Idle Hands

Some JanusNode Instructions

I like JanusNode.

Here's a start that I think is a little less opaque than the manual.

Download JanusNode and find your way to the JanusNode Resources folder.

Make a folder in textDNA and call it Mine.

Make a text file called Mine (no .txt suffix necessary) and include this single line:

100 Subject(one) "I" 100 InsultVerbs 100 "that" 100 adjectives 100 RJWaterAnimals 100 punctuate 100 return 100

Put the text file in the Mine folder. Restart JanusNode. In the drop-down menu with Introductory Sample will be “Mine”. Choose it and hit the silly picture.

100 is a frequency percentage and the first one applies to the sentence as a whole. “Subject(one)” is the name of the sentence (TextDNA) as a whole. Every 100 thereafter applies to the item just before it, so every item in this textDNA fires 100 percent of the time the item is invoked.

Things in quotes are literal text. Things without quotes are either looking in the BrainFood folder for an identical filename from which to draw words or, in the case of the last two items, are some of the very few special commands.

The output:

I terminate that slender blackfish?
I eat that green catfish.
I bring curses upon that pigheaded alligator…
I draw blood from that demented fish?
I bring curses upon that trembling perch?
I rain evil upon that capricious ‘gator?
I bring ill to that trembling fish.
I bankrupt that cinematic water snake…
I bankrupt that anarchistic shrimp.
I call down the wrath of the Gods upon that shattered perch?
I eat that nubile black bass.
I torture that unrealistic blind fish?
I curse that envious alligator?
I torment that cheap shrimp…
I destroy that rambling ‘gator…
I annoy that mysterious turtle?
I execute that eternal turtle…
I terminate that notorious perch.
I bring zits to that pliable blackfish…
I annoy that capricious perch.
I cripple that jazz alligator…
I damn that explorable ‘gator.
I destroy that fabulous ‘gator?
I tax that odd fish.
I place obstacles before that abundant catfish?
I execute that explorable black bass.
I bring zits to that occasional whitefish?
I make impossible that conscious blackfish?
I dominate that evangelical black bass…
I exploit that early catfish?

Embarrassment

I have been tagged for something, but will tag no further. So let the pain begin.

They attack by butting with their large horns. They add +6 to damage inflicted when they charge, and they attack as +16 hit dice monsters.

Thrym is both leader and deity of the frost giants.

That's from the 1980 Deities & Demigods published by TSR.

This represents the hazards of being a pack-rat and having a five-year-old daughter who can read: it's the nearest book on the floor. Below is what was once her favourite goddess, although she has fortunately forgotten what page it's on and is now stuck with Japanese mythos:

JanusNode

People who like to mangle text can have good fun with JanusNode.

It's not well explained, but there are some pre-built text DNA modules that produce things like story plots:

This story has two main characters. The first is Raphael, an old rocket engineer. The second is named Reuben. Reuben is a dogged prisoner.
Raphael and Reuben meet in an electric enigmatic half-way house. Raphael and Reuben are drinking white wine together. Reuben is tired of being dogged and longing. He knows that Raphael is neither dogged nor longing. Raphael is only after one thing: riots. Reuben needs to get riots. The kinky rocket engineer explains to the kindly dogged prisoner that the kind-hearted rain is a symbol of revolution. Reuben is changed forever. He becomes more dogged.

Sorry, left the alliteration control on. Anyway, download it and remember to hit the pretty picture with your mouse...that generates from the TextDNA: there's no obvious "go" button.

Life in Bulgaria is Interesting

Motivation

I love this.

Text here.

Art

The Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal has a very restrictive photography policy so I took what I could. Enjoy.

From the Mail

I love the internet.

Antonin Scalia is Scum

But you knew that.

My Superiority As a Companion to My Kitty

Honestly, could another cat give that kind of full-body massage? That fucker should be grateful.

This Story Could Have Been About a Billion Times Better

Or worse.

Does This Happen on Other Planets Too?

Har Har

Word Golf

BURN
BORN
BOON
BOOT
BLOT
CLOT
CLOG
FLOG
FLAG

There's at least one shorter way to do it.

McA-Levels

Global Higher Ed:

Today a BBC report stated that the Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA) in the UK had just announced that the fast food giant - McDonalds, along with Airline Flybe and Network Rail - would become one of the first set of private firms in the UK to offer their own nationally-recognized qualifications - up to A-Level standard.

A-Levels are what you do before you get into university in the UK.

Earful for the Deaf

I know very little about Foxy Brown except that she said "MCs wanna eat me but it's Ramadan" which is funny. There's good evidence that she's not a great person, as she's in jail.

It still seems pretty low to mock a recording artist who recently went deaf by saying someone gave her an earful.

Making Fun of Jonah Goldberg Never Gets Old For Me

Hats off to D.

There's a Slogan

John McCain: "There will be other wars."

The Ticking Time Bomb

This post by Robert Farley is a good exploration of the ticking time bomb scenario.

You Must Change Your Life

When you wake up after a long and detailed dream about going from shop to shop searching for a used vacuum cleaner something's gotta be done.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Part of the Problem

John McCain

The Knob-Gobblétron Unit Mark 6
Automatically satisfied dicks
But the secret inside
Was McCain who was fried
And was giving out blowjobs for kicks.

54 New and Used from $0.22

John McCain

The campaign worker looked up in shock
What the hell was that ungodly squawk?
"John McCain," said her boss,
"Has salad to toss
Before he sucks lobbyist cock."

More McCain Limericks

The campaign workers' guts growl with gas
As they dread what may yet come to pass.
The handler's pain:
To prevent John McCain
From felching his running-mate's ass.

Goodness, my Firefox spell-checker didn't know "felching". I taught it.

Anyway I hope there will be more John McCain limericks here.

Why Didn't I Know About Emitt Rhodes?

This guy appears to be a thieving genius of the kind I like a lot. Why no re-releases? Good Christ. That some indie label hasn't jumped on this stuff astonishes me.



On a secondary note, the old version of iMovie remains awesomely easy to use and I can easily create make ("create" is one of those faux-ensmartenizing extra-syllable words) movies of which I should be ashamed.

That New Mac Air

A funny cartoon.

The Truth Hurts...Someone Else So It's Funny

Boxed Wine

Okay, my sister buys a box of wine. Inside the box are little pink cans. Each little pink can has a little straw.

This is a remarkable world.

Such Detail and Such Care

Wow.

From Tigerhawk:

[...]

[...]Eric Sevareid would do these editorials at the end of the CBS evening news. [...] Sevareid said that if fascism ever comes to the United States, it will come disguised as liberalism. [...]

Anyone know where to find 'em?

I recommend sending a carrier pigeon to Telemundo.

Terrible Homages Dept.

It's a good thing this guy apologizes to Chris Ware.

I Don't Condemn That Obviously Illegal Thing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell said in a magazine interview that waterboarding would be torture if it was used against him personally, but stopped short of condemning the controversial interrogation technique.

McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was quoted in the New Yorker edition released on Sunday as defining torture as "something that would cause excruciating pain."

Asked if waterboarding -- the practice of covering a person's face with a cloth and then dripping water on it to bring on a feeling of drowning -- fit that definition, McConnell said that for him personally, it would.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful!" McConnell said in the article. "Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture."

But he rejected a suggestion that he personally condemned the practice.

Really?

George MacDonald Fraser, RIP

I saw this over at Crooked Timber. Henry got creeped out by the Flashman books and a few commenters jump all over him. I really love those books, but it sure isn't wrong to find a thoroughly horrible lead character repulsive enough to want to avoid.

RIP Mr. Fraser and thanks.

Movies

It seems I am allowed by the gods to see movies.

I agree with Roy about No Country for Old Men. It's apparently faithful to the novel, but the speechifying is baffling. Money well spent anyway because the bulk of the movie is the stuff I'm interested in. I also really enjoyed seeing a film without music.

Juno was too yappy yet sweet and has Kimya Dawson songs that make me all weepy. Have I mentioned that I'm a big sap? Anyway, also money well spent although Diablo Cody is not the second coming of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. I made an excellent decision to move away from some determined yappers/loud laughers early on: right after "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Gob." my moviegoing experience was saved.

Just came back from a freebie of There Will Be Blood, which was good, but reached neither the highs nor the lows of No Country despite having irritatingly similar landscapes for a while. I spent the movie doing comparisons unfortunately, and was disappointed that there was obtrusive music, and that I "felt" an expensive camera watching things in a way that didn't happen in the aforementioned not exactly better movie. Nevertheless that Daniel Day-Lewis guy is really marvelous. Since no money was spent, it was money well spent.

The Only Show That Matters

The Shrek Star

Yessir, he's the best at annoying donkey voices. Dunno what else he does.

Rejiggerations

You know what's creepy about reconfigured Star Wars IV-VI? The last movie's director was dead when George Lucas decided he wanted to erase my unaccountably charitable memory of it.

Good Choice of Role, Bad Director

No more jokes as Borat turns war protester

THE creator of Ali G and Borat has been persuaded by Steven Spielberg to move from comedy to serious politics by playing a hippie opponent of the Vietnam war.

In The Trial of the Chicago Seven, Sacha Baron Cohen will portray Abbie Hoffman, a figure from the 1960s counterculture who used a series of pranks to campaign against the war. Baron Cohen is expected to be paid about £3m for the film.

Pinhead Size You Say?

Review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

He who smelled it dealt it.

The Season to be Jolly

Quoth the five-year-old girl:

I'm crying Christmas lights instead of tears.

Things Were Different Then

I really liked Busby Berkeley's stuff until I understood the depth of his commitment to waterboarding.

Attention Conservatives!

Case in point.

Gee whiz, I gotta mention Frank Burns here so I can Google this again.

The View from Below

The View from Above

Billions of New Money!

Here's hoping the currency they choose is Yapese.

The Rudy Thing

Saw this at Atrios. Poor Rudy. It can't be easy being a fucking nut and knowing that whoever's going to take your place is another fucking nut.

Evel Knievel is Dead

Bye Evel.

Below, a small human dressed as a pig ushers Evel across the dread threshold.

Guaranteed Funny

I'm not kidding.

For God's Sake Stop Being Such Fucking Asswipes

It's not as if a whole lot of assholes aren't named Mohammed already. It's a cute cuddly teddy, which is guaranteed to be more cuddly than nearly everybody on Earth.

If this whole $100 laptop business helps kids find solace as Klingons and furries, well the world could use a few more of those kinds of losers instead of the religious kind.

What a Worthless Prick Andrew Sullivan Is

Shorter Andrew Sullivan:

We can only wait in anticipation for the statistical measure that proves niggers are stupid.

I Can Has Sexier Don Surber

The Challenge:



The original Surberian Tiger (rowr!):



Now with 900% more sexiness:




Okay, I didn't have a camera available and had to scan my left thumb plus expertly designed paper collar (planning ahead not skill good) while fucking around with the mouse with my right. Nevertheless I have contributed much sexiness.

Romania: Your Sole Source of Stigmata-Afflicted Vagina Bears

JamesK in comments kindly points out that I hung it wrong. It's a little more grim now.

Google Has My Number

The Current Playlist

At work edition.

There's Something Funny About This...

This panel represents a moment in my life when I figured out that there was subtext to things. The image now seems obviously cribbed from some porn mag with the addition of a stupid costume and an ugly monster guy, but at the time I was sure that there was something I was not quite getting, and it was IMPORTANT.

I remain excellent at not quite getting things.

The Internet Makes Cheap Jokes Free

No fuss, no muss.

Context here and here.

The Problem with Dealing with Al Qaeda in Pakistan is Now...What?

I'm not personally an advocate of racing in there and blowing shit up, but it seems we have an anti-democratic military strongman harboring Al Qaeda in the same sense that Saddam was harboring Ansar al-Islam.

Issues of Vital Importance

Those who would lie under oath are in big trouble.

Mitt Romney Is a Worthless Shitbag

A surprising sentiment I know, but does this really paint a picture of anyone with convictions?

Mind Your Head

Stopping on the Road on a Tolerant Evening

Whose roads these are I think I know.
These public works they kind of blow;
Police can see me driving here.
But drive these roads with headlights? No.

My little car must think it queer
To drive without the lights on here
Between the hills a concrete snake
The darkest evening of the year.

A cop's lights make me hit the brake
He asks if there's been some mistake.
"The Oakland exit's some ways back,
"Are you some kind of drunken flake?"

The roads are public, each bump and crack,
But each cock-eyed dream must have its hack,
I've not been stopped because I'm black
I've not been stopped because I'm black

Clash of the Tittens

This is pure fun.

Stupid Songs

John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan

Ooh, spelling error right off the bat.

John Wesley Harding
Was a friend to the poor,
He trav'led with a gun in ev'ry hand.

That'd be forty guns. No wait, two.

All along this countryside,
He opened a many a door,

What the hell does that mean?

But he was never known
To hurt an honest man.

He was, however, interested in killing Negroes.

'Twas down in Chaynee County,
A time they talk about,

Ah yes, the onion-belted elders among us.

With his lady by his side
He took a stand.

Clicheometer rising...

And soon the situation there
Was all but straightened out,
For he was always known
To lend a helping hand.

Clicheometer smashed by stray deus ex machina.

All across the telegraph
His name it did resound,

Turn down that telegraph you crazy kids!

Rest of rebel millionaire's idiot music ignored due to boredom.

But no charge held against him
Could they prove.
And there was no man around
Who could track or chain him down,
He was never known
To make a foolish move.

Michael Fumento's Dignity Restored

That's a Nice Soufflé You Got There.

Lately, the Zagats have also raised a few eyebrows by selling plaques to the businesses they rate. While they still give out window stickers for free, they charge $149 to $199 for restaurants that want customized plaques. (One twist: The better the rating, the fancier and the costlier the plaque.) Restaurants are told that refusing to participate in the "recognition program" won't affect their scores, yet some can't help but wonder. "There's a little bit of a feeling like, I'd better buy this," says Betsy Alger, owner of the Frog and the Peach Restaurant in New Brunswick, N.J. The Zagats say that "the people who handle our plaques have no connection with any aspect of our editorial process."

Invasion of the Noonanites

Mark Noonan is considering running for office.

The obvious symbol is the Noonanite.

Gawd

I don't think I've seen a worse initial sentence this year.

Internet pedophile suspect arrested in Thailand
By Seth Mydans
Published: October 19, 2007

BANGKOK: At first, on the Internet, he was just a swirly face, something akin to a large multicolored lollipop that a man might give to a little boy.

Marky the Pinhead

Help!

Context here.

Insurance

It occurs to me that a lot of the global-warming denial makes great use of the idea that we shouldn't take drastic steps on a just-in-case basis.

It's an argument against insurance.

The Wages of Laziness

I sat down to do some work and somehow ended up with Debbie Schlussel and a sandwich. This process is mysterious.

Yokel Bothering

Vote for the black guy or vote for the woman? Today's hair-salon yammerers have no answers.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

20 years ago the Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens "Top Gun Anthem" won a grammy.

The category was:

A. Best German-American Promotion of Militarism
B. Special Award for Silver Clothing
C. Least Tolerable Bullshit Most Agreeable to Entertainment Executives
D. Most Egregious Fuck-Faces in Near-Muzak

Satan Speaks!

You have also dared to try to take dinosaurs away from me. I have used dinosaurs for nearly 200 years to teach billions of people that the earth is billions of years old and that God's Word is not true. Your seminar on dinosaurs strikes at the heart of my kingdom. I intend to destroy both your ministry and your reputation for good. Dinosaurs are especially effective for me to deceive children. You are taking children away from me, so I took yours away from you!

Visit PZ Myers for background, though I think Satan's work stands on its own.

Hyperlexia

The five-year-old and I went to test her mettle at an Early Autism Project office. The tester was charmed, as she should have been, and impressed by the young one's obviously powerful nerd mojo.

My sweetie got almost every language-or-reading-only question right and almost everything else wrong, but my favourite wrong answer came after her geek abilities had been well-established and the tester was just fooling around:

Q. What's the biggest ocean?

A. The Yangtze River.

I think it's been established that being spectacularly wrong is not necessarily better than being wrong in a more mundane fashion, but I'll take it in this case.

Blacks Not Yet Domesticated

Joseph Farah on why John Edwards is a racist:

Let me tell you something. No amount of midnight basketball is going to stop young black men from killing one another if steps are not taken to put the black family back together. The black family was destroyed by people like John Edwards – people who believe blacks can be domesticated by government programs that provide them subsistence livings and make them dependent on Uncle Sam for their material needs.

What's a Poo's Favourite Vegetable?

A pea.

Many thanks to the five-year-old.

Heather Wilson Deathwatch

Via TPM:

Do They?

I was somewhat hopeful that what was roiling the Iraq war debate was something of substance.

The Dishes Can Wait

Once there was a stupid cat
He lived inside a giant's hat
He had no need to feed on mice
But feasted on the giant's lice

Hey! I'm stalling!

Through the whorls of giant hair
Our kitty pranced without a care
When nature whispered calls to him
He peed right off the huge hat's brim

Paperwork avoidance demands more stanzas.

An ogre once came rambling by
Receiving cat pee in the eye
"I say good sir" quoth ogre pissed on
"Oatmeal's what you'll soon subsist on

"As I'll knock out your fucking teeth."
"Friend ogre!" lisps the giant, "Pleath!
"Thith kitty pitheth lucky thtreams!
"Itth thtench fulfills the wildetht dreams!"

"How so?" the ogre asked the giant
"Here'th how" said giant now defiant
And ogre's head was split asunder
Fallen Leaving bags of gold to plunder

Let's All Pull Together

I'm working on a care package to some citizens of Iraq. Thus far I have included beer, hot-dogs, and puppies, these being some of the greatest comforts Western culture has to offer. Who's with me?

Strings

It's depressing trying to do relatively simple research on Iraqi universities and having to filter out horrific news articles by adding "-death" "-bomb" and "-killed" to the search. Can't use "-war" because that's more likely to be in what I'm looking for and is the measure of an era.

Here's a link to a list of Iraqi academics killed or otherwise mishandled in some way.

How About That

Who'd have thought that the big fish reeled in in the Oil-for-Food brouhaha would be a Texas oilman?

Confusing Headlines Dept.

Stay?

I Am Not Part of Your Us

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

"We" should be fired.

9/11 Nuts

This thread is really a bring-down.

I have ideas about what it is that makes people want to believe nonsense, but I guess what bugs me most is the laziness of the whole thing. Have questions? There are answers all over the place from people who actually know what they're talking about. Don't like the answers? Make a fucking phone call. Can you verify your kooky theory? If you can, by all means present it. But to spend X years going "something doesn't add up" or "there are unanswered questions" means you don't know what you're talking about and you're uninterested in answers that don't suit you.

At this point "I dunno what hit the Pentagon" or "the towers were wired to explode" are flat-earth equivalents. I remain open to the possibility of being proven wrong, just as I am about space aliens pooping in your cornflakes or Aleister Crowley having bona-fide magickal powers that years later chopped off the ends of Jimmy Page's fingers broke Jimmy Page's finger in an accident completely unlike Tony Iommi's.

In the Fever Swamp of the Radical Wingnuts

Here's an article from Gavin at Sadly, No! which argues that the top of the conservative punditry is smooth enough to deliver the message without sounding nuts, but that the message in unvarnished form is more easily gleaned from the idiots on the bottom.

I don't think I buy this, as a lot of the bottom-feeders have interests that the top guys plainly couldn't give a shit about as long as the votes are delivered, but Gavin writes nice sentences and deserves to win a lottery or something.

Good Thing

Space Plague!

The future may yet turn out to be cool.

Gregg Easterbrook: Moron

Go to The Poor Man and read.

Sports are pretty much for idiots - duh, hi mirror - but perhaps there could be some filter that strains out certain sillinesses.

And if you’re tempted to say, “Gregg, at worst this is just cheating in some dumb football games,” here’s why the affair matters: If a big American institution such as the NFL is not being honest with the public about a subject as minor, in the scheme of things, as the Super Bowl, how can we expect American government and business to be honest with the public about what really matters?

It's not often that I laugh out loud at something that doesn't involve anvils or shovels to the face, so I salute you Mr. Easterbrook.

Now With 100% More Eleanor

Odd outage at Nitpicker:

Write Your Senator

I think it'd be reasonable to follow up the Move-On debacle with a resolution condemning bribery, toilet sex, and the wearing of diapers for prurient reasons.

Medical Education Under the Taliban

This is a pretty old article, but it's worth having a look at:

Sunday, May 14, 2006
Afghanistan: Women Return To Medicine After Taliban Ban
By Mustafa Sarwar

PRAGUE, May 14, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- During the days of the Taliban, women were not allowed to study medicine at Kabul Medical University, not even under the cover of the all-encompassing burqas.

More than four years after the fall of the Taliban, however, the radiant faces of 90 women could be seen in the university's auditorium, speaking happily about their graduation. Some of them are now mothers, having had to interrupt their medical studies during the five years the Taliban held power in the capital.

[...]

Tabesh says the Taliban would measure the length of the beards of the medical students, "and if they found out that they had been trimmed, they would punish us harshly."

[...]

"We lacked the very essential things in that time," Tabesh said. "The first semester, we had anatomy classes. It is a very difficult subject, and you need to have materials like bones and skeletons to study with. But the Taliban did not allow us to work on the human body, so we needed to buy bones from other boys who were in the higher grades at the university. We could not even afford to buy an anatomy atlas textbook. And since we had to use human bones [dug from graves], sometimes [the chemicals used to clean the bones] produced allergies. It was unbelievable."

Tabesh recalls the dean of the university during the Taliban days chasing students with a long stick.

"I remember him boasting that no man could ever be as cruel as he was," Tabesh says. "It was pretty dreadful."

Trolling and Utility

Is Poo Poo Funny?

I say yes and thank you Ron Paul for the bumper-sticker. And J---- for the pic of poor Dave.



Yes, I'm a dick.

Do They Come in Brown?

Attention Alan Greenspan: This Means You're Horrible, Not Honest

Corruption

Here we have an article about corruption in India, mostly regarding fake degrees. There is at least one episode in it that is actually horrifying. What impressed me however was this single sentence:

The unethical practices and the decline in moral values have corrupted a greed-based society.