in a group that is probably okay, but is using little girls to support their corporate power structure. They only receive 12-17% of the proceeds from their toil.

This still does not mean I will buy cookies from the girls... Perhaps if I was writing about the Boy Scouts selling cookies i could have made valid pointsa against them. I still think it is difficult to constantly tell small children that I am not going to buy their cookies... they look so heartbroken. I find myself telling the kids that "I don't have anything," just like I tell the panhandlers...