May 10, 2003
Relativistic Helicopters
Steven den Beste, who knows, like, everything, explains why you can't build a helicopter whose rotor moves faster than the speed of light.
So you might as well stop trying now, and take up basket-weaving.
Motley Cow
Blog of the day is Motley Cow. Your host for this evening is Zarathustra2101. No, I don't know what happened to the previous 2100 Zarathustras.
I'm sure I've seen that cow roaming around Sydney, by the way, but right now I can't find an appropriate link. Bah!
Lileks Is All
What the audience could not possibly know was that I was absolutely, completely, soaking wet.
Lileks, of course.
And it's Natalie. Doh!
Four!
Five if you count Harvey.
And the BloggerPeople seem to have fixed the Mozilla problem. Either that, or it was an ephemeral phenomenon like rainbows and butterflies, only less pretty and more annoying. New Improved Blogger seems to be working well. Maybe it's time to monkey with my template so I can get the archives back up.
Of course, it will still eat your posts whenever it feels like it. Damn and blast!
May 09, 2003
Migratory Irony
Well, I migrated to the New Improved Blogger without testing it first. It seems to work fine except that I can't log in using Mozilla anymore. Well, poot!
Anyway, coupla quick links:
Slutertarian or Slutpublican? You decide.
Dave Barry has an interesting article about Fire Ants and the Flies That Eat Them.
And Frank J. over at IMAO enlightens us as to the speed of gravity, in case any of you were wondering.
May 08, 2003
Rationalisation Corner
So, who am I hurting when I download episodes of Futurama off the net?
Not the local broadcast networks, because they took it off the air after showing only four episodes (picked, as far as I can tell, at random).
Not the cable networks, because of the two available, one isn't in my street and the other won't connect me because I live in a townhouse. This despite the fact that it is already wired for their service and there are only two free-standing houses in the entire street. Bastards.
Not the DVD sales. I've already bought all the Futurama DVDs available locally. Maybe I could buy more from America, but wait! They're region coded so I can't play them!
Which leaves... Actually, it doesn't leave anybody. Except hypothetical future distributors. And I'll start caring about them when they finally get their butts into gear and become actual present distributors.
Mind you, the picture quality of the episodes I've downloaded so far has ranged from bad to terrible. (Anyone doing this stuff should take a look at some of the Anime available for download - the picture quality is far better.)
I would gladly pay to download these episodes from the source - though the quality would have to be better. Look! Money to be made! Over heeere!
May 07, 2003
May 06, 2003
JREF
When I'm not blogging, you can often find me at the JREF Forums. Not at the moment, though, because they seem to be fairly seriously broken.
I ran up a quick forum server thingy for people to visit until JREF is fixed: the JREF Storm Shelter. I wonder if I'll get any visitors...
May 05, 2003
No Link
Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, who doesn't need another link, looks like he writes a lot, but most of his blog is really made up of quotes. Well, I can do that too:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
There. That's always been a favourite of mine.
Pibgorn
Which reminds me: Pibgorn by Brooke McEldowney. Read it. It's good. Though sometimes slow-moving. Right now it's in the middle of a long and complicated sub-story, so it may not immediately make sense. Stick with it.
Blogger New
Tastes great, less screwed-up archives. Or so they say. I'll give it a whirl with a test blog before the wholesale migration.
Still Raining
At this rate we might as well unevolve back into fish. Or maybe just amphibians.
But there are many parts of Australia that are still in drought. Sydney is where it is, after all, because it does rain a lot here - relative to the rest of the country.
May 04, 2003
Land Of The Lost Blogs
'Smatter of fact, I did write a blog entry on Friday. It went something like this:
Blog of the day is Sedgewick's Adventures in College - or it would be except that by some strange twist of fate Stupid Stupid Blogger™ is down again and I can't update my blog.
Anyway, I know exactly how Joanna feels when she says "It's 5:18 in the frappin' morning, and I still haven't gotten any sleep." I do that all the time. At least I'm not in college any more, so the only exams I have these days are these once-a-month get-it-right-or-your-ass-is-fired bill runs.
I love bill runs.
Or maybe that's the Travacalm talking.