Category: looky

I’m so glad this got recorded. I remember seeing this when I was little.

I just showed it to my wife and she said “this is just like our house. Except without the deal at the end.”

SAMIR: jesus. thanks. i have epliepsy now

ERIN: he could be an elevator girl with those gloves!
BRAIN: or one of those dudes who pushes you into the train

LISA: wow, i already had a headache… but now my teeth hurt…
LISA: i’m going to have to listen to some waaaay mellow music now

ANISA isn’t it great that you can use copy and paste to maim your friends?
BRAIN: yes!
ANISA: do i need to watch it all or can the horror end now
BRAIN: it doesn’t change if that’s what you’re asking
BRAIN: this reminds me of Blipvertisements in Max Headroom
ANISA: i am in pain brian
BRAIN: yeah amazing isn’t it
ANISA: you are definitely getting a few bad karma points on your record for that
BRAIN: Lisa said something like that as well

Any design student will be intimately familiar with “foamcore board” or just “Foam core.” It’s a layer of plastic foam, usually slightly less than a quarter inch, sandwiched between two layers of slick paper.

It’s used for making 3D models; you cut it at an angle and fold.

Most foam core is white outside, white inside. They make black-on-black foam core. But what I really need at the moment is white-on-black foam core– black foam, white outside.

Eh yeah. I guess I’ll just take a Sharpie to the edges.

Gorillapod is so awesome; it’s like tentacles for your camera. Err, okay not a good image…

Their store has a cool feature: you can order the thing WITHOUT PACKAGING, so you don’t have to throw away plastic! I think that’s neat.

It’s cheaper too.

I’m realizing more and more that wingnuts denying Climate Change is actually related a lot more to a deep emotional need than anything rational.

Occasionally I’m still getting caught trying to convince Wingnuts that yes, climate change is happening and yes we should change our way of life to do something about it. I realize this convincing is likely never going to happen. I also don’t think getting into these discussions is in line with Right Speech, samma vaca.

But I think I have a better handle on the thinking now. Almost everybody knows at this point that there is no “debate” over whether global warming is happening.

The average person has no access to scientific papers– they are kept in college libraries or in research labs. So the papers may as well not exist; they are something people you don’t necessarily trust tell you about, like Bigfoot.

But there’s this Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which publishes papers now. One big official organization, with a report you can read online, with names of scientists right there on the paper. It’s no longer thousands and thousands of papers people you’ve never heard of have written, the names are RIGHT THERE. It’s endorsed by every nation on earth.

So the puzzling bit is: Wingnut thinks this is still a lie. In my opinion it would now be a very expensive lie… why would thousands of scientists conspire to lead everyone astray in this very particular way?

The way I felt when I realized the enormity of the climate change problem (the carbon component anyway) was something like this:

Two boys are playing in the yard. Just for fun, they throw rocks at a tree. They throw about a hundred rocks. When they run out of rocks, they walk to the tree to look at all the marks they made. One looks down, and sees a dead bird with a rock embedded in its skull. It is clear they have accidentally killed this bird, and they hear the peeping of the baby birds above in the tree. “We have to make this right,” one boy says. “We have to take care of the baby birds in the tree.” “No!” the other boy says defiantly. “That bird was dead when we got here. It probably died of natural causes.”

So, I had no idea we were changing the environment by driving, using plastic, and shipping pretty much everything. My bad. But I’m doing my best to stop doing those things, and to fix the problem, which unfortunately in our case is a bit more complicated than raising orphaned birds.

The way Wingnut sees the situation is a little different. It’s more like:

A tourist is walking on the sidewalk of a busy, dirty, city. He walks by a sleazy-looking gentleman in a slick suit, who reeks of alcohol. “HEY!” the suited man says, “you just stepped on my favorite hat! You owe me a hundred dollars!” The tourist looks behind him and sees a crushed hat behind him, which was clearly just thrown by the man in the suit. “You just threw that there,” the tourist protests. “Nah, nah,” the suited man says. “You are just a clueless tourist, you don’t know anything. You need to pay me now to walk on the street.”

In this second scenario, the people talking about climate change and global warming are running a kind of scam. Wingnut is being blamed for something he is wholly not responsible for, AND being victimized by someone, either “liberals,” “scientists,” or “the government.” This aggressive party is telling him something that is pretty outlandish and difficult to understand, but the motivation seems to be to take something unfairly from Wingnut. In the case where suited man is “the government,” this thing is tax money or “freedom.”

Another aggravating thing to me is:

1. many of the Climate Change Deniers I talk to actually believe in the reality of the Greenhouse Effect, just not that carbon emissions are from people
2. the math of climate change is not so difficult to comprehend

How? As a thought exercise, ask yourself:

• How much carbon dioxide is generated on each car trip you make? How many people breathing? Answer: a lot. It’s a little fire in your car, ignited over and over. People suffocate from carbon dioxide in an enclosed space when there is an open flame all the time.
• How many trips in the car do you make a day? A year? A WHOLE lot.
• How many people are driving? A Whole Lot. Basically at least everyone who has a job that is not near where they sleep
• How long has this been going on? At least fifty years! How many days is that? A WHOLE LOT.

So, multiply a lot by A WHOLE lot by A Whole Lot by A WHOLE LOT, and you get… goddamn that’s a lot.

Other obstacles are

• “I don’t believe in the Greenhouse Effect” – I don’t have an answer for this one. You can verify part of the greenhouse effect at home, but I realized it is unlikely someone unmotivated would ever do this.
• “all science is a lie” – uh
• “The Bible doesn’t say to protect the environment” – go tell that to a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about. They believe that an omnipotent God is perfectly capable of creating the complex system that is our ecosystem, and that the earth was given to humans as a paradise to tend and care for. Then again, they also think we’re doomed and only God can fix the atmosphere. Bummer.

I upgraded WordPress to 2.5.1 recently. Suddenly my WP-Amazon plugin is broken! That is the thing I use to put Amazon links in my posts, and therefore like 90% of my pictures (mainly because I don’t have to host the pictures… kinda lazy huh). What happens is the little Amazon button doesn’t even show up in my Manage tab.

So I did some newsgroup spelunking and found how to fix it.

Let’s say your WordPress is at $WP-HOME

1. go to
   http://www.gnifty.net/code/wp-amazon/
2. copy everything there
3. copy the wp-amazon.php to replace the one you have in
   $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/
4. make a directory “js” in that same directory
5. copy files into that directory :
   • jquery.accordion.pack.js
   • jquery.dimensions.pack.js

   into $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js

6. make another directory in that one $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js/jquery
7. copy the “jquery.js” file from $WP-HOME/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js into
   $WP-HOME/wp-content/plugins/wp-amazon/js/jquery
8. ?
9. profit!

I’ll probably end up attempting an Instructable of this, but in the meantime, here’s the notes I wrote up on the embroidery machine class I took at TechShop.

Supplies

You will need:

• material to embroider – duh!
• thread with which to embroider – most people use a shiny thread
• “stabilizer” – a fabric designed for embroidery that strengthens the “back” of the embroidered area. Available in “tear away” which… tears away… “cut away” which doesn’t, and a kind with self-adhesive on the back. There is also one which dissolves in water, so you can make lace.
• Jump Drive – the Janome has a USB port that it reads designs from. Bring your own so you don’t have to beg / scrounge for one
• Machines shared amongst many artists, like the one at TechShop, use up some of the parts.
  • Bobbin – the Janome uses the clear plastic ones made by “White.” Buy some so you can load it up with your own string before your session
  • needles – you may break a needle. Use a 11 or 13.

Machine Notes: The Hoop

There’s this plastic hoop, like an embroidery hoop, that you put your fabric in.

• There are actually two hoops for this machine, Hoop A (5.0″ x 4.3″) and Hoop B (bigger!)
• The software can rotate your shape for you, but I would do it elsewhere…
• The machine does one color at a time
• try not to stretch nor bunch the fabric in the hoop

Machine Notes: Threading

• thread just as you would a sewing machine
• the bobbin thread should be spiralled counter-clockwise

Import Your File

• You really, really, really need a vector art file to do anything worth doing. The converter that comes with the Janome machine is pathetic. Automated options include VectorEye ($59 exports only a .svg) and VectorMagic (It’s a SAS (Software As Service); $15 for 3 months of unlimited conversions).
• In Illustrator, convert all your thick lines to filled, borderless shapes. Use “Convert to Outline” or the like
• In Illustrator, convert all text to outlines as well
• Export the file as a .emf file
• Now open Embird!

Generate your JEF file

• In the editor, check your design
• use the simulator to determine the order the shapes will be stitched, and where on the shape the thing will start
• export the .jef file

Run the Machine

• Position the head with the arrow keys
• start stitching by pressing the start button. But! Only let it stitch a few stitches, like 5…
• stop stitching. Now is your chance to cut the loose thread. After doing so, start the machine again
• The machine will stop after completing a shape, so you can load in the new color. The colors on the editor are for convenience.
• You can skip a shape by touching the “next page” picture

I just read this story about how a Chinese company scraped an entire website (a web comic), bound it into a book, and sold it in the US. Kinda insane.

But it got me thinking again about self-publishing– now there’s Amazon’s BookSurge and the much much prettier Blurb. You can publish entire picture books!

I last investigated this in June 2004, so it’s no surprise the services available are much better now.

Anyway, I have an annoying question: suppose the guy at Immonen is able to stop the sale of the book? Will he be able to stop them all? It seems like the only way to benefit from this and prevent a recurrence is to publish your own content as soon as it is completed. That way consumers will have something to buy that is not pirated and therefore gets money back to the creator.

So, webcomics guys: the only way to fight this is to band together and publish your stuff. If you don’t have enough to bind together into a book, take a page from the indie record industry and go in on it with another webcomic. The added benefit (besides the cost benefit) is that you get the other guy’s audience as well. More readers, more following = more money! Yay!