December 31, 2003
Lowbrow humor

lowbrow dot com:

I used to be into sadism, necrophilia, and bestiality, but I gave them all up when I realized I was flogging a dead horse.

Posted by Barry at 01:37 PM | | Comments (0)
Snaketastic

Indonesian villagers have allegedly caught a 49-foot python which weighs nearly 1000 pounds!

Posted by Barry at 10:00 AM | | Comments (0)
December 30, 2003
Overkill?

Somebody went too far: it's the unabridged, 46-disc, 55 hour long audio version of the Lord of the Rings!

Posted by Barry at 03:10 PM | | Comments (0)
December 29, 2003
Encyclopedia

Wikipedia is more than a free online encyclopedia. It's a collaborative effort that anyone can contribute to. I've been browsing it all day, and used it to learn that my birthday is the anniversary of the most devastating earthquake in human history.

Posted by Barry at 07:46 PM | | Comments (0)
Good times

I went snowboarding at Mount Hood Meadows yesterday. I nearly wrecked my car more than once while attempting to get there. It was epic, as promised, and I got completely slaughtered as I foolishly charged even the most threatening double black diamond run, but it was ok because eighteen inches of sweet, sweet powder fell in the 24 hours before I made my way to the mountain. There was a fifteen car pileup and a 6 car pileup on highways 26 and 35, respectively, while I was out riding, and I was stuck at the lodge for an hour waiting for the roads to be cleared. Not a bad day, overall, and it will certainly be repeated soon. Everything except almost wrecking the car.

Posted by Barry at 06:51 PM | | Comments (0)
December 28, 2003
Snowboarding Trip Report #1

I went on the first snowboarding expedition of the season solo. I made my way up to the mountain bravely, without the benefit of any sissy chains.

...until I was 1/4 of the way up the driveway to Mount Hood Meadows, that is. That was when I found myself sliding backwards, slowly, and still refusing to give up on the idea that my car would climb a steep, snow-covered slope without the benefit of snow tires. I tried it twice before I resigned my efforts and turned around. I drove about three or four miles back to a parking lot and put on chains. Everthing got better from there, however, because I got to the mountain and proceeded to shred it. It was nice. I got air and when I fell it was into sweet, sweet powder.

Posted by Barry at 07:51 PM | | Comments (0)
December 24, 2003
He's come back for your cat

This made my Christmas a little jollier: ALF is coming back to telelvision! This plainly rocks. He's going to have his own talk show.

Posted by Barry at 09:20 AM | | Comments (0)
December 23, 2003
HAL lives

When I get home to a computer with speakers I'm going to check out AT&T Natural Voices. HAL would be proud.

Posted by Barry at 05:28 PM | | Comments (0)
Bad news for republicans

Republicans are probably getting nervous with the news that, according to the best information source known to man, George W. Bush is unelectable.

Posted by Barry at 03:06 PM | | Comments (0)
December 22, 2003
Toys

One of these days I'm going to get this data cable and the required software so I can fully hack my Nokia 6800.

Posted by Barry at 03:16 PM | | Comments (0)
Probably not a good role model

Wow, what can I say. This is not a good way to get into the record books. Perhaps I'm wrong, though.

Posted by Barry at 12:34 PM | | Comments (0)
Ladies and Gentlemen: the Kurds got 'im

According to Yahoo! News - Saddam was held by Kurdish forces, drugged and left for US troops. I guess the story the media was trumpeting last week can go into the round file with the 'heroic Jessica Lynch' story.

An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express: "Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence. We knew that someone would eventually take their revenge, it was just a matter of time."
Posted by Barry at 12:07 PM | | Comments (0)
Viva la Dentist!

Kuro5hin how-to: Get Your Teeth Fixed in Mexico!

This sounds like it is actually a great alternative to the United States' bloated dental industry, and a great excuse to go to Mexico.

Posted by Barry at 09:59 AM | | Comments (0)
December 19, 2003
My new favorite quadrilogy

Saddam apparently was an aspiring novelist, writing four novels in the last four years with the last going to press as the 'coalition of the billing' invaded Iraq. This cracks me up for some reason. I hope Amazon will have them in stock soon. It would be very amusing to see them make the New York Times bestseller list as Saddam goes to trial for crimes against humanity.

Posted by Barry at 05:08 PM | | Comments (0)
Dodge crappy spam

This rocks. I saw it a while ago and forgot the url. dodgeit offers an email address that's created dynamically as soon as an email is sent to it, making it a wonderful tool to dodge spam.

Posted by Barry at 01:31 PM | | Comments (0)
Getting all misty-eyed over P2P

This is somewhat ground-shaking: The DMCA doesn't address P2P?

The original efforts of the RIAA to subpoena account information for Verizon customers allegedly trading in copyrighted material has been overturned by a three judge panel in the federal U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. this morning.

The ramifications of this are major: it may result in evidence for current P2P prosecutions being thrown out! The DMCA could be rendered impotent against Kazaa Lite, Soulseek, and BitTorrent.

I'm a little choked up over this.

Posted by Barry at 10:16 AM | | Comments (0)
December 18, 2003
Open rebellion

The film industry not only wants to dictate who can link to sellers of a film they own the rights to. HA! Who do they think they are?

I'm rebelling. Go here and buy the original Shaolin Soccer before the Disney-fied version is unleashed on theatres! Tell them I sent you.

Posted by Barry at 09:33 AM | | Comments (0)
December 17, 2003
Injustice from the Justice Department

Ashcroft? A campaign criminal? Who knew?

I had my suspicions all along. It's pretty sad that he had to cheat on the campaign, and still couldn't beat a dead man.

Posted by Barry at 11:44 AM | | Comments (0)
December 16, 2003
The end

What? The internet, once a refuge of freedom, openness, and anonymity, could become controlled by government and corporations? Sadly, I'm not shocked. The Digital Imprimatur breaks the whole messed up scenario down for you.

Posted by Barry at 02:43 PM | | Comments (0)
December 15, 2003
Poor dead artists

Philip K. Dick inspired so many sci-fi movies it will blow your mind. It started with Blade Runner and goes on from there, but amazingly it all started after his death. In all fairness he should've been a wealthy man, but he died, like so many influential artists, relatively poor. His books were the inspiration behind Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and the upcoming Ben Aflect flick, Paycheck. I'm tempted to check out his book, Divine Invasion, where God ("Yah") gets freed from his prison planet and comes back to retake Earth.

Posted by Barry at 03:19 PM | | Comments (0)
Brought to justice

Now that Saddam has been caught, the most important thing is that we kill him for killing people to show that killing is wrong.

Posted by Barry at 11:51 AM | | Comments (0)
December 12, 2003
C---- T-----

The BlackSpot Sneaker looks suspiciously like the sneaker made by a company which was recently purchased by Nike. Interesting.

Posted by Barry at 06:00 PM | | Comments (0)
Submitted for approval

A source who wishes to remain anonymous submitted knot.magazine for me to investigate. Considering granting it the oft-coveted spot on linkbar.

Posted by Barry at 05:33 PM | | Comments (0)
The truth comes out

Further evidence that Microsoft has evil in its black, twisted heart. They're correcting the "error" with a patch, but they 'accidentally' let a couple swastikas slip into their Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. Yes, 'accidentally'. Right.

Posted by Barry at 04:53 PM | | Comments (0)
A long lost relative?

Who is this Clemens Mulling? I've never heard of any baseball players in my family.

Posted by Barry at 04:38 PM | | Comments (0)
Admission of guilt

In a recent statement to the press, the president admitted he's incompetent about matters of international law. Dumbass. Note: LA times, subscription reqd.

"International law? I better call my lawyer. I don't know what you're talking about, about international law," the president said.
Posted by Barry at 10:57 AM | | Comments (0)
December 11, 2003
Grokkin' Law

Groklaw has issued an open letter in response to SCO's open letter. It's great.

Posted by Barry at 05:16 PM | | Comments (0)
Who knew?

Who could've guessed that Eminem's brother had a horrible website?

Posted by Barry at 04:59 PM | | Comments (0)
Another candidate

Another candidate for a coveted spot on my linkbar: *pthbbbt*

Posted by Barry at 04:50 PM | | Comments (0)
Books about me

Words fail me. Customized Classics.

Posted by Barry at 04:40 PM | | Comments (0)
Crystal Kickass

del.icio.us helped me stumble onto Crystal Space 3D. Check it out if you fancy yourself to be some kind of "software developer" who wants to make games.


Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) and portable 3D Game Development Kit written in C++. It supports: true six degrees of freedom, colored lighting, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflective surfaces, 3D sprites (frame basedor with skeletal animation), procedural textures, particle systems,halos, volumetric fog, scripting (using Python or other languages), 16-bit and 32-bit display support, OpenGL, and software renderer, font support, hierarchical transformations, ... See the extensive list of features for more details.

Posted by Barry at 01:19 PM | | Comments (0)
December 10, 2003
MetaQuestions

I'm tempted to log into Ask MetaFilter and ask questions about Ask Metafilter. Then they would be metaquestions.

Posted by Barry at 06:00 PM | | Comments (0)
Glowing fish update

Reading by fishlight is much closer to becoming a reality.

Posted by Barry at 04:11 PM | | Comments (0)
L33t35t s3r\/3r e\/3r!!!!!!1

The Human Clock shows off their L337 Atari 2600 Webserver. Kudos. I'm impressed.

Posted by Barry at 01:55 PM | | Comments (0)
Yummy

If you think good links are tasty, you'll think del.icio.us is delicious.

Posted by Barry at 12:22 PM | | Comments (0)
Americans vs. Canadians

What? Since when were Canadians not Americans? The last time I checked, they were still living in (North) America. They are Americans. So are Mexicans. What else would they be, Antarcticans?

In focus groups held this fall in four U.S. cities where the federal government is opening consulates, Americans acknowledged they don't know much about Canadians.

"Some participants expressed a certain amount of annoyance at what is perceived as a systematic attempt by Canadians to make the statement that they are not Americans by sporting the maple leaf," said the recently released report. "This underscores the American sensitivity at feeling rejected by the rest of the world ...."

Posted by Barry at 09:45 AM | | Comments (0)
December 09, 2003
Living for a really long time

The Speculist discusses a cure for aging with Aubrey de Grey.

Posted by Barry at 02:58 PM | | Comments (0)
Dean for Prez

Al Gore has endorsed Howard Dean for president. W00t.

Posted by Barry at 08:31 AM | | Comments (0)
December 08, 2003
Shockwave planes dominating your life

Now this is just straight up the best use of shockwave I've seen ever. Check out the flight simulator.

Posted by Barry at 01:06 PM | | Comments (0)
December 06, 2003
Fermi owns

I should read this later: The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory

Posted by Barry at 05:12 PM | | Comments (0)
Pump and dump

Slashdot has an article about the SCO vs IBM case. Apparently the judge is demanding that SCO put up (the evidence), or shut up. An interesting discussion follows about something I've suspected all along: that the SCO suit is tailored to convince foolish investors that SCO has a leg to stand on, thus elevating the price of the stock as the insiders are shorting it. link.

Posted by Barry at 01:46 PM | | Comments (0)
December 05, 2003
Religious Persecution against the non-religious

It's pretty funny that in seven statesNebraska Atheists
point out that there is still religious discrimination built into the constitutions of seven states. Take Maryland, for example:

Article 36 of Maryland's Declaration of Rights
"That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore, no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate, on account of his religious persuasion, or profession, or for his religious practice, unless, under the color of religion, he shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their natural, civil or religious rights; nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain, any place of worship, or any ministry; nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished therefore either in this world or in the world to come."

This makes the "under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance like a typo!

Posted by Barry at 04:50 PM | | Comments (0)
He's gonna get elected this time!

Nader 2004 Presidential Exploratory Committee: Ralph is considering getting Dubya elected again. He has an exploratory committee to research the issue. Personally, I feel like he's undone all the good he accomplished with his consumer advocacy by getting W elected in the first

Posted by Barry at 04:40 PM | | Comments (0)
Survival of the fittest neurons

Women have smaller brains than men, but that's OK because men can use alcohol to shrink our brains down so it's an even match.

Posted by Barry at 03:15 PM | | Comments (0)
December 04, 2003
All I can say is...

IT'S ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME!

Posted by Barry at 09:24 AM | | Comments (2)
December 03, 2003
How did I miss this?

How did I manage to fail to give Gizmodo a coveted spot on my linkbar? What was I thinking?

I don't know. I'm going to take some time and think it over before I go and tool around with my linkbar template. Let me know if you think this site isn't worthy of a permanent link on my blog.

Posted by Barry at 06:53 PM | | Comments (1)
Best. Google. Search. Ever.

Google Search: miserable failure

Posted by Barry at 06:38 PM | | Comments (1)
MmmMmPowder

I stumbled onto Timberline Lodge Ski & Snow Report: Skiing Conditions - OnTheSnow and haven't looked back. Take that, Boris! You might be the king of the surf, but I'm the king of the snow.

Posted by Barry at 05:44 PM | | Comments (0)
December 02, 2003
He who burns his life savings and gets away

Silly Frenchman.

Posted by Barry at 04:42 PM | | Comments (0)
December 01, 2003
Don't you dare!

Everybody! Everybody!
Don't you dare think for a second that StrongBad doesn't own you!!! And your family!! If you don't know what I'm talking about, for the love of god follow the link. You don't understand. Do it.

Posted by Barry at 05:54 PM | | Comments (0)
Mister picassohead?

Mr. Picassohead. I don't know what else to say.

Posted by Barry at 05:48 PM | | Comments (0)
It's an 802.11b Christmas

New York has teamed with Yahoo! to create the l337est christmas tree ever!!!

Posted by Barry at 10:30 AM | | Comments (0)