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Test pattern: a test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (Wikipedia)

    05 June 2008 – 12.46

  • Many books are screwy, a great many are dull, some are irredeemable, and there are way too many of them, probably, in the world. I hate all the fetishistic twaddle about books promoted by the chain stores and the book clubs, which make books seem as cozy and unthreatening as teacups, instead of the often disputatious and sometimes frightening things they are. I recognize that we now have many ways to convey, store, and reproduce the sorts of matter that formerly were monopolized by books. I like to think that I’m no bookworm, egghead, four-eyed paleface library rat. I often engage in activities that have no reference to the printed words. I realize that books are not the entire world, even if they sometimes seem to contain it. But I need the stupid things.
    The Book Collection That Devoured My Life - WSJ.com … via LanguageHat

    • 04 June 2008 – 09.50

  • goosh.org - the unofficial google shell >>

    thinkpol:

    In case you want to run google in a unix-like environment. It’s actually kind of a fun twist on the “google experience.”

    Thanks for tweeting this leonnea.

    I’m totally going to start using this.

    • 04 June 2008 – 09.47

  • We flew AirTran down to Baltimore on Friday night, and AirTran provides XM Satellite Radio. “Great!” we thought. “We’ll be able to listen to tonight’s Red Sox game! Uncle Joe will keep us company on the flight!

    No such luck. The MLB Play-By-Play channel was not working. There was no audio, only score updates on a tiny screen. I thought the XM wasn’t working at all until I tried a couple of music channels and found that, no, it’s just the baseball. (And basketball too – I couldn’t even get the Celtics.)

    Sitting in front of us was a group of about nine frat boys also heading down to see the Sox on Saturday, also clearly annoyed about the radio situation. But soon, I found that I had one up on them: while MLB Play-By-Play was not working, you could get the game loud and clear … on MLB En Español. Needless to say, this gave me quite a nerdy power trip on top of my thrill at being able to hear the game after all.

    Now, those of you who read The Joy of Sox know that one of the delights of baseball fandom is the ridiculous nicknames you give the players on your team. And little by little, as I listened to the Spanish-language broadcast, I realized that the announcers there give their own little pet names to Sox players:

    • Jacoby Ellsbury = El Impetuoso
    • Dustin Pedroia = El Pequeño Gigante (The Little Giant)
    • Hideki Okajima = El Intransitable
    • Manny Ramirez = El Super Manny (Clearly referring to Superman, but all I could think of was Super Mario.)

    Best of all, though: on the opposing team was former Red Sox pledgemaster, media personality, and mediocre first baseman Kevin Millar, or as he’s apparently known to Spanish-speaking fans: “El Carismático.”

    • 03 June 2008 – 10.15

  • Millar will come, Red. He’ll come to Fenway for reasons he can’t even fathom. He’ll turn up Yawkey, not knowing for sure why he’s doing it. He’ll arrive in the bleachers as drunk as Denton, longing for the Pabst. “Of course, we won’t mind if you sit down in the bleachers,” you’ll say. “It’s only two hundred dollars per person (fucking scalpers).” He’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money he has and Guinness he lacks.

    And he’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. He’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere near the Red Seat, where he sat when he was drunk with a chicken bucket on his head in 2004. And he’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if he’d dipped himself in dirty waters. The memories of The Steal will be so thick, he’ll have to brush them away from his face.

    Millar will come, Red.

    The one constant through all the years, Red, has been the Red Sox. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But Fenway has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Red. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, Millar will come, Red. Millar will most definitely come. And probably in a time machine.

    This comes from one of the contest entrants on Surviving Grady – not the winner, but certainly my favorite.

    • 02 June 2008 – 19.57

  • In the Basement of the Ivory Tower >>

    (via ailiealien)

    Imagine the secondary-education version of this world. That’s where I work.

    • 01 June 2008 – 22.48

  • Dude … I was there.

    Soon to come, more notes on Saturday’s game.

    • 29 May 2008 – 13.11

  • Why the fourth season of Lost is the best one yet. >>

    I know I’ll be tuning in tonight.

    • 29 May 2008 – 13.10

  • thinkpol: The League of Public Domain Properties The fact that Hercules grunts in greek when he’s smashing the gate alone is enough to make this comic worth looking at. That, and the censored word in the last panel (which I originally thought was “mercy”).

    thinkpol:

    The League of Public Domain Properties
    The fact that Hercules grunts in greek when he’s smashing the gate alone is enough to make this comic worth looking at.

    That, and the censored word in the last panel (which I originally thought was “mercy”).

    • 27 May 2008 – 15.06

  • Via Slashfilm.com

    Via Slashfilm.com

    • 27 May 2008 – 14.40

  • I utterly fail to see the appeal of Twitter … You can tell people what you’re doing and you don’t have to listen to their responses, and not [only] is this the expected norm, it’s the driving design principle!
    MightyGodKing once again, with some counterpoint