Video game already

The Clarion Content ran across this one this morning. We found it newsworthy not so much for the content, but rather for what the turnaround time, the incredible speed of it, said about our world.

Orbs Games Limited has developed and released a game call "Hero on the Hudson" based on US Air Flight 1549's brilliant landing on the Hudson River. According to Newsday the game gives this scenario to open play, "'Both engines are out. The plane is too low and too slow to make it to the airport. You decide to make [an] emergency landing in the river.' - And allows a player to control the aircraft using a computer keyboard's left and right arrows."

The game was the featured game of the day Friday at Tastyplay.com. Newsday reports gamers gave it three and 1/2 out five possible stars rating.

Flight 1549 landed safely in the Hudson River only sixteen days ago.

Blackmail doesn't pay

The Clarion Content happened to see a report about a blackmail~extortion case in Australia. A marina worker who successfully extorted $45,000 from former Aussie cricketing great, Craig McDermott, threatening to put sex tapes of him and his wife on the internet, was sentenced to at least 18 months behind bars. For eight months the criminal promised the millionaire property developer and former cricket star that it was the final payment and that he would turn over the, "tapes of you and your missus." The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the criminal obtained, "the two video tapes from a friend, who worked at the Gold Coast marina where Mr. McDermott kept his boat." (A marina worker who was probably smart enough to know blackmail didn't pay, but not smart enough not to give the tapes to his criminally moronic friend.) When McDermott finally got the cops involved, they busted the con man trying to pick up a further $10 large in hush money.

Bonus pseudo-blackmail link from Greenwood, Indiana.

And Onto Interwebs!

The 11th Annual Independent Games Festival - Finalists & Winners
Also check the Offworld Guide to Independent Gaming.
Want to watch all of the episodes of TV Classic The Prisoner online? OKAY!!!
While away the hours with a word association game.
I can't believe no one got me this postmodern tome for my birthday.
William Zantzinger died a few weeks ago. (Metafilter)
Crazy Little Globulous Game. Fun puzzle-ish game called Evacuation. Cool download game called "GravityBone." Another online Game: "I Wish I Were the Moon."
Headline of the Year. And yes, I know it's only January.
Fantasitc Surreal Painting.
Potential gift for Godfather fans.
Princess Bride Trivia from Neatorama. And a cool Princess Bride cover in ambigram.
Cats that are ninjas, volumes One and Two. Cat that is not a ninja but just as violent: Three.
Play around with your blind spot.
Self-imposed hallucinations.
Video of MAC vs. PC. Not really the best video in the history, but notable for the ridiculous special effects that amateurs can pull off these days.
Hey, some wacky videos: Neil PH doing it up hilarious style, the best use of testbars in art, and the insanity of the near-miss:

The 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2008. Love the vitriol! And I especially love the comment:

"'Yes We Can' is the 'Just Do It' of politics."

Tyrone Slothrop's Map to Love-making (or, more exactly, a GoogleMaps account of where all German V2 rockets landed)
Awesome game (though you do have to buy it...): Crayon Physics Deluxe
Muppet Movie Posters. Honest Movie Posters. Star Wars Art. Yeah!
McSweeney's: The Elements of Spam.

So, microsoft made a program called "Songsmith" that will write backdrop music to your vocals, whatever they may be. For better or wrose, this also works when you isolate vocals from other tracks. Hilarity ensues: David Lee Roth or Sting, and be sure to follow the other youtube links for further awesomeness.

Buddhist tree protests tree abuse.
Yet another particularly funny one in a long list of hilarious Dinosaur Comics.
Someone, please get Beck this keyboard.
PINKBERRY CONTROVERSIES: One and Two.
More Games: Card Toss, Maze.
Dogs In Outfits
Even More Far-Side re-enactments, this time in photoshop.
A Bid to Convince that Watching TV Makes You Smarter. Prompted (sorta) by this week's article re: Keeping Track of Lost.
Famous Art, Simpsonized
Rollingstone out on Highway 61
The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism, By Jonathan Lethem (Harper's Magazine)
Cool Lunch Bag Art
A very sad story from the Sports Guy about the death of his dog Deuce.

Photography Section:
----------------------
Life During Wartime (Photo Set of the Gaza Strip)
Crazy pic of a gunman who was shot down after a robbery. Very 70s bad guy.
Human-Animal Art.
Aurora Borealis Pictures and Videos.
Star Wars Pictures that make no sense: One, Two, Three. Others of the non SW variety.
Very cool shadows of buildings on clouds in Austin.
Cool Long Exposure Digital Photos.
15 Photographs by 100 Photographers
Bird Art Photography
Nice photography / drawing sketch style.


The Obama-Section:
---------------------
Cool pic (at the top) of all the living presidents in the Oval Office
New Official Portrait.
All of the Onion headlines pertaining to bush from the last eight years.
The Onion on the Inauguration: One and Two.
Ninja / Jedi Barack.
The Mall via Satellite.
GIGANTIC 1473 Megapixel shot of the Inauguration.
Cool Obama T-Shirts: One, Two.

And the Leavers
-------------------
Phew, a ton of links this time out. We'll leave you with some quality:

The lyrics of "Enter Sandman," told in LOLCat.
Something that got me called a dork, AGAIN, last night: the impossible physics of Back to the Future.
And finally, WEIRDNESS.

To Anyone Who Missed My B-Day

Well, it was pretty distracting, what with the Inauguration to end all inaugurations and all going on. So if you didn't gift me up (like the awesome package of goods my parents and grandfather sent, the sweet book on the history of Ultimate Frisbee that the iPMM sent, the numerous great albums that my parents and the iPJ combined to get me), fear not - after all, it is traditional in this culture for best men to wait several years before giving a wedding gift :). But here's what you can do:

ORDER ME A KING CAKE!!! FROM HERE!!! NOW!!! DO IT DO IT DO IT!!!!

That is all.

The Categorical Unsight of Unicorns

u·ni·corn (yoo-ni-korn) - an imaginary creature represented as a white horse with a long horn growing from its forehead.

So if you saw something real, a white horse with a spiral horn protruding out of its forehead with a virgin comely lass on its back and rainbows and magic and the whole deal, it still wouldn't actually be a unicorn because they are by-definition imaginary. Existing unicorns are not unicorns.

Beck seems to think that this sort of thing, or more exactly finding this sort of thing funny, makes me a dork.

I press on.

Softball Addendum

Almost forgot about this - last night, ground ball to the short stop with a runner on first. The runner, Jolene, is not exactly a fan of the hustle, and as the SS ran over to step on second, she just stopped, about eight feet from first base. So she was directly between the SS and the 1b, actually doing quite a nice job screening the 1b. None of this was relevant as the batter did a reasonable job of hustling down the line and would have beaten the throw regardless. But when the SS's throw went sailing over the 1b, he immediately turns to the ump and starts screaming that she has to get out of the way, what is he supposed to do, hit her in the face? I was coaching 3b at the time and just asked "why should she have to get out of the way? She's in the baseline. There's no rule about relinquishing the basepath once you're out." He replies, "So you want me to hit her in the face? Okay, next time I will."

That's pretty violent and sorta a stupid thing to yell out loud on a field, but that's not what I found interesting. It's more that his reaction to her stopping five feet from the base and standing there was one of "this is out of the ordinary, and therefore must be illegal." My reaction to it was much more that there is a consistent set of rules within baseball/softball that can't possibly anticipate EVERY behavior, so you need to consider the behavior as it relates to more typical examples. Someone running from first to second in a normal situation might try to break up a double play by sliding into the SS. If they do so by going out of the baseline, they can be ruled out for interference, but if they stay in the baseline, even though they are out the moment the SS steps on the bag with the ball, they are still playing and still have every right to be in the baseline. It is the SS's responsibility to get around them if they want to throw to 1b. SO in last night's situation, likewise, though it's strange that she chose to stop running immediately, she still has no requirement to evacuate the baseline; he needs to move out to get an angle to the bag. It's actually an interesting strategy on her part - note that she wasn't "playing goalie," she wasn't actively trying to block the ball, she was just standing there.

Anyways, I found it interesting as a study in what people understand to be the nature of rules. I'm clearly more interested (and rightly so, I think) in a consistency within the rules, so you don't have arbitrary decisions about x or y being "not fair" on the ill-defined basis of being abnormal. The SS last night - though in some respects just wanted any situation which would have given him a better chance at turning two - reacted to a weird event with a visceral "that ain't right." I don't really think you can govern that way; I suppose you could add a rule that says the runner "must make an honest effort to get to the next forced base on a ground ball," but then there are other situations in which it is a generally accepted strategy for the runner to stop running in order to hinder a double play (e.g., on a grounder to second where the runner would inevitably be tagged, he may choose to stay put so as to force the throw to second and hopefully delay the relay enough to prevent the double play). Regardless, that would have to be a "known rule" beforehand, not something you shout about midgame because you're surprised.

Inconsistency in rules, though, in other contexts appears to bother no one. The boundary rules of football have always driven me nuts - in certain respects, the field boundaries pertain to the ball, in others, to the player's body, and sometimes, to multiple parts of his body (see "two feet in" rule for receivers in the NFL). Ultimate is much more consistent in this respect as on a caught disc, it is always the first point of contact that matters, not "where the disc is."

In other news, grumble grumble, get off my lawn.

fiveferfive / the week that was (II, 1)

Nothing diagram-worthy (diaphragm-worthy? HEYO!) from last night's softball game, but I did make all my plays in the OF and go five for five with 2 straight-up legit inside-the-park (sigh) HRs. The second one came late in a 7-7 game with 2 outs and nobody on, and we ended up winning that game 9-7, so groovy groovy jazzy funky on that. I took the week off from Ultimate in an effort to recover from the nasty job the Lei Out sand did on my adductors, and it seems to have served me well - no discomfort last night, so I'll be getting back on the field tomorrow for some pickup (and to get ready for next weekend's New Year's Fest). Hot times ahead! In the more immediate future, it's 1, lotsa Phil reading today; 2, Chinese New Year party with some of Beck's Cooking Light friends; and 3, birthday dinner with Danimal and Xtina. AND we have a veterinarian dinner tomorrow night! Butterflies be we.

The first official week back at school went well - I'm taking four classes, auditing one, doing some research / helping out with a class with Jason, and I suppose I should get on some of my own research interests. The four classes:

History and Philosophy of Scinece Weekly Lab Seminar (aka Weekly Departmental Discussion of Our Work Session)
Philosophy of Science Graduate Seminar
Cultural Psychology
Advanced Bioethics (Feminist Perspectives)
Neuroimmunophilosophy (Auditing)

The last class is a one-monther toward the end of the term, so nothing particular on that yet. We had our first HPS Seminar on Tuesday - last semester our class was combined with the Human & Social Dimensions of Science & Technology (HSDST, or HSD) lab of similar purpose, and the experiment crashed and burned. So we've divorced the two and put things back in an HPS-only seminar, which is FANTASTIC - Drs. Laubichler and Armendt are running it, and we had a great session on foundational problems of HPS and "Specific Theory," the question of how do you reconcile the particularity of case studies with notions of universality / the general. Cool stuff, and it seems as though having a smaller group to work with is going to help mightily.

Phil of Science (also Tuesday) was great Drs. Hamilton (my prof from last semester's semi-disastrous HSD class) and Creath, both of whom are actual in-the-flesh philosophers, run this course and do so in a fast-paced, know-yer-stuff atmosphere. We discussed a classic paper on scientific explanation which brought up, among other things, what the hey are you doing when you "explain" something. I tried to share this with Beck, but she responded with "isn't it obvious" and "this is just a semantic argument," both of which are fair assessments. If you permit yourself to play the philosophy game, though - admittedly semantic, but we are concerned with meaning, after all - it does get very hard to understand what explanation and hey, understanding are really getting at. This paper made the grand distinction between "Scientific explanation" and "mere description," and oddly, mere description seems to be a lot of what science does. This may be worthy of its own post entirely (post-worthy? Huh?), but think about Newtonian physics - when you have a body at location l₀ time t₀ with x mass, y velocity, z acceleration, etc., and then you have the same body at location l₁ at time t₁, you can "explain" how it got there by referring to Newton's laws. But what do those laws do, other than enable you to describe a bunch of intermediate positions between the two - how are these laws anything more than a method for compiling laundry lists of locations? Where is the understanding, really? The gist of the paper was that leaving that question aside, explanations tend to look like (conditions, laws) -> (outcomes), and there are some problems with that model. Sorry to wax on about this, but here's a funny example:

Condition: Joe is a man taking birth control pills
Law: Men who take birth control pills don't get pregnant
Outcome: Joe does not get pregnant

Does that strike you as an accurate explanation? Because it fits the requirements of the general scientific explanatory model (at least as proffered by this paper).

Anyways, that was Tuesday; Wednesday, I read a ton, worked on some stuff for Jason and eventually went to my Cultural Psychology course. The professor was wildly disorganized, and kept putting in under the guise of "I want to make sure you guys get out of this what you want," but really it just seems like he came in with a list of one hundred articles he thought were applicable to the topic and didn't do much work to structure the course. We'll see, but this could end up being a hodgepodge experience. The prof is also a HUGE evolutionary psychology fan, and Jason and I spent part of last semester reviewing a book that skewers the discipline*. So this should be fun.

* (Real quick - evo psych uses "natural selection" as a mechanism to explain certain psychological trends; classic example would be "men are unfaithful because it is to their reproductive advantage to sleep around." Overt Problem - Evo Psych stops at this level of analysis without offering an explanation of the underlying genetics or any mechanisms which would result in the observed outcomes. So you've got a lot of theoretical explanations of contemporary phenomena that don't ground themselves in evolutionary history or detail, which (obviously?) pisses biologists off; worse, evo psych often posit theories that fly in the face of known genetic mechanisms and therefore couldn't possibly be accurate. Evo Psych also aggravate general decent people on the street by hypothesizing things like "rape gives you a selective advantage," which would be interesting if demonstrable, but since its based on such armchair-guessing just strikes a lot of people as distasteful and controversial-to-sell-books. So, this semester could be fun; I'll tread lightly).

Neuroimmunophilosophy on Thursday was a bit of a bust; he was covering "basic immunology" which 1, I've already had several times over, and 2, is sort of categorically incomprehensible. Immunology is vastly complex, so to try to cover the entire shebang in an hour amounts to a long list of cell types and functions, all of which are vague and questionably useful as working definitions. Worse: they were presented in powerpoint with goofy animations and sounds and NO HISTOLOGY, so we saw nothing resembling "real" cells - not that histology cells are actually "real" - just a slew of jagged edged cartoon bubbles. Frustrating, but I can understand why the prof wanted to give everyone a grounding before diving into articles full of "cytokines" and "CD4+" cells and the like. Hopefully this will get better as we get into the philo; it is a combo grad / undergrad class, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

The main note from Friday was that I met with Andrew to discuss my HSD paper from last term and its implications for future research directions. Great meeting; he liked my paper, had several suggestions both for how to improve it and "next steps" for research. Word on the street is that he normally skewers papers, so pin a gold star on me. I am sure that ego-boost carried over into my HR walloping ways...

Lei-Pics, Courtesy of Zach

Yoinked these from Zach's Picasa, hope he doesn't mind. It's not like he has the ability to shut down my blog or anyth... wait a minute...

If the Weird Team formed a punk trio, they would have PR shot like this:

Laughing Nyet - this is more or less what I look like all the time when hanging out with the likes of Neil, Josh, Zach, Ian, Elliot, Jesse, Craig, etc.:

Blake, Ian and Elliot, Josh and Jesse, against a stunning backdrop:

What your humble narrator looks like mid-hammer - YIKES:

And Team Beck and Nyet on the beach, grinning it up:

(Seriously, thanks Zach, these are great).

L. Ei. (Ultimate Within)

One thing that will stick with me from this past weekend with the Tufts-Epo is a mental photograph of Josh, up-close and lip-synching to Phish's 12.6.1996 YEM "donuts" vocal jam. We were sharing his earbuds, so I had to stand that close to him, and the effect was excellent - standing on the beach, laugh-crying at Josh's antics occurring a foot from my face. Beautiful weather, beautiful times, great laughs, and there's a fairly typical moment from the weekend.

The cast of characters, yes, characters:

Back: Josh, Zach, Dunny, Blake, Jesse, Nyet, Elliot
Middle: T.J., Amanda, Craig
Front: Ian, Alli, Dana, Becky, Neil, Zach, Zan

We were "Bogart," and what we lacked in ability (we lost all four games on Saturday, though in our defense, at least three of them were close) we made up for in reminiscent, reunion-style fun. We also managed to revamp our offense for the second day, play a little better and run off 3 wins to make it to the C pool semis. So, um, yay us? But what the hell were we doing anyways?

Co-ed Beach Ultimate: 5 on 5, 3 guys and 2 gals on the "field" for each side. I say "field" not just it was comprised of sand, but because it was a whopping 25 yards long by 20 yards wide with 10 yard endzones (if that). The area was so small that you could easily make any throw from any point on the field to any point on the field. The sand was nice and soft = easy on the joints, but so thick that it was VERY HARD to run through and made quick direction changes near impossible. So my ability to throw deep and cut quickly were both nullified big time - in other words, everything that makes me above average in normal circumstances was negated. Super.

No, it's not all that bad - once you figure out how to take choppy steps, you still get very tired, but you can move a little bit. And breaking the mark was at a premium, so I still made a little bit of a contribution there. Truth be told, in a normal frisbee tournament, you like to have 19-21 guys for having 7 guys on the field at a time. We had 11 guys for 3 on the field at a time - so our ratio of near 4:1 meant there was a lot of time off between points (and there weren't that many points / minutes of playing time to begin with, since games were to 11 and the field was so small). We collectively took it easy and didn't even think of running our "best team" out there; as it should have been, this tournament was just about playing a little bit with everyone on the team (mixing up lines) and catching up on the sidelines. We did a great job of that. And just to get it out of the way, I played just fine - good throws, moved well and played respectable defense given a groin pull I had suffered earlier in the week at pickup. Yes, I'm old, I know. I also had a layout catch for a goal (which raised all kids of questions about what constitutes up or down in beach ultimate - I essentially laid out through a sand bank, getting my hand between the disc and the surface of the beach, but essentially creating that space myself. That doesn't come up often on grass), and I managed to deliver a right hook to a guy while trying to pivot for a breakmark backhand, one of the more violent shots I've delivered on an Ultimate field. Sorry, homes.

Having noted that we weren't exactly an Ultimate powerhouse, there were definitely times where I went out on a line - one notable one was Josh, Zach, Zan, Amanda and I on Saturday; there were others with Jesse, Elliot and TJ and another with Blake and Roga - where things just old-days clicked. We played plinko with the disc, made great cuts, knew exactly where everyone was going and there was nothing the D could do to stop us. That first one I mentioned was a sight to behold; we had been bogged down with a crappy O for the majority of the day, and all of a sudden Zach, Josh and I put together a melodic progression. Very schwank, and just gives you one of those nice "perfectibility of Ultimate" kinds of feelings. I brag, I brag. But 'twas poetic.

The team name, as mentioned, was Bogart, and though this could have led to all kinds of "Humphrey" cheers, we went a route with team cheers that was sometimes goofy ("Blagojevich" somehow got translated to "Bogartevich") and sometimes sublime. One things Tufts people do - not like this is original, it's just something they do - is "free cheer." Instead of just saying "1,2,3, Team!" or "Defense," everyone just comes up and starts saying / chanting / beatboxinng whatever comes to mind. Starts soft, gets progressively louder, gets cacophonic, someone signals and everyone yells "BOGART!" together. Noisy and annoying to outsiders, I'm sure, but when pulled off, it's borderline art.

Case 1: The Flaming Lips Medley. Someone starts the circle with a low sort of droning sound. It sounds like a rumbling "YAOWOYAOWOYA..." so Elliot stats singing "YA-YA-YA-YA-YA-YA-YA-YA-YA" from the FLips "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)" from At War With the Mystics. Josh chimes in with the high falsetto part from that same song. There's no third part, so the majority of people start singing along with one of the two of them. I add "I know a girl who...reminds me of Cher... she's always changing... the color of her hair... but she don't use nothing... you buy at the store... she likes her hair... to be real orange" and the people who knew what I was singing ("She Don't Use Jelly," ftr, the FLips first hit) all chime in "SHE USES TANGERINES!!! TANGERINES!!!" Then a lot of screaming and fake guitaring, and someone gives us the one-two-three-hand signal and it's "BOGART!" And off we go. Probably sounds epically stupid in print (sounds in print?) (in print?), but felt pretty transcendent at the time.

Case 2: Talking Bogarts. Same start, whole team doing random stuff, but someone starts beatboxing and it sounds a whole lot to me like the chunky guitar part at the beginning of Stop Making Sense. So I yell "Psycho Killer" - and exactly on beat, Graig / Roga cal-and-responses "Qu'est-ce que c'est ?" Pretty soon we've got the whole circle doing it, and ditto, Bogart!

Fun times. Stupid, and you probably don't care to read it, but those little moments of spontaneous art make things just a little great.

This is dragging on, so suffice it: just a great weekend with the Epo. Remember: Blake's head nod then throw for the score; sideline BH huck to Josh, FH huck to Josh, layout catch on the throw from Dunny, score on the Z-J-Nyet point. So good. Of course, the best of times were just chilling on the sideline - I met Josh's and Elliott's SLFs Nicole and Briar, respectively, and just got in a lot of good chilling / catching up time, both at the beach and at the house the dudes rented on Saturday and Sunday night. So, a ton of good disc, but primarily a ton of good this:

That's Nicole & Josh, Ian, some unknown person and Jesse down on the end. Top Quality Weekend.

NPR Interruption

Line of the week, courtesy of Marketplace:

Guy 1: In the early 2000s, there was a decided effort to increase diversity in the workplace. What have been the effects of those efforts?

Guy 2: Well, the results have been mixed...

BA-DUM CHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

L.A. (Non Ultimate Content)

Made the long trek down I-10 on Friday to L.A. / Santa Monica on Friday, resulting in a terrific weekend spent hanging out with Rice friends Elaine and Jamie and an assortment of Tuftsmen. Here's an off-the-top-of-my-head attempt at the Rice people part:

Headed out about 2:30, got to L.A. at 7:30 (gaining an hour with the time zone change) and took another 1:15 or so to get to Santa Monica. Those L.A. traffic jokes are neither funny nor untrue; place is a mess. Elaine (Beck's senior year roomie from Rice, btw) and Jamie (Elaine's fiancee who, though we didn't know him then, was a classmate of ours at Rice who lived at Jones) live in a SCHWANK apartment right off the beach in Santa Monica, not even half a mile from the Santa Monica Pier and what on Saturday would become the Lei Out Beach Ultimate Tournament "fields." Seriously; here's the view from their balcony:

Not bad, not bad at all. We hung out with them for a bit Friday night but fairly early collapsed onto their inflatable mattress for the night. Woke up early and hit up a nice coffee place called Urth. Beck had bubble tea and bread pudding, and I had a chocolate croissant before I walking down the beach to play some Ultimate. Beck put in a couple of spectating appearances but understandably did not spend her entire first trip to LA watching bad beach Ultimate (more on that in another post). She toured Malibu on Saturday, nabbed a tasty fish lunch and then indulged on what has to be the crack of the yogurt world at a place called Pinkberry. Frozen plain yogurt with fresh fruit toppings has apparently conquered Los Angeles, and Beck was quick to fall victim to its hipness. Seriously. You have no idea. Beck couldn't stop talking about the yogurt for the next 72 hours. I'm pretty sure I saw her exhibiting withdrawal symptoms later, too. And kiwi-laced track marks. Here's the monstrosity of a yogurt / toppings combo in which Beck indulged (I'm not sure whether this is actually from Pinkberry or from another yogurt place which, as you have undoubtedly correctly deduced, means that Beck got her yogurt-fix TWICE this weekend):

Mmmmmgoodness. In non-yogurt related foody-goodness, Jamie, Elaine, Beck and I went to a Farmer's Market on Sunday morning and got delicious California-Mex food. The others got wraps of various kinds, and I got a 3 pound - no kidding - burrito with beans, eggs, rice and cheese. So good! And everything about the meal was biodegradable, up to and including the forks. This ALMOST made up for the slave ponies whose sad walking around a pole with infants on their backs seemed to provide the electricity for the entire thing.

Beck also hit up the Getty (on Sunday, I believe) and got some nice views of not just art, but also LA AND all of its many colleges:

After frisbee on Sunday, beck and I walked back up the beach to E/J's place and saw the legendary "Muscle Beach" which features all kinds of crazy jugglers, acrobats and buffed up dudes. We didn't see the following in particular, but it gives you an idea of the kinds of things people were doing:

We were also treated to quite the sunset:

That night, Elaine, beck and I (Jamie had sadly left for business because of an allegedly "racist boss") (i.e., he didn't get MLKJr. Day off) went to Barney's, a gourmet burger place, and afterwards hit up sushi for dessert. Wow. How we managed to avoid going to Pinkberry again is decidedly beyond me. (We almost ended up diverting our route Monday to hit a store on the way out of town. WOW. Someone has stumbled upon something there).

A great, great time in LA with our refound friends. Thanks to E/J, we will soon be getting a Roomba, getting electric squid plugs, opening a frozen plain yogurt Pinkberry knock-off chain in Phoenix and possibly going to Vegas to watch March Madness for Jamie's bachelor party. Crazy. Big thanks to them for hosting us! And now, on to the Ultimate related content...

Up for auction

Guess what's up for on-line auction in Nevada? Natalie Dylan, apparently a pseudonym, a 22-year-old California college graduate is selling her virginity. That is correct, her virginity. In Nevada, where prostitution is legal, the FBI isn't involved and the U.S. attorney doesn't object. States rights, baby! Nevada says the young lady can sell it on-line if she wants to, and the bidding is hot and heavy. If Fox News reports are to be believed, bids through the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, the brothel that is arranging and hosting the setting for the deal, have reached $3.7 million.

Intermission

Account of the excellent weekend that Beck and I just had in Santa Monica with friends Jamie & Elaine and the Tuftsmen is forthcoming, but in the meantime I HAVE to post this insanity from the Ravens football game last night. This is what happens when a wide receiver gets to take revenge for all the shots he's taken going over the middle over the years:

OUCH!!! I'm talking about the first hit; the second is quite brutal, too. Glad to be playing beach Ultimate instead of professional football these days...

Latest global warming victim

California Brown Pelican

The latest of the victims of on-going climate change and global warming were the endangered California Brown Pelican. The birds lured by warming temperatures and mild winters have been moving en mass north to Oregon and even Washington, well beyond their traditional California habitat which ranges from Northern California to Baja California, Mexico.

According to the New York Times as many as 5,000 pelicans may have been roosting on East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary when a brutal storm hit. The storm packed 60 mile-an-hour winds and temperatures below freezing. The Times quotes Deborah Jaques, an Oregon wildlife biologist specializing in sea birds, "These birds were probably not subject to anything like this in a hundred years." UC Davis avian ecologist Dan Anderson told the Times that, "...once exposed to snow and extreme cold, the birds have a tough time drying off if soaked." This jives with the observations of David Jessup, a senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Game. Jessup said his department examined many of the over 400 dead birds found in recent weeks and encountered lots of cases where legs, toes and pouches had frozen off.

In the Clarion Content's view this tragedy epitomizes what is likely to come from climate change and global warming. It is quite impossible for humans to wipe the Earth out. However, significant changes in climate will have all sorts of unintended consequences and blowback. It is quite possible for mankind to wipe out many species, including our own.

A Miracle on the Hudson?

The Hudson River is surrounded by densely populated areas

The Clarion Content, like many folks, felt the urge to call yesterday's wonderful job by the pilots of US Airways Flight 1549 La Guardia to Charlotte a miracle. After all they landed a jumbo jet with two dead engines in the middle of the Hudson River after clearing the George Washington Bridge by a mere few hundred feet and everyone on board survived from an infant to an eighty-nine year old granny. No one was hurt worse than a deep cut on the leg experienced by one of the flight attendants.

WOW!

However, our staff has personally had the six P's of planning pounded into us permanently. What are the six P's, you ask? Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As amazing as the job performed by the pilot, an Air Force Academy graduate, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was, and it was amazing, aviation experts agree that it was a combination of skilled, decisive piloting and prior planning that prevented the incident from becoming a tragedy. Sullenberger is a planning expert who started an aviation consulting business called Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. He has worked with both the National Transportation Safety Board and the United States Air Force on accident investigations. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of California's Berkeley's Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

He had prepared for this moment, as had the aviation industry. Here is how the Christian Science Monitor succinctly put it, "Aviation safety experts are adamant that what happened Thursday afternoon was not simply a 'miracle' but a product of years of disciplined training, invaluable experience, cutting edge engineering and an aviation culture that rigorously and regularly reviews and updates safety related procedures and engineering."

The lesson drawn from this incident should not be simply a "miracle" occurred, but rather that preparation, diligence and hard work can make all the difference. Again the Christian Science Monitor quoting aviation consultant Richard Golaszewski, "He did a fantastic job and made all the right choices. He's a really instinctive, well-trained pilot. But there were a lot of things that happened long before that: Design rules that say how long a plane has to float, training of the flight attendants and pilots. Ditching is something they train for."

Rigorously prepare to do your best. Try to improve everyday. Keep educating yourself, there is always more to learn. There may be no warning before you have to draw on your skills, you may only have one shot. Prior planning and practice will pay huge dividends! Yesterday they saved 155 lives!

Year 101

Bucky & Satchel, it hurts. It hurts a lot. Maybe the Cubs should have looked at this one:

The latter is, fwiw, my favorite comic strip of all time.

Classic Pregame Speech

Thanks Verbs - this is the speech that our coach at Tufts would give before big games against Shelbyville aka whomever we were playing that day. I get chills just thinking about it.

'ch!!!

From the always interesting Wall Street Journal Pics of the Day.

The Past Few

Drifted out of contact there for a little bit because I have been hacking away at the code for Jason's website, which is here if you're interested. Jason basically needed to update / redesign his lab website, so I brought my mad Dreamweaver skills (thanks iPJ and iPMM!) to bear on the issue. I believe I can get you through the night, scha-wing. Had to remind myself of all the little headache-inducing behaviors of HTML code and Dreamweaver in particular, so I practiced a bit on my site before putting Jason's together. If you are SUPER astute you will notice that I have put in some stylistic changes there; mainly, I've been making an effort to standardize all the tables and have everything be the same size so the screen is jumping all over the place when you click links. I'm not done yet, but a few things have changed - for example, here's the new art gallery page graphic:

In non web-programming life, it's just been the usual avalanche of reading. Classes start on Tuesday, an otherwise completely un-noteworthy day, and just this morning I got my schedule finalized. I'll be taking a seminar on Philosophy of Science w/ Drs. Hamilton and Creath, the usual HPS lab session, a Bioethics seminar later in the semester with Jason, and a Psychology & Culture class. I was SUPPOSED to take Neuroimmunophilosophy this term, but the Phil of Sci class got moved right into its timeslot, argh. I'll be able to half-audit it, but that's still pretty disappointing.

Have otherwise been very errand-happy this week - I used some of my parents' Xmas gift money to get a wireless speaker set for the house, so now we can listen to music from the stereo in any room of the house or outside. Pretty schwank. That errand was particularly pleasant sa the only Best Buy that carried the speaker was in Chandler, and I drove down there and exited the car to discover that my front passenger tire was completely flat - I probably drove on it that way all the way down, as my next door neighbor asked me when I arrived home (several hours later) "did you know your front right tire was flat?" Why no, no I did not. I didn't damage the rim, but I did melt the tire by driving on it that way, so I had to take it to a Discount Tire and have them replace it for a cool hundred bucks. AND I got to spend two and a half hours in lovely Chandler. I killed the time by playing on an American Fender Strat in a guitar store, which always makes me feel guilty - I bought some strings so I could feel like I had effectively "rented" the strat and amp. Good times. Kinda killed my Monday, though.

Beck had Tuesday off, so she went hiking while I finsihed up the aforementioned website. We hit up Lux for our usual "Beck's day off" date, and then hit up the local Best Buy to finish off our gift certificate - ended up getting a portable external hard drive, some new sports headphones for Beck, a nano carrying case and the Twin Peaks Gold Edition Super Duper Box Set. Thanks Mom & Dad! Beck and I also hit up the Apple Store, and are going to try to figure out how to spend our Apple money on a souped up laptop. Fun times.

Oh, forgot to mention, we've also further furnished both the living room and the bedroom with some shelf sets and plants. I'll take and post some pictures when I get around to it. The home is getting quite homey - Beck is an awesome decorator, and even I am mildly competent at putting IKEA furniture together.

Ultimate has been cooking lately - a TON of people showed up on Sunday for pickup, including the likes of Cole and Vince (whom I backhanded across the face inadvertently on a huck - SORRY!). Big, fun day, and I dominated at times a little bit. That led nicely to Tuesday's pickup / Sprawl practice, which also went very well. Beck practiced on Tuesday night, too, and is learning the ins and outs of the game slowly (largely due to the fact that is near impossible to learn about structure / positioning from the Phoenix women's team who, by every measure, appears to run around en masse like the proverbial headless chicken). She's thinking of playing league, which would be SUPER FUN as hopefully I could demand that she play on my team where there would be at least some structure. Genevieve and I are captaining together again, too, so Beck would get a lot of exposure to a very smart role model of a player in G. OH MAN! Almost FORGOT! I threw together a shirt / disc design for spring league - hopefully it will be chosen. Like all great art, it is a TOTAL RIP-OFF of other people's ideas:

Left would be the front of the shirt, right would be the back / disc design. The Vots-Love inspiration should be obvious, and here's the inspiration for "much better than regular frisbee" again if you've forgotten:

Anyways, hopefully it'll pass the audition (if you remember the hcuk shenanigans from the fall, I'd like to have an at least semi-cool shirt rather than the usual mundanity) (no offense intended to designers of such mundanity intended; it's not like either of these is exactly earth-shattering). Incidentally, after having that song drummed into my head, I can now play it on ye olde acoustic guitar. Dmaj7 - Amaj7 - Bm7 are the only chords involved.

Biggest news is that Beck and I are headed to LA this weekend - there's a big beach Ultimate tournament called Lei-Out that I am playing in with the Tufts Boys. Alumni reunion, SWEET! Should be fun. I'm a little nervous about running around in bare feet (with my ankle / heel / knee fun-ness), but we'll see how it works out; if it's painful I'll just quit and watch. Regardless, 'twill be a good time on the beach, and good to see the E-men.

And on that note, I should go take care of laundry / packing type tasks...

(addendum - beck put us through Hamlet 2 last night. And while the first 20 minutes were okay, the remainder was a front runner for worst movie ever. Just so, so BAD. I don't even know where to start. Just a painfully unfunny, half-assed comedy).

Breathe: Breathe in the Air

Primary purpose of this post: check out the smog over downtown Phoenix as captured from Beck's hike the other day. Egads!

Secondary reason for posting: I've put up a few links to tilt-shift photography, and now there's a site that will do a sort of hack-job fakery of tilt-shift on any photo you supply. Check out how miniaturized the other hikers' cars look when the effect is applied to the above photo:

Tertiary reason: the weather here is getting beautiful. Check out the abstract art of our pool pumping yesterday:

Quaternary: Nabbed a nice shot of the WD yesterday, too. Here ya go:

Bears are our friends

Here at the Clarion Content our Gaian principles dictate that we respond to non-violent, non-threatening animals in the same manner. We are firm believers that the Golden Rule extends to all the creatures on this Earth. Of course, we recognize that even if you are vegan, you are going to eat some plants that had life (and possibly sentience.) No waste, no unnecessary cruelty, no eating the very old or the very young are our eating guidelines.

Here is a fascinating story in that vein from the LA Times of Mammoth, California's "bear whisperer," a leader who shares our ethic. He is a self-taught volunteer who recognized the inherent cruelty and unfairness in killing bears who interacted with humans. If people leave their trash outside unsecured in bear habitat, bears are going to come and investigate. Who's fault is that? And should bears be killed for their curiosity? Of course, it took California's State Fish and Game officials quite some time to accept Steve Searles methods. For a time, they even had their one of their officers surveilling the "bear whisperer' in an attempt to deny his techniques and accomplishments. Over the years, Searles has had great success educating the bears and the locals on how to live together peacefully.

Addendum

Let Freedom reign

An 140 year old lobster was freed from a restaurant holding tank where it spent ten days this month. City Crab and Seafood of New York City made the decision this week to release rather than cook the lobster. Hooray for the dignity of our fellow creatures! The lobster, who was captured off the coast of Newfoundland, is to be released near Kennebunkport, Maine, in an area where lobster trapping is forbidden. Read more here from the Associated Press.

Wrigley & the Pea

This may be tough to see, but I stacked the dog beds and blanket the other day to do some vacuuming - and in about three seconds, Wrigley had laid claim to the BEST BED EVER:

You May Run Like Mays, But You Catch Like Nyet

I decided stick figure theater was the best way to convey my catch in last night's softball game¹. I've now made two of the best softball catches of my life in the Scottsdale Friday Night C League². Crazy. Just note that this catch was backhanded, made on a full sprint after about 100 feet, past horizontal and I landed on my face without hurting myself. Or, something like this:

¹My shoulder is not quite 100%, but no significant pain last night while swinging last night in a 5-7, 3 2b, 1 3b effort. Huzzah.

²These two, a homerun robbing layout over my shoulder grab at Rice while on Paul's team (Paul & John Doll both commented that the plays on Sportscenter's Top 10 the next day were weak by comparison), a layout line drive stab at shortstop for an unassisted triple play in Arlington, and a 50 yard sprint layout into a pile of branches catch of a towering foul ball at Rice. You know, if you're keeping track.

Porn Bailout

and


In an Andy Kaufman-esque move, porn industry moguls Larry Flynt and Joe Francis said Wednesday that they are asking Washington for a $5 billion federal bailout. Reports from the LA Daily News said that Francis's tone was tongue-in-cheek. However, there have been reports from across the mainstream media of a softening in porn revenues.

Flynt and Francis claim in their press release that porn DVD sales and rentals rates are flaccid, down by 22% in the past year, as individuals devour free porn online. Flynt and Francis say the $5 billion dollar stimulus figure is pulled from the decline in porn industry revenues from a climactic peak of $18 billion three years ago. Obviously, this announcement on the eve of the industry's four-day Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas is a bit of a publicity stunt.

But more hard evidence from the LA Daily News talking to an adult film star named Jenna Presley, she said, "I know companies are reducing their rates. Instead of paying a girl $2,000 for a boy-girl (scene), now they’re trying to pay $1,200. She went on to note that revenues at her on-line site have been less than firm, the LA Daily News says, "Her Web site has seen a 20 percent decline in customers, about 1,000 of whom pay $19.99 a month to watch the 22-year-old perform online."

There is no way Washington, D.C. politicos (Francis and Flynt are petitioning Rep. Barney Frank and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson) or President-elect Obama are going to include the porn industry in any kind of bailout or stimulus package. But it is interesting to reflect on the idea that the sagging economy is hurting the porn industry. Is this a sign of the depth of the economic woes of the American economy? Is it a sign that porn for most people is a cut-able entertainment expense? The Clarion Content thinks it probably means that there is a lot of free porn on-line.

Good grub

Unfortunately, dear readers the Clarion Content's crack correspondent failed to grab a photo of this resplendent meal. It was a terrific combination for the short days that make up the dark, cold depths of Winter. Perhaps, we will be able to lean on our sources for a recipe or a redo.

When the winds are howling, the fireplace is roaring and all you want to do is bundle up, you can't eat much better than this. The main attraction was a delightful turkey and dumplings pairing. Succulent and moist, it had a perfect texture and a hearty, sustaining warmth. It filled up a cold belly just right. The sides accompanying it were wonderful meshes of flavors. The first was a delicious puree of butternut squash with maple syrup and brandy. The second was spinach emulsified in butter with razor thinly slices of fresh garlic, all tossed in apple cider vinegar, a very inventive contrast of flavors.

The whole plate was a unity was beautiful winter colors of brown, orange and green. The strong savory flavor of the turkey dumplings was finely balanced by the sweet squash dish and offset again in a another direction by the distinctive spinach side.

It was another wonderful local meal by a Durham chef.

No new El Camino

New school


Old school



Sorry 50, Pontiac has decided to scrap the G8 sport truck. Pontiac had been planning on producing a new G8 sport truck with a sleek extended bed, reminiscent of its old El Camino. It even had hip hop star 50 Cent help introduce the truck at the New York auto show. However, the economy, plummeting sales of all vehicles and pressure from Washington to make fuel efficient cars combined to help Pontiac see the light. Sure it would have looked cool, but it was an uber-specialty model that would have gotten awful mileage. Besides the Clarion Content sure is 50 got to keep one of the demos.

Superblock

Per Dad's request:

And as long as we're at it, a video dedicated to the iPJ. There's one line here that fits perfectly :) :

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

Lunch Date

ATTACK II

Incredible images by Steve Winter. Don't believe me? How about this:


Got some close-ups of bugs for ya if that's more your thing.
Or, you know, ping pong with nunchuks:

NASA - Saturn's Polar Aurora
100+ of Nature's Strangest Animals and Plants
National Geographic 2008 Photography Winners
Charlie Brown and racial politics
Creative Architecturaland Graphic Illusions
AND NOW, SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY:

Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo

A Chinese Democracy Timeline, because I KNOW you care.
Via Metafilter, a ton of links on our bad boy neighbor town to the north, Jerome.
Also via Metafilter, everything you ever wanted to know about the NYT Xword.
Roger Ebert's response to Ben Stein's TERRIBLE film.
Another funny SNL digital short for those who enjoyed "Richard in a Box." And here's Justin Timberlake being hilarious.
The addictive passive aggressive notes blog.
Another of my favorite images from 2008 (Cary Conover):


SUPERCUTE: ZooBorns
Supercuter: this photo (check story here):

Cool Book Review Site The New Canon focuses on books from 1985-present.
Real-life Far Side Re-enactments
It’s a Miserable Life!
Cool art project involving 1000 blocks.

If you only check one link: Creative Grooming

Game time: SPY HUNTER! YES! Other old school games. Indie best-of-2008 games. Still others.
Top 1000 films. Perhaps we can use some of those for our Netflix. Ah, who am I kidding. Miss Congeniality it is.
This is what happens when you freeze bubbles.
This Year's Edge Question
The guy who brought you "Ultimate Frisbee" brings you "Soccer Ball in the Face."He has mp3 downloads, too.

Unbelievably, that empties my "links to post" folder. To cap it off, here's a mash-up of the top 25 songs of 2008, followed my muppetonian brilliance:

ATTACK

A cool essay on "Tom's Diner," aka the doo doo doo doo doo doo song, both by Suzanne Vega.
Old news, but maybe the reason the Cubs lost in the playoffs in 2007 is the usual culprit: bad luck.
Of course, there are other takes - an elegy, or a declaration that this was the WORST LOSS EVER.
What's the baddest stringed instrument in all the land? DAMN STRAIGHT.
On the other hand - and I am serious here - if you really want to get fired up, try this.
Internet Classic: Top 100 Things I'd Do if I Were an Evil Overlord.
Just for sheer weirdness, this is my favorite webpage of 2008.
The 150 Best Online Flash Games
If you think you have a Mad Men / Conquistador obsession, check out this guy's comments on the show's use of fonts.
Get yer dork on: funny story about Tron.
And you don't even like boys?
I love this picture:

That's Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips; here's the article about his house in OK.
Nice site of photos (lotsa jazz people) from recently deceased William Claxton.
Science myths perpetuated by grade school textbooks.
Yet another interview with DFW, this time discussing the role of the (post)modern author.
Some cool illustrations on the topic of music lovier crate digging.
Newspaper goofs or, if you prefer, the "blog" of "uneccesary" quotes.
Not real, but funny.
Can you name all 30 NHL teams in five minutes?
Best microscopic images of 2008. Or, an awesome macroscopic shot of the recent eclipse. Or hummingbirds! Or gorgeous feather shots.
Pretty entertaining CARTOON-OFF!
A model of Fenway.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
The usual genius of dinosaur comics.
Andy Kaufman documentary "I'm From Hollywood."
The unbearable cuteness of upside down dogs.
Simpsons references next to their movies.
Test your rxn time! Mine was .201 seconds. Wahoo.
Or take this quiz on greatest hits collections. I got 100%!
Straight up genius: Twin Peaks, then and now.
Some commentary on the logic of obscene language.
Mini-games! Check Tasha in particular.
Did I post this already? David Sedaris's piece on the election. Even funnier in person.
For any interested anatomists: Godzilla.
Okay, this is pretty awesome:

François Macré - Thriller (reprise A'cappella 64 pistes)

Derrida discussing something stunningly everyday.
An exceedingly fun dodging game.
Dia de los Muertos pics.
And you know this is great (click pic for story):


Okay, that's enough for now. I'll leave you with a pair of videos - the first I will not actually post here for reasons that will become apparent (a lot of faux nudity and some bad language, but trust me, used for comedic artistic effect. And it involves David Byrne, so check it out). The second is existential angst at its furriest: