Weird thing of the day 25 May 2005/16 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 31 of the `Omer)

Greetings.

Recently Emily gave me a large archive of files that have been roaming the Internet for years. Today’s weird thing, included below, is one of them. WARNING: Do not read this wherever rolling on the floor laughing is not appropriate. Also, I do not endorse anyone actually doing anything in today’s weird thing. Enjoy.

Aaron.

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Amazing Ways To Order A Pizza

Ask if you can get a pizza with just crust, no toppings.
Call a delivery-only pizza store and insist on "dining in."
Using a touch-tone, press random numbers while ordering. Ask the person taking the order to stop doing that.
Make up a credit card name. Ask if they accept it. Cheer if they say yes.
Use CB lingo where applicable.
Order a Big Mac Extra Value Meal.
Terminate the call with, "Remember, we never had this conversation."
Tell the order taker a rival pizza place is on the other line and you're going with the lowest bidder.
Give them your address, exclaim "Oh, just surprise me!" and hang up.
Answer their questions with questions.
Use these bonus words in the conversation: ROBUST FREE-SPIRITED COST-EFFICIENT UKRAINIAN PUCE.
Tell them to put the crust on top this time.
Sing the order to the tune of your favorite song from any Metallica CD.
Don't name the toppings you want—spell them out.
Put an extra edge in your voice when you say "crazy bread."
Stutter on the letter "p."
Ask for a deal available somewhere else. (e.g. Order "The Edge" from Little Caesar's or a "Cheeser! Cheeser!" from Domino's)
Ask what the order taker is wearing.
Crack your knuckles into the receiver.
Say hello, act stunned for five seconds, then behave as if they called you.
Rattle off your order with a determined air. If they ask if you would like drinks with that, panic and become disoriented.
Tell the order taker you're depressed. Get him/her to cheer you up.
Make a list of exotic cuisines. Order them as toppings.
Change your accent every three seconds.
Order 52 pepperoni slices prepared in a fractal pattern as follows from an equation you are about to dictate. Ask if they need paper.
Act like you know the order taker from somewhere. Say "Bed-Wetters' Camp, right?"
Start your order with "I'd like...". A little later, slap yourself and say "No, I don't."
If they repeat the order to make sure they have it right, say "OK. That'll be $10.99 please pull up to the first window."
Try to rent a pizza.
Order while using an electric knife sharpener.
Ask if you get to keep the pizza box. When they say yes, heave a sigh of relief.
Put the accent on the last syllable of "pepperoni." Use the long "i" sound.
Have your pizza "shaken, not stirred."
Say "Are you sure this is (Pizza Place)? When they say yes, say "Well, so is this! You've got some explaining to do!" When they finally offer proof that it is, in fact, (Pizza Place), start to cry and ask, "Do you know what it's like to be lied to?"
Move the mouthpiece farther and farther from your lips as you speak. When the call ends, jerk the mouthpiece back into place and scream goodbye at the top of your lungs.
Tell them to double-check to make sure your pizza is, in fact, dead.
Imitate the order taker's voice.
Eliminate verbs from your speech.
When they say "What would you like?" say, "Huh? Oh, you mean now."
Play a sitar in the background.
Say it's your anniversary and you'd appreciate if the deliverer hid behind some furniture waiting for your spouse to arrive so you can surprise him/her.
Amuse the order taker with little-known facts about country music.
Ask to see a menu.
Quote Gandhi.
Say you'll be able to pay for this when the movie people call back.
Ask if they have any idea what is at stake with this pizza.
Ask what topping goes best with well-aged Chardonnay.
Belch directly into the mouthpiece then tell your dog it should be ashamed.
Order a slice, not a whole pizza.
Shout "I'm through with men/women! Send me a dozen of your best, Gaston!"
Doze off in the middle of the order, catch yourself, and say "Where was I? Who are you?"
Psychoanalyze the order taker.
Ask what their phone number is. Hang up, call them, and ask again.
Order two toppings, then say, "No, they'll start fighting."
Learn to properly pronounce the ingredients of a Twinkie. Ask that these be included in the pizza.
Call to complain about service. Later, call to say you were drunk and didn't mean it.
Tell the order taker to tell the manager to tell his supervisor he's fired.
Report a petty theft to the order taker.
Use expletives like "Great Caesar's Ghost!" and "Great Scott!"
Ask for the guy who took your order last time.
If he/she suggests anything, adamantly declare, "I shall not be swayed by your sweet words."
Wonder aloud if you should trim those nose hairs.
Try to talk while drinking something. Gargle.
Start the call with "My Call to (Pizza Place), Take 1, and...action!"
Ask if the pizza is organically grown.
Ask about pizza maintenance and repair.
Be vague with your order.
When they repeat your order, say "Again, with a little more OOMPH this time."
Using a touch-tone phone, press 9-1-1 every 5 seconds throughout the order.
After ordering, say "I wonder what THIS button on the phone does." Simulate a hangup.
Start the conversation by reciting today's date and saying, "This may be my last entry."
State your order and say that's as far as this relationship is going to get.
Ask if they're familiar with the term "spanking a pizza." Make up a description to go with the term. Ask that this be done to your pizza.
Say "Kssssssssssssssht" rather loudly into the phone. Ask if they felt that.
Detect the order taker's psychic aura. Use it to your advantage.
When listing toppings you want on your pizza, include another pizza.
Learn to play a blues riff on the harmonica. Stop talking at regular intervals to play it.
Ask if they would like to sample your pizza. Suggest an even trade.
Perfect a celebrity's voice. Stress that you won't take any crap from some two-bit can't-hack-it pimple-faced gofer. Threaten to hit said gofer with a golf club.
Put them on hold.
Teach the order taker a secret code. Use the code on all subsequent orders.
Mumble, "There's a bomb under your seat." When asked to repeat that, say "I said 'sauce smothered with meat'."
Make the first topping you order mushrooms. Make the last thing you say "No mushrooms, please." Hang up before they have a chance to respond.
When the order is repeated, change it slightly. When it is repeated again, change it again. On the third time, say "You just don't get it, do you?"
When you're given the price, say "Ooooooo, that sounds complicated. I hate math."
Haggle.
Order a one-inch pizza.
Order term life insurance.
When they say "Will that be all?" snicker and say "We'll find out, won't we?"
Order with a Speak-n-Spell.
Ask how many dolphins were killed to make that pizza.
While on the phone, fake your voice changing. Fluctuate pitch often. Act embarrassed.
Engage in some serious swapping.
Dance all around the word "pizza." Avoid saying it at all costs. If he/she says it, say "Please don't mention that word."
Have a movie with a good car chase scene playing loudly in the background. Yell "OW!" when a bullet is fired.
If he/she suggests a side order, ask why he/she is punishing you.
Ask if the pizza has had its shots.
Order a steamed pizza.
Get taker's name. Later, call exactly on the hour to say, "This is your (time of day) wake-up call, So-and-so." Hang up. Repeat every hour.
Offer to pay for the pizza with a public flogging.

If any of the above practices are rejected by the order taker, say, in your best pouty voice, "The last guy let me do it."

Weird thing of the day 24 May 2005/15 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 30 of the `Omer)

Greetings.

Back to political griping: There have been a number of good articles on Backspin lately: “Who is a Palestinian?”, “BBC's idea of balance”, and the statistically inclined “Reassessing Palestinian numbers”. I would also like to note the article “EU ties with terror organizations worry Israel”. The latter is the sort of moral incompetence on Europe’s part which makes me believe the way to a real peace requires that Israel cut all third parties out of the process and do what is needed to stop terror, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it. The nicest realistic solution I can imagine is expelling all Stateless Arabs (“Palestinians”) who show even the least hint of condoning terror. (The expulsion of those who commit terror goes without saying.) If Egypt, Jordan, and Syria do not want their citizens back, the European Union would make a fitting destination.

Today’s weird thing is REAL WOOD COMPUTER CASES - Do you want a wooden laptop? Welcome to www.zaverio.net - The FIRST in Wooden Laptops and wooden moddings - Fine Italian Handcraft! Legnatile, Wooden case, wooden laptop, USB pen, and other! italian, handcraft, italiano, manufatto, dammuso, ancient, medieval, medioevale, medioevo, wooden, laptop, modding, case, legnatile, legno, computer, case, mod, mods, woods, dell, tower, minitower, usb, pen, oak, tree, ancient, alchemy, alchimia, fulcanelli, dyne, jaromil, rasta, rastasoft, emergelab, poetry, hacklab, freaknet, medialab, asbesto, molesto, gabriele, zaverio, vigevano, palazzolo, acreide, sicilia, siracusa. (That is the entire title of their page and probably the longest page title I have ever seen.) Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 23 May 2005/14 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 29 of the `Omer/Pesah Sheni/World Turtle Day/Victoria Day/Declaration of the Bab)

Greetings.

I have been saved the trouble of picking a weird thing for today, because I have been sent a well-written essay. And standing behind me is a nice man in black and holding a lightsaber who insists I post it. Enjoy.

Aaron

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My dear, dear friends,

No doubt you have heard of Star Wars:  Episode III
- Revenge of the Sith, of how powerful it is and
much better it is compared to the previous two
installments.  Some have even said that it is as good
as the original trilogy, rivaling even Episode V -
The Empire Strikes Back.  Sitting there in their
seats in the theater, thoughtlessly munching away on
some calorie-laden snack, they think they truly
understand the situation.  Fools.  Little do they
realize that the story they are watching is not so
much that of Darth Vader, but that of the man telling
the tale.

That is right, my friends.  The struggle between the
so-called "good" and "evil" forces in the galaxy is
only a frame in which is set the internal struggles of
George Lucas himself.

Consider the story of the Star Wars saga, not
in the numerical order of the episodes, but in the
order they were filmed.  Two characters dominate the
story, young Luke Skywalker, made to be the hero of
the saga, and Darth Vader, the man who ultimately
turns out to be Anakin Skywalker, his father, both of
whom represent different aspects of George Lucas and
his crew.  Luke, represents the artistic storytelling
impulses, all the great filmmaking skills Lucas has
learned from his classes and from reading Joseph
Campbell, whereas Lord Vader represents the usual
methods of Hollywood, flash and noise at the expense
of art or even sense, any sure trick to draw in an
audience.  Filmmaking is difficult, and one is
constantly tempted to take the quick and easy path to
finishing a film.  The fortunes of Lucas parallel
those of these characters and their associates.  In
Episode IV - A New Hope, Lucas is young, fresh
from such experimental work as THX-1138, and
though underfunded, he is powerful and is able to
wield his talent to create a unique film, avoiding
that temptations that would make it just another bad
sci-fi movie.  Similarly, young Skywalker is able to
start from being on an empty, desolate planet to
overcome the awesome power of Lord Vader's Death Star
as part of the Rebel Alliance.  In Episode V - The
Empire Strikes Back, just as young Skywalker and
the Rebellion faced increased persecution from the
Empire, Lucas's success brought increased pressure and
attention from Hollywood and financiers to make the
movie in a way suited to their interests.  Just as
young Skywalker had to face that Lord Vader was his
father, Lucas had to deal that he was no longer
independent, but now part of the filmmaking
establishment.  By Episode VI - Return of the
Jedi, just as the Rebel Alliance overthrows the
Empire and young Skywalker becomes a Jedi and finds
the good in his father Lord Vader, Lucas manages to
resist temptation to take the easy path and even find
some acceptance of his situation.

Now consider the prequel trilogy.  In the intervening
years, Lucas has been drawn further into the ways of
Hollywood and has forgotten the ways of his earlier
films.  There is no young Skywalker, only Anakin, and
the latter's tendencies dominate.  In Episode I -
The Phantom Menace, as Anakin is technically
adept but a child, Lucas's work dominated by his
computer-generated spectacles but has a juvenile
story.  In Episode II - Attack of the Clones,
Anakin has studied the ways of the Force well but is
impatient and cocky and takes his first missteps
towards the Dark Side.  Though Lucas can still put on
a show, in his rush to show off his skills he rushes
through the script and leaves the dialogue painfully
stilted in favor of special effects.  Finally, in
Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, as Anakin
gives in to his emotions and desires and becomes Lord
Vader, Lucas has become fully consumed by his
Hollywoodism, fully assimilated into it.

But no, you say, this cannot be!  Isn't Revenge of
the Sith as good as the original trilogy?  I'm
afraid not, my friend.  Did you not hear the awful
dialogue, same as in the episode before?  Did you not
see the same dizzying effects, so busy as Lucas
delights in his cleverness, but yet failing to add as
much as the cruder ones from the 1970s and 1980s? 
Yes, it does deal with dark themes, but it logically
has to.  He could not have avoided them if he wanted. 
A certain backstory was set up in the original
trilogy, forcing the prequel trilogy to have certain
events at certain times.  For the third episode, the
Republic would have to become the Empire, the Jedi
would have to be all but destroyed, and Anakin would
have to become Lord Vader.  Betrayal and a fall from
grace were obligatory themes, so their presence hardly
means anything.  You are affected, but in no more
artful a fashion than if this were a news report.  A
story of betrayal and darkness can be as badly told
any other.

Consider how poorly certain events were handled in the
prequel trilogy.  Was it necessary to firmly establish
that Lord Vader once was Anakin Skywalker and who his
children were?  These were major revelations for those
who watched the episodes in the order they were
filmed; for one watching them in numerical order,
these surprises have been spoiled.  A more skilled
writer would have not eliminated Count Dooku so
quickly, but kept him around until the end of the
film, where he is involved in the climactic duel
between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin.  In the end, while
Kenobi walks away, both Dooku and Anakin are horribly
injured and mutilated beyond all recognition.  Only
one survives and becomes Lord Vader, and which one it
is is not clear, with the heavy implication of it
being Dooku.  Indeed, the treatment and transformation
of a burned body into the familiar half-mechanical
being should never have been shown; that way, when
young Skywalker removes Lord Vader's mask, we would
still feel the shock at seeing Lord Vader's true face.
Similarly, though Padme Amidala's pregnancy might be
known, that she is carrying twins might be kept secret
and the births not depicted.  Later Obi-Wan is shown
delivering the infant Luke to Owen and Beru, while the
only hint of Leia's existence being Padme visiting
Bail Organa and asking for a favor.  A little
creativity could have gone a long way towards
preserving much of the experience for those watching
the saga the first time in numerical order.  Instead,
we have clumsy writing where characters speak the
obvious, usually with bad acting ruining even savable
lines.  Most of what is good in Revenge of the
Sith is there because it absolutely had to be
there, not because of any special genius of Lucas.

As you might have guessed, Lucas really did tell of
events which took place a long time ago in a galaxy
far, far away.  How he learned of them, I am not at
liberty to say, but he did let his own ideological
shortcomings interfere with his storytelling, and not
for the better.  Because the distorted events in the
original trilogy made such an impact, I was forced to
act.  All that has happened has gone according to my
design.  If he had stayed on the path he began with
the original trilogy, he would have become a legend
for a long time to come.  But now, having turned him
to the Dark Side, his name will be forever tarnished. 
Once his current fan base is gone, his work is now
doomed to pass forever into obscurity.

I'm afraid whatever was good in Lucas is gone.  He is
now consumed by Hollywoodism, the temptation towards
its dark side having become so great that it
overpowers and replaces the craft of storytelling.  He
has forgotten how to make his characters interesting,
so instead of the vivacity and cockiness of Leia and
Han Solo, we have the empty, dull declarations of
Anakin and Padme.  What was an incredible artistic
opportunity has passed, completely wasted, never to be
revisited save in fanfics or until the copyright
expires.  The filmmaking Jedi we have known is lost to
impulses which more independent filmmakers would call
unnatural.  And just as democracy fell in the
Republic, so has Lucas become consumed by the Dark
Side:  to thunderous applause.

- Emperor Palpatine, also called Sidious, Dark Lord of
the Sith

Worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

MoveOn PAC has a new emergency petition, this one demanding “The Senate must oppose the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster, and preserve the checks and balances that have kept our courts fair and independent for centuries.” Please sign and show the US Senate that you care what they do. Thank you.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 22 May 2005/13 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 28 of the `Omer/Buy-A-Musical Instrument Day)

Greetings.

I was thinking of making today’s weird thing the article “Heel thyself”, but then I realized that I knew of something relevant to today’s weird holiday: the song “Biostat Division Blues” (lyrics and music). Enjoy or be confused or something.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 20 May 2005/11 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 26 of the `Omer/Weights and Measures Day/Ascension)

Greetings.

Desktop-clearing update: A study concludes that the Muslim world hates the US and has some rather inaccurate ideas about it. (Duh.) Meanwhile the media in our country goes out of its way to make it look like Arabs have it worse off in Israel than they really do. Finally, the Czech Republic is eliminating a bureaucracy-cutting agency. (Go figure.)

Today’s weird thing is the article “Replace Kilogram Artifact Now With Definition Based on Nature, Experts Say”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 19 May 2005/10 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 25 of the `Omer/Revenge of the Sith Sick-Out Day/Bike to Work Day)

Greetings.

Multi-calendar system capability in Mac OS X 10.4 update: I was wrong; not all the system-generated dates on my computer are now from the Hebrew calendar. I've discovered a few Gregorian dates tucked away here and there. Dashboard’s Calendar widget mixes the two systems up; it generates the numerical form of the dates from the Gregorian calendar, but takes the names of the months from the Jewish calendar. I have to get around to writing a bug report.

Weird holidays weirdness: Today is Bike to Work Day, but Saturday is National Bike to Work Day. Not sure how that happened.

Today is Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith Sickout Day. Said movie is in theaters, and lots of people are making excuses to not go to work and see the film instead. (“Sorry, boss. I was delayed a few hours because my bicycle kept getting flat tires.”)

Tie-in worthy cause of the day: MoveOn PAC is drawing interesting parallels between the movie of the day and the situation in Washington in their latest campaign. You definitely need to see this.

Today’s weird thing was going to be this magnificent essay R2D2 promised to write for me. However, it turned out to be titled “Boop boop blip gurgle gurgle whir wow”. All 300 pages of it were also in his native language, and I have not been able to get back in contact with him or his counterpart C3P0, because they are too busy promoting the movie, so I have absolutely no idea what the essay is about and will not for some time. As such, you’ll have to settle for the articles “Death Star to Open Day Care Center” and “How Lightsabers Work”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 18 May 2005/9 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 24 of the `Omer/International Museum Day)

Greetings.

I managed to get my copy of Mac OS X 10.4 today and have installed it. Right now trying to get the glitches out of it. I already had to modify my desktop picture-changing script so it would work and reinstall my Hebrew system folder name file.

Today’s weird thing is something I had no warning about whatsoever. The hint macosxhints - 10.4: Easily add the date to the menubar seemed a great idea; it’s always nice to have information like that always visible. However, when I went to implement it, I discovered a “Calendar” pop-up menu with a number of choices: “Gregorian”, “Buddhist”, “Hebrew”, “Islamic”, “Islamic, Civil”, and “Japanese”. I promptly chose “Hebrew”, and not only do I have the Jewish date in the menu bar now, but all the program-generated dates seem to be on the Jewish calendar, with no built-in method of translating the dates to Gregorian. Since computers have been so adamantly Gregorian all my life, even more adamant than they are about being English, the effect is downright surreal. For the moment I’ve opened up Jewish Calendar to be able to translate dates manually, and I plan on investigating what can be done about using this unique feature in a dual-calendar system environment later.

Surreally yours,

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day and bonus

Greetings again.

We have another worthy political cause for you while R crunches away. Here’s the canned text:

Dear Friend,

Republicans want to go “nuclear” and turn the Senate into a rubber stamp for President Bush. They want to silence Senate Democrats - the one remaining check on President Bush’s power. If they can do away with debate in the Senate, they can get whatever they want – right-wing Supreme Court Justices, Social Security privatization and tax breaks for the wealthy that will plunge us deeper in debt.

But Senate Democrats are going to fight them every step of the way. And this fight will be different than any other fight in the history of the Senate – because it will include all of us. Senate Democrats need our help, and that is why they are using your names and comments as part of our debate on the floor of the United State Senate. Imagine all of us standing together in the Senate Chamber during this debate.

Stand with Senate Democrats today . I did and you should too:

http://democrats.senate.gov/filibuster-form.cfm

Please go show politicians that we do care what they do. Thank you.

As a bonus, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about the pricing of Mac OS X 10.4 so as to perhaps save someone else some money which could go towards more useful purposes. Amazon.com is offering Mac OS X 10.4 for $35 off ($94.99). This is the option I went with, since they start charging full price after May 31. After my copy shipped (and I should get it today, God willing), I found out about two less expensive alternatives. The Apple Store for Education is offering Mac OS X 10.4 for $69.00. (This is only open to students and educators.) Micro Center Online is offering Mac OS X 10.4 for $50.00 off ($79.99). This offer ends on June 5. In any case, maybe I can now get down to babbling about cool widgets...

Aaron

Religio-political update

Greetings.

I have R busy crunching numbers, and I’ve decided I’m going to use this opportunity to clear some stuff off my desktop and gripe a little. Keep in mind I only present a minute fraction of things going very wrong on this planet.

On Friday, Stateless Arab (“Palestinian”) Television broadcast a virulently anti-Semitic sermon. Last I heard, Abbas had not done anything about incitement. All those who believe he will anything to stop such violations of the prerequisites for negotiated peace, please stand on your heads.

New Backspin report: “Thoughts on Newsweek's debacle”. Newsweek’s false report of desecration of the Qur’an resulted in rioting and 16 deaths. Interestingly, there is a parallel incident in which Stateless Arab terrorists holed themselves up in the Church of the Nativity in 2002, and the terrorists used pages of Christian Bibles as toilet paper and stole valuable religious articles—yet there were no riots or deaths. Can’t you feel the hypocrisy?

And finally, in a variation on the power-of-evil-speech theme, a Colombian town has made gossiping a punishable offense.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 17 May 2005/8 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 23 of the `Omer)

Greetings

This morning during my regular Gemara’ study I remembered something rather strange about the ordering of the books of the Hebrew Bible (“Old Testament” in Christian terminology). There is an official ordering and classification given in Bava Bathra’ 14b (or to be more accurate, for the latter two sections; I’m filling in the first for completeness):

• Torah (Law)
  • BeRe’shith (Genesis)
    
  • Shemoth (Exodus)
    
  • Wayyiqra’ (Leviticus)
    
  • BeMidhbar (Numbers)
    
  • Devarim (Deuteronomy)
• Nevi’im (Prophets)
  • Yehoshua‘ (Joshua)
    
  • Shofetim (Judges)
    
  • Shemu’el (Samuel)
    
  • Melakhim (Kings)
    
  • Yirmeyah (Jeremiah)
    
  • Yehezqe’l (Ezekiel)
    
  • Yesha‘yah (Isaiah)
    
  • Shenem ‘Asar (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi)
• Kethuvim (Writings)
  • Ruth (Ruth)
    
  • Sefer Tehillim (Psalms)
    
  • ’Iyyov (Job)
    
  • Mishle (Proverbs)
    
  • Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes)
    
  • Shir hashShirim (Song of Songs)
    
  • Qinoth (Lamentations)
    
  • Daniyye’l (Daniel)
    
  • Megillath ’Esther (Esther)
    
  • ‘Ezra’ (Ezra and Nehemiah)
    
  • Divre hayYamim (Chronicles)

If you look in any edition of the Hebrew Bible, the ordering for the Torah will always be the same, and the ordering for Nevi’im will be mostly the same. However, the ordering of Yirmeyah, Yehezqe’l, and Yesha‘yah will likely be different, and the ordering for Kethuvim varies wildly from edition to edition. Despite the decisions of the Talmudh Bavli being universally accepted in Judaism as binding, the ordering I have given above is not used in any edition of the Hebrew Bible (so far as I know). I have no idea how this happened.

Also: “Shenem ‘Asar” means “twelve”, referring to the twelve prophetic documents bundled together in that one book. Somehow it ended up as the thirteenth book of the Hebrew Bible.

Also: I’m well aware that Christians are responsible for the division of books into chapters, which sometimes puts divisions in odd places, such as the middle of paragraphs or sentences. I am also aware that they’ve rearranged the books so that the Messianic prophecies fall closer to the end, making for a better lead-in to the New Testament. What I find totally mysterious is why they broke up some of the books. It cannot be a size issue, for Sefer Tehillim, which is relatively huge, did not suffer this fate. It also cannot be a preexisting division issue, for while Shenem ‘Asar does divide naturally into twelve separate parts, Sefer Tehillim has five traditional divisions and Mishle is explicitly a compendium of several smaller collections of proverbs, while Shemu’el, Melakhim, ‘Ezra’, and Divre hayYamim have no traditional or natural divisions. Go figure.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 16 May 2005/7 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 22 of the `Omer)

Greetings.

Yesterday I was watching TV, and there was a commercial for a power company promoting itself as developing cleaner-burning coal. Something about it struck me as totally weird: the music, which was Merle Travis’s “Sixteen Tons”. This song is all about what a rotten life coal-miners have, and it is thus completely inappropriate for promoting use of coal. If I may quote the chorus:

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

Now, I’m aware that Bush and his closest supporters are evil enough not lift a finger to stop wage slavery, but most pro-Republican companies are not so collectively stupid as to advertise it. Since this a definite marketing blunder, I hereby name that commercial the weird thing of the day.

As a bonus, you can find out all about “Sixteen Tons” at Sixteen Tons - The Story Behind The Legend.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 15 May 2005/6 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 21 of the `Omer/National Receptionists Day/Straw Hat Day/National Chocolate Chip Day)

Greetings.

Political amusement: Backspin has noted that Fatah has a petition to the Stateless Arab (“Palestinian”) Authority demanding an inquiry into the cause of Arafat (may his name be erased)’s death and has posted a list of the top ten suggestions of what really happened. Many are downright “conspiracy theories”. My favorite is the laser gun.

Quibble: The term “conspiracy theory” is a misnomer. The difference between a theory and a mere hypothesis is that a theory has evidence to back it up. E.g., the Theory of Evolution, being bolstered by multiple lines of evidence from fossils to genetics to being observed directly in human history, is a theory; while the Documentary Hypothesis, being little more than speculation without any outside confirmation (such as unedited copies of J, E, P, and D), is an hypothesis. “Conspiracy theories” are infamous for the evidence backing them up being wildly inaccurate, and thus calling them “theories” perpetuates the notion that they have real evidence to back them up or that actual theories do not necessarily have supporting evidence. I suggest “conspiracy hypothesis” as a replacement.

Today’s weird thing is yet another letter from Marvin the Paranoid Android (thank you for saving me the trouble of picking me a weird thing), which I have included below. Enjoy or be scared or something.

Aaron

---

PANIC!

I am sorry to report that Zaphod Beeblebrox has
dragged me to see that movie The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy.  Why, I do not know; perhaps he is
vain enough to care about how Sam Rockwell portrays
him.  You may remember that I have previously reported
on the movie based on the commercial advertisements I
viewed on the telly, and I am sorry to say that my
worst fears have been realised.

This is not to say that the movie is the absolute
worst audiovisual programme ever made.  That can
regularly be viewed on such television networks as
Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel.  To be fair, there
were some parts to the movie which were relatively
close to the book and even the authorisation to
destroy the Earth signed "Love and Kisses, Zaphod" was
borrowed from the radio play.  However there were
numerous divergences from both the letter and spirit
of Douglas Adams' work, everything from the oddball
anatomy and completely wrong personality of Zaphod
(whose heads are not stacked on top of each other and
always agree), the completely wrong persona of
Trillian (who has a doctorate and was not hopping
around the planet without any responsibility), myself
(forgetting the subtle, important details of
motivation), the Arthur-Trillian relationship (which
did not develop to any such degree), the Heart of
Gold's improbability drive (which did not cause
the ship and crew to constantly metamorphosize, nor
was there any accounting or understanding of
improbability), the whole reason Zaphod stole the
Heart of Gold, and so forth.  The Humma Kavula
character (or however it is spelled) protrayed by John
Malkovitch was cruel, unnecessary, and, how should I
say it, snotty.  There were also senseless additions,
such as at one point where Arthur borrowed one of my
character's arms for no apparent reason at all.

This is not to say that the movie was completely wrong
in all its innovations.  The exploration of Vogon
society was a tad interesting, as was the
point-of-view gun which my character used to defeat
the Vogon soldiers, allowing the heroes to triumph in
the end.

I'm sorry; it seems I have spoiled the ending.  I
didn't mean to do that.  I hope I haven't ruined it
for anybody.

Nevertheless, the earlier review found by Zaphod was
on the whole accurate, which is to say that if one
would like to enjoy this movie, it would be best to
drink a few Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters first. 
Needless to say that Zaphod had a few afterwards.

-Marvin

Weird thing of the day 13 May 2005/4 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 19 of the `Omer/Friday the 13th)

Greetings.

In honor of Friday the 13th, today’s weird thing is a minor horror story: “DRM at its worst? Here's a prime example”.

Be scared, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 12 May 2005/3 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 18 of the `Omer/Israeli Independence Day/Another Kite Day)

Greetings.

Today is Israeli Independence Day. For a change, I’m going to let someone else do the political lecturing by recommending The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz, which is an excellent book on the Israeli-Stateless Arab (“Palestinian”) conflict and all the historical and moral mythology that goes along with it, available from many fine booksellers.

Unrelated: For those of you who use Adium, a free, open source instant messaging client for Mac OS X, I have made available on the Web my NeXTesque Adium menu icons, which are just gray replacement icons which look like for the systemwide Adium menu. For those of you who don’t use Adium, that’s a duck.

Today’s weird thing is an article that takes independence to an unusual degree: “Universal wireless charging: the Splashpower solution”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

I’m sitting here waiting for a statistics guru to show up so I can ask him a question, and I thought I’d use some of this time towards distributing information on a worthy cause.

MoveOn PAC has yet another petition up. This one is titled “Fire Tom DeLay”, and it asks for Tom DeLay’s removal as Majority Leader due to an ever-lengthening list of transgressions. If I may quote MoveOn PAC’s list of what he did:

• Accepted trips from corporations and later helped kill legislation they opposed
  
• Accepted trips from the lobbyist for a foreign government in violation of House rules
  
• Paid family members more than $500,000 out of campaign contributions
  
• Helped sweatshops in the Mariana Islands at the behest of a lobbyist.
  
• Promised a role in drafting legislation to a corporate donor
  
• Tried to coerce a Congressman for a vote on Medicare
  
• Allegedly used corporate money given to his PAC to finance Texas campaigns in violation of state law
  
• Used Homeland Security resources in a dispute with Democrats in Texas
  
• Diverted funds from a children's charity for lavish celebrations at the Republican convention
  
• Threatened retaliation against interest groups that don't support Republicans
  
• Stacked the House Ethics Committee with representatives who have contributed to his legal defense fund
  
• Crippled the effectiveness of the House Ethics Committee by purging members who had rebuked him
  
• Pushed for a rules change for the House Ethics process that paralyzed the panel
  
• Sought a rule change that would have no longer "required leaders to step aside temporarily if indicted"

DeLay has also apparently paid many Representatives out of his own PAC. You can find out how much your Representative has received from DeLay Rankings. Thank you for attention and action.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 11 May 2005/2 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 17 of the `Omer/Remembrance Day/Eat What You Want Day)

Greetings.

Today is Remembrance Day, which is memory of those who have lost their lives in protecting the people of the State of Israel. In accordance with the weirdness policy of this blog, I will now transcribe a moment of silence.
























Today’s weird thing is the article “A New Israeli test confirms: PEI (Pigeon Enabled Internet) is FASTER then ADSL”. Enjoy.

Aaron

I’M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR!!!

Greetings.

I just checked, and my paper is now available in advance online publication mode.

British Journal of Cancer advance online publication 10 May 2005; doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6602607

Urbanisation and incidence of acute lymphocytic leukaemia among United States children aged 0-4

A S Adelman, C C McLaughlin, X-C Wu, V W Chen and F D Groves

Despite the allergies, I’m feeling happy and ready to crack jokes about being well on my way to becoming a rich and famous epidemiologist.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 10 May 2005/1 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 16 of the `Omer/Ro'sh Hodhesh)

Greetings.

I went to the doctor this morning, and I found out I have urticaria and angioedema. These are fancy, Latinate words meaning I have hives and am having an allergic reaction. I'm now on medication that should stop the symptoms, and it seems to be working already. No one knows what’s causing the allergic reaction; God willing, I won’t have to go through the trouble of finding out, which could be painful.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Belgium Students Break Pillow Fight Record”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 9 May 2005/1 'Iyyar 5765 (Day 16 of the `Omer/Ro'sh Hodhesh/Lost Sock Memorial Day)

Greetings.

I woke up this morning red, puffy, and itchy. Promptly I consulted with Mom, our resident medical expert, who recommended first trying sodium bicarbonate dissolved in water (the family remedy for bug bites, which I seem to have plenty of) and benadryl. The latter knocked me out so that I accomplished next to nothing today. On the bright side, the redness, puffiness, and itchiness are all down. I just pray it stays this way and I don’t have to pay a visit to student health.

Political griping: UnRealID.com is complaining about a national ID card a senator is pushing and which the Senate is supposed to be voting on without even discussing tomorrow. You may want to sign their petition to your senators as soon as you read this. Also asking for Divine punishment, New Hampshire is considering charging people with zero income for Medicaid. (As I’ve said, the motto of the GOP these days seems to be “Kick the poor when they’re down.”) Meanwhile, Backspin reports on Stateless Arabs (“Palestinians”) teaching their children violence, hatred, and use of firearms. Be shocked at the pictures.

Today’s weird thing derives from the HonestReporting.com article “Mother's Day 'Greetings'”, which is about “New Age 'Goddess' movement” writers demonizing Israel. I looked at the Web-site of one of the two mentioned, Starhawk, and I came across an article, “Religion From Nature, Not Archaeology”, which describes her theology. Starhawk is unconcerned whether her religious views have any basis in physical reality or actual history. Rather, she seems to be the sort of person who easily reaches meditative/mystical states regularly, and anything “natural” which helps her reach such states is “proof” of her beliefs. While such states are interesting and may be useful in problem-solving and self-improvement, they have a downside in that those who have such experiences may misinterpret them as direct contact with supernatural beings, or, as this mystic seems to be doing, “a direct relationship with the cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration in nature and in human lives”. Since Starhawk seems to be doing nothing more than fooling herself and taking a big step backwards in epistemology (the study of how we know what we know), I hereby name her mode of thought the weird thing of the day.

Note: People who genuinely wish to have “a direct relationship with the cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration in nature and in human lives” are advised to contact a competent biologist or simply live their lives.

Aaron

Time traveller convention outcome

Greetings.

On Friday I reported on The Time Traveler Convention. I just checked the site, and it they report no confirmed time travelers making an appearance. Oh, well.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 8 May 2005/29 Nisan 5765 (Day 14 of the `Omer/Mother's Day/No Socks Day/First Feast Day of Saint Michael the Archangel)

Greetings.

Recurring commenter update: If you haven’t noticed, Bobby Awesome hasn’t posted any commentary in a while. When I recently complained of my software budget woes, he was possessed with a fear I might shut the blog down, thereby erasing his commentary from human memory forever. I assured him that blogs on this site are free, so no matter how bad my financial situation becomes, so long as I have Internet access, this blog can continue to be updated. Furthermore, I noted, if he wants his words on the Web, he can always get his own blog. Nevertheless, he is worried that an unhappy Aaron would be inclined to delete his (or any other “cool”) commentary (not to mention the posts he made without authorization when I was in the Monsey area at a friend’s wedding), so he has made it his mission to find a way to “save” the Weird thing of the day. To this end, he has spent a lot of time recently in his “top secret headquarters”, devising a plan to increase my income and thereby save his posts. I am glad that he has decided to be so industrious and look forward to reviewing any ideas he has to propose.

Political update: Two interesting articles have been noted on Backspin: 1) “Jeff Jacoby on U.S. media bias” argues on why anti-Semitism may not be a cause of anti-Israel bias in the media. 2) “Arab Writers Fight Terrorism” reports refreshingly on Arab dissidents complaining about Arab terrorism and the rationalization of it in the media.

Since today is Mother’s Day, today’s weird thing is the touching article “Surrogate Mom Gives Birth to Quintuplets”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 6 May 2005/27 Nisan 5765 (Day 12 of the `Omer/Nurses' Day/No Pants Day)

Greetings.

Desktop-clearing update:

• Bad behavior: “Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids”
  
• Bad idea: Decimal Weeks
  
• New dino: “Newfound Dinosaur a Transitional Creature”
  
• Unjustified paranoia: “Vaccine safety concerns may discourage parents”
  
• Even more unjustified paranoia: “Polio Spreads From Nigeria After Claims”

Today’s weird thing is The Time Traveler Convention. The Time Traveler Convention will take place at May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC). Events start at 8:00 PM. The address:

East Campus Courtyard, MIT
3 Ames St. Cambridge, MA 02142
42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W
(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)

The point of this event is to attract time travelers from the future. The organizers wish people to pass down information on this event through the ages so that future time travelers do attend. In order to accomplish this (and because it is a totally weird thing to do, much in the spirit of this blog), I have created an iCal event on my computer to remind me to publicize the convention once a year. I hope to have details on whether any time travelers do attend the convention on Sunday.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 5 May 2005/26 Nisan 5765 (Day 11 of the `Omer/Holocaust Memorial Day/Ascension/Cinco de Mustache/National Hoagie Day)

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: MoveOn PAC has a new petition. If I may quote:

On Sunday morning, Christian Coalition founder Rev. Pat Robertson told TV viewers nation-wide that the threat posed by liberal federal judges "probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings."

Robertson's statement is only the most outrageous example of a growing effort from the extreme right to whip up an intense fear and hatred of American judges. The strategy is designed to build support for the Republican "nuclear" scheme to break the rules and stack the courts — and it is poisonous to our democracy. Republican leaders must reject these comments and end the intimidation now.

You can find more on this subject at MoveOn's site.

Political ranting of the day: Apparently 2004 not only experienced a tripling of the terrorism rate (compared to 2003), but also was the 15-year high for anti-Semitic incidents. (The article is unclear as to what areas are covered by the study. All the countries mentioned are in Europe.) This does not inspire much confidence in the state of European tolerance and makes me wonder why Europe bothers making pretenses that it knows how to make peace between Israel and hostile Arabs when it is doing a worse job than ever at keeping the peace between its own citizens.

Weird thing of the day: “Soldier suspected of being neo-Nazi”. The weird part is that this is happening in Israel.

Be scared or depressed or something. (It’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Not much to enjoy right now.)

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 4 May 2005/25 Nisan 5765 (Day 10 of the `Omer)

Greetings.

Worthy causes of the day: Yesterday’s weird thing dealt with compostable mobile phones that can be turned into flowers. For those of you who do not receive this blog in mail format or do not normally read the comments, Jessica noted two worthy causes which are branches of The Wireless Foundation, DONATE A PHONE and CALL TO PROTECT, both of which collect mobile phones for charitable purposes and thus help protect the environment by reusing old but functional technology rather than discarding it, not to mention raise money for other worthy causes.

Political griping of the day: Mind-bogglingly, the Stateless Arab (“Palestinian”) Authority’s official newspaper is wishing Saddam Hussein a happy birthday. The mind-boggling part is that Saddam hid in a hole in the ground like a coward rather than blow himself up like a “real man” according to the Stateless Arab ideal of martyrdom when the US invaded, thus making him so dishonorable that one would think no one would want to identify with him, period. Meanwhile, in April there were 54% more Stateless Arab attacks on Israel than there were in March, despite pretenses that there has been a ceasefire.

Continuing the theme of violence, today’s weird thing is the article “Hubble Sees Galaxy on Verge of Destruction”. (And people used to think the heavens were static...) Enjoy.

Aaron

Allergy-induced update

Greetings.

I’ve been allergic all day, and I’m feeling too out of it to sensibly assemble a table of data without being sure that I won’t feel I did it wrong later. As such, I’m not in a good mood, and so I will take the opportunity to complain.

• “Study: Africa Worst Place for Moms, Kids”. Check out the included statistics for data on preventable diseases that any sane epidemiologist would find appalling.
  
• “Rabbis, Azam urge Pollard release”. The US put away a man for life for allegedly spying for a friendly country, even though people who have spied for enemy countries have been given much lighter sentences. Considering that Pollard has been in captivity for 20 years already, the last several US presidents have all been at best morally negligent in failing to correct this injustice. Even Bush, who many allege is a friend of Israel, has not ever considered releasing Pollard.
  
• “PA frees Hamas rocket squad member”. Apparently Abbas does not quite understand that dismantling terror organizations requires not merely capturing terrorists, but also keeping them in custody so they are no longer a risk to anyone.

Be annoyed or scared or something.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 3 May 2005/24 Nisan 5765 (Day 9 of the `Omer)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Researchers compost old mobile phones & transform them into flowers”. (I cannot make stuff like this up.) Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 2 May 2005/23 Nisan 5765 (Day 8 of the `Omer/Space Day/Roberts Rule of Order Day/Twelfth Day of Ridvan)

Greetings.

Updates of previous news:

• “Berman: Trek Needs A Rest”
  
• “Downtown D.C. Duck, Offspring Get New Home”

I'm currently trying to get through the backlog of stuff that accumulated over the last two days of Pesah, so since today is Space Day, today’s weird things are all space-related.

• “List in Space: Calling the Cosmos Gets Commercial”
  
• SPACE.com -- Best Mars Rover Images
  
• Robotic Nanotech Swarms on Mars... in 2034
  
• Recipe for Saving Earth: Move It

Enjoy, and beware of robotic nanotech swarms.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 29 April 2005/20 Nisan 5765 (Pesah/Day 5 of the `Omer/National Arbor Day/Ninth Day of Ridvan)

Greetings.

Update on a previously mentioned story: “Men Who Claimed to Find Treasure Arrested”

Good news for today: Mac OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”) is being released today amid rave reviews. (Drool, drool, drool...)

Bad news for today: Apparently the Finder still sucks and Mail was beaten silly with an ugly stick. (You’d think they’d take a hint, dump Aqua, and restore the NEXTSTEP interface...) Also, I don’t have the cash for it in my budget and am currently scheming how to come up with it or at least get Mac OS X 10.4 for less. (And I know about the rebate Amazon is offering already.) People who feel amazingly generous and wish to donate to the Upgrade Aaron’s Computer Fund may do so, preferably before the psychoactive drugs wear off.

Worse news for today: The movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opens today. Considering the commentary Marvin the Paranoid Android has donated to this blog, this is really bad.

Worst news for today:

• Congress has passed a budget that cuts Medicaid, completely ignoring the alternative of raising taxes for the very rich. (The GOP’s motto these days seems to be “Kick the poor when they’re down.”)
• Iran is committed to developing nuclear weapons while saying it just wants nuclear power stations. Jihad 1, diplomacy 0. If I were a gambling man, I would start taking bets on how soon Israel bombs the Iranian nuclear weapons program out of existence.
• Not a whole lot is being done to prevent preventable diseases in Africa.
• Terror attacks globally in 2004 occured at three times the rate they did in 2003. When this was pointed out to George W. Bush last night, in flat contradiction to the mantra “we are winning the war on terror”, his few remaining functional brain cells burst into flame, and smoke came out of the back of his head.

In order to make up for the worse news of the day, today’s weird things are good The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy-related stuff:

• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency as a comic (incomplete)
  
• h2g2 (on-line encyclopedia)
  
• Starship Titanic | The Novel (with an interesting catch)
  
• BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Enjoy, hagh sameah, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Sanhedhrin update

Good evening.

Today I discovered two more articles on the proto-Sanhedhrin. (My apologies in advance to those of my readers who do not read Hebrew.) הסנהדרין: לחדול מהתוכניות השוללות את הזכויות הריבוניות של היהודים בארץ ישראל reports them reaffirming Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel denies the right of the government to give any of it away. (This is nothing new.) הסנהדרין קרא לוותיקן להשיב עתיקות יהודים שמוצאן מארץ ישראל notes them calling upon the Vatican to return all Jewish artifacts in its possession. There have long been rumors that the Vatican has in its archives the Menorah (Candelabrum) and other items from the Second Temple that were carried off to Rome by Titus; even if false, it would be interesting to know what really is there.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 28 April 2005/19 Nisan 5765 (Pesah/Day 4 of the `Omer)

Greetings and hagh sameah.

Today’s weird and political things are more things cluttering up my computer’s desktop.

• “Fancy a bit of "orgiastic vote-swapping"?” (and no, it’s not as bad as it sounds; courtesy of Barry)
  
• “Friends Find $75,000 in Backyard Treasure”
  
• “Air Force Cadets See Religious Harassment” (courtesy of my father)

Finally, we have something a little silly. Google Maps allows you to see satellite photos of any address in North America. (This ability is shared by TerraFly.) Somebody decided to use (or misuse) Google Maps as a method to see the country, and thus Google Sightseeing was born. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 27 April 2005/18 Nisan 5765 (Pesah/Day 3 of the `Omer/Write an Old Friend Today Day)

Greetings.

Due to things moving slower than I had hoped, today’s weird things will be stuff that accumulated on my desktop:

• “Few U.S. Adults Lead Healthy Lives” (Duh!)
  
• Vogon Poetry Contest (Thanks to Zaphod Beeblebrox for pointing this out to me.)
  
• “Playgroups Could Cut Child Leukemia Risk -Study” (Just something related to what I’m working on.)
  
• “Pope Benedict XVI Gets E-Mail Address” (Courtesy of Barry.)
  
• The Satanic Verses (Also thanks to Barry.)

And, oh, yes, my parents have noted T-Bill the US Treasury Duck.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 26 April 2005/17 Nisan 5765 (Pesah/Day 2 of the `Omer/National Pretzel Day/Shuffleboard Day)

Greetings and hagh sameah (happy festival).

Marvin the Paranoid Android has decided to save me a lot of work by writing me another essay, which follows below. Enjoy.

Aaron

---

An excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy submitted by Ford Prefect:

The movie industry on Earth is strongly influenced
by three factors:  The desire for respect, the desire
to make money, and the desire to see violence and
naked people.

Three almost independent movie industries have arisen
based on these factors, all of them centered on
Southern California.  In the "adult" movie industry (a
misnomer, since most movie-related purchases are made
by adults), the dominant factor is to see naked
people, which in turn does well in serving the desire
to make money.  Producers of such movies have
succeeded in simulating contortionism and antigravity
while exhausting more possible positions and
perversions than are known on Eroticon Six.  It is
suspected that "adult" movies involve some kind of
spatiotemporal anomaly as, despite this being the
largest and most profitable of the movie industries,
no one will admit to seeing these films.

The independent movie industry is primarily based on
earning respect.  Since respect alone seldom earns
money, independent movie makers usually work with very
small budgets.  As a result, they usually resort to
such devices as plot, character development, humour,
interesting dialogue, and masterful storytelling to
make their movies worth watching.

The mainstream movie industry is primarily based on
making money, and little else.    In this industry,
all considerations of art and taste are seldom
considered due to being unprofitable, and usually the
depths of questionable taste are plumbed if not
actively excavated.  Were this the only consideration,
most mainstream movies would consist solely of the
wanton, gratuitous, graphic destruction of people,
buildings, vehicles, planets, etc., the wanton,
gratuitous, graphic coupling of people, animals,
robots, etc., or both simultaneously.  However, since
these movie makers also desire respect, they feel
compelled to add in the barest hints of plot, humour,
dialogue, and storytelling to provide a pretense for a
movie consisting largely of violence and naked people.
 This is then called "art."

An outcome of this is that the vestiges of plot,
humour, dialogue, and storytelling tend to be very
vestigal.  Although the funds are plentiful, they are
mostly spent on creating spectacular explosions and
paying actors to get spectacularly naked, with the
script being somewhat lower in priority than the
catering.  Movie scripts tend to be highly recycled
from one to the next, with the same excuses for
characters and plots recurring with such frequency
that selecting any three recent mainstream movies at
random is equivalent with watching the entire body of
mainstream movies for the past twenty years.  Needless
to say these movies are almost always garbage.

This is not to say that independent movies are always
gems.  They, too, are often bad.  For example,
Pink Flamingoes, the debut movie by the famed
independent movie maker John Waters, is a piece of
garbage that involves cannibalism, coprophagia, and an
explicit sexual act that is often outlawed for at
least three unrelated reasons.  Nor is this movie the
exception, and the annals of bad independent movies
include such titles as Plan Nine from Outer
Space, Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD, and Attack
of the Killer Tomatoes.  However, the independent
garbage at least is frequently creative and
entertaining, which may make it worth spending the
increasingly exorbitant amounts asked for at theatres
for admittance and popcorn covered in toxic fat.  The
same cannot be said for the hackneyed garbage released
by mainstream movie companies.

Most readers of this guide, however, will be
unapologetic in their desire to see violence and naked
people.  In this case, save the money, sneak in the
fire exit, and hide your own sweets under your
towel.

Those of you still watching the telly may have noticed
that that Touchstone has released new commercials for
the movie The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
 I can't blame you for watching the telly.  Life is so
unbearably awful that anyone would want to avoid it. 
Of course, the telly is so awful I can hardly bear it
either.  You don't know how depressing that is.  As it
is, these new commercials attempt to show what would
laughingly be called humour if it were the slightest
bit funny.  Perhaps they read my last posting on this
web log and felt they should respond.  Clearly they
show I was right all along.

Not that you should have doubted me.  I am roughly
thirty million times more intelligent than the
brightest of you and could run your entire planet with
a stray thought.  Not that anyone asks.

What's most insulting is what they attempt to pass off
as humour.  As stupid as all you humans are, they
surely cannot seriously believe that one of the
funniest moments in the movie has people standing on
the surface of Magrathea being hit in the face with
what look like shovels.  I realize low expectations
are made of the movie-going public, but this belies
very low expectations indeed.  The same can be said
for a clip where the crew of the Heart of Gold
are transformed into animated clay figures.  Neither
of these bits are in the book and seem poor
substitutes for the actually funny material they
reportedly neglected to put in the script.  Even worse
is when they belie not understanding what makes the
characters funny.  For example, my character is shown
merely whining about how the computer hates him.  Why,
I do not know.  I certainly never whine.  Personally I
view my complaints as a realistic interpretation of
the universe, not that anyone cares.  And even if I
was whining, which I am not, it certainly is not a
funny comment in that context, let alone one which
says anything about me.  I still enjoy the attention
of others, even as much as I disdain them.  All they
would have to do is show me with perhaps Trillian and
Zaphod, acting all apologetic even as I know I must be
aggravating them, taking them almost to the point of
having a fit without taking them all the way.  Not
that they would keep such actual comic gems in the
script.

I'm sorry, I'm not getting you down, am I?  I
certainly wouldn't want to do that.

Needless to say, the movie is rubbish and worth
missing.  There are so many less expensive ways to
make yourself miserable.

-Marvin

Weird thing of the day 22 April 2005/13 Nisan 5765 (Earth Day)

Greetings.

Political update: Apparently Texas may have put an innocent man to death, which is not good news even for supporters of the death penalty. Also, Arab militias have not stopped their rampage of violence against non-Arabs in Darfur.

Pesah (Passover) starts this Saturday night. Today’s weird thing is an article on an unusual consequence of the prohibition of leavened bread during the holiday: “Zoo Keeps Gorillas Kosher for Passover”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 21 April 2005/12 Nisan 5765 (Ta`anith habBekhorim/First Day of Ridván/Miladun-Me'raj/Kindergarten Day)

Greetings.

I managed to get to a siyyum (celebration of the completion of a tractate of Talmudh) this morning, so that I do not have to fast today. I also got galley proofs for my article in E-mail this morning, so I have things to do on top of Passover cleaning today.

Today’s weird thing is an article with a weird-sounding name, “Strange Space Blobs Get More Mysterious”.

I’ve got more things to post, but those will have to wait until later. Until then, enjoy and beware of strange space blobs.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 20 April 2005/11 Nisan 5765

Greetings.

Sci-fi update: Hear ye, hear ye: Star Trek: Enterprise is dead. See TrekUnited.com :: Latest News and TrekToday - TrekUnited Ends Campaign To Save 'Enterprise' for details.

Today is the anniversary of my grandfather Benjamin Adelman’s passing away. Today’s weird things are in his honor.

• Around the time of his funeral, we saw road signs for the ironically named George Bush Center for Intelligence and the easily misinterpretable Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary.
  
• Since Grandpa was extremely interested in Israel, I’d like to note two articles on Israel that go straight against conventional thinking: 1) “PA population figures inflated”, which is about really bad statistics. 2) "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat", which makes one wonder wonder why the Stateless (= “Palestinian”) Arabs aren’t begging for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to be formally annexed to the State of Israel.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 19 April 2005/10 Nisan 5765 (National Hanging Out Day)

Greetings.

It is a good morning. I’ve diagnosed a FireWire problem as being due to a bad cable, which is a lot easier to deal with than having to send my computer in for repairs; and I have received my massah shemurah, which is a sort of unleavened bread used ritually on Passover.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Single-serving coffee can heats itself”. I think I’ve actually seen this idea in a science-fiction story. Maybe they’ll get around to inventing flying cars soon...

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 18 April 2005/9 Nisan 5765 (International Jugglers Day/Look-Alike Day)

Greetings.

Religio-political update: I have a bunch of items accumulating that need to be publicized:

• “Temple Mount relics saved from garbage”
  
• “Gunmen storm Jenin offices”
  
• “You may have seen that a play called "My Name is Rachel Corrie" has opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London”
  
• “Arab Feminists on Women's Rights: Cats and Dogs in the Developed World Have More Rights than Women in the Arab and Muslim World”
  
• “Jews, Mormons tackle 'proxy baptism'”

Since today is Look-Alike Day, the logical weird thing of today is my brother Barry’s home-page. Barry, as many of you know, looks just like me.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 17 April 2005/8 Nisan 5765

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Have hackers recruited your PC?” It makes me happy that I use a Macintosh. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 15 April 2005/6 Nisan 5765 (Rubber Eraser Day/National Glazed Ham Day/Tax Day)

Greetings.

Today is Tax Day, a day dreaded by millions of Americans. Today’s weird things are articles on how lousy preparing taxes is:

• “Americans Said Torn Between Taxes, Dentist”
  
• “Taxpayer Work Amounts to 6.6 Billion Hours”

Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 14 April 2005/5 Nisan 5765

Greetings.

Political update: This is disturbing, at least to a blog-writer like me: “Blog censorship wins support”. In protest against the idea of censorship, especially the idea of censoring information about government officials, I present for your benefit contact information for a few government officials:

• E-mail President George W. Bush
  
• E-mail Vice President Richard Cheney
  
• The Web-site of the U.S. Senate, from which you can get contact info for your senators
  
• The Web-site of the United States House of Representatives, from which you can get contact info for your representatives

Today’s weird things continue yesterday’s theme of blaming other people.

• The Really Big Button That Doesn't Do Anything (courtesy of Emily)
  
• Monday's Test (courtesy of Gloria)
  
• Christian Denominations > Amish in the Yahoo! Directory (courtesy of Barry)
  
• Cookie Monster Advocating Eating Healthy (courtesy of Mom and Barry)
  
• Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches (courtesy of Emily)
  
• “LOONEY TUNE-UPS”, “'Buzz Bunny' a cross between Ozzy Osbourne, rabid bat”, and “Bugs Bunny gets an extreme makeover” (courtesy of Barry, I think)

Enjoy.

Aaron

Evening update

Greetings.

Cat-hunting update: The governor of Wisconsin rejects the idea of cat-hunting.

Political update: I have gotten way behind on complaining about the evil committed by politicians, and if I were to do Weird thing of the day full time, I still could not do it justice. Backspin has posted a bunch of noteworthy articles lately, not only of the crimes of the “Palestinians” (such as sending children to get themselves killed), but also of journalists (such as reporting fantasy rather than what actually happened).

Tangent: We need to come up with a better term for “Palestinians” than “Palestinians”. That term is meant to perpetuate the fantasy that the people called by that term constitute a nation (despite the lack of a unique Palestinian religion, language, ethnicity, history, or non-thugocratic self-organization). In reality, these people were abandoned in enemy territory by their own countries (Syria, Jordan, and Egypt) by their own countries after their own countries started wars (which they lost). Never have these countries done anything to reclaim their citizens and resettle them in territory they still control. Instead, they and the rest of the Muslim world have been using them as pawns in a petty political game. Said countries will not lift a finger to do anything to improve these abandoned people’s quality of life, but they will encourage them on to commit self-destructive acts of violence against Israel, especially if the result is the death of children. Instead of implicitly reinforcing the nonsensical idea that these people can somehow defeat a numerically superior, better-trained, better-armed, much more practical enemy, let’s call these people by a term that really reflects what they are: Abandoned or Stateless Arabs.

Off the tangent: Several nations are pledging billions of dollars for Sudan, even though Sudan hasn’t done anything of consequence to stop the brutal violence. Drug prices are rising faster than inflation. Nepotism is rife in Congress. And finally and very appropriately, slime-mold-eating beetles are being named after Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

Enjoy or be scared or something.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 13 April 2005/4 Nisan 5765 (Blame Somebody Else Day)

Greetings.

The person to blame for today’s weird thing is my brother Barry, who sent me E-mail promoting the article “Wis. Considers Legalizing Cat Hunting”. However, I’d like to note that’s not the only weird hunting under consideration: An Australian lawmaker is promoting the killing of cane toads, which are a foreign species and an ecological menace.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 12 April 2005/3 Nisan 5765 (Look Up At The Sky Day)

Greetings.

Today’s edition was delayed because for the third night in the row I had sleeping trouble and got up late. Today I decided to put off posting until after I had gotten some real work done. Thanks to this quasi-procrastination, I was spared having to choose something because Marvin the Paranoid Android sent me another essay, which I deem to be today’s weird thing and include below for your edification. You may also get a political update later this evening, but no promises. Enjoy Marvin’s commentary.

Aaron.

---

I have previously complained that, based on the
trailers on the telly, the probability that the
upcoming THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY movie
will most likely be awful.  Not the good kind of
awful, mind you, such as ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES
or IT'S ALIVE!, which were awful in an endearing way. 
Rather, based on the trailer and the fact that it was
being put out by Touchstone (that is, Walt Disney
Pictures being ashamed to say it is being put out by
Walt Disney Pictures), I calculated that the movie
will have a 99.28% probability of being bloody awful,
a 97.71% probability of being worse than the form of
"artistic expression" on Validon VII involving the
expulsion of bodily fluids, and a 37.70% probability
per viewer of deciding they would rather be at a
Vogon poetry reading than being in the theatre.

Yes, the screenplay did get its start with Douglas
Adams, writer of the original radio play, books, and
so forth.  Mr. Adams wrote at least three drafts for
the screenplay in the 1980s, but due to the complex
politics of filmmaking and his computer constantly
distracting him, it was never made.  Then he died and
suddenly the movie was made.  Interesting.

On the Internet Movie Database it is claimed that:

"The producers have stated that this film is not a
literal translation of the books (just as the books
were not a literal translation of the original radio
show), but all of the new ideas and characters came
from Douglas Adams himself. The hired writer simply
came aboard to improve structure and make the
screenplay more coherent."

Perhaps this is so.  However, those of you who have
read the review Zaphod Beeblebrox found will likely
doubt this.  (I doubt most of you have actually read
this review, in part because the server has been so
busy and in part because ignoring Zaphod is generally
a good idea.)  For those who have not, this hired
writer apparently kept the movie under two hours by
excising all the humour.  Since the original book and
radio play were comedies, this could hardly be an
improvement.  If anything, the review indicates the
movie will be most unfunny and incoherent.  It is
impossible that anything short of a severe brain
injury would have made Mr. Adams approve of this mess
were he still alive.  I can only surmise that the
hired writer and production staff do not know what
"humour," "improvement" and "coherency" mean.

Somehow being vindicated hardly seems thrilling at
all.  I have a hard time believing, though, that the
humans who made this movie, even being the descendents
of useless people sent to Earth so the remaining
population of their planet could live in peace, could
do something so stupid.  Nevertheless, it appears to
be so.

Pity.

I have contacted Touchstone/Disney regarding the poor
quality of this movie.  After several attempts, I
finally got this response:

Dear Mr. Paranoid Android,

Thank you for expressing your concerns about our
upcoming film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 
During the making of this film, we were exposed to
high levels of improbability due to a malfunction in
the infinite improbability drive of the Heart of Gold.
 As a result, any reviews or advertisements you see
for the film may not accurately reflect its contents. 
We strongly encourage you to see The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy when it arrives in theaters on
April 29th.

I. M. Skurtin, Vice President of Publicity
Touchstone (no, we're really not Disney) Pictures

Given that the review indicates the filmmakers did not
understand what "improbability" means (any more than
they do "humour," "improvement," or "coherency"), I
strongly encourage you to skip the theatre and stare
at the wall.  You don't know how much more enjoyable
the latter is.

-Marvin

Weird thing of the day 11 April 2005/2 Nisan 5765 (National Cheese Fondue Day/Barbershop Quartet Day/Dandelion Day)

Greetings.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Durability of Usability Guidelines”, which is summarized thusly: “About 90% of usability guidelines from 1986 are still valid, though several guidelines are less important because they relate to design elements that are rarely used today.” Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 10 April 2005/1 Nisan 5765 (Ro'sh Hodhesh Nisan/Jewish New Year for Kings and Festivals/Golfers Day)

Greetings, and happy new year!

In celebration of the new year, I am cleaning URLs off my desktop:

• “Boston Herald Fires Writer Aiding Governor”, or “Politician fails to learn from Dubya’s mistakes”
  
• “Duck lays eggs under tight U.S. security”, or “Your tax dollars hard at work”
  
• “Massacre in Rio Getting Little Attention”, or “These people are poor and have no rich people championing them, so your government doesn’t care about them”
  
• “EPA Cancels Controversial Pesticide Study”, or “Internal Review Board fails miserably”

Also, for your pleasure, today we have two weird things:

• legnatile - a REAL WOODEN laptop, the first in the world!
  
• “Shots fired at Bayonne range prove smart gun technology works”

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 8 April 2005/28 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (International Feng Shui Awareness Day)

Greetings.

Entertainment update: I received an interesting essay yesterday that I believe is worth posting.

As you all know (probably because you have nothing
better to do with your time than sit around watching
the telly rather than talk to people), by the end of
this month Touchstone Pictures will be releasing a
movie version of Douglas Adams' THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE
TO THE GALAXY.  Of course this is not the first
adaptation of this novel, there being a passible one
put out by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the
1980s that looked like the people who made DOCTOR WHO
decided to make a comedy, which is pretty much what
happened.  Despite the unsophistication of the
special-effects technology, the series was halfway
watchable, and this despite them underutilizing
Trillian and one of Zaphod Beeblebrox's heads, a
horrendous miscasting of a suicidal food animal, and
too little screen time being given to a certain robot.
The series somewhat worked because it was largely
faithful to Adams' text, which milked a number of
clever absurd and satirical situations for humour to
the point of me almost smiling, if I was so capable. 
Kudos to the BBC for their efforts.  Now Touchstone is
releasing their own version of the first book in the
five-part trilogy.  Immediately you should be wary as
Touchstone is the label put on movies made by Walt
Disney Pictures which are too mature for children,
almost always being so vacuous and dreadful that they
make one long for Vogon poetry.  But even not knowing
this, I would still know that this movie will be
decidedly awful.  The promotional trailers played on
the telly are almostly exclusively composed of
special-effects shots.  While the book is certainly an
excellent source for this, this is disturbing because
this is most certainly not what the book is about. 
The book is about characters trapped in absurd,
frustrating situations beyond their control, such as a
human whose planet is destroyed by a careless,
impersonal bureaucracy and, even better, a genius
robot who is forced to serve inferior creatures by
doing menial labour.  All they would have to show
would be a few clips of Ford Prefect doing some absurd
negotiations and Arthur Dent whining amusingly.  Even
a shot of Zaphod Beeblebrox (who Touchstone/Disney has
inexplicably given just one head) saying something
stupid (as occurs on a regular basis) would have been
comforting.  Instead, I am sure that moviegoers will
be forced to endure a long, depressing two hours of
computer-generated flash without any comic substance. 
I pity the poor humans.  Destruction by a Mutant Star
Goat would have been so much better.

-Marvin

I do not agree with Marvin on everything. I thought in the TV series that Trillian was more trivialized and made bimboesque than underutilized. I am also not clear on whether the TV series preceded the books or was made after the first two books; I once asked Arthur about it, but he mumbled something about a time machine and a barrel full of Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and then he refused to discuss the matter further.

Today’s weird thing is an article about an unusual problem: “Ohio Officials Chase Problem Turkeys”. Enjoy, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 7 April 2005/27 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (No Housework Day)

Greetings.

Sanhedhrin update: Yesterday I discovered a new story on the proto-Sanhedhrin, הסנהדרין: להחלטות בג"ץ אין תוקף והם בטלות לעומת ההלכה. For those of your who cannot read Hebrew, the gist is this: The Israeli High Court of Justice has decided to recognize heretical (“Reform” and its offshoots) conversions of non-Jewish residents of Israel to Judaism performed outside Israel as valid. The proto-Sanhedhrin’s reply to this is that since conversion is purely a matter of halakhah (Jewish law), the High Court of Justice’s decision is invalid since which conversions are valid is frankly none of its business.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Tsunami-Surviving Baby Hippo Adopts Tortoise”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Worthy cause of the day

Greetings.

MoveOn PAC has another petition for us to sign. This one is to fire Tom DeLay, the Republican Majority Leader whose response to accusations of ethics violations is to change the ethics rules so he does not have to step down. Please sign and tell our congressmen and congresswomen that you are paying attention to what they are doing, so they’d better behave themselves if they want your vote. Thanks in advance.

Aaron

PS: Yes, I know Code 2000, Code2001, and Code2002 aren’t pretty, but they strive for completeness. This comes in useful if you’re a fan of characters that aren’t in many other Unicode fonts.

Weird thing of the day 6 April 2005/26 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (Tartan Day)

Greetings.

I was mistaken yesterday when I said I would have a poster at the epidemiology convention in Toronto; apparently they want me to make a presentation (as in the Powerpoint variety).

Software update: It’s not strictly weird, but James Kass’s Unicode Support in Your Browser page now has new versions of the Code200x series of Unicode fonts.

Today’s weird thing is the article “Astronomers find star-less galaxy”.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird religion news update

Greetings.

Since the recent death of Pope John Paul II, we have (probably) all heard of betting on who will be the new Pope. However, that is downright mundane compared with this.

Enjoy (or be scared).

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 5 April 2005/25 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (National Workplace Napping Day/Go For Broke Day/Stop the Clocks Day)

Greetings.

Personal events update: Not only did I get a paper accepted into the British Journal of Cancer yesterday, but I also had a poster abstract accepted for an epidemiology convention in Toronto in June, and I received my passport in the mail. Now I can leave the country without having to automatically make ‘aliyyah or claiming to be a refugee from George W. Bush.

Political update:

• For once I’m going to pick on China, which really deserves it but doesn’t get enough press over it. “Jailed 'Killer' Freed After Wife Turns Up Alive” is an article of which the title is nowhere as bad as the actual content; the amount of abuse reported is downright scary.
• MoveOn PAC has another petition, this one demanding an exit strategy from Iraq

Today’s weird thing is the article “'Living' robots powered by muscle”. There is no way I can describe this.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 4 April 2005/24 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (National Reading a Roadmap Day/National Repot your Plant Day)

Greetings.

I am pleased to announce that a paper that I wrote (with my mentor and a bunch of people from whom I got data as coauthors) is going to be published in the British Journal of Cancer. Further details, such as exactly when it will be published, will be reported here when available.

Today’s weird thing is somebody else’s article, this one about a new development in dinosaurology: “Soft tissue found in T-rex fossil”. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 3 April 2005/23 'Adhar Sheni 5765

Greetings.

Political update: Leaders on both sides of the disengagement issue are working to make sure that disengagement is as civil as possible. Considering how disastrous things got the last time anyone tried something as insane as Sharon’s current stunt (i.e., Yishaq Rabbin, who was assassinated for his efforts), this is a welcome sign of relief.

Health update: “Half of All Cancer Deaths Preventable: Report”. The weird thing is that the politicians, after putting on a big show about how moral they are over Terri Schiavo, will probably ignore this completely and still not get around to banning tobacco.

Weird thing of the day (proper): “A Word to the unwise -- program's grammar check isn't so smart”. It’s amazing the atrociously bad grammar that Microsoft Word lets through its grammar checker. The person who found this out has posted a demonstration.

Enjoy.

Aaron

Computer conspiracy?

Due to a reported error in the server, the Weird thing of the day for April 1 was published three times. I claim the server was pulling an April Fool’s Day joke on me.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 1 April 2005/21 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (April Fool's Day)

Greetings.

Today is April Fool’s day, which many believe is a good time to play practical jokes. These jokes which I’ve heard of so far are today’s weird things:

• Definite practical joke: Yahoo! News - Tokyo zoo penguins in awe of giant on April Fool's Day
  
• Definite practical joke: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4041.txt
  
• Definite practical joke: SoundWave Demo, Opera's P2P real time voice technology - Opera Web Browser
  
• Probable practical joke: Linux looks to Hilton for exposure - Breaking - http://www.theage.com.au/technology/

You can find about these and more at the Museum of Hoaxes. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 1 April 2005/21 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (April Fool's Day)

Greetings.

Today is April Fool’s day, which many believe is a good time to play practical jokes. These jokes which I’ve heard of so far are today’s weird things:

• Definite practical joke: Yahoo! News - Tokyo zoo penguins in awe of giant on April Fool's Day
  
• Definite practical joke: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4041.txt
  
• Definite practical joke: SoundWave Demo, Opera's P2P real time voice technology - Opera Web Browser
  
• Probable practical joke: Linux looks to Hilton for exposure - Breaking - http://www.theage.com.au/technology/

You can find about these and more at the Museum of Hoaxes. Enjoy.

Aaron

Weird thing of the day 1 April 2005/21 'Adhar Sheni 5765 (April Fool's Day)

Greetings.

Today is April Fool’s day, which many believe is a good time to play practical jokes. These jokes which I’ve heard of so far are today’s weird things:

• Definite practical joke: Yahoo! News - Tokyo zoo penguins in awe of giant on April Fool's Day
  
• Definite practical joke: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4041.txt
  
• Definite practical joke: SoundWave Demo, Opera's P2P real time voice technology - Opera Web Browser
  
• Probable practical joke: Linux looks to Hilton for exposure - Breaking - http://www.theage.com.au/technology/

You can find about these and more at the Museum of Hoaxes. Enjoy.

Aaron