Hello, Baby Dragon

Baby dragon
Originally uploaded by Nissk

Yes, normally I draw a very crisp line between science fiction and fantasy, and I stay on the side with laser guns, three-breasted aliens and generational ships, but AWWW CUTE little dragon.

EDIT: This is my 2,000th post!

A Song Using Only Sounds From Windows XP and 98

Neato.

Large Hadron Collider Update

Besides "non-malicious" hacker issues, there were power problems involving a faulty transformer shortly after the initial test last week, which explains the lack of Twitter updates since then. I wonder why they didn't report it right away, though? The lack of explanation about the lack of updates was making me a little nervous.

According to Scientific American, it would take 3x10^-8 second (30 nanoseconds) for the LHC to defrost a frozen pizza.

Did you know that robots carried out the nearly 54 million precision welds needed to create the machine?

Also, riding bicycles is one favorite way of getting around the collider's 17 mile underground circle.

Celebrating 26 Years of Winky Smiley Winky!

This is the man who invented the ASCII-based emoticon, on a computer science BBS at Carnegie Mellon 26 years ago!

"the modern emoticon does trace its lineage directly to Fahlman, who says he came up with the idea after reading 'lengthy diatribes' from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post -- which is probably what 'given current trends' refers to in his own, now-famous missive. To remedy this, Fahlman suggested using :-) and :-( to distinguish between posts that should be taken humorously and those of a more serious nature."

Here is the September 1982 BBS post where he proposed the smiley emoticon:

19-Sep-82 11:44    Scott E  Fahlman             :-)

From: Scott E  Fahlman 

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways.  Actually, it is probably more economical to mark

things that are NOT jokes, given current trends.  For this, use

:-(

Awesome!

Double Posting!

I've decided to post everything I'm putting on Bucket of Nerds here as well. It might be unnecessary but it's satisfying my OCD/ADD/hyper-organizy impulses right now. I'm going to backdate the preceding few posts to catch up, and then starting today I'll post in both places at the same time.

Star Wars Figures that Didn't Make the Cut

"The Force." A box of nothing. A ha ha ha!

From McMorran.

Another ChUC Podcast: Nerd Passion Becomes Rage

From Tuesday night. This is also up on Vocalo, and I spent enough time editing out all the f*bombs that it should be eligible for radio play.

"Post-comedy show chatter is a always a mishmash, but at Chicago Underground Comedy, there are always a lot of passionate nerdy discussions. In this segment: "Lost" theories -- the little-explored "WWII doom scientists" backstory, the "accelerated psychic abilities" theory, who cares who kisses Kate? Jared Logan, Ricky Carmona, and Elizabeth McQuern love Star Trek, but Dan Telfer thinks the hot Borg chick is called "7, 8, 9," and can't get into things his parents were nerds about -- but was still scared by Dr. Who "garbage bags with lizard masks." Jared thinks Star Trek beats Star Wars by a mile. All agree that the final three Star Wars movies ruined the first three. Jared describes George Lucas as a "P.T. Barnum, Henry Ford, anti-semitic piece of crap." And no, the recording isn't skipping, there were lots of f*bombs that needed to be edited out. These are comedians, people."
(6 minutes, 43 seconds - click here to listen.)

Point, Click, Erase Human Beings

Remember when you had to use old-fashioned scissors to cut an old boyfriend out of a photo? Now there's the "Tourist Remover."

I wish they had one that actually removed tourists from the vacation environment, though. I was at Schloss Neuschwanstein once, and there were all these annoying German people in my way. If I could have pointed , clicked, and deleted them, that would have made my trek through a Bavarian megalomaniac's castle so much more fun.

Have Gone Mac, Reportedly Not Going Back

My never-all-that-reliable Dell laptop wheezed its last breath the day before yesterday, and I made a long-delayed trek to the Apple store to acquire more debt, I mean my first Apple since the early '80's. I got a shiny white little MacBook which is currently rocking my world.

Issues I have to sort out: my Epson multipurpose printer/scanner/fax is not Mac compatible. I don't know how to do screen captures. I don't know how to resize pictures with iPhoto or whatever other graphics program I have.

Things I already like - this thing is speedy. It's also tiny and light and doesn't hurt my back when I lug it around in my backpack. It's also super intuitive and much more nicely designed - the power cord is never going to weigh so heavily on the motherboard that the whole thing starts to loosen up (stupid Inspiron), the CD-ROM drive doesn't pop out a fragile and clunky tray that can easily be broken. I have a lot to learn but so far I'm digging this thing.

Sit Down Carefully, Sexy NASA, and Count Your Friends in Ireland with Harry

Chairs designed after children's drawings. Cute, sure. Overpriced? Definitely. Comfortable? Probably not. Also, Crayola-streaked blue skies and three-legged dogs not included.

NASA has always been squeamish about the topic that, let's face it, we're all curious about: Sex in Space. But they're starting to openly discuss it now. "How do you handle love, sex, romance, heartbreak, jealousy, hurt, unrequited longing, crushes, loneliness and twitterpation when you're 18 months away from Earth and perhaps unsure whether you'll make it back?" And more importantly, do boobs look perkier in zero g?

How many friends do you have? Not more than 150, according to Dunbar. "Dunbar's Number - a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a set of people can maintain a social relationship." Does this include blog friends, IM friends, Twitter friends, and other non-IRL friends? There's probably a different formula for that.

Hey, guys, I just got an exciting new part time job opportunity! Have you heard from David in Dublin, too? Maybe this doozy landed in your inbox this morning and you're already acting on it! "...However my funding were by my American counterparts who send me the bunch of payments mostly in US based money orders...assuming you would be able to deal with cash, I would be willing to employ you on contract basis to be my payment representative back in the states..." Yeah, it's the new Irish version of the Nigerian Money Order Scam! Nothing like a fresh twist on an old spam.

The real reason Prince Harry isn't going to Iraq, courtesy of the Rut. "Ha ha! Ging!" Has the Queen's army never heard of SPF 65? Geez.

A Bullet-Pointed Recap of My Weekend

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

*Getting very excited about new assignments from two local magazines, and a potentially big new project with a writing partner.

*Lunch with three vegetarians at (of all places) Hamburger Mary's.

*Writing tons of new stand-up material.

*Helping to paint Sloan's new apartment (and by that I mean lounging on her futon, tapping away on my laptop as she slathers gallon after gallon of bright beautiful yellow on the walls of her new sunroom).

*Post-painting celebratory caramel apple martinis at Marty's.

*Riding my (finally spring-ready) bike to see a friend guest-sing with the Delafields at Simon's Tavern. (Yes, he did rock. Rather hard.) Interrupting his bartop doodling to request a "mermaid with swimmer's arms, like mine" (at left). Marveling at the mermaid's merboobs.

*Continuing to wrestle with expandable posts in Blogger, going so far as to actually dream in HTML, and still not figuring it out. Also struggling with logging into the new Flick account I set up to start sharing photos online. Sometimes I am a frustrated nerd.

*Appreciating the beautiful view of Lake Michigan from my new apartment. No longer whining about my ancient and food-freezing fridge because my building unexpectedly sent up a brand new one. (No, really, food-freezing. Ever seen a jar of pickles frozen solid? It's a little creepy.)

*Thinking about actually sprucing up my home a bit with some paint and some shelves, instead of continuing to live in the "one foot out the door, I'm not going to be here that long, anyway" frame of mind.

Open Mic #4 - Nerves of Steel

I guess comedy really is a roller coaster ride. Open mic #3 was great. Open mic #4, last night, was not so great. I hesitate to post this clip, because it's not too impressive. It definitely doesn't make me look as quick and confident as last week's set. Maybe I was spoiled by having more friends there before (it was just Dan last night), and a more enthusiastic and diverse audience. But I'm going to buck up and post it anyway. Being transparent with my development, bumps and all, is in the spirit of this whole project, and - how can I reframe this positively? - moments like this are character-building.

It was a very different room than last week, despite being the same physical place. First, there were very few people there, and it was almost all guys who were all comics, save for one girl in the audience. I know comedy is sometimes a boys' club, and I can handle that, but sometimes it gets a little locker-roomy. I'll just leave it at that. And, without divulging too many details, I'll explain that for various reasons there was tension in the room, and some antagonism, and it wasn't the most comfortable, encouraging atmosphere. Comic after comic got up and put themselves out there to receive only dead silence, and most made jokes about the awkward atmosphere itself.

I had new material I was really excited to try out. It's about the information age phenomenon of using communications technology to avoid human interaction, using myself as the butt of the joke. (Of course, it's not entirely a conceit - I'm as guilty as any other technerd of communicating from a distance and sometimes holding people at bay while convincing myself we're in touch.) But the response, while not the utter silence that some people received (I did get some actual laughs), was not too enthusiastic. I acknowledged being thrown by this, and while I didn't melt down, I was put off enough that I left off lots of details that make the material denser and more nicely detailed. I realized, in editing the clip, that you can see the annoyance on my face as I hand the mic back at the end, and I'm not proud of that.

But it's cool. Nights like this are part of the deal, and it's certainly not going to dissuade me. If anything, it makes me feel like I'm earning my stripes. I'm a pretty tough girl when I need to be.

And when I think about all the years I lived a quiet life in a quiet town in Indiana, dreaming and dreaming and dreaming of doing this, and never really believing I'd have the courage to try, nights like this are really no big deal at all.

On I go.

Pondering Referrals

Haven't done this in awhile. Let's look at my most recent search engine match referrals, and scratch our collective head in amused puzzlement. In chronological order, starting with the most recent:

quark's mother moogie - Yay. A Star Trek reference. So much for all my cool points.

picture of a man picking his nose - So highbrow.

swaziland reed dance pictures - Have I been there? I don't think so.

Elizabeth McQuern - Hi!

pterodactyl farm comedy - Did I write about this? Someone should. That sounds like comedy gold.

coffee made from lemurs - Don't let Starbucks know about this.

recently-disgraced Harvard - This reminds me. One of my life goals is to someday see my name in newsprint, preceded by the phrase "recently disgraced."

rustbelt memorabilia - that one's for you, Prego!

indoor rocketship playground - I don't know what this is, but I want one.

You Broke Your Little Ships

OMG, they're making a new Star Trek movie set for release in 2008! From Reuters:

The as-yet-untitled "Star Trek" feature, the 11th since
1979, is aiming for a fall 2008 release through Paramount
Pictures, the Viacom Inc. unit looking to restore its
box-office luster under new management, the trade paper said.

Does it seem like William Shatner (L, of course, with Leonard Nimoy) is starting to look like a smug tortoise?

Also, in the spirit of random fun, some random kid playing both Patrick Stewart and Alfre Woodard's parts in the "Captain Picard Freaks Out Over Borg Trauma" scene from "Star Trek:First Contact," which, yes, I have seen a kajillion times.(From a link from the Onion.)

Nerd Cakes

Nerdy and sweet...just like me. MMmmmm.

Mars Orbiter - Death By Metrics

Lockheed Martin used meters and kilograms, and the NASA team used feet and pounds.

Result: $125 million spacecraft hit the planet and blew apart.

Dudes:
1 pound of force = 0.225 newtons
4.448 pounds of force= 1 newton

New York Times: Science Fiction For the Ages

The New York Times has a new science fiction column., written by Dave Itzkoff. Cool. Here are some of his particular favorites, with one of my faves (A Canticle For Leibowitz) at the very top.