Yes, it is a vicious betrayal. They stabbed me in the back. They got one [expletive] call from the US Embassy and they are ready to sell me down the river. I spent about $350,000 here in Japan, I gave them my time, I gave them my money, spent a fortune on Japanese electronics here, spent a fortune going to Japanese mineral baths. But just one call from the US Embassy and they are sending me to prison in the US to die. It is a really vicious, disgraceful country.

Posted by GeeTee at August 30, 2004 07:14 PM | TrackBack 0

"By virtue of him being one of the largest donors in presidential campaign history, he has purchased the Democratic Party," said Yier Shi of the Republican National Committee.

Posted by GeeTee at August 25, 2004 01:24 PM | TrackBack 0

The Rbot-GR virus follows a fairly traditional malware route of exploiting Microsoft security vulnerabilities and installing a Trojan horse on infected machines. However, the worm also spies on users by taking control of their Webcam and microphone, then sending images and soundtracks back to the hackers, according to antivirus firm Sophos.

Posted by GeeTee at August 23, 2004 02:16 PM | TrackBack 0

Recently, the Something Awful Forum Goons, led by Photohshop Phriday regular Unkempt, decided to make some funny comic strips based on the classic comic series Watchmen. Watchmen, for those of you who are not nerds, is almost universally regarded as the greatest comic series ever. I tend to agree, as I've seen very few things that come close to packing as much depth into such a small space. You don't have to know the comic to get 90% of these jokes, since they are silly and have nothing to do with the comic aside from borrowing the art. Enjoy!

Posted by GeeTee at August 20, 2004 08:54 AM | TrackBack 0

I’ve always wanted a tattoo sleeve, but being that I am a professional I couldn’t really go past the elbow. I wanted the brightest color I could possibly get so that’s why I chose Jime Litwalk to do my work — he is the color master. I don’t regret getting this work done. I’m a geek. You would never tell from my appearance, but the geek blood runs through me. I also have a strain of binary code tattooed on my back that spells out Apollo, the Greek god of music and philosophy. Music is another major influence in my life.

Posted by GeeTee at August 20, 2004 08:49 AM | TrackBack 0

The precursors of money, along with language, enabled early modern humans to solve problems of cooperation that other animals cannot -- including problems of reciprocal altruism, kin altruism, and the mitigation of aggression. These precursors shared with non-fiat currencies very specific characteristics -- they were not merely symbolic or decorative objects.

Posted by GeeTee at August 18, 2004 06:44 PM | TrackBack 0

"Are you telling me they fired you because you had something with ham on it?" Local 6 News reporter Mike Holfeld asked.

Posted by GeeTee at August 18, 2004 01:40 PM | TrackBack 0

Dr McKee said porn users reported it had taught them "to be more relaxed about their sexuality" and marriages were healthier, while porn made people think about another person's pleasure and made them less judgmental about body shapes.

See also analysis and reaction to the study.

Posted by GeeTee at August 16, 2004 05:48 PM | TrackBack 0

3) There is only one linguist at MIT. That linguist is named Noam Chomsky. At each university containing linguists, there is exactly one linguist who agrees with Prof. M. about some things and disagrees with him about others. If there are other linguists at other universities, they must either agree with Prof. M. about everything, or disagree with him about everything.

Posted by GeeTee at August 16, 2004 04:45 PM | TrackBack 0

From a bit of looking around, it seems that plain butt as in idiomatic intensifier is mainly used with qualities are that are negative, or at least can be seen as negative. Thus "butt expensive", "butt cheap" (even when that is sometimes good), "butt stupid", but not (as far as I can tell from googling) "butt intelligent" or "beautiful" or "good". By contrast, kick-butt seems mainly to go with positively-evaluated properties.

Posted by GeeTee at August 16, 2004 03:46 PM | TrackBack 0

"We always stop there and show people the Farthest North Spruce Tree and explain that (spruce) trees don't grow that far north in the world anywhere else," said Conklin, a guide for Coldfoot Camp, a truck and tourist stop 60 miles down the road.
Conklin wasn't prepared for what he would see next.

Posted by GeeTee at August 16, 2004 03:24 PM | TrackBack 0

We would pull them up by the dozens from depleted American waters--bright, unopened, plastic gallon jugs of juice hauled, dripping, out of the fished-out sea floors off Long Island. They were our own garbage: food dumped overboard because it had passed its "sell by" date.

Posted by GeeTee at August 15, 2004 11:22 AM | TrackBack 0

An introduction to cuddling ensues, first by hugging three people. People then get in a circle on their hands and knees, rub shoulders and moo like cows. After a bit of swaying, everyone falls to their side, which puts them into an easy cuddling position.

Posted by GeeTee at August 09, 2004 03:26 PM | TrackBack 0

The principle is that students who are using drugs or have recently handled them leave a residue on anything they touch, including locker handles, computer keyboards, vending machines and sports equipment. DrugWipe, which resembles a home pregnancy test, can detect drug residue for up to eight weeks. One version of the test checks for marijuana, amphetamines (and derivatives like Ecstasy), cocaine and opiates in one swipe. If a line appears, you've got drugs.

Posted by GeeTee at August 04, 2004 04:24 PM | TrackBack 0

At this point in the story, a thousand nerds are ready to blame me for screwing-up a WiFi channel for metropolitan Charleston. Their concern (your concern -- you know who you are) is that by having a WiFi access point and high-gain antenna running in my airplane ,I'm laying down a swath of interference and channel-hogging that will screw up someone's online gaming experience.

Posted by GeeTee at August 04, 2004 08:38 AM | TrackBack 0

Now, I'm well aware that printing something out from a word processor document file generally demands that precisely the same software and hardware is in use at each end. Translation from one word processor format to another in a way that preserves what is important about a complicated text like a grammar book is possible in principle but hopeless in practice. Differences in letter width way below the millimeter level pile up and lead to problems with tabbing and tables. Linebreak differences pile up and lead to disastrous page break placements. Special characters disappear. Tables are mangled. Fonts are randomly replaced in utterly lunatic ways. If you've worked extensively with moving files between different word processors you'll know why I'm gripping your arm and warning you about this. If not, you won't listen, but you should.

Posted by GeeTee at August 03, 2004 04:06 PM | TrackBack 0

"For people who play (Internet) games all night and don't have any friends, don't have any hobbies, to come into the army is a very big shock," said Commander-Captain Jyrki Kivela at the military conscription unit.

Posted by GeeTee at August 03, 2004 03:55 PM | TrackBack 0

Bill Cosby recently pointed to the tragedy of the black kids he sees “standing on the corner” who “can’t speak English.” “I can’t even talk the way these people talk,” Cosby said: “ ‘Why you ain’t. Where you is.’ ” To kids who have never known anything but demotic English, literary English is bound to seem an alien, all but incomprehensible dialect. Kids who haven’t been exposed to the King’s English in primary school or at home will have a hard time, if they get to college, with works like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick. In too many cases, they will give up entirely, unable to enter the community of literate citizens—and as a result will live in a world of constricted opportunity.

Posted by GeeTee at August 02, 2004 10:33 AM | TrackBack 0

Instead of dynamically modifying individual characters, EmoteMail relates contextual cues to each paragraph. The prototype uses a camera and a timer as sensor inputs to capture additional information relating to the paragraph. Reminiscent of the commonly used smileys, the EmoteMail client annotates every paragraph with a small black and white thresholded image of the face of the writer. Each paragraph also includes a background colour representing how much time the paragraph took to compose. If the sender changes their facial expression (perhaps as part of an emotionally meaningful communication) then the small camera grab beside each paragraph reflects this. By capturing a snapshot of the face of the writer with every paragraph, the system attempts to display the fluctuation of the emotions throughout the message, rather than attempting to summarize the whole message as a certain mood.

Posted by GeeTee at August 01, 2004 11:39 AM | TrackBack 0

So why all this issuing of demands and threats with nothing at all to back them up? Because, of course, Pettigrew isn't talking to Iran. He's talking to Canadians. He's trying to reassure us that Ottawa could really do something about it, if one of us were arrested by a totalitarian government. What we're discovering is that it can't.

Posted by GeeTee at August 01, 2004 10:47 AM | TrackBack 0