“In 1976, Cosmonaut Nikolai Peckmann was sent alone to an orbiting space station for what would be called Mission Six- to study the radiation levels and strange circumstances that killed all four crewmen of the last research mission.”
That “Malwebolence” article: The original article; at least 1, 2, 3 seemingly authentic 4chan-member comments on a NYT […]

Almost everyone must have noticed by now that Google has a new favicon for its search/news/maps/etc. pages. I personally hate it, I think aside from being drab, it actually doesn’t immediately evoke “Google.” That lower-case ‘g’ is not as recognizable as they seem to be hoping. It’s unfortunate for them that they’ve ended […]

According to WordPress developer Ryan Boren, the most requested WordPress feature is tentatively slated for the as-yet unscheduled 2.7 release.
This already exists in the form of a third-party plugin, which I’ve actually used successfully before on another blog. I’ve always found upgrading manually to be easy and problem-free, though incredibly tedious. Because I don’t […]

I know it’s almost two years old now, but on the occasions that I’m reminded of this photo I’m still fascinated by it. Somehow it is the perfect album to have photoshopped into Paris’ hand: the cover is iconic and immediately recognizable, it may be the last thing she’d ever actually listen to, and […]

Everyone’s experienced that thing where you’re listening to something, and you think to yourself, “Holy shit does this remind me of fall 2004.” How strongly certain music is correlated with certain periods of your life depends on many things, including but probably not limited to when you first heard it, when you first liked […]

Just as two friends are flying over Louisiana to arrive here in Boston four hours later, I find out there’s a MGMT show tonight. It’s sold out. I need four tickets.
I write my usual contact and ask if I can make it onto the guest list. That’ll only get me two spots. […]

Lately rain is being predicted at about 50% probability 24 hours a day, resulting in reality in about 45 minutes and two inches of rain anywhere between 3 and 7 pm, after which the sun cleaves the clouds and I’m sure produces a rainbow somewhere outside the visibility of my apartment windows. It smells […]

Since January, there have been several distinct motifs that make it into most of my remembered dreams. These are my brother, Europe/air travel (and its frustrations), subways, villains, school, and a large, sometimes labyrinthine house.
Last night, for instance, I was in Paris with my brother, and we were both preparing to fly back to the […]

Wikipedia’s article on alphabetization explains:

Advantages of sorted lists include:

one can easily find the first n elements (e.g. the 5 smallest countries) and the last n elements (e.g. the 3 largest countries)
one can easily find the elements in a given range (e.g. countries with an area between .. and .. square km)
one can easily search for an element, and conclude […]

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After seeing that M83 are playing at The Empty Bottle in Chicago on their upcoming tour, I was remembering that it was the place I first saw Deerhoof, in the summer of 2003. I decided to retroactively add the show to Last.fm, and in searching for the proper date I came across this poster […]

“I’m as confused as a baby in a topless bar!”
“Kinky is using a feather Perverted is using the whole chicken”
“Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians!”
“All I need is some peace and quiet If I got a piece I’d be quiet!”
“DADDY FARTED And We Can’t Get Out!”
“Lord Help Me to Be The Person That My Pimp Tells […]

This word is used in Snickers’ new ad campaign, wherein they plaster these long, awkward neologisms (e.g., “Peanutopolis,” “Hungerectomy,” etc.) on buses and billboards and on their candy bar wrappers themselves.
What struck me about this one is that anybody reading it would promptly assume that it is a fusion of “substantial” and “delicious”; but wouldn’t that […]

Once described as being “pretty much perfect,” Scary Go Round is one of my favorite comics. As is the case with most things, I got into it kinda late, and it’ll probably die in the near future, making my weekday mornings cold and bleak. I wish I could remember where I learned about it.
One […]

Originally written June 30, 2007
There’s always been a significant faction of foobar2000 users whose primary attraction to the player is its appearance, or rather the level of control given to its users over its appearance. In its infancy, with the standard (and still default) UI, very little was possible — the main window consisted solely of a […]

Microsoft publicly released Windows XP Service Pack 3 yesterday, which means that it should appear in your list of available updates. To grab your own standalone copy of the update, download the EXE or the ISO directly from Microsoft. Lifehacker also has a tutorial on getting SP3 onto a Windows install disc to […]

Songbird 0.5 was released last week, and, while not technically inconsistent with claims that its RSS parsing had been “improved,” I was disappointed to see that two of my three podcast subscriptions still aren’t coming through. The problem has been migrated to a new bug ticket.
There’s also a new “Media Views” feature, which looks promising. […]

Of which I completely expected to find a copy on YouTube, but about which I could find only a single internet reference at all.
Do you remember that?, where the kid is walking past the lockers in high school, and he has those big can headphones on, and all the jocks or whatever are sneering at him, […]

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Portishead’s new album Third leaked recently, and, like so many leaks before it, is pretty bad. I’ve only listened to a portion of it but the first track ends abruptly, and the whole thing is rumoured to be a transcode. Nevertheless it keeps getting posted to trackers.
I don’t get where these poor leaks come […]

Today at Family Dollar Shannon and I played with a toy keyboard clearly made by non-English-speakers, with pre-programmed songs that included such classics as “Cut Wool” and “Read Hat,” and a rhythm bank option in the style of “New New.”
Oh and here’s the new Justice video, stolen straight from their MySpace page for extra awesome quality. […]

Wordpress 2.5 comes out in less than two weeks! I read something about the “Media Uploader” on the development blog, and, curious, I searched for more details, and came across this WordPress 2.5 Beta demo site. The login name is admin and the password is demo.
Aside from the stunning visual overhaul, there are several […]

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[image] WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL ME

UPDATE (1:24pm): Tonight: Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming clear, with a low around 19. West wind between 10 and 14 mph.
Tonight: A slight chance of snow showers before midnight. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 20. West wind between 9 and 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Roof status: probably locked.

(an unfinished post from February 2007 that was never published:)
Very early in 2005, in deep snow, I was temping in Cleveland, long outstaying my expected tenure at Heinen’s corporate office, distributing and replacing preferred customer cards. I was becoming obsessed with foobar and listening mostly to The Mollusk and Guero. I had recently converted […]

Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 16.

Being still very interested in web feeds, both practically and philosophically, I subscribe to them often. Occasionally I’ll find a site that seems as though it should have a feed, but contains no link to one within a meta declaration or within the body of the site. Still, most content generators generate feeds, […]

Those who lick their fingers when thumbing through paper, and those who don’t.

I try to imagine as vividly as possible that I am in the bathroom in one of the places I have occupied in the past: in Cleveland, on Comm Ave, in Champaign, in Naperville. I think about where the mirror was, where the door was, what the shower door/curtain looked like, who might be […]

Tonight I am listening to Björk and playing NetHack and sitting in the NetHack IRC channel? :delaware:
I cannot sleep.

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It is also Obama Day.

(8:38:58 AM) topdownjimmy: is it possible to request that you not play ‘anyone else but you’?
(8:44:56 AM) wmbrdj: haha
(8:44:57 AM) wmbrdj: yes
(8:45:18 AM) topdownjimmy: thank you
(8:46:56 AM) wmbrdj: yeah no problem

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