A series of tubes

You guys...

The internets are running out. No, seriously. At least, internet addresses are going to be exhausted before the end of the year. This is according to a Wiki article I've partly glanced through before I got bamboozled by the jargons. Do you have any idea what this means?? The interwebs is going to implode! Interwebpocalypse! We've all been so busy preparing for all the other kinds of apocalypses (if you just got here: zombiepocalypse; land-capable sharkpocalypse; raptorpocalypse) that we've been taken completely unaware of this threat. How are we supposed to get to the emails? It's so much faster than snail mail, and involves less licking - I can't bear to go back to the paper age. And what about the facebooks? Will we be forced to start having real relationships in person? I won't have it. It's all these kids today using the technologies that has brought this upon us. This is the worst thing to happen since the Y2K, and surely you all remember it took us to come back from that disaster. We are one more step down the road to the machines taking over, and I for one do not want to be a battery.

Be afraid!

Akrobatik - Internet MCs

Scary post

Usually I use this blog as a means to talk about nothing. It is an object of whimsy. An avenue for nonsense. Today I am going to make a marked change speak to you about something deeply personal and deadly serious:

There may be such a thing as land-capable sharks.



This was first brought to my attention a few weeks ago through the writings of one Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half. Her blog is well worth a read if you routinely find yourself wanting after you finish three-quarters of a hyperbole, or even a full one; she'll give you 50% more for the same great price. At the very least, you should go here and here and see what she has to say on this particularly subject. My own post will be merely for the purpose of elaboration on her good work, with my personal touch.

I'm not a big advocate of the punch line-type joke, but there's one in particular by a guy named Demetri Martin that I like enough to keep in my figurative pocket. It goes a little something like, "I'm afraid of sharks, but only in a water situation. If I saw a shark on the street, I'd be like 'What. F*ck you!' It's like the opposite of how I am with lions." I found it appeals to my desire for power over nature, which is not so much because I want to subject everything to human control, but rather because at some point in my life I have watched Deep Blue Sea and at least one Jaws. Sharks are f*cking scary. In the water we are utterly powerless against them. But ho! look how the tables turn once we're on land! I can call you dirty names and tell you off. Hilarious.

But now that some foolish scientists have decided to play God with nature's perfect killing machine they have brought doom upon us all. Where shark attacks were previously limited to those people silly enough to venture off splashing happily into the oceans, now they can strike anytime, anywhere. There'll be shark attacks in, like, Ohio. People'll be all, "What happened here? Was this a shark attack? But... this is Ohio. Aren't we supposed to be safe? It was probably just a wayward bear." We are never safe.

Unfortunately for us, it's not as simple as mere death incarnate in the oceans and now on land. Land-sharks are smart. Land-sharks are subversive. (Shark fact: the brain- to body-mass ratios of sharks are similar to mammals and birds; recent studies have indicated that many species possess powerful problem-solving skills, social skills and curiosity) For years, land-sharks have been working their propaganda into our popular culture in an effort to lower awareness to the threat they represent. I submit to you exhibit A: Street Sharks. Masquerading as an innocent children's cartoon, these sharks misrepresented themselves as heroes to a generation of impressionable youth. Grown to adulthood, these impressions will serve to blunt the edge of any anti-land-shark legislation and preparedness efforts, thus paving the way for an easy take over by our new shark overlords. Our prospects for survival look grim.

So by now you may be wondering "Is there any hope?" The answer is no, not really. The reason for that is in terms of apocalyptic scenarios, the Land-Capable Sharkpocalypse is by far the worst. Likely to be easiest of all to deal with would be a Zombiepocalypse, that being dependent of course on the speed and intelligence of the zeds. If television and movies have taught us anything it is that any reasonably well-stocked and well-armed individual could expect to survive and possibly even carry on a meaningful existence in the face of hordes of reanimated corpses. A Raptorpocalypse would admittedly be more frightening due to the higher level of ferociousness of dinosaurs, but I for one am fairly confident that on a good day I could out-fight and/or out-think a velociraptor. It certainly worked in Jurassic Park, and despite the inaccurate failings of the author it contained some potentially workable strategies. But when we come to sharks, we're dealing with apex predators. They are stronger, faster and smarter than us. Our best bet, and these are merely defensive measures to slow them down, are to widely disperse a large number of fishing nets, shark cages, and deep sea diving suits. That just might buy us enough time to implement our only real chance of a plan: we have to go into space.

God, I hope there aren't such things as space-capable sharks.



...Remember when I was all "this is is something deeply personal and deadly serious"? Yeah, that was a total lie. I would like to apologize to all the gullible skunks who may have fallen for such a dirty trick. I also apologize to myself for the destruction of my own credibility. What happens if I DO ever need to talk about something deeply personal and deadly serious? I've kind of dug myself into a hole here, now, haven't I?

Try to freeze time, try to freeze time for your mind

I used to think that "time machine" was the answer to everything. Well, everything involving the question of time, at least. Things involving the question of space were another issue, for which I had another answer at the ready: "instantaneous teleportation device". As soon I managed to get those two babies up and running, whew boy, I'd be unstoppable. I would only use this technology for the purpose of good... er... good for me. But then, one simply drawn yet confusing web comic later, my world came crashing down.



That's the bad news. The good news is, a webcomic for cynics! I am in heaven.



Update: The morning after I wrote this, I walked into work to find someone's new book for a little light reading was The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. I nearly flipped my grits when I saw it, innocuously sitting on the desk like it wasn't up to something, when I know darn well the universe is having fun with me.

Also, after further reflection on this comic, I realized that not only has the character killed himself, he's done so without causing the usual paradox because he has killed his future self. That is just messed up (yet also genius!) in a way I don't want to wrap my brain around.

I ♥ killing zombies

Well now, hooray for this.

Hoe. Lee. Cow.
How amazing is this??
I have been transported back to my elementary school computer lab, and I love it.

In with the old, in with the new

An assortment of cycling-related stuffs from the interwebs, some old and some new.

~Bikes + contortionists + engineers. I think I've got an idea of how this works, but even still this is... this is... I would say this is hard for me to bend my mind around, but that would be in poor form (cause I hate puns).


Read more @ Toxel...

~Cyclists + musical instruments + parades. Why didn't I think of that?? Gonna need to find a fleet of cargo bikes in this town, and stat.

Justin Ancheta Performs at the 2010 Bicycle Music Festival Parade from John Hamilton on Vimeo.

~Cyclists + vandalism + gamer nerds. Looks like some creative-minded people up in Portland went off the deep end. And that make me so happy! I don't think you could get much more classic than this.





Read more @ Bike Portland...

~Cyclists + indie musicians. I don't know how I missed posting this one... Only reason I can think of for depriving you of Coco Love Alcorn's awesomeness is I was keeping her in my pocket for a rainy day to blow your mind. Between this and her song "Intellectual Boys" I could be looking at my future wife. Also, someone to keep in mind next time I've got some spare cash to drop on a record / merch buying spree.



There now, all caught up.

Prom Night

This is how FBC gets down.

Oh, and while I'm thinking about bikes, someone can go ahead and buy / build this for me, please, kay thanks.

Green Heaven

I saw today where a friend had posted this video. While I do value the contribution the artist has made to society both in terms of a piece of artwork and as a statement to bring people to a greater awareness of the world in which we live, I'm not entirely sure it's something I can get behind as a viable transportation alternative. Of course there are unsustainable costs to our continuing to live in a car-centric culture, but likewise are there costs to living in a horse-centric culture. Simply our infrastructure from one to the other is not necessarily a good and green idea. I don't know what all of those costs are, mind you, but the post and the discussion it sparked have now got me interested. I thought I'd try and do a little research and comparison.

Upfront the base MSRP of a 2008 H2 is around $53K. I'm not at all sure what a decent horse would run (looking into it); whatever it is would not accurately reflect what the cost would be if everyone ditched their cars and started riding them. With such a rise in demand the price would go up as well. In addition to what it costs at the outset, there is the cost based on mileage - which, for cars, is not limited to the price of gas x miles per gallon. Maintenance and depreciation figure into the equation as well, and these "hidden costs" raise the dollar figure significantly, though offhand I don't know by how much. I remember someone did... a study... or something, that took everything into account. Have to see if I can find that again. I have no idea what the cost per mile for a horse would be, either, but that's also something I'm looking into.

As far as environmental impact is concerned, according to one study driving cars results in emissions of about 2 to 5 tons of CO₂ each year, depending on vehicle model and fuel efficiency¹. My assumption is that horses are more efficient than cars, but by how much remains to be seen. I know that with livestock production there are more hidden costs associated with things like land and resources required to grow feed, but not being a horse person I don't know how those would apply. Also, waste would be an issue. As far as the "poop-poop-a-do" is concerned, at least it's biodegradable and could maybe even be used as fertilizer. (Except... how much poop can a horse poop? How many people are there who drive cars, and how high would that pile of poop reach when it's all added up? Would it be less or more than we actually need? Cause if it's more, then it kinda defeats the purpose and becomes more of a waste than a resource.) Although horses would not be putting out CO₂, they and/or their waste would, I think, release other not-so-nice like methane and nitrous oxide. I hear tell those are even worse in way of their greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. Fifty times worse, in the case of methane. Which brings up the question: do manatees emit methane? Cause if they do, manatee farts are destroying the planet. Kill the manatees, save the Earth!

In the midst of this research, I found a few fun facts:
~Apparently there is a tax break that applies to purchasing giant gas-guzzling behemoths. It wasn't originally meant to favor large vehicles over smaller and more efficient models, but with the letter of the law that's how it works out these days. Ew.
~It's more environmentally friendly to live meat-free than it is to live car-free. While looking for research on what would happen if the world rode horses I came across an interesting article on being a Prius-driving vegan vs. a meat-eating cyclist. It's not a very large difference, only about half a ton of carbon dioxide in favor of vegans, but still it's a surprising and not exactly pleasant thing to learn. I LIKE meat. But it would seem the best of us would be a vegan cyclist... though I don't know that I'm ready to take that step just yet. Another thing to keep in mind.

1. Am I going to have to start citing sources for blog posts? This is not something I had ever contemplated... In this instance the study in question is by , and is based on driving about 8,300 miles annually. I haven't actually read the study itself; the numbers I give were pulled from an article I found on it.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Green Heaven

Things just got to get better

Google Maps now has biking directions! It remains to be seen precisely how useful they will be... a preliminary test looks like it calculates time based on a slower rider than I, and reading a little about how it works it seems it will take into account and try to avoid big hills (which don't really bother me all that much). Still, it's interesting, and about time. Can't wait for a stretch of decent weather so I can test it out a bit further. Ahwoooo!

Further reading: It's time to bike, and biking directions added to google maps.

Never had it so good

Wish my commute was that easy. The next bicycle I buy will have the power of flight.

In other stuff on the interweb developments, huzzah for the Pitchfork RSS feed. I am all caught up on music news (which goes along with my general theme of being more aware of news in general) and it's good times. Plenty of stuff that I won't post on the blog but will be shared on that Buzz thing...

I'd been having some virus drama for a while that was a perpetual annoyance as none of the programs I could find were able to get rid of it. Finally today I got around to trying a factory restore. I'd been reluctant to do something so drastic, but enough was enough. Sick to death of corrupted programs and crashes, and with this shiny huge new hard drive backing up my data seemed to be less of a problem. Boy am I glad I did. I didn't lose anything important, and I even downloaded the latest versions of the programs I use most. Included in that list was The GodFather, which is an awesome but cumbersome way to alter tags and file names of mp3s. With the amount of music I have dumped into random folders and the obsessive methods I have when it comes to organization it's definitely a must have. While I was looking around I came across Tag&Rename and decided to check it out since it had better reviews. Turns out this works way better. So much more powerful and intuitive. Should be much easier to make headway on the Great Reorganization now. How friggin sweet. Thanks you, cnet. I also played around with personas finally, so Firefox is now all infused with music. The only downside is I forget which theme it was I'd been using for Firefox, I seem to have lost the ability to add IMDB and Meriam-Webster to my toolbar search engines, and my FoxyTunes controls are a little wonky. Gotta see if I can work it out.

My heart explodes into a thousand downloads

Today's edition of Stuff on the Interwebs is brought to you by the letter J. Once again no New Music Monday as the Great Reorganization continues. In a quick search for an appropriately fitting bit of music I did however stumble across this little thing that I can't recall having heard before. But first! Cool art, made out of interesting stuff no less.


For a long time, one of my uncles has had these rhinoceroses that he's kept around the house. Ever since I was a kid I recall looking at them and thinking they were kind of neat, but there was always this small voice in my brain that wondered why he had them. Finally not too long ago the subject came up and I asked him what the deal was. Apparently he likes them. They're tough, and not to be trifled with, they've got thick skin and they get along just fine doin' their own thing. Maybe you have to be there, or maybe you have to know him, but I find this perfectly hilarious. I think he wants to be a rhinoceros when he grows up.


Prolyphic & Reanimator - Artist Goes Pop

15 amazing used tire sculptures

I'm not much of one for the technology that the kids seem to go crazy over. These days it's all about the iPhones and gPhones and xPhones and zPhones, BlackBerrys and CrackBerries, the PS3s and Wiis, the texting and tweeting and twixting. Me, I prefer to do things the old fashioned way. There have been some new shiny things happening lately that are worth a little attention. Without further ado, and in ascending order of cool/useful/geekness...

#3. WolframAlpha: This could be the search engine to end all search engines. I'm not sure how handy this will be for me - I've got a feeling it could have way more information that I would ever actually need. But if I ever need to quickly slap someone with facts, this would be the place to go. With a quick test query of "Silver Spring" (for those keeping score at home, that's where I was born) this thing figured out I meant the city in Maryland. The data that shows up - on the results page, mind you - includes population, location, elevation, weather... it's completely nerdy that I'm excited by this, I know, but I am okay with that.

#2. Google Buzz: It's all anyone can talk about today. Honestly I've got mixed feelings about it, and I can see how it might get a little annoying... so far the incessant updates about posts and people I don't care about but am somehow automatically subscribed to does not thrill me. But it may prove useful. I have a Gmail window open on my browser at all times anyway, so... Let's see if this will keep me as informed of goings-on as Facebook without all the useless chatter (so, so bored with that).


#1. Cooliris: Ooooh, look at the pretty. Browsing pictures and videos has never, ever been this slick.

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Now playing: Midnight Juggernauts - This New Technology
via FoxyTunes

You can't imagine how much fun we're having

Finding some entertaining things on the ol' interwebs this week. Which is good, considering some of the not-so-pleasant things that have also been out there lately. News coverage on Haiti and ill-advised Supreme Court decisions is gettin' me down.

The creatures in my head... Disturbing, but it's like a car wreck. I am compelled to keep looking. And it's worth it. Some of these are burst out laughing funny. I wonder what it's like in his mind, but I'm a little scared of what's in there. What does it say about me that I am so intrigued?
See Mike Draw... Apparently discontinued, but still amusing. In particular I like I is made a cartoon, as I am a lolcataholic. Hello, my name is Marcus... it's been a few months since my last cheezburger, but the temptation is always there...
Apokalips... This one's an oldie but a goodie. You had me hooked at the brilliant zombie ploy. It can't go wrong!*

*Don't be naïve, of course it will go wrong.

To hell with the princess, I'd rather mess with Metroid

Holy interweb phenom. A while back a friend clued me in on the literal music video craze that's been sweeping through youtube. Some of them are pretty much terrible, but there are a few that are nothing short of amazing. Who knew so many people still appreciated good old classic rock? Now that's love. I think my favorite, though, has to be this one. Amusing lyrics, good vocals that sound decently close to the original, and oh yes I totally dig this song. How can you not like Men Without Hats? For the other, it's getting all dramatic in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario might have to slap a ho. Enjoy.





Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance
Sage Francis - Mario Bros Freestyle
Remix Artist Collective (RAC) - Super Mario Bros (RAC mix)

Guns, Cars and Sitars

One day I'm gonna buy a big tv. And then across from it, I'm gonna put another big tv. And I'm gonna play these videos on each of them all day long. Won't need to watch any other car chase scenes for a good lil bit.





I promised myself that the next mix I'd try and do my would be about mixtapes (got to catch up to / outdo someone... a mix about Bea Arthur's death? Whuaah??), but this just had to be done. And it was laughable easy.

Do It For The Love... Of Destruction! mix
100dBs - The Chase
Moving Units - Crash 'n' Burn Victims (Felix Cartal remix)
Now, Now Every Children - Cars
Audioslave - Getaway Car (sometimes you just gotta go where the mix takes you)
Animate Objects - Riding (In Fast Cars With Your Momma)
DJ Shadow - Mashin' on the Motorway
Target Market - Killer Cars
Queen - I'm in Love With My Car
Dan the Automator - Theme From Don [feat. DJ Shadow]