flog

I pity ye who will never experience the ecstasy of the perfect down-shift.

I had a strange experience on Christmas day.
While sitting next to my brother on the couch, I watched him play with his daughter, tickling her and whatnot. Normal parent-kid stuff.
Suddenly, I realized that this particular moment was completely real. Emma isn't just some person that comes along with my brother to visit our parents. He is the cause of her being and she is a continuance of him and he loves her utterly.

Whilst trying to have a nice smoke last night around 21:30 (estimated temp at least -10° C) I couldn't keep the tobacco lit. This go 'round I did purchase good tobacco instead of the cheap "Captain Black" shit available at 7-11, which due to its higher moisture content (because it's fresh) is harder to get lit and is more prone to being packed overtightly. However, the tobacco was well packed this time, with a good draw and I got a good blaze going right away on account of having just filled the Zippo with fluid. I ended up giving up half way through because all my attempts at keeping it lit had led to it being packed tight and then crispified.

Anyway, I got to thinking. It is a given that cold temperatures cause trouble for IC engines, particular compression ignition engines, because the cold air robs heat from the engine block which aids in combustion. Why wouldn't the same principle apply to in-pipe-o tobacconic combustion? It is possible that fuel combustion in an IC engine is more precisely controlled and therefore more susceptible to variant conditions than burning some tobacco, but I don't think that is likely. I'm provisionally going to go with the assumption that the same principle applies to both the contained combustion in a pipe as in a engine cylinder.

Incidentally, if you were wondering, the green "bug removing" Rain-X wiper fluid turns to slush around -10° C. Don't forget to switch over to the orange "De-icing" Rain-X fluid before your first cold snap.

Synchronicity, perhaps? I just get finished justifying my Cygwin setup on Windows XP to some punk on ISCA (because I asked a question about why his telnet client doesn't work over an SSH connection) because "Windows isn't designed to do that". And then I pop over to /. to read a bit of a raging debate about whether a Cygwin LiveCD is stupid.
I don't think I'd personally have use for a full blown X Window package on a Cygwin LiveCD, but I can at least entertain the notion of how it'd be useful. Is there some reason why some hardcore *nix geeks can't get it through their head that some people actually aren't interested in throwing away all their computer knowledge just to use the great and powerful *nix, when there is no compelling technological reason to do so.
Of course, it is /., so why the fuck do I care?

A reply to the recent /. article Linux has fewer bugs than rivals: "Somehow I doubt that the XP kernel is 40 million lines of code. I know it's not good "news" but they should really compare apples to apples in their study. This just in! "Hello world" has 0 bugs per three lines of code! Most stable and secure software ever devised!"

Someone on /. missed an oppurtunity to slag Windows? What is the world coming to?

Well, while driving to work today, a geezer in a late model Toyota SUV, thought it'd be a good idea to try executing a left hand turn right in front of me. I managed to get off the road to the right and go around him, hitting an asphalt berm in the process. When I turned around and went back to the parking lot, the geezer was incommunicado and the proprietor of the establishment was unable to say anything beyond "I don't nothing about that."

So, I take down the geezer's license plate number and call my insurance company. Well, that take down the information about three different times, recording it at one point, and then inform me that I have a $500 deductible and do I want to get the work done through them or just pay it myself.

So, because I didn't verbally accost the geezer, demanding that he give me his insurance information, I get to pay for the damages. The geezer did not appear to have any comprehension of what I was talking about. From the point of view of the insurance company, I would have been better off if I had slammed right into the side of that senile motherfucker's vehicle. I fucking hate insurance and I fucking hate people who are too fucking old too drive, but don't get their licenses revoked because it'd be sad for them to lose their mobility.

The goddamned liberal god-hating media is at it again. Everyone gets depressed hearing how we're maiming and killing Iraqi civilians and our soldiers, so let's talk about atheists! I'm not sure why this conversion story warrants making it on the AP news wire (lets hope someone (even a famous someone) changing their mind about Grimm's fairy tales wouldn't be AP newsworthy).

Anyway, what does this pinnacle of British philosophy give as his reason for "joining the fold". "A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature..."

So what do we learn from this? Namely, that even philosophers in the forefront of their field can be sufficiently ignorant of physics, chemistry, and biology to commit logical fallacies and become ensnared by silly ideas. Ok, I guess that is news.

hehe, I apparently, inadvertantly started a Flame war with my second ever Usenet post. I know, that's about as controversial as saying I tend to inhale oxygen on a fairly regular basis.

My cheap ass looking for a freeware QBasic compiler

Strange, for about the past hour or so, eddie shows a connection
to orac.csn.ul.ie in the CLOSE_WAIT state. Navigating to
http://orac.csn.ul.ie:80/ brings up the "SkyNet project" at the University
of Limerick (yeah, the one in Ireland).

I can't imagine what site I may have navigated to that setup the
connection. Nor can I figure out why eddie's still holding onto it
after this long.

I said to myself, "Fuck it, dude, let's go shopping" and went to Tower yesterday. I picked up the "Stone Age Complication" EP for a modest $7.00. I felt a little bit evil for donating money to the RIAA, but decided that the Queens were worth it.

It's a couple of covers, 1 remix, and 3 B-side songs. I'd say that track 3 (UNKLE remix of "No one knows") and track 6 ("The Bronze") were worth the admission price. Track 6 sounds almost like Kyuss rather than the Queens with its thick bass and meandering, distorted guitar solos.

I'd recommend it as a cheap and interesting introduction to the band.

Why does everyone hate Quentin?

Ben Affleck appearing in Rutig Kofta's list made me laugh out loud. Literally. No, I'm serious.

I don't know why I'm lurking on websites about "Inglorious Bastards" when I haven't even seen Kill Bill Vol2 yet. I had a chance to see it in the theater about 9 months back or so. Instead, I opted to stick with the group and ended up seeing that pile of poop with Deniro and Rebecca Romijn in it. You didn't even get to see her tits, what a fucking ripoff. With a movie that piss-poor I should at least get some tits for my $9.00.