And yes, it is all home made.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Food porn mega-post
Courtesy of some good eatings recently, a rather large post of foods we've created.
And yes, it is all home made.
And yes, it is all home made.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Updated music post
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Fresh from the WTF files...
Yesterday, I saw a place selling lambskin condoms. As in the condoms that don't actually stop anything. What the hell, America, what the hell?
Monday, June 9, 2008
the MBTA
Today or tomorrow may break the record for hottest day in early July. It's hot as hell, and I have no AC.
And the train to work wasn't running this morning.
However, while waiting with some people for a bus to take us to another train station, I heard tell of a fire on the tracks, somewhere nearby (as they'd only closed a portion of the route).
What makes that interesting is that there was one yesterday as well.
A friend and I were at the Porter T stop, and it was filled with smoke, and a smell instantly recognisable to anyone with a misspent youth. Sulphur and charcoal. It smelled like fireworks or black powder.
Peering down into the murky recesses of the tunnel, we could see something that appeared to be ablaze. It looked rather like a box, and was billowing out smoke at a rather prodigious rate. And sure enough, as the train approached, someone came out with a fire extinguisher and saw to it.
Questions remain though.
1) Is there a link?
2) Who the hell is moronic enough to pull a stunt like this? Boston if famously paranoid about attacks (see here). The amount of shit you'd get into for chucking a box of fireworks on a subway track? You'd be lucky if they didn't send you to Gitmo!
Hopefully this doesn't become a trend. I rather need the fully air conditioned train in this destructive heat.
And the train to work wasn't running this morning.
However, while waiting with some people for a bus to take us to another train station, I heard tell of a fire on the tracks, somewhere nearby (as they'd only closed a portion of the route).
What makes that interesting is that there was one yesterday as well.
A friend and I were at the Porter T stop, and it was filled with smoke, and a smell instantly recognisable to anyone with a misspent youth. Sulphur and charcoal. It smelled like fireworks or black powder.
Peering down into the murky recesses of the tunnel, we could see something that appeared to be ablaze. It looked rather like a box, and was billowing out smoke at a rather prodigious rate. And sure enough, as the train approached, someone came out with a fire extinguisher and saw to it.
Questions remain though.
1) Is there a link?
2) Who the hell is moronic enough to pull a stunt like this? Boston if famously paranoid about attacks (see here). The amount of shit you'd get into for chucking a box of fireworks on a subway track? You'd be lucky if they didn't send you to Gitmo!
Hopefully this doesn't become a trend. I rather need the fully air conditioned train in this destructive heat.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
On Liberty
I was having a discussion with my flatmate this evening, and eventually it turned to politics (as it often does), and she mentioned her disgust at the fact that neither Obama nor Clinton had mentioned Liberty in any of their speeches or debates. She went on to ask if it was a generational thing, and if our generation were retarded and didn't care, or were apathetic and didn't care, but that either way Liberty didn't matter to them.
I was slightly taken aback, but she's a Paultard, so I'm often slightly shocked by her views, but it set me thinking.
Firstly, I was rather bewildered. Sure, the speeches of this run have been rather lacking in content. But that content should be towards things that actually matter. Healthcare, the economy, the war, military funding, gay marriages, education, that sort of stuff. Liberty, as an abstract concept, isn't as important as meals and Doctors, right?
That's a bloody dangerous line of reasoning right there.
Not a year ago I was verbally berating some people I know from Singapore for not caring about voting. Because their Government looks after them. They've given up a large degree of liberty in exchange for a high standard of living in a safe and comfortable place.
What's the balance?
I was slightly taken aback, but she's a Paultard, so I'm often slightly shocked by her views, but it set me thinking.
Firstly, I was rather bewildered. Sure, the speeches of this run have been rather lacking in content. But that content should be towards things that actually matter. Healthcare, the economy, the war, military funding, gay marriages, education, that sort of stuff. Liberty, as an abstract concept, isn't as important as meals and Doctors, right?
That's a bloody dangerous line of reasoning right there.
Not a year ago I was verbally berating some people I know from Singapore for not caring about voting. Because their Government looks after them. They've given up a large degree of liberty in exchange for a high standard of living in a safe and comfortable place.
What's the balance?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Heaven and Hell, Let's Rock!
Fighter of a thousand faces
Once great prize fighter now relegated to crappy current affairs shows!
Famous for his KOs against Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark!
Your call, faithful readers. Who would you put money on?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Death of Print Media, part II: Scifi Short Fiction
Continuing the theme of my previous post...
Scifi used to be based primarily around short fiction. Just think of the short stories of Asimov, Clarke, Dick and Moorecock. And it's a genre that is dying in the print form. Why? Because it turns out that the people running things are utter luddites. Rather than rehash a complete history of why this is, I'm just going to throw some basic links your way:
1) The VP of the Scifi and Fantasy Writers of America called people who publish their fiction free online "webscabs" and "Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch"
2) Scifi magazines are losing members at an astonishing rate
3) They are completely unable to do even the most basic things to bring themselves into the 21st Century
But the thing that really gets me? Analog, Interzone and Asimov don't accept digital submissions. What the hell? You're the most famous Scifi magazines on the market. The big names. The ones you want to be published in. And you won't even take e-submissions. These are the people who are meant to be showing us the future.
Not to mention they pay around 7¢ a word.
This is why science fiction is always left in the shadow of its golden past. There was a time when great writers were pushing out amazing ideas through these magazines. When one could earn a bit of money by doing it. When people were actually challenging the world around them through print.
And those people haven't moved. But they've become older and scared of the internet. Of free media. Of technology.
Scifi helped put people on the moon. Why the hell aren't they pushing for Mars? Scifi used to inspire people into exploration and invention. It used to drive us to the miraculous. We've lost that.
But son of a bitch if we aren't fighting for it again.
Tor is revamping their website into a social network of sorts. Webzines and Podcasts are paying up and coming new authors. Murr Lafferty and Scott Sigler are both putting out absolutely fantastic fiction for free online. As is Cory Doctorow.
I just cannot believe that the golden bastions of the future, the writers who put us into space and into the universe, are so terrifyingly stuck in their ways.
Scifi used to be based primarily around short fiction. Just think of the short stories of Asimov, Clarke, Dick and Moorecock. And it's a genre that is dying in the print form. Why? Because it turns out that the people running things are utter luddites. Rather than rehash a complete history of why this is, I'm just going to throw some basic links your way:
1) The VP of the Scifi and Fantasy Writers of America called people who publish their fiction free online "webscabs" and "Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch"
2) Scifi magazines are losing members at an astonishing rate
3) They are completely unable to do even the most basic things to bring themselves into the 21st Century
But the thing that really gets me? Analog, Interzone and Asimov don't accept digital submissions. What the hell? You're the most famous Scifi magazines on the market. The big names. The ones you want to be published in. And you won't even take e-submissions. These are the people who are meant to be showing us the future.
Not to mention they pay around 7¢ a word.
This is why science fiction is always left in the shadow of its golden past. There was a time when great writers were pushing out amazing ideas through these magazines. When one could earn a bit of money by doing it. When people were actually challenging the world around them through print.
And those people haven't moved. But they've become older and scared of the internet. Of free media. Of technology.
Scifi helped put people on the moon. Why the hell aren't they pushing for Mars? Scifi used to inspire people into exploration and invention. It used to drive us to the miraculous. We've lost that.
But son of a bitch if we aren't fighting for it again.
Tor is revamping their website into a social network of sorts. Webzines and Podcasts are paying up and coming new authors. Murr Lafferty and Scott Sigler are both putting out absolutely fantastic fiction for free online. As is Cory Doctorow.
I just cannot believe that the golden bastions of the future, the writers who put us into space and into the universe, are so terrifyingly stuck in their ways.
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