Hey, I know he’s well-read in the industry and he often has some interesting topics, but his latest article, Advice for Computer Science College Students, is way more over the top than it needs to be. Maybe he thinks that, since he’s addressing people about to go to college (or those already in college that have not yet chosen a major), he needs to go all MTV on us and “get all up in our faces”, not missing a single opportunity to “dis the man”.

Whatever; it’s annoying.

He takes needless... [More]

The Sell (Fantasy Land)

Another big buzzword coming from the PR/marketing machine that is the US government is the fact that the Social Security program needs to be “fixed”. In fact, you won’t believe it, but the panacea that has improved American life in so many other ways is also a perfect fit for Social Security: privatization.

What a tremendous deal: rescue a broken social program that has been run into the ground by touchy-feely, non-business-savvy liberals and bolster the US economy at... [More]

EPIC is an eight minute Flash film (English transcript), depicting a possible future for our media. It’s extrapolations of customized content aren’t far-fetched at all. Their hypothetical “Googlezon” that generates personalized news articles for each user is downright eerie.

Imagine a world where your Google News is combined with your personal preferences from Amazon. Imagine if you clicked a link for an article and it was generated on-the-fly based on various blogs and online papers that the... [More]

Don’t believe in either one of them; it’s an intellectual plot. If you go to school in America today, there’s a chance that you’ll hear some interesting theories in your science classes.

The theory of evolution vs. creationism debate appears in the news every once in a while. Sophisticates like to scoff that Hiring Creationists to teach Biology is all the rage in podunk states that value God above logic. Those programs require equal time for all theories, regardless of whether they are based... [More]

If everybody’s gotta be right some time, there’s a man who’s long past due. He’s invincible; bulletproof; he can do no wrong; he’s the second coming.

That this guy is still employed in any form whatsoever is a historical/cultural/social curiousity that will be studied millenia from now when our relatives of the future look back on this period of human existence with the same pity that we have in regarding our own ancestors before they... [More]

I dug up some long-lost game logs from games nights here at Opus and generated some stats for Quake3 and Urban Terror. Unfortunately there are no dates in the logs, so there was no way to separate individual evenings. Still, it shows just how pathetic dur is when there’s strategy involved (check out that UT rank!).

After over a year in development and a skipped internal release (2.5.0), the latest and greatest in PHP web site development technology is once again available to a clamoring public.

You should probably Download it now.

New features in 2.6.0 (since 2.4.0) are:

• File uploading fully integrated and worry-free
• Image manipulation
• Generalized form rendering
• Previewing supported in almost all forms
• Fully HTML 4.01 valid templates
• Massively improved the “munger”; HTML and plain text support much... [More]

The WebCore has a new home (again)! The home page is updated to be much more dynamic (and take advantage of WebCore applications) and many other pages have been updated as well.

• Downloads are easier to find
• Installation instructions are updated and finally complete
• The First Run section includes a nice, 20-step instruction manual taking you through your first few minutes with your newly installed WebCore application.

The earthli home page has gotten a professional makeover and should be more usable now. The poll has also finally been updated, but it asks a rather obvious question.

So every year, EA Sports comes out with another soccer game for the PC and every year they make a new download just in time for the Christmas season. These downloads are always a catastrophe, in that you spend more time looking at ads for the game than actually playing it before it quits back to the desktop on you.

I stopped downloading these demos a couple of years ago, but couldn’t resist when a pretty nice-looking demo from CodeMasters showed up, touting club football with Real Madrid.... [More]

I had some trouble writing about this article,The incompetent or the incoherent? (The Economist), because I couldn’t decide whether “douche-baggy” was a word. It’s really way better than “pompous”, which also fits, but feels far to weak. Pretentious also sounds too friendly.

This opinion piece, which succinctly showcases every reason you should never, ever read the Economist sober, starts off humbly:

“With a heavy heart, we think American readers should vote for John Kerry on November 2nd”

Then, just when... [More]

That’s right. earthli.com is officially on the map with one hate mail. Without further ado, here’s the text of the mail (email left off to protect the sender)

Marco,

It becomes obvious that your hate for other beliefs that differ from your own are filled with venom. I am in the military and returned from a deployment 1/02-12/02. I can see the fear of a coward in the vulgar language that you choose to describe your flawed opinion. You, George Soros, Hollywood Elite, and Michael Moore should... [More]

It seems the blue states have started to realize who really won the civil war. I heard on NPR (National Public Radio, a left-leaning public radio station in the US, for the international readers) that the Canadian immigration website got 6 times as much traffic in the days following the election as they usually do. Most of the visits were to the job qualifications pages.

These folks might be on to something. To offer them a grain of hope that they might not even have to move, here’s a picture... [More]

Who is this creature that has condemned us to four more years of Bush? The Bush Voter is the end result of decades of work by our media system. He/she is a perfect example of a brainwashed American. Not all are perfectly brainwashed; some even suspect that something is wrong with their worldview — they just can’t put their finger on it. There are 58 million of these folks, and, because he is one of them, they have elected that fucking chimp back into office.

He’s always right

Bush never... [More]

Well, folks … meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I was going to say that when Kerry got elected, to cleverly point up the irony of choosing between two war presidents. Now, well … it’s just literally true.

Let these five words you never wanted to hear roll over your tongue:

“George Bush. Two term President.”

What happened? Well, democracy happened. Carefully controlled, media-massaged, corporate-guided democracy. Issues carefully weeded, candidates carefully groomed. As America... [More] (Something Awful)

We are approaching launch for the three-month quadrennial extravaganza known as the US elections. If you’re a concerned citizen, you’re letting yourself get whipsawed by Electoral Vote as it updates itself daily with more and more data from the “meaningless” polls, grinding your psyche as your favorite teeters on the brink of ruin, only to come storming back and take a commanding 50-point lead.

It’s like pro wrestling, in a way.

Since both parties have already sworn to challenge the results... [More]

The entire web-site, though it may look exactly the same, is chugging along on a new engine (earthli WebCore 2.6). It’ll be in a beta stage for a bit, but most of the wrinkles should be smoothed out soon enough.

There are more upgrades and changes planned for the near future — that will change the look of the site a bit, but first, we’ve got to nail down the foundation.

If you see any warnings or errors, please send them to me and I’ll take care of them right away.

Thanks,
Team earthli

’Team’ Spirit not for Everyone (SF Gate) is an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park and the movie “Team America: World Police”. I haven’t seen the movie (yet), and I’ve heard it’s pretty funny. I’m a little confused by the interview here because they usually interview well. In this case, they did not. Let’s get a few things straight. They’re satirists and comedians, not political analysts. You can’t hold them to a standard of proof or thought that you would Noam Chomsky.... [More]

This is the last installment of “stuff I learned during the debates”. Unattributed quotes below are straight from the transcripts, found at Debate #2 (“Rage in the Cage”) and Debate #3 (“Bloodmatch — back for more Blood”).

Head to Head

Patriot Act

• Kerry says he supports the Patriot Act. He also says it needs to be pretty much massively rewritten, but he doesn’t have the gonads to say it’s a piece of crap, because that offends too many of the wrong people.
• Bush doesn’t think the Patriot... [More]

We’ve all heard about how hard it can be to vote in America.

1. If, God forbid, you want someone other than Kerry or Bush, their respective parties may have done a lot of legwork to keep your preferred candidate entirely off the ballot
2. If you’re in a state that dumps all of its electoral votes to whichever candidate gets the most votes, you’re out of luck for having your voice heard
3. If you’re in Florida and you’re black, there’s a good chance you’ll be turned away from the polls
4. If you’re in... [More]

Dear Limey assholes (Guardian Unlimited) documents the replies sent by Americans when over 11,000 Brits sent “voting recommendations” for people living in Ohio. The title of the article reflects the sentiments of at least half of the letters; they evoked personal stereotypes about the British, brought up “saving their asses” in the second world war or threatened all-out attack. About a third of the letters were just effusive thanks for support, falling all over themselves in joy at having found kindred spirits across... [More]

“Americans think 100 years is a long time; Europeans think 100 miles is a long way”

Bush is clearly not living in the world we live in. He doesn’t lie; it’s just that, when he talks, he’s not describing the world we live in. In fact, he welcomes us all to join him in his fervent worship of a simplistic black-and-white world where saying something makes it true. A few examples:

Al Qaeda

Apparently, the war on terror is going unbelievably well: it’s a catastrophic success. Bush noted in the second debate that “we’re bringing Al Qaida to justice. Seventy five percent of them... [More]”

Bush often derides Kerry’s plan for taxing the rich; claims it’s not possible to do so. Why? Well, according to him, the rich won’t pay them, so why bother? Might as well tax chumps that actually pay taxes, otherwise the government ends up with no cash with which to run important programs, like the military. Here’s how Bush sees it:

“[Kerry] says he’s going to tax the rich. The rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason − to stick you with the bill.”

Fascinating logic. So, since the rich... [More]

Kerry still won’t shut up about his “faith” and about finding and killing terrorists. Simplistic pablum that he seems to believe. As Our War on Terrorism by Howard Zinn (Common Dreams) point out:

“[What] Bush’s war on terrorism, and … Sharon’s, and … Putin’s … have in common is that they are based on an enormous deception: persuading the people of their countries that you can deal with terrorism by war. These rulers say you can end our fear of terrorism—of sudden, deadly, vicious attacks, a fear new to Americans—by... [More]”

As if we needed more proof that Jon Stewart is one of the only guys fighting the good fight for us, here’s a transcript of his appearance on Crossfire (CNN). I downloaded the full video via BitTorrent (download BitTorrent software). You can find a link to a video download by searching “Jon Stewart Crossfire” in Google. I found one at this blog pretty easily.

The two idiots who run the show were prepared for a standup routine; Stewart came to discuss a serious issue: the way mainstream media is “hurting... [More]”

Doesn’t John Kerry know who are real friends are? What kind of an American is he?

Answer: not the kind of American we want running the White House, that’s for sure.

As anyone who caught the debates the other night surely knows by now, John Kerry is the kind of namby pamby who puts passing some sort of “global test” before the safety of the nation, whereas George Bush does whatever he likes, as long as he has the support of the globe’s moral compass: “Poland”.

The Race so Far

My gut reaction?... [More]

American liquor manufacturers have accepted the FDA’s suggestion that they display one or more of the following label warnings:

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may leave you wondering what the hell happened to your bra and panties.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may make you think you are whispering when you are not.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol is a major factor in dancing like a retard.

WARNING

The consumption of alcohol may cause you to tell your friends over and over again... [More]

Here’s another edition of “fun videos to watch that make fun of George Bush and you will laugh because he’s a fool and you will cry because, somehow, he will be President for the next four years”. This time there are even a couple not from the Daily Show.

Please note. All videos are in Windows Media Player format. The Daily Show ones need version 9 to play.

”Unprotected” (GeorgeWBush.Org)

See the two candidates’ respective military careers from a different angle. An angle that may not have occurred to you,... [More]

Here are a few tips for uploading pictures to the earthli server.

Now that everybody’s got a great digital camera that takes super hi-res pictures in super high quality, we’ve got pictures that are too big to display and take too long to upload and download.

The problem

Your camera will typically take a picture at 1600 × 1200 with a JPEG compression of 90-95% (if you’ve set high quality).

That results in pictures that are anywhere from 500KB to 700KB. My camera takes them even bigger and... [More]