I am easily amused

Go to Google Translate and cut and paste the following message, and translate it from German to German:

pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk

Then click "Listen".

(via webofevil)

I believe they're calling this cablegate

[Poll #1651136]

Context (including nice infographic and download) here

But I couldn't eat a whole one

via riotclitshave

The graphics are outstanding, but Rik Mayall is outstandinger

"" (Watch on YouTube)

How to become an expert

1. Start
2. Keep going.
3. You think you're starting to get the hang of it.
4. You see someone else's work and feel undeniable misery.
5. Keep going.
6. Keep going.
7. You feel like maybe, possibly, you kinda got it now.
8. You don't.
9. Keep going.
10. You ask for someone else's opinion--their response is standoffish, though polite.
11. Depression.
12. Keep going.
13. Keep going.
14. You ask someone else's opinion--their response is favorable.
15. They have no idea what they're talking about.
16. Keep going.
17. You feel semi-kinda favorable and maybe even a little proud of what you can do now.
18. Self-loathing chastisement.
19. Depression
20. Keep going.
21. You ask someone else's opinion--they respond quite favorably.
22. They're still wrong.
23. Depression.
24. Keep going though you can't possibly imagine why.
25. Become restless.
26. Receive some measure of praise from a trustworthy opinion.
27. They're still fucking wrong (Right?)
28. Keep going just because there's nothing else to do.
29. Mastery arrives, you mistake it for a gust of wind.
30. Keep. Fucking. Going.

From the comment thread under this post.

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 11-30-2010

• Conservatives basing policy on prejudice and barking pet theories. Allegedly.
  (tags: law uk conservatives)
• Why The Episcopal Church is right over homosexuality and The Church Of England is wrong.
  (tags: lgbt religion)
• The end of gay men being camp?
  (tags: lgbt homosexuality camp men)
• Contact with dads drops when women ovulate, contact with mothers rises.
  (tags: behaviour psychology fertility women)
• US embassy cables: Prince Andrew rails against France, the SFO and the Guardian
  (tags: funny diplomacy royalty)
• Rejection Therapy: how experimenting with rejection builds confidence
  (tags: rejection psychology therapy confidence game)
• Office of Budget Responsibility predicts 3.1% fall in house prices in 2011.
  (tags: housing uk)
• The reviews for these $8,450 audio cables are hilarious
  (tags: funny technology audio)
• Mozilla rages at MS, Apple and Google's for installing plugins without asking you first.
  (tags: firefox browser)
• Iranian nuclear scientist killed in motorbike attack. It's like something out of James Bond!
  (tags: assassination iran nuclear)

I think that one's a cumulus

I just discovered that The Wachowskis are making a movie out of Cloud Atlas. With Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Natalie Portman.

I can't see how they can do this without destroying the structure of the book. Spoiler for the structure of the book follows - no spoiler for plot, hence I'm not doing an LJ-Cut, unless people complain.
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The book is structured as six stories, with the first half of each one followed by the first half of the next one, until we reach number six, and then we get the second halves of each one in turn, until we arrive at the first story again, to read its conclusion.

So, that's six stories, each with split into two halves, or 12 story fragments. Even if we assume that they have three hours to play around with, that's 15 minutes per fragment. Is that really enough to pull the viewers into a story, join it to the parts before and after, and tell something coherent? I'm doubtful, to put it mildly.

Now, I do love films that can pull off the twisty-turny narration. There's a bit in Reservoir Dogs that's three levels deep, and I love the structure of The Prestige, but this feels like something that's too large to bite off and also make a mainstream movie from.

And I don't mind gutting a book to make it into a film - pulling the essence out of it and streamlining it by leaving out (or changing) a chunk of the plot to fit the constraints (and advantages) of film is something I thoroughly approve of. But the heart of Cloud Atlas _is_ its structure.

So you can colour me intrigued. But I'll be utterly unsurprised if it's a failure. They've got good people onboard though, including writer Tom Tykwer, who made Run Lola Run and Perfume (and The International, which I heard was good, but haven't seen yet.)

I feel slightly overwhelmed

So, about three weeks ago I posted about Javascript, different languages in the browser, bytecode, etc..

I then crossposted to Hacker News, where it generated a fair chunk of conversation, including comments from some people who worked at Netscape.

And then today I discovered that Brendan Eich, who _created_ Javascript had picked up on it, and had done a ten minute talk triggered by it! (It's well worth listening to if you're at all interested in this kind of thing.)

It really does feel funny when a 30 second whine on my journal can end up with one of the prime movers of the modern internet giving his opinion on it.

Personally, I hold robhu responsible for suggesting the idea to me in the first place.

I didn't see a thing

"" (Watch on YouTube)

I'm sure that footwear would slow down _anyone's_ firing speed

via