cellocgw

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• Commented on HOWTO make a vacuum fluorescent display clock
  Hah: good thing I bought one *yesterday*. After /. and BB posted this, they're out of stock for the next few weeks....
• Commented on Arm sconce
  #8 and #3, the other reference (moving thru a mirror) is from a different Cocteau fantasy flick. I think it was a variant of Orpheus but am not certain....
• Commented on Ronald Reagan was a secret FBI anti-commie snitch
  @#22: You are now officially a poster child for Santayana....
• Commented on Floating rocks
  @#23, Don't worry about runnng out of helium. The NIF will be online any day now and then you'll have all the He3 and He4 you want --- as a byproduct, yet!...
• Commented on Bunny with two noses
  OK, was it the original columnist or the editor who can't tell Spanish from French? It's "en masse" for those who missed it....
• Commented on Lisa Randall on the origin of the universe -- Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
  I found the book to be semi-interesting (IAAP, albeit with just an ABD). People who do read this book should be aware that not all theorists think string/brane theory is on the right track. Aside from the near-untestability of the...
• Commented on Xeni on the road in West Africa: Ici Bon Coiffeur (Good Barber Here)
  Ceci n'est pas une coiffure. It's too Elvis-ish....
• Commented on Samsung goes retro with latest point-and-shoot
  Bummer: I love the look, but being part of the old-ish generation, I insist that my cameras have a viewfinder. I need reading glasses to see anything within arm's reach (i.e., the LCD display), and you can imagine that I...
• Commented on Photoshop Competition: What will this liquidated Circuit City become? (UPDATE: WINNERS!)
  #11: Aren't those clowns telling us to "come on in, everybody floats down here!" ?...
• Commented on What is this science fiction image?
  Maybe the dog-walking park in The Jetsons? (just kidding)...
• Commented on Stephen Fry on the beauty of "incorrect" language and the stupid futility of linguistic pedantry
  OK, look: Borrowing words from other languages doesn't degrade English. Generating new words for new concepts (internet) doesn't degrade English. But I challenge anyone to explain how it helps either the language itself or people's desire to communicate clearly when:...
• Commented on Is the Jim Woodring pinball machine a reality, or a fever dream?
  Somehow I doubt it'll come to fruition. First of all, as a regular reader of rec.games.pinball and VPforums, I've not seen any comment on this item. Second, the amount of labor & parts required to produce a modern pin is...
• Commented on William Burroughs shoots Amy Winehouse (as art)
  I'm just saying... if this were a high-school kid instead of a "famous artist," he'd be expelled and on his way to jail for being a terrorist or something....
• Commented on Pac-Man as high fashion
  My first thought was: this is an outfit for Westerners travelling to Islam states. It's displayed in Euro mode, but when you reach Iran, slap that mother shut so you won't pervert the men. One-eyed model also available....
• Commented on James Howard Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month"
  "Sorry, Roger, you Tiger now!" (for those lucky enuff not to have Comcast, that's the tag line of an ad featuring a fella w/ one butt-ugly set of tattoos) Look: if ya wanna get covered w/ body art, get it...
• Commented on Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White -- absolutely extraordinary comic fuses manga and French comics in a story of violence and lost boys in a surreal Japanese cityscape
  Black and White brothers? Sounds like a ripoff of Spy vs. Spy :-)...
• Commented on Unveiling of second Long Now clock in Bay Area: photos
  There was a different long-time-span piece of art some time ago. It consisted of an electric motor driving a 10:1 (or whatever) reduction gear, the output of which drove the next 10:1 reduction.... the estimate was that the last disk...
• Commented on Happy Bastille Day!
  Not only Bastille Day, today is my anniversary! (Cue the obligatory fireworks jokes)...
• Commented on US promises to stop treating Nelson Mandela like a terrorist
  Agree with above :-) Basically: Just because Mandella was illegally/unjustly imprisoned does not mean he was innocent. I am not a history expert, and submit no opinion as to whether Mandella was a goodguy or badguy prior to imprisonment. I...
• Commented on Dumb-ass anti-terrorism ideas -- patented!
  hey -- Lionel Trains had a missile-launching boxcar (and a missile-launching engine if I recall correctly) back in the late 1950s....
• Commented on Women report incubus attacks
  @46: That woman sure has odd sexual tastes! Come to think of it, apparently cthulhu does too, from his species' point of view....
• Commented on Jack Chick, animated: "Somebody Goofed," by Syd and Rodney
  Nice video. Now off to figure out why Camino can't get its act together and download it. (Firefox does just fine)...
• Commented on Ronald Searle's original dark, weird and hilarious St Trinian's comics
  Thanks, @8. Now for a poll: Which do you like better: 1) Molesworth 2) Tom Brown ('s School Days) 3) Mr. Chips :-)...
• Commented on Ronald Searle's original dark, weird and hilarious St Trinian's comics
  Omigawd, I didn't think anyone besides me had ever heard of Molesworth, at least not in the States. "How to be Topp" was one of my major favorite books back in my elementary school days. So, who was Willans?...
• Commented on Newscast from a robot-dominated future -- Onion video
  @#3: there are more than 3 rules. Asimov himself came up w/ the Zeroth Law: A robot shall not cause harm, or thru inaction allow harm to occur to Mankind. My favorite off-Asimov 4th rule is: A robot shall know...
• Commented on Sarah Connor Chronicles (Terminator) ARG: BBtv special edition.
  I hate to be a spoilsport (OK, I love it), but imaging tachyons doesn't let you see into the future. FTL just means you get information before info shows up on a light (electromagnetic) wave. Even tachyons take a finite...
• Commented on Haunting sf story podcast: "Edward Bear and the Very Long Walk"
  I'm going to claim unintentional plagiarism: Howard Waldrop, "Heirs of the Perisphere" ....
• Commented on Woman's dream of bomb results in oil rig evacuation
  I've got it: the person she told about the dream thought they were characters in The Lathe of Heaven. (UK LeGuin)...
• Commented on What's the terminal velocity of a Balrog?
  I think they could have used a better model-- check out the Balrog on the LOTR pinball machine :-)...
• Commented on Michael Swanwick's one-of-a-kind stories-in-bottles
  Dunno about MRI (which looks for different densities of various molecules which have magnetic moments), but I sure bet a combination of IR scanning and multispectral analysis would reveal the inner pages pretty well....