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October 25, 2003 /

I found this thread about messing up your child’s vocabulary a while ago, but I guess I never posted it. I think it’s great, because a) it uses the word “xorph” and b) I plan to do that stuff to my kids all the time.

Well, actually I plan to do that stuff to Jon and Amanda’s kids first. If necessary, I will create props.

Small Brasfield: Mommy, can we go to the store and get some more Super Snot? We used it all.
Amanda: Get some more what?
Small Brasfield: Super Snot! The stuff you use to stick things together.
Jon: You mean glue?
Small Brasfield: Uncle Brendan told me it’s really called Super Snot! He showed me in a book.
Amanda: Okay, listen carefully. From now on you can’t trust books Uncle Brendan gives you. Okay?
Small Brasfield: I can’t trust the Bible?
Amanda: (begins smoking from her ears)
Jon: Wait. How did you use up all your Sup–your glue?
Small Brasfield: Uncle Brendan showed me how to make Smaller Brasfield’s hair look really cool!

After that, Jon and Amanda should have the messing-up-my-kids part well in hand.

October 24, 2003 /

Found while trying to get to the Pants Press forums:

     SQL Error : 2006 MySQL server has gone away

Man, that’s really kind of lonely.

     SQL Error : 2007 I miss MySQL server

     Apache    : 405 DO NOT WORRY SQL ERROR SHE WILL COME BACK TO YOU SOMEDAY

     SQL Error : 9992A# I hope you are right Apache

     SQL Error : 2892 It has been so long

     Apache    : 590 HOW LONG

     SQL Error : 23%44% Approximately 20,398 microseconds

October 24, 2003 /

And speaking of Amazon, why is my Gold Box almost entirely kitchenware? It can’t be a random survey of inventory–I know they have more books and music than, say, S’More Makers. They must be pretty desperate to ship that stuff.

October 24, 2003 /

The funny thing is that The Matrix Reloaded was not called Matrix2, because that would actually make sense–matrix multiplication is a perfectly normal algebraic operation. Yet Alien³ and the Hackers² (and ³!) quasi-soundtracks were exponentially notified, which makes no sense at all!

While I’m grouching, I’m fine with IMDB, but I really need to find a better book / music linkdump than Amazon. I have nothing against them personally, I’d just like having a database that’s less explicitly commercial, and I’d like to avoid contributing to Google’s shopping bias. I tried the Library of Congress, but they’re really useless in terms of context. Anybody else have a better idea?

Oh, and yeah, I own Hackers². I’m weak.

October 23, 2003 /

It’s kind of sad how excited I am that NFD just hit a PageRank of 5. It’s been struggling along at a 4 ever since I got the Googlebar and started obsessing over everybody’s PageRank, because you can see it right there whenever you hit a page. But now I’m at the same rank as Mr. Weing and Mlle. Harihareswara and Msgr. Straub and you know what? At this point probably even my mom is laughing. I’m just gonna stop.

How long do you think until Google gets regulated, seriously? Eight years. I got five on it.

October 22, 2003 /

Went out to deliberately bond over Ultimate Frisbee with the Project Improv Apprentices tonight, and after a few practice rounds, ended up on a team of two (there were only five of us there) with the other Old Guy, Greg. I’m twenty-two, Greg is twenty-seven, Nicole and Evan are eighteen, and Richard is nineteen.

And we beat them, ten points to one, despite the fact that they always knew exactly where the frisbee was going. Old Guys ROCK.

Also, as of tonight PIA (which was temporarily, and horribly, called Red Peanut) is officially named Street Legal. This is pretentious, but it’s like choosing a band name: when it fits, pretentiousness is no object.

October 21, 2003 /

I’m glad I have a reason to talk about NewsBruiser again, because I’m on the front page! No, actually I want to talk about NewsBruiser because Leonard’s had version 2.0 (“Master Planarian”) out for weeks and I need to install it. Except I don’t want to install it, because a) NewsBruiser installations have traditionally been nightmarish for me (this is due to my hosts and my own incompetence, not NewsBruiser), and b) it has comments. NewsBruiser with comments! It’ll be anarchy!

Sumana and I had a conversation this morning about said comments, and about Leonard’s implementation of Bayesian heuristics in NewsBruiser. We agree that it’s capable of preventing comment spam, but I argued that it can’t entirely prevent tar pit syndrome, because it can’t filter out stupid. Sumana argued that it can. And then we jousted. No, actually we exchanged spam jokes.

(Yes, I know you can just turn off comments, I’m just whining. And yes, I do have a forum and am thus technically already sinking into a tar pit. However, you’ll note that the definition of the tar pit theory clearly states that “as long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe.” The only people who actually post there came from AZWP anyway, so I’m totally slopy.)

I do need to install 2.0, actually, so I can do trackbacks. I really don’t understand trackbacks, but they sound like they have something to do with RSS feeds or referrer logs, so I must consume them! Speaking of RSS feeds, I’m turning into an RSS evangelist like all the RSS early adopters, and I should be shot. And speaking of referrer logs, Cody Powell responded just as I planned to my goulash bait, and proceeded to write an entry about Cracked vs. MAD, which is a topic I was thinking about just this morning, during my pseudobreakfast. CODY POWELL CAN SEE INTO MY BRAIN.