Dan Q

Tag: fun

Mr. Sinus Theater 3000 In Name-Theft Lawsuit

Mr. Sinus Theater 3000

The Austin Business Journal reports that the makers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 are taking to court the makers of a new show, Mr. Sinus Theater 3000, in which a group of guys sit in front of a cinema screen and take the piss out of the films they watch. And fair enough: it seems to me that this is quite obviously an attempt to cash in on the fame of the now-dead series, MST3K. Although if it’s not – and it is just fair use and parody… then Best Brains would be complaining that their parody-ridden show was itself the victim of a parody… umm…

In any case, go read the story.

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Sick And Wrong Use Of Emacs

I’ve been made aware of an easter egg in emacs, a text editor.

Fire up a copy of emacs, hit meta-X (alt-x), then type doctor to talk to an ELIZA-like chatbot. Better yet, type psychoanalyze-pinhead to… well… you’ll see…

Have my two-tone, 1958 Nash METRO brought around..
I don’t understand.
So this is what it feels like to be potato salad
Do you really think you might want to be a potato?
Don’t SANFORIZE me!!
Are you frightened by that?
It’s OBVIOUS.. The FURS never reached ISTANBUL.. You were an EXTRA in the REMAKE of “TOPKAPI“.. Go home to your WIFE.. She’s making FRENCH TOAST!
Possibly your sex life is related to this.
I feel partially hydrogenated!
What makes you think you feel partially hydrogenated?
What I want to find out is — do parrots know much about Astro-Turf?
Earlier you said you would like to be a potato?
Well, I’m INVISIBLE AGAIN.. I might as well pay a visit to the LADIES ROOM..

Etc.

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Amazon Pre-Order For Half-Life 2

I can’t believe that it’s been 13 and a half months since I pre-ordered Half-Life 2 on Amazon. I went to check on my order earlier today:

Dan's pre-order for Half-Life 2 on Amazon... with delivery estimate 2003.

It seems that my delivery estimate hasn’t been fixed – I can still (apparently) expect to receive my copy of this long-awaited game by 2nd October… 2003. Hmm.

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Bryn – Afro Man!

Picture removed. The joke’s gotten old. – Dan, 5 June 2007

Picture reinstated. The joke’s so old that it’s now dead, and this page can serve as a permanent archive to what once was. – Dan, 7 October 2018

Picture removed again. I’d misunderstood a conversation in which I believed Bryn had approved of its reinstating. – 10 June 2019

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The Internet As An Art Form – The Infinite Cat Project

The Infinite Cat Project Just came across the Infinite Cat Project. The premise is simple: take a picture of your cat looking at the current picture on the web site, and send it in, and it will become the current picture. The first cat is Frankie: just click Next Cat to get to the next one.

I think this is a great use of the high-speed communication that the internet gives us in order to produce something truly artistic. Cool.

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Bush’s Foreign Friends

There’s a new googlebomb out, abusing the way that the popular Google search engine works. To see it in action, go to Google and enter “Bush’s foreign friends” (including the speechmarks) as the search term, and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.

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This Weekend : Parachuting For Dummies

Parachuting For Dummies

The good news is that the weather looks fantastic for my parachuting trip this weekend. I can’t think of a better thing to be travelling for on a Friday 13th.

The downside is I haven’t spent more than a few consecutive minutes off the phone this morning talking my work colleagues through the code I’ve left behind for them to carry on with. At current rates, I should expect to be answering my mobile during a free-fall.

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I’m Surrounded By Idiots

Conversation with a co-worker, who shall remain nameless:

Her: Is anybody any good at Fireworks?
Me: Yeh; you just light the blue touchpaper and run. But seriously, you ought’a be using Corel Photo-Paint.

(I wander over to her desk, and see that she’s working with a bitmapped image of our logo – she’s trying to remove some of the text from it… using the text tool… the text is jaggedy and quite obviously bitmapped)

Her: Why can’t I select this text?
Me: Umm… because it’s not text; it’s an image. The same reason that if I scanned in some of my handwriting and gave you that as a file, you couldn’t select it.
Her: But it is text: look…

(at this point, I collapse into a blubbering heap on the floor… this person has several years of an internet computer science degree tucked under her belt, but can’t understand the difference between vector-based and bitmap graphics [pretty fundamental year one web design stuff])

Computer Hardware For Sale: Bargain Prices

Overclockers Australia is running an article, collecting together advertisements for computer hardware and software over the last quarter of a century. I’ve pulled out a few of my favourites:

  • 1989 Tandy 500 MC Professional – only $8499; VGA graphics, 386/20MHz, 2MB RAM – this computer’s a real beast: and what a bargain!
  • Late-80’s Portable Computer – just $2295; 8" (monochrome) screen, CP/M (w/ WORDSTAR, MAILMERGE, and SUPERCALC). Has 64K of RAM and not one but two floppy disk drives (double-density)!
  • Looking to increase your hard storage space (this means you, Paul)? There’s a 10-MB Hard Disk (sold in 1981) for the sweet price of $3398! Yes, that’s 10 megabytes, not gigabytes. About the same size as a modern desktop computer CD-ROM drive, and with a slower seek time.
  • TRS-80 Model 16 (wonderful piece of hardware) for just $8499: 128K of RAM, dual-processors (one MC68000, one Z-80), multi-processing, page-capable memory model, optional 8MB HDD, two serial and one parallel port, and an 80×24 character 30.5cm green screen. Add a second floppy drive for just $500 more!

Those offers sound fresh! I think I’ll see if I can get a trade in against Duality…

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