wine, politics, hacking and a long overdue consumer innovation.

what more could you want?

• political party of the week
• van eck phreak mp3s to your radio
• handerpants!  (thanks Francis)
• and…

vive la france!  vive les bretons!

the important think is – make a plan

http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~jybarra/zombieplan.pdf

choice excerpts:

“ZBSD: This term is coined in the context of this exercise as a descriptive term for a variety of similar situations,
the causes and taxonomical delineations of which have yet to be determined by the scientific community.
Hence, the phrase zombie behavior spectrum disorder or ZBSD must not be understood as a scientific or
medical diagnosis; but merely as a descriptive term covering a wide variety of behaviors having
somewhat similar public “event profiles” and public impacts. Note further that as the science of these
events evolves, further disaster planning exercises may be necessary to incorporate specific dynamics of
divergent outbreak etiology and behavior patterns.”

“Part 2 of the exercise will be a discussion of how the overall impact of a zombie outbreak will affect use of
and support for the course management system and will address such issues as: […]

• d. The spread of ZBSD to institutional administration may complicate policy making;
• e. Conversely, the spread of ZBSD to institutional administration may simplify and streamline policy
  making resulting in dramatic improvements in administrative responsiveness and service delivery;”

even footnotes!

“8 Lawrence, F. (2007). I Am Legend. In this documentary study of a ZBSD outbreak in New York City and
surrounding areas, Lawrence asserts that the zombies were effectively deterred by garlic. However, it can
be argued that the infected analyzed in Lawrence’s study were not, in fact, zombies at all due to their
conscious hunting behavior, inability to come out during the day, and volitional, fluid movement. Hence,
Lawrence may not be portraying ZBSD at all but part of what may be considered zombie behavior
spectrum disorder; in which some infected not at the “true zombie” part of the spectrum (cf. Schlozman,
op cit. fn 4) may in fact be deterred by the smell or presence of garlic. Once again, however, it is not the
purpose of this disaster preparedness exercise to enter into this scholarly discussion.”

etc etc etc.  outstanding stuff

thanks Dave!

for my subscription to Viz!

hooray!  copyright Viz n that. get your own subscription or summink.

meanwhile, uptown:

• I find your lack of pigs disturbing
• there’s a story behind this
• fitness tip

Did I mention

that my intertubes have been cut off? It's not easy, you know.

Which means I'll just fall back on posting links to Dresden codak:cave man sci-fi! Me go too far!

I cannot think of a subtle way to make a masturbation joke about this guy. (video!)

I have no way of watching the Klingons do Eminem at work, so I need someone else to look and tell me just how execrably bad it is.

(sidenote; if you ever get curious about what the the kids are being told that the kids are listening to...)

Back to work!

this week’s unmissable news:

 

• teenage mutant ninja… poodle?  (thanks dave). 

i don't know what's more impressive. the poodle or the lady behind it and her shirt.  more “extreme poodle grooming” (yes, there’s a name for it)

• in japan?  no, in california.  very, very NSFW

 

• do you believe in evil?

skip to 4:16. identified thanks to http://thedansemacabre9.blogspot.com/2007/07/1.html.  here’s a link to the orbital gig recordings, in case you’ve missed them…

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zykzxiy22ol/London240909 part 1.mp3

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mwyyl3y34mh/London240909 part 2.mp3

 

• SCIENCE! why the mona lisa’s smile is weird.

 

• recent religious news

 

• and, finally, the solution to the stupidity of youtube comments: FeynTube (thanks George)

 

have a good week!

no people!

this is from josh & jo’s blog about their recent crazy mission to vietnam on a train.  while they were in china they spotted this street sign which shows you some of the rules which you must obey:

here are some of the ones that struck me (in excel cell notation)

• C1 – no wheelchairs? – a bit harsh, surely
• C2 – no waving axes around - fair enough.
• A3 – no skiing.  ok.
• C3 – no throwing up. or, possibly, no spotting anything on the floor
• D3 – no jumping through the air doing the splits in a Jean-Claude Van Damme stylee
• A4 – no being a witch
• B4 – no standing under your own raincloud
• D4 – no 19th century safari hats
• D5 – no people.

J & J are back safely, i believe.

In other news….

• ozzie woman denies amorous attentions caused ute crash
• william hodgson is funny
• al jazeera implements ‘light segments’
• estate agents neglect to mention power plant.

hooray for ben’s return!

here is my effort, paltry in comparison:

• carl sagan ‘n bass 
• insanely impressive singaporean automatic picture generator (thx George)
• FHM vs Salvia Divinorum
• continuous orgasms – not as fun as it sounds

happy weekend!

Where was I?

Ah yes, Talking pianos. Clever.

And if you don't have enough SQL in your database, I'm sure corporate finance can fix that.

This is not satire.

heroic little boy…

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/little_boy_heroically_shoots

some stuff people i know have posted on facebook:

for mike: http://www.cesmes.fi/pallo.swf

this is sort of like looba-looba-yey, but worse: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=1047514223313

(and an attempt to imitate it gone wrong, in many ways: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=120554701784)

(now, the question is, is this enough for some evil ai data mining software to figure out who i am?)

the daily mash is bang on

BANKRUPT BRITAIN FORCED TO GIVE UP WEAPONS IT NEVER NEEDED

Quite an explicitly political article this, and short on jokes (due to excess anger i guess).  here’s my favourite bit:

“But defence analyst Julian Cook insisted: "Britain's desire to be a big player on the world stage has delivered huge benefits including being dragged into a series of catastrophic wars with America's throbbing tumescence lodged firmly at the back of our throat, while at the same time being unable to afford decent roads, railways, schools and hospitals. It's what we call a 'win-win'.”

here’s a stick-figure guide to AES encryption. hands up anyone that read the whole thing?

brain machine kit – don’t leave home without it!

and one submission from Dave: dungeons for hire. something to do with d&d board games I think, correct me if i’m wrong?

Rule34(B) continued

EPIC-METAL-BARBERSHOP

 

believe.

 

[update 1] ok, so they use a drum kit… but check out their cover of metallica’s battery (or b’atari as they occasionally pronounce it). even more accomplished capella metal madness. outstanding.

 

[update 2] oh the giggles on this one just don’t end. check out their wikipedia page, where the band members are listed alongside their “instruments”":

• Dennis Schunke (Sly) – lead vocals
• Inga Scharf – higher lead vocals
• Stefan Schmidt – lower rakkatakka vocals, wahwah solo guitar vocals
• Ross Thompson – higher rakkatakka vocals
• Ingo Sterzinger (Ike) – lowest dandan vocals
• Bastian Emig – drums

Who’s up for (finally) starting the world’s first barbershop-gabber group then?  I’ll do the “lower dush-dush dzoing-dzoing vocals”…

Zombi-kleen

thanks to Mike!

rule 34(B)

“If you can hear it, there is barbershop of it.”

following on from last month’s rain-based example, here is a conclusive proof case:  barbershop Pink Floyd

unfortunately, the search for rule 34(C) – if you can hear it, there is a happy hardcore remix of it – has so far failed to find any example of country-happy-hardcore :( 

(cotton eye joe is not sufficiently authentic)

also: get ready for the US’s fully deniable laser weapons

snape kills dumbledore

 

I purchased this product 4.47 Billion Years ago and when I opened it today, it was half empty! – more classic amazon reviews.

one for the guitars-n-words fans (Dan…) make sure you watch the vid. i was impressed. then read carr & co’s futurephobic moaning…

Beardyman vs soca vs…

1 million points to the first person to identify the song beardyman is covering (using just his beatboxing skills incidentally, no real instruments) in the comments…

Maths is fun part 2

xkcd: newton and leibniz

ahaha, yeah.  the highest form of with i tells ya.

 

here’s your thought for the day from stephen pinker in case you feel in need of something else…

“Many intellectuals try to get their ethics on the cheap–by spin-doctoring or even fabricating scientific conclusions so that a morally desirable conclusion falls out of the facts, rather than being justified by a moral argument. They insist that all humans must be biologically equivalent, so that discrimination can be irrational, as opposed to immoral. They insist that humans must be inherently unselfish, honest, and peaceable, so that moral behavior is what comes naturally, rather than something we must strive for and encourage. They insist that behavior is mysterious and inexplicable, so that people cannot use biology as an excuse for their bad behavior–instead of separating explanations of behavior from exculpations of behavior. These confusions are bad for science, because they encourage people to promulgate comforting falsehoods, and bad for ethics, because they root moral positions in empirical claims which could turn out to be false, thereby jeopardizing the very positions they should be making rock-solid.”

a familiar thought to anyone that’s read his books no doubt, but concisely expressed here.  shame the interviewer can’t spell behaviour.

ps – read chris’s latest post.

Maths is fun

if I don’t blog this now, the other 2 readers will no doubt tell me to do so.  So, in case you haven’t seen it yet, and even if you have, I’d like to refer you to the original paper:

Munz, Hudea, Imad, Smith? (2009) “When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection” [pdf] by Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad and Robert J, Smith. In “Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress,” eds. J.M. Tchuenche and C. Chiyaka, Nova Science Publishers, Inc. pp. 133-150, 2009. Available from http://www.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~rsmith/Zombies.pdf

battle toads!

1. bush is even more of a nutcase than you thought.
2. the flamingo-related question on everyone’s lips is answered at last.

“"The thing you must always remember about the American right wing is that they are basically the baddies in a film.""

No Title

Techno Trading Estate

As You Can See From My Name-Brand Clothing, I Am Not Poor

and this i don’t really get. but its cool anyhows.