AAAAHH! NOOOOO!

How'd I forget about...

Red Meat? Oh, Milkman Dan and Pipe Smoking Ted, I'm glad to see you're still around.

Rarer than diamonds, more precious than gold

Depending on when (or if) you read this, the odds are pretty good that someone recently was talking about humans returning to the moon. Or why going to the moon again is not optional, but necessary. Or perhaps that it's not feasible or responsible or conscionable, given the other issues facing people here on the ground. But regardless of what the schmuck on the street has to say, for or against, it doesn't look like anyone is going to spend enough money to put people on the moon again in the next couple of years.

Which might explain why an article like this depresses me more than I would have expected. So the US government in the 1970s decided to dole out moon rocks as ambassadorial keepsakes to friend(ly governments)s and (hoped for) allies and such. And now some of them are missing, presumably in the hands of private collectors.

Can you do anything with moon rocks? As far as I know, they don't power anything, they don't sparkle or gleam, and they're nothing special to the untrained eye. Apparently petrified wood was a reasonable substitute for the missing Dutch moon rock. So unless you've got some really special research to get done, they're not even particularly useful, just very, very rare.

It seems that NASA has a grand total of 842 pound of moon rock left. Until someone else gets a machine to the moon and back, that's it. There is no more access to moon rock. If going to the moon was really a giant leap for all mankind, with "for" meaning "on behalf of", then whoever has swiped pieces of moon rock has effectively refused to share with everyone else on the planet. I gots my piece of history, and the rest of you can go right to hell.

People, we've got to do better than this. Zero-sum games are not the only option.

Discovery News: Apollo moon rocks missing

Relatively speaking

Last night I had a headache so bad that for a while I couldn't see. It hurt in parts of my head that I usually don't pay any attention to. For a period of time, all I was could think of was what felt like my sphenoid and occitipal bones 1 , and the screaming line of rusty barbed wire that connected them.

So it was with some trepidation that I considered my status today. For the first couple of hours I was awake, I don't think my head hurt. But the memory of it was so fresh that I couldn't be sure. I'd like to think this will make me more of the days when when I wake up and feel fine. But it's a damn easy thing to get to taking that for granted. So for now, yes, things are okay. I'm feeling no pain in the traditional sense 2 , and it's alllll right.

1. No, I didn't know what they were called until I looked them up today. Skulls are really complicated on the inside.
2. As in, no unusual discomfort, and not the slangy term for inebriation. People still say that, right? C'mon, someone else has to remember Gordon Lightfoot's 1974 hit?

Sundown?

Anyone?

So, what's IBM done for you lately?

Pictures.
Tiny, tiny pictures.

Like, pictures of individual molecules.









[Image by Science/AAAS]

From Technology Review

Science toddles on...

There aren't enough experiments that involve comparing human young with other animals.

Discovery News: Dogs Read Gestures Like Toddlers

Best line comes at the end: "[The researcher] does warn against simply thinking of dogs as furry versions of a two-year-old, given that no toddler could ever herd a flock of sheep as well as a dog."

You hear that, human toddlers? Just sit your diaper-clad asses down, you ain't even in the running on this one.

¿Los Ingleses? No los conocen...

Some of you may be old enough to remember Speedy Gonzales, the fastest mouse in all of Mexico. And some of you may remember when he was pulled from TV rotation for, uh, well, I'm not entirely clear about that part. I think it was because he was viewed as being a negative stereotype. Possibly it was for speaking in less than perfect English (as compared to... Elmer Fudd? Sylvester? Daffy Duck? Pepe Le Pew?). Or maybe it was for wearing a simplified and stereotypical costume. One argument claims that even though Speedy's raison d'être was to outrun, outwit and outclass the hapless gringos that stood between him and his goals, he was overshadowed by the stereotyped behavior of most of the other mice. Of course, there may have been a whiff of the Frito Bandito controversy hanging around that made Ted Turner's various underlings try to err on the side of safety when they first shelved most of Mr. Gonzales' cartoons.

All of which is to say that in the US, there have been some struggles over what kind of cultural images are acceptable and what aren't. Just in case you hadn't heard, the English-speaking world is not unified enough for these sorts of things to apply everywhere. Example 1: the Asda brand tortilla packaging in the UK. Sorry first about the scan quality, and sorry second about having had wholewheat tortillas in my kitchen. I'm in a foreign land here, and sometimes you just have to make do with what fate throws your way. Now, in case you didn't get a good look at the logo, why don't you check out a close-up.

Seriously. Leaving aside the questionable coloring on the hands (Gloves? Shadows?), what the hell is up with the rest of that? I guess he's supposed to be ecstatic over the quality of the tortillas (which, apart from being wholewheat and too small weren't terrible, or terribly different from those spongy-bleached "wraps" that somehow make people feel better about eating a chicken salad sandwich). But do people here believe Mexicans are that excitable? And bandoliers? Quick check here: who can you think of that wears a bandolier? The list is weirder than I first thought.

Thinking about it, though, maybe there's just too much remove from Mexico for the average British person to get why this might be problematic. I mean, Spain isn't that far away, and the only Spanish character in the British media I can think of is from a show that's 30 years old. There's just no opportunity for most folks here to make any connections between these images and real people. Mexicans? Why not ask about Hui or Sumerians or Yukaghirs, they've got about as much to do with most people's daily experiences here.

Which may be why so few people here seem to find these things odd.


The three images above are from The Dieline, a website about food packaging design and their report on the 2008 Pacakging Design Award winners.

You think you're happy?

You ain't got nothing on Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Seriously. So take your rinky-dink happiness back to the minor leagues, along with your so-called professional attitude and your 61 mile an hour fastball.

Loser.

You know what I haven't done in a while?

I haven't checked out CNN dot com for a while. Let's see what they think is newsworthy today...


..God damn it. Marion "crack pipe"Barry arrested for stalking?

How the hell did a man caught on videotape smoking crack first get re-elected to mayor, and then elected again to city council? Why the crap didn't the people of Washington D.C. just slap his dumb ass with a sock full of pennies and tell him to get the hell out of town? There used to be a popular and appropriate civic response to this sort of thing.


Boy, I really would like to watch O Brother again.

Ditigal car in the real world?

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm not up to date with all the video game news anymore. Which made this footage a bit of a surprise to me. A car designed for the video game Gran Turismo 5 has been constructed in the real world.

Hmm. Video game car made into a real machine.

So where are my dream rides?

Government of the people? Like, ALL of them?

One of the things that's supposed to be great about the internet is that it enables anyone to make their voice heard. And, theoretically, this means that the lowliest plebe can cut out the
middlemen of representative democracy and take their case directly to the people in charge.
Unfortunately, there is nothing obliging any government to listen to any petition gathered on-line, no matter how eloquently the voice of "the people" is expressed.

Easier to mock, however, is the presence of paranoid schizophrenics, bleeding-heart dimwits, well-meaning wags, head-in-the-sand retrograde separatists, committed contrarians, and general dumb-ass bigots. For each reasonable proposal, there's a call for something stupid, making it that much easier to dismiss the whole unwashed mass of them.

Surely you're joking.

A website devoted to right-wing and conservative views on science fiction? Yep. Just in case you needed politically motivated commentary on Spider-Man meeting Obama, why the outrage over a Barbie doll dressed as a superhero is misplaced, or the lazy-liberal thinking implicit in a trailer for an animated sci-fi movie.

A video documentary about the branch of Germany's far-right, racially xenophobic political movement that idolizes Adolf Hitler and is also proudly homosexual? Honestly, 8 minutes into the first section, and I can already say I've seen a gay Nazi marketing manager and a traditional Oi-skinhead talking about how someone who had to jerk off when they saw his NPD membership card.

Escapees from the Android's Dungeon listening to Bill O'Reilly and skinheads getting down with man-love before going to a racial-intolerance rally? Mankind's family tree bears some goddamn weird fruit.

And don't call me Shirley.

Hu-mans are not special: exhibit 81.81

Some birds can make and use tools, others can learn to recognize and attack specific humans. Whales can steal, robots can hunt and eat prey, and new research has shown that apes can laugh. And they don't just make ha-ha sounds, but make them in the same contexts and for the same reasons as people.

All of which makes me think, but two idea keep coming back to me:
1. Humans are not as special as they like to think they are,

and

2. The rest of the world is a lot more special than humans give it credit for.

Claymation? Zombies? French maid outfit?

Thank you, POETV.


Ta-DA! (And totally not for kids.)

It's too late for this go-round, but maybe 2011...

As of this writing, there is just over a week left until the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships, to be held this year in Anchorage, Alaska.

Yes, seriously. How could you not dig something with categories like Verdi, Dali, Alaskan Whaler (new this year), and two varieties of Imperial (moustache and partial beard)? Just get a load of this excerpt from the "Wild West (moustache) page:

Germany's Günter Rosin appears nearly unstoppable in this category, which he has won three out of the last four times. He also holds countless German and European championships in the same category. Rosin's moustache is perfect. He dresses impeccably. Rumor has it he studies the stage lighting before the competition to find the perfect location to stand and smile at the judges.

But lest you think it's all happy wax and shiny trimmers, the controversy surrounding the 2003 award in the musketeer category shows that there is energetic competition and a healthy evolution taking place.

Screw horse racing. This is truly the sport of kings.

How does one explain it?

A while ago, a few months before I was supposed to leave Japan, maybe, a thought occurred to me. Something about preparing to go, preparing to end the business of the second (third?) life I had tried to put together was not dissimilar to preparing to end that life, or at least that way of life. All the things that were supposed to be important, and the things that truly had become important to me, were not actually important enough to maintain. I would leave and everything around my old life would continue. just without me.

I did leave, and everything did continue without me.

It was kind of like getting dumped twice at once, but I was getting dumped from my own life, by my own life, as a result of my own choices.

Oh goddammit what the hell is wrong with you people?

Is it really so hard to come up with good ideas for comic books? C'mon, military accident, miraculous circumstances of birth, space accident, oath of vengeance, school trip accident, theological inquiry, there's all sorts of things to do.

So why oh why would someone go out of their way to produce what looks like a woodenly staged comic book recreation of Pride and Prejudice?

Besides, there's only one person who should be making Jane Austen comics anyway.

Kate Beaton is awesome, by the way.

This trying to work with humans, what does it feel like?

Things left behind

Since leaving university, each time I've moved into a new house there has been a greater or lesser amount of stuff I've had to leave behind. But there's also been a greater or lesser amount of stuff left in the places I've moved into by the former occupants. Among other things abandoned in my then-new lodgings, I've found cinder blocks, unopened roach traps, stacks of scrap lumber, wicker ornaments, eyeglasses, Canadian pornography, healthy houseplants, frozen breast milk, mildewed futon cushions, dying houseplants, spy novels, dead houseplants and a 5 gallon (22 liter) glass water cooler bottle. Why would people take some things and leave others? What is judged as being valuable?

Did I tell you about the time I was forced to exchange my first driver's license for one from California? As the guy behind the counter took my old license, I asked him if it would be possible to mark it void or clip the corner or punch a hole in it or something so I could keep it as a memento. Without even looking up he jammed it into a shredder and said, "You got to let go of the past, baby."

I am so sick of lazy hamsters

Seriously, is there anything worse than a hamster just ignoring its potential and not providing anything worthwhile? No, nothing. But at long last, those fuzzy little wastes of space can finally start giving something back: very small amounts of electricity.

No, they're not hooking the treadmills up to little generators. Someone has developed a collection of "nanowires" that can be woven into a hamster-jacket, and the wires collect energy from their movements.

Sometimes I can't decide whether to be amazed or baffled by this modern world.

Photo by Zhong Lin Wang, shown on Discovery Channel.com

Coming attractions

I must see this.
End of story.

Science marches onward!

What has Discovery Channel news got for us today?

...One such researcher is Hans Laarson of McGill University in Montreal. Laarson and his team are analyzing the genes involved in tail development and researching ways of manipulating chicken embryos in order to "awaken the dinosaur within."

I see. Altering the development of chicken embryos to re-activate genes that express dinosaur-like characteristics. Like tails. Or hands. Or teeth.

How exactly does one spell, "AUUGGGH"?

Disturbing video interview here. What disturbs me most is the idea that the Discovery Channel's reporter is quite literally sitting slack-jawed in the dirt as he's told that the saying "rare as hen's teeth" is a suitable proof that chickens once had teeth.

Friday night?

Let's see, I'm drinking beer and reading comics. It could just as easily be 2009 as 1999. Ten year timewarp? Do your worst.

Two Great Tastes...

I like old books. Old comic books, old reference books, and particularly old paperback books. There's something especially appealing about those old paperbacks that, for one reason or another, had really striking cover art.

Which is why, I suppose, I'm so happy to see this: a collection of great video games in the style of classic book covers.

Given how crappy some video game box illustrations have been, it seems like this would be most welcome.

Of course, given how many people say digital distribution is the only way forward for any sort of media, I guess it's sorta like getting excited about, uh, making rumble-seat covers that are totally evocative of the greatest Conestoga wagon seats.

The more you know...

Soviet cosmonauts were trained with, and carried into space, three-barrelled firearms.
If George Washington was called "the father of the country", then it seems his wife, Martha, was a bit of a MILF.
Japanese companies have developed a robot that looks like the hall monitor robot from the Death Star, but shoots nets to catch criminals.
As a species, we're not done with evolution yet.

What the hell, facebook?

Okay, I can accept that social networking seems to make money from selling information about its users to advertisers. (Can we call them "Marketeers?") Not so cool, but a reasonable price to pay for free Scrabb Wordscra Lexul Scrabble and friend requests from people we never really thought we'd wanted to see again. But I may have to take issue with the ads I'm seeing.
Take this first one.
Now, I had no idea who Deb was, or what made her an "lpuk." Eventually I got that it was for credit restructuring, but by that point I'd sworn never to trust anyone named Deb.
This seems to be some sort of fan site for an island shaped like a shoe. Yeah, I don't know either.
Okay, so I live in the UK. That's no excuse for this sort of dental discrimination. It's not all like this anymore.

Alright, seriously. What kind of job is she supposed to be representing? And does anyone really think that it's going to be okay with Facebook's no-filth policies? C'mon, people. You can do better than this.

Part of this balanced breakfast...

A partial list of foods I have learned to cook with since I left home:

• Burdock root
• Konyakku, A.K.A. "jellied devil's tongue plant"
• Shrimp or prawns
• Pumpkin
• Parsnips
• Swede
• Tofu
• Couscous
  

And, as of last night,

• Black pudding

I'm just saying, is all.

Maybe everyone else said it, but this time it's still true.

I didn't think it'd matter so much, but I am actually relieved that Obama has been sworn in. Bush being president really bothered me more than I realized.

The last resort of a scoundrel

Patriotism generally strikes me as pretty fucking thoughtless. Even if, for argument's sake, you hold dual Chinese-Indian citizenship and feel equally patriotic towards both countries, that still means that 3.5 billion other people think they live somewhere that might be more worthy of pride, admiration, or whatever it is that patriotism is supposed to make you feel.

There's nothing wrong with loving an ideal, and many nations claim to actively strive towards one ideal or another. But there are definite differences between ideals, nations and the organizations or individuals that represent, occupy or govern them. And it's that mistaken connection of those things that makes patriotism so offensive.

But I didn't realize how much I was connecting the actions and ideals of one particular government with one particular nation. Yeah, 2000 was a mistake combined with the ballsiest power grab America had seen since, well, the American Revolution. Were the actions of the founding fathers in 1776 essentially treasonous? Well, they were trying to overthrow the legitimate government of the time and seize power, so under the laws of the day, yeah, criminal. Were the actions of Bush and co. in 2000 an attempt to seize power not given by the legitimate government of the day? Constitutional law is not my strong suit, so I'll leave that to someone else.

2004, on the other hand, was largely legitimate in the view of the public. Which meant that, given the choice, America still opted to stay with Bush. That was depressing to me for a number of reasons. But what I didn't really understand until now was this: at many times, the government of the US has done, ordered, encouraged or allowed some truly heinous shit, but in general there has been movement towards making things better, things that looked like progress. But in the face of unquestionable bad judgment, it looked like people chose not to change, not to improve, but to make things worse. My belief that the agents of government, the people in general and the nation as an entity were separable was shaken. Honestly, who wants to admit that they come from a land of unthinking, self-destructive, atavistic stereotypes?

So, you re-elected Bush, huh? What were you thinking?

On a more basic level, I resented having to explain my country to anyone who gave a damn about politics. Did I know what he was responsible for? Didn't people in the USA know? Did I know how people in other countries felt? Didn't other people in the USA know? How did you (singular or collective?) let him stay in office?

I don't know that it put a chip on my shoulder, but there's only so many times I could say, "Y'know, man, I just have no idea what happened" before it started to get to me. The only conclusion I could reach was that, as a nation, the US was either too scared, too stupid, or some combination of both to be able to change things in 2004. The people of the US, my home, for whatever reason, chose to vote for sloth, venality, greed, cruelty and stupidity in 2004.

A high hope for a low heaven

Was the Obama victory an overwhelming refutation of the last eight years? Not really. Was Obama the best choice? Was he the best choice of a bad lot? That shouldn't take anything away from him, but maybe that was part of it. There are a lot of things that remind me how much needs to change, and how many ways there are for a lot of people to be disappointed.

But, for a change, there are a lot of things that came out of this election that give me reason to be proud: proud of my country, the people living there, even of the potential of the government. Are there reasons to dismiss this feeling. Yeah, sure. But it all depends on your frame of reference. Get too close or too far away and it's hard to work out what still has meaning or value.

Things can change. Things can get better.

What happened to you, man? You used to be beautiful...

I've alluded, in one way or another, to how little I was enjoying the last third of 2008. And you know what? It was my own damn fault. It was my job, my life, and my own damn, dumbass choices that put me there. Did I make mistakes? Oh hell yes. Maybe I'll put up some details of the worst parts later, but not today.

It occurred to me that parts of my past seem, in retrospect anyway, to have been jam-packed with fun, high-jinks, wacky misadventures, the odd comedic scrape, and more than a little learning. Especially in comparison with the last year or so. But it also occured to me that while I haven't been to a parasite museum in a couple of years, last year I did see the largest collection of pre-anaesthetic surgical tools and preserved pieces of syphilitic human anatomy I've ever heard of. Did I almost get run down by a forklift carrying a frozen 800-pound tuna at the world's biggest fish market? No. But I did visit one of the greatest collections of plundered antiquities in the world three times. Did I get to spend time with a bunch of interesting and intelligent people, including my wife, my parents and my brothers? Did I eat like a real, historical king? You damn right I did.

Today, like all days, is for getting on with it. I've got things to do, and not so much time to do them in. But I'm going to keep my eyes open, 'cause shit matters.

Been a long time...

And I've been, well, less than myself. Too much work with far too little reward or meaning. But all that's over now, so I can get back to stuff that really matters. Like bitching about things that everyone else heard about months ago.

F'r instance, the UK police are getting the same sorts of powers assumed by the federal government in the US (that are a clear violation of the US constitution), that is, the authority to root through your computer without a warrant. Good thing that we're all so past 1984, and so done with references to 1984, and so bored with that show about living in a surveillance society, so that this is really a non-issue. I mean, it's not like the UK police have ever misused power, right? Not like those US types, anyway. Right