Happy Halloween!

I like the in-camera color substitution performed here:The color, sampled from the front of a physics textbook, seemed well-suited to Halloween. Especially since it was applied so thoroughly over the original color, as seen here (in a different camera-effect experiment):

Geek alphabet: P

Geek alphabet: O

An intervention for MySpace

An intervention for MySpace (SLYT).

I saw this intervention on a website last week.

Hat tip to A. for sending this. People in the future will never understand. I imagine whole areas of historical research devoted to reconstructing the cultural meaning of videos like this.

Geek alphabet: N

How fresh? And when? How hot, and when?

Geek alphabet: M

Geek alphabet: L

Geek alphabet: K

Geek alphabet: J

I recall a week of college where J. recited this as every other sentence.

A webcomic recommendation

It's comics like this that remind me how much I enjoy the conflux of mysticism and teenage love in Gunnerkrigg Court. The story enchants while keeping the world veiled in a thin layer of WTF-is-going-on-here on top.

I think fantasy storytelling is all about the combination and balance of good surprises and good explanations. Surprises draw the reader in and explanations make the story worthwhile. On one hand, we could consider Lost, a show with many surprises, few explanations, and no satisfying conclusions. On the other, we have The Matrix Revolutions, a movie full of explanations about things no one cared about. Both fail at good storytelling, but in my opinion Lost definitely comes out ahead.

But what am I talking about? Go read Gunnerkrigg Court: you'll like it.

Geek alphabet: I

I like eggplant.

Geek alphabet: H

Geek alphabet: G

Reminds me of:

There's an alternative:

Geek alphabet: F

Used to... oh divisive games.

Footbal existentialism

I know it's out-of-season, but I just got around to watching this podcast:
Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life
It is hilarious. If you can spare any attention from the script, the various tickers/headlines across the bottom of the screen are also amusing.

Intellectualism is so cute juxtaposed with football.

Geek alphabet: E

I'm squarely in the hobbit classification (as per Randy's people-classification-by-LotR in Cryptonomicon), but my ever-increasing collection of diplomas and higher education inches me towards wizardry.

Geek alphabet: D

The uninquisitive corpses are kept elsewhere. (The phrase "curious corpses" reminds me of Edward Gorey.)

Geek alphabet: C

Cyberpunk is in the right collection of genres for this blog. I don't know why we haven't discussed it before. We shall, we shall.

Geek alphabet: B

Yep. Reminds me of the delightful Penny Arcade shirt: "Some people play tennis, I erode the human soul."

Geek alphabet: A

This reminds me of D.'s terrible (and effective) backstabbing in Diplomacy.

Geek alphabet

Having visited E. last weekend, I know that we will both be quite busy for the rest of the semester. But we might have some readers out there, and there are always RSS subscribers happily surprised by our eccentric posts. So, for the next n days, we'll be featuring a letter from the Geek Alphabet (don't click it! then these posts will be superfluous!), possibly with some commentary from fontes or efontes.
Via MetaFilter.

New Time Machine features

10 Big Announcements from Apple yesterday:

1. iPhone now available in three slightly different shades of black; pre-orders crash AT&T’s network yet again
2. New iPod PicoShuffle randomly plays up to three songs
3. Upgrade to OS X takes away some feature you really liked, replaces it with another way to access the iTunes Store
4. MacAir meets cousin Duncan MacAir who has the exact same specs and same release date but was never before mentioned, for some reason
5. Apple to buy up the last functioning remnants of the global finance system
6. New iPod Taste uses proprietary TongueScreen technology
7. Time Machine now allows access to the future, but some timelines are alternate so using it violates warranty
8. The entity known as Apple Inc. is actually a front for the Federation of Light
9. New commemorative black turtleneck that plays mp3s
10. Coming next year: US Festival ‘09

Why I'm Giving Thanks

I was subjected to in-house "deep tissue massage therapy" last night. I was rendered unconscious and immobile for the following twelve hours. Today we beat our old records at Kings.

Office robots do "Fight Club"

Not. But didn't the title hook you?J. once told me that some kids at her high school tried to start a fight club, in imitation of the movie. This was conveyed in a tone of incredulity. Come to think of it, who would recreationally try to get beaten up? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And this is coming from a devoted rugby player. But at least rugby has points, and teams, and rules. (Well, fight club does have rules; the first one is, you don't talk about... oh. You are a moron.)

Valuable, important members of a team!

My office has no windows. I empathize with Bob.