Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

India vs. New Zealand

by

Ever wondered what would happen if an English sports writer lost it while posting to a live website while covering a cricket match?

Well, okay, neither did I. But now we know…

It’s really simple: India are already through, New Zealand have to win.

Meanwhile, have you ever thought WHAT SORT OF LIFE IS THIS AND WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING BOARDING A TRAIN FOR MOORGATE AT 6.30 IN THE MORNING AND THEN STANDING AROUND FOR AGES WAITING FOR A TUBE WHILE STARING AT A SIGN TELLING YOU THAT IF YOU WAIT FOR FOUR MINUTES YOU CAN BOARD A TRAIN TO UXBRIDGE I’D RATHER WAIT FOUR HOURS FOR A JOURNEY WITH THE GRIM REAPER QUITE FRANKLY…

The entire thing is so worth reading. First the initial outburst, then the rest of the article is cricket commentary mixed with his responses to his readers’ messages. Wonderfully hilarious, and very honest.

If all sports writing were like this, I might pay attention more often.

I hope this is a joke

by

I really, really, really hope this is a joke, but the website looks all too serious. In a move even more mind-bogglingly stupid than the call to rename the second Lord of the Rings Movie, “The Two Towers,” due to post-9/11 trauma, a guy by the name of Josh Wander has posted a petition to give the Statue of Liberty ~~back to France~~.

Located in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was a gift of international friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States and is one of the most universal symbols of political freedom and democracy…

Now it is time to give it back!

They can have their damn Statue!

On the bright side, though, while the petition already has almost 500 signatures, it looks like the majority of them are from people who take this idea about as seriously as I do. Here’s a smattering…

I’ve been joking about it since Freepers starting pouring French wine down sewer grates, but now this nutter’s made it reality. So, I figured I’d better sign the petition. I mean, what with Ashcroft and Ridge running the Department of justice and the Office of Fatherland Security, we clearly have no use for symbols of freedom. I think we also need to take the blindfold off of Justice and stuff a big wad of \$100 bills onto one side of her scales, and stuff the Liberty Bell in a basement in Fort Knox. Since dimplomacy is over, I think pretense should be, too.

I propose a trade — they get the statue, I get Audrey Tautou.

…and let’s give back any stuff we got from the Germans too. And the Russians, Mexicans, … um, all of ’em damnit!

I think we should aboslutely give the Statue of Liberty back. We’ve had it with those commie pinko ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality! Bring on facism, christian zealotry and rampant ignorance! USA! USA! USA!

Yeah! Give it back! And stop drinking Pasteurized milk, too!

Hey, maybe they are more deserving of the Statue of Liberty since they DON’T want to bomb the holy hell out of a third world nation for NO APPARENT REASON. Sounds like their democracy’s in good shape and ours is the one that needs some help…

Ah, well. Hopefully, it’s just a hoax, and the guy’s angling to get some attention. If he’s serious…well, I guess we need people on both ends of the bell curve.

Building 42

by

An entertaining little bit of trivia about Microsoft’s building numbering schemes over on Scott Guthrie’s blog produced this amusing bit of MS trivia:

[Building 42] is also a little unique in that it straddles the line between the cities of Redmond and Bellevue. This was apparently something of a challenge when getting planning permission — since Redmond had a town ordinance that prevented buildings from being more than three stories tall, while Bellevue allowed an unrestricted number of building floors to be built.

Microsoft wanted the new Building 42 to be a nice four stories tall — but despite the fact that 2/3rds of it would have lived in Bellevue, the planning permission folks in Redmond apparently insisted that it not be more than three. After a lot of wrangling, they finally reached a compromise whereby the 1/3rd of the building that lived in Redmond was built to be 3 stories tall — and the 2/3rds of the building which lived in Bellevue was built to the full 4 stories in height.

If you are ever driving past campus on 156^th^ Avenue, you can spot the exact Redmond/Bellevue city border by seeing where an otherwise normal, professional looking building suddenly changes height.

This isn’t my building — MSCopy, the Xerox printshop for Microsoft, is over in Building 123 — I just thought it was interesting.

150 SETI@home possibilities

by

A few years back, I was part of the SETI@home project, which uses spare processor cycles on your computer to help look for possible signals from life elsewhere in our galaxy. Unfortunately, various reformats, computer changes, and my own fickle interests led me to stop contributing to the project a while back.

As it turns out, though, the project has produced a list of possible candidate signals, and three members of the team will be going to the Aricebo telescope in Puerto Rico later this month to investigate 150 possible signals! Very cool!

Of course, one has to wonder how much of a bill 150 intergalactic wrong numbers would be…

Tom Tomorrow

by

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: Tom Tomorow really should be on your reading list. He should be on everyone’s reading list. I end up wanting to point people over to his site with nearly every post some days. So, failing either that, I’ll just point you to his site (again).

Happy Space Alien Day!

by

Dad sent me a link to an amusing story today about how New Mexico Representative Dan Foley has proposed legislation to create Space Alien Day — to “enhance relationships among all the citizens of the cosmos, known and unknown.”

Amusing enough on its own, but the kicker for me was the final quote from Rep. Foley, which goes down in my book as one of my favorite political quotes ever…

If we can capitalize on something that did or did not happen in 1947 then it can help the entire state.

Oh, the number of times in my life — past, present, and future — when it’d be so nice to capitalize on something that did or did not happen!

tw@

by

Following up (again) on the the text messaging as writing thread, the BBC has a page where they’re asking for user submissions of classic works in ‘abbreviated’ format.

Reading some of these produces an interesting dichotomy — I’m impressed by the creativity of some of these, while simultaneously cringing at what’s being done to such classic literature!

4scr + 7a ugo r 4fthrs brt 4th on this cn10nt a nu nAshn cnCvd in lbRT + ddc8d 2 th prop tht (evRE1) r crE8d =

aka: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Amusingly, though, in the comments to the post at Green Fairy where I found this (no permalink available, unfortunately — her post was on March 3^rd^ if you want to search for it), someone suggested the abbreviation ‘tw@‘.

I like that one.

ILNY, it's a gr8 plc.

by

Following up on an issue from last September, a teacher in London is reported as having received an essay that they couldn’t read, because of the student’s use of text messaging acronyms.

The teenager’s essay which caused the problem began:

“My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-O kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”

In translation:

“My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York. It’s a great place.”