CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?
Shut it!
Shut it!
Sunday, March 30
Irony Alert
Terra-Medica, a company I'd not heard of before that apparently sells overpriced placebos, has been instructed by the US FDA to recall several batches of their pills because they may actually work - due to accidental contamination with penicillin.
Terra-Medica, a company I'd not heard of before that apparently sells overpriced placebos, has been instructed by the US FDA to recall several batches of their pills because they may actually work - due to accidental contamination with penicillin.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:05 AM
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Monday, March 03
President Obama’s Foreign Policy Is Based On Fantasy
Well, I know that, and you know that, but the interesting thing is that apparently the Washington Post knows that - because that's the title of their editorial today.
Well, I know that, and you know that, but the interesting thing is that apparently the Washington Post knows that - because that's the title of their editorial today.
And via Insty, this very insightful analysis of why the dithering idiots in Washington can't get a line on Putin:
"This is less a question of how many collection resources we throw at Russia and more broadly about the analytic challenge of understanding Putin’s mind set,†said Michael Hayden, a former CIA director and NSA director under President George W. Bush. "Here our Secretary of State is saying this is not the Cold War, it’s win-win and it’s not zero sum. But for Vladimir Putin it is zero sum. That’s what we need to understand.â€
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11:24 PM
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Thursday, December 19
The Company
I'm reading Kage Baker's Company series at the moment. I thought I'd stopped mid-way through Mendoza in Hollywood (book 3) long ago, just before the story arc that connects all the books together kicks in. But I just finished The Graveyard Game (book 4) and as I was getting to the end, I was overwhelmed with deja vu. I definitely got that far before.
I'm reading Kage Baker's Company series at the moment. I thought I'd stopped mid-way through Mendoza in Hollywood (book 3) long ago, just before the story arc that connects all the books together kicks in. But I just finished The Graveyard Game (book 4) and as I was getting to the end, I was overwhelmed with deja vu. I definitely got that far before.
The series is about Dr. Zeus Inc., a.k.a The Company, a business that controls the secrets of time travel and immortality and is naturally immensely rich and run by idiots. (Because if a corporation controls the secrets of time travel and immortality and isn't run by idiots, there's not going to be much of a story.)
The reason I bring this up is firstly because the stories are quite good and readily available on Kindle (back in the days of paper the middle volumes seemed perpetually out of print, and when I first got my Nexus 7 last year the middle volumes were virtually out of print as well), and second, because of pajama boy.
The background of Baker's books posits a decline in human moral fibre from the 21st century onwards (the books cover events in eras from around 150,000 BC through to at least the 24th century) to the point that everything remotely worth doing has been banned. Which seemed a bit far fetched to me until pb* popped into the public consciousness. He's the poster child for the achordate 24th century society of The Company.
Except for the fact that their list of banned substances includes chocolate. For now, I suspect even our insufferable man-children of left-wing propaganda would consider that a step too far.
* You have to earn capital letters.
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11:57 PM
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Sunday, October 06
Hemidemiantegooglewhack
Oddly, the phrase Potemkin shutdown - I say oddly because it seems so apropos - results in only three Google hits, all eventually linking to the same syndicated article.*
Oddly, the phrase Potemkin shutdown - I say oddly because it seems so apropos - results in only three Google hits, all eventually linking to the same syndicated article.*
The phrase shutdown theater/theatre has a combined count of over 40,000 hits. It expresses the same concept, but lacks, I feel, a certain historical resonance. Or antiresonance, since the purpose here is the exact opposite of its namesake.**
* Though I admit I didn't search in Russian.
** Which may not have actually happened anyway.
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02:33 AM
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Sunday, September 08
Australia Went To The Polls
And elected the least worst candidate.
And elected the least worst candidate.
Probably.
Uh, that's Tony Abbott.
Liberal. That is, conservative.
Only loss is that the National Broadband Network will be significantly scaled back under the new government. Given that the Labor government had so far made a total mess of it anyway, and were unthinking statists on key issues such as privacy, freedom of speech, transparency, and due process, it's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
I don't know that this lot will be significantly better, just that we're well rid of the last lot.
Oh, and he does annoy all the right people, but then, he kind of annoys me too. So that's a wash.
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05:40 PM
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Saturday, June 08
Sums It Up
Seen on Ars Technica:
Seen on Ars Technica:
"Number One, to keep the American people safe. And Number Two, to uphold the constitution and constitutional rights to privacy and to civil liberties..."
Wrong order, bub.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:35 PM
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Saturday, April 06
Good News, Everyone
- Terraria looks set to get a new update after a year in the doldrums - and it has turtles!
- Torment: Tides of Numenera is closing in on becoming the best-funded computer game on Kickstarter, ever.
- GOG are selling the whole suite of recent D&D computer games - Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Dragon Shard, that Temple of Elemental Evil thing and Demon Stone, plus all expansion packs - for up to 80% off. $21.10 gets you the complete bundle, over 200 hours of top-notch adventuring... And 100 hours of so-so adventuring (the original campaigns of both Neverwinter Nights games are a bit stodgy, but the expansions pick up dramatically).
There's also bad news, but you can get that anywhere.
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02:39 AM
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Friday, January 18
Disaster Averted
Today in Sydney it was precisely the melting point of Ice-9*, thus averting global fictitious ocean freezy disaster.
Today in Sydney it was precisely the melting point of Ice-9*, thus averting global fictitious ocean freezy disaster.
It was also, apparently, precisely the melting point of my network switch, because it did. This proved quite inconvenient.**
Fortunately, we've now had a "cool change" come through. They call it that because it's shorter than "not technically a hurricane".***
* 45.8C / 114.4F. In other words, far too hot.
** Probably not the only thing that melted; my internet access went out, and then my local network started having problems. Now that it's cooled down, both are fine again, but it made for a frustrating day.
*** Wind speeds of 72km/h gusting over 100km/h - and the temperature where I live dropped from 38C to 24C in three minutes.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
10:11 PM
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Monday, December 24
Joy To The World
For Santa's come.
For Santa's come.
There's gifts beneath the tree!
There's reindeer in the yard;
They're eating the gardenias.
We'll have venison for tea,
We'll have venison for tea,
We'll have venison, much venison, to eat for tea.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
01:58 PM
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Wednesday, November 21
Road Trip!
Something to do while waiting for the database to come back up.
Something to do while waiting for the database to come back up.
One. Google Maps seems uninclined to trace a route across the Panama Canal, despite there being at least four road crossings. So I couldn't do Anchorage to Ushuaia as I'd originally planned.
Two. Not really recommended to travellers unless you are accompanied by a TV crew and an armed escort, but interesting.
Three. For that perfect combination of relaxed safety and utter insanity.
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