Paralipsis

419eater is a site dedicated to people who turn the tables on Nigerian 419 scammers. The usual bag is to get them to write something dumb on a sign and send in a picture of themselves. One of them, however, inspires them with great riches in exchange for a sample of carved artwork. This is the story of one such 419 eater who, after convincing the artist that the sculpture “shrunk” in the mail, gets the scammer to send in a carving of a Commodore 64. Quite impressive. The real gem, however, is found in the trophy room where an enterprising 419eater gets a carved N64! Quite impressive.

Well, it turns out that the Man of Steel is made of rubber. At least that’s what the over-used, too-close-up CGI made it look like. But the good news is that just like Joe Sixpack, he likes a Budweiser when he’s got woman troubles, though his supporters are cool with Bud Light. Lois Lane drives the new Audi sport-utility-compact, talks on a Samsung cell phone and the Daily Planet has switched over to VoIP for their phone system. Oh, and Jimmy Olsen uses a sexy new Nikon digicam. Certain kinds of refreshment, however were limited to plain old advertisements.

So, evidently all is well in metropolis. Of course, not all product placement would have been appropriate given the plot. Then again, maybe latex can’t stand up to the man of steel.

Oh yeah, in a global market with timed releases, it’s no longer commercially viable for S-man to stand for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. Now he just (always has) stood for Truth and Justice”. Good to know.

Alan De Smet has a nice collection of tips for game masters. Advice for any game player really.

The Golden Rule

Have fun.

Maybe you’re breaking a “rule” from a magazine article or web page. If you’re having fun, don’t worry about it.

The game of levers is a wonderful little toy where the goal is to keep the stuff out of the water. Each time you succeed, the ante is raised by giving you more things to balance. Like a mobile, the key to winning is evening out the weight among all the hooks you have available. Of course, there are some nice dynamic elements like the birds you can shoo and the bucket of water you can drain. Lots of fun.

I’ve started a new website, Daily UML which is intended to serve as a regularly updated site giving examples and discussion of UML issues. The first post is up and with luck I’ll be able to keep up a five-posts/week schedule. Since it has a specific technical focus, I’m hoping the update schedule won’t be unbearable. If need be, I’ll ramp back to a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule. We shall see. So, for now, if you want to see, talk or learn about UML, head on over.

UPDATE

The domain was lost to a domain squatter, so that’s the end of that.

For many years, NIST has hosted the online Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures. It’s an excellent resource for any computer science student or practitioner. It contains concise, complete definitions of most important aspects of computer science. From the obvious quicksort to the obscure Fisher-Yates Shuffle. Bookmark worthy any day.

Finally there’s some justice in F1 racing. It was painfully obvious to everyone that what Michael Schumacher did on the final lap of qualifying was blatantly wrong, and it’s good to see that after an investigation he gets to start where he deserves, right next to his teammate on the 12th row.

What made it stand out was that on the lap that he pulled this stunt on, Fernando Alonso still finished only +0.064 seconds off from making pole. So, instead of taking 2nd position and being on the lead row, the worthless bastard gets to sit at the back of the grid and try to fight his way forward. Not likely given that about 40 of the 50 runnings of the Monaco Grand Prix have gone to the first three grid positions. I believe it has been 10 years since someone not in the front of the pack has managed to win.

If this decision were up to the FIA, I’m sure that it would have gone in favor of Schumacher. For years the FIA has done everything it could to work in favor of Ferrari, but finally this decision wasn’t up to them. Under the sporting regulations, the actions of the driver are judged by the race stewards, not Bernie Ecclestone. Thank god.

Sadly, we’ve had two awesome races recently, the Grand Prix of Europe and the Grand Prix of Spain, both of which were exciting, close fights between the two drivers, and the fans would have had another awesome display of engineering, driving and strategy this weekend, but alas, rather than fight fair, he chose to fight dirty.

Alex Halavais has done an excellent job of providing useful advice on
how to cheat effectively. As a lecturer at a university, I can understand all too well his lament about students turning in work that is strangely not of their own making. Thankfully the small number of students I have had to work with make this a minor issue for me, but my colleagues with larger student groups do have a heck of a time with it.

8. Edit > Paste Special > Unformatted Text

This is my Number 1 piece of advice, even if it is numbered eight. When you copy things from the web into Word, ignoring #3 above, don’t just “Edit > Paste” it into your document. When I am reading a document in black, Times New Roman, 12pt, and it suddenly changes to blue, Helvetica, 10pt (yes, really), I’m going to guess that something odd may be going on. This seems to happen in about 1% of student work turned in, and periodically makes me feel like becoming a hermit.

The new Apple store in New York, New York is absolutely incredible looking. At least from the outside. The rather pedestrian looking Apple stores in the Los Angeles area are entirely unworthy of visiting now. What really kills me is that the store is supposedly to be open 24/7!

I live in a major metropolitan area, but it has a distinct lack of 24 hour offerings. Sure, the Home Depot in Hollywood used to be open 24/7, but that went away back around 2000. I wish more stores would adopt these sort of hours. Other than a burrito and/or some cold medicine, there’s very little that is available at all hours within a reasonable distance of my home.

This video of a LARP group’s stone golem suit is absolutely awesome. If LARPers weren’t a half-step above Furries, one would almost want to go play with them.

This would be an incredible halloween costume though. If I only had the time, I would make one and dress up for the first time in years.