Humor

Things that make me laugh, or that I think will make others laugh.

Moles and Trolls, Moles and Trolls!

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Snagged from lemurlad — and as he pointed out, these results shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me.

Real Genius Genius

95 Genius Points

Real GeniusWOOHOO! You seem to know as much about this movie as I do! You’ve done brilliantly. So brilliantly, in fact, that you may deserve to wear Chris Knight’s underwear. You have achieved the rank of Real Genius Genius. I’m so proud.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
You scored higher than 96% on Genius Points

Link: The Are You a Real Genius Genius Test written by dasnugglebunny on Ok Cupid.

iTunes “Return to Innocence (Long and Alive)” by Enigma from the album Return to Innocence (1993, 7:07).

The Future is Not What It Used to Be

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A funny short-short story by Paul Di Filippo set in the near future after the collapse of the Internet:

I HAD TO run a few errands downtown, but I hesitated to go.

What if I ran into bloggers?

Ever since the total, irretrievable collapse of the Internet in a chaos of viruses, worms, spam, terrorism and busts by the FBI anti-porn squad, that archaic species of human had become a bigger street menace than mimes, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or panhandlers ever were.

[…] I had almost gained the security of the lobby of my bank when my luck ran out, and I was accosted with no easy means of escape by a wild-eyed figure.

Backed into an embrasure by the advancing apparition who had been cleverly lying in wait for prey, I was startled to recognize — beneath the grime, elf-locked hair, tattered clothing, and unkempt beard — a man I had known from his earlier life.

[…] The recognition was plainly one way. Doctorow’s crazed eyes betrayed no familiarity with my face. I was only another potential flesh-and-blood “hit” for his “site.”

Doctorow carried a mud-splattered messenger’s satchel over one shoulder. From this bag he now removed an old-fashioned wirebound spiral notebook and pen. He made a tick mark on paper, recording my “visit.” Then he launched into his spiel.

“Welcome to a directory of wonderful things, my friend! Get ready to be amazed, thrilled and astounded! I’m going to show you stuff you never believed existed, stuff that will brighten your life, enhance your senses and enlighten your consciousness! For instance — ”

(via — no, no irony here — Boing Boing)

iTunes “Future is Not What it Used to Be, The” by Parallax1 from the album Parallax1 (1996, 5:46).

Plato’s a Putz

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No, no — not Plato. Plato Learning, Inc. They’re the company that provides the online program that we’re using in my math class.

It’s not that the program is bad — in fact, it seems to be simple enough (I’ve only gone through the introductory “this is how it works” section so far), and their website lists a number of success stories and awards for the program. It’s simply that after going through the first section and poking around at the CDs, I can’t find any good reason why the software is Windows-specific.

Basically, the entire setup is HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PDF, and Flash, with a Windows shell that it runs inside. To start a session, you go to the PIM site, choose your school, and then you’re presented with the options to do a lesson or check your progress. When you choose to do a lesson, a small nscc.iss file is downloaded. That file is actually a minimal text file with five small variables:

[Site Info]
Site=NSCC
SID=SD1
externalserver=isswebdb.academic.com
Server=isswebdb.academic.com
PORT=1521

Windows has .iss files registered to the shell program, which then connects to their servers using the information passed on inside the .iss file. After a quick logon/password check, the shell program then proceeds to run the courses off of the provided course CDs.

As best I can tell, the shell program needs to do four things:

  1. Read the data in the .iss file,
  2. Connect to the Plato servers to perform a login/password check,
  3. Connect to the Plato servers to transmit scores and progress status,
  4. Act as a mini-browser to display the HTML, JavaScript, and Flash files stored locally (I’m guessing PDF files are passed off to Acrobat Reader, though I’m not entirely sure yet).

In other words, absolutely nothing that requires Windows. The only thing preventing them from being able to offer the home-based services to Mac users as well as Windows users is the lack of a Mac-based shell. While I’m no programmer, I really have to wonder about just how complex something like that really would be…I’m guessing not terribly. Certainly something a major educational software company should be able to handle hiring a Mac programmer to do.

Ah, well. Macs are still the minority, so things like this aren’t exactly a surprise. Annoying and frustrating, yes — but not a surprise.

Amusingly, figuring all this out gained me a small “star moment” in class today. While about half the computers in the classroom were handling the nscc.iss file correctly (downloading it and triggering the launch of the shell), the other half apparently didn’t have .iss registered as a known file type under Windows. For those students, clicking the ‘do a lesson’ link resulted in nothing but a standard Windows “I don’t know what this file is. Open it or save it?” dialog box. Saving it, of course, did nothing, and trying to open it just presented the “pick a program” dialog box. Neither the students nor Ms. DeSoto had any clue what was going wrong, or how to get around it.

While my computer had worked as it should, I was watching the guy next to me fumble his way through trying to get things to work correctly. When the “pick a program” dialog popped up he started scrolling through it, and I noticed a program called issstub.exe pass by. Figuring that there was a good chance that issstub might handle .iss files, I told him to give that one a try — and as soon as he chose that one, the shell program opened right up, connected, and was ready to go. I pointed this out to another couple students who were having the same problem wile Ms. DeSoto watched, and then she passed the process on to the rest of the class. Success!

As the hour ended, I was packing up my bag when she walked by and patted me on the shoulder. “Thanks so much for finding that — you saved my day!”

Hey. Day number two, and I’m already sucking up to the teachers. ;)

iTunes “I Was Born to Love You” by Queen from the album Made In Heaven (1995, 4:49).

Program on the emergence of civilization.

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I have no idea what prompted someone to leave this comment on my site, or what relation (if any) they think it might have to the post that it was added to…but it’s just long and bizarre enough that I think I’ll keep it. It didn’t come with any URLs or spam links, so I don’t have to worry about that. Just some odd ranting.

iTunes “Touch ” by Wolfsheim from the album Spectators (2005, 4:10).

My favorite random facts about…

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…Vin Diesel:

  • If you rearrange the letters in Vin Diesel it reveals his credo: “I End Lives.”
  • There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Vin Diesel allows to live.
  • In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Vin Diesel could use to kill you, including the room itself.
  • Crop circles are Vin’s way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie the fuck down.
  • Vin Diesel is the only man to ever defeat a brick wall in a game of tennis.
  • Vin Diesel can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.
  • Vin Diesel can divide by zero.
  • Magnetic compasses do not point toward true North – they point in the direction of Vin Diesel. He just likes to sit on a lawn chair and shout, “Jackets are for pussies!” at the Acrtic researchers.
  • Vin Diesel invented black. In fact, he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.
  • When Vin Diesel runs with scissors, other people get hurt.

…Chuck Norris:

  • Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
  • Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
  • If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
  • Bullets dodge Chuck Norris.
  • A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
  • The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’s fist.
  • Chuck Norris is 1/8th Cherokee. This has nothing to do with ancestry, the man ate a fucking Indian.
  • Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
  • Chuck Norris frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just never his own.
  • Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.

…Mr. T:

  • The last man who made eye contact with Mr. T was Ray Charles.
  • Every time a church bell rings, Mr. T pities a fool.
  • Mr T. and Chuck Norris decided to spar, they travelled to the only safe place in the Universe, the beginning of time. They bowed to each other and Chuck launched in with a roundhouse kick. Mr. T blocked it, and the resulting pressure wave is commonly called the Big Bang.
  • When Mr. T folds his arms, the U.S. Terror Alert Level is raised to gold.
  • Ever have a sharp pain in your chest that you can’t explain? That was Mr. T, and it was a warning.
  • Contrary to popular belief, the ancient world knew of 5 elements, not 4. They were earth, air, fire, water and pity. Mr. T invented them all.
  • Twenty-three. That’s the number of people Mr. T has pitied in the time it has taken you to read this sentence.
  • On the A-team, Face, Haniabal, and Murdoch were all masters of disguise. Mr T didn’t have to wear a disguise. The bad guys didn’t recognize him out of fear.
  • Mr. T is not black. It’s just that the sun is to afraid to shine on him.
  • Mr. T’s edition of the VH1 show ‘Where Are They Now’ was the shortest in the show’s history. It was 10 seconds long, and consisted of a black screen with the words “Right Behind You” written on it.
  • If you were born before 1980, there is a good chance that Mr. T is your father. If you were born after, it’s guaranteed.