semiotix

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• Commented on Eyeball removal tool
  I like how the "baby" in the picture is making, with its one remaining eye, a face that says "Um, dude, this eyeball-adjusting shit is just a little too weird for me."...
• Commented on Bicycle defense kit fits in Altoids tin
  Threads like this are why I only travel by levitation and astral projection. Actually, I have to say I'm surprised at how well and truly the fight was joined by both sides....
• Commented on Teen sex belongs in teen lit
  When I was a teenager, I drank sometimes. I had sex sometimes. I disobeyed authority figures sometimes. Oh, you were that kid at the Science Fiction Club or Society for Creative Anachronism meetings. "Hey, didja hear that Doctorow got to...
• Commented on The EXAMINE'd Life: Keeping Interactive Fiction Alive
  Ugh, text adventures are one thing I'm glad to see the backside of. YOU ENTER A WIDE OPEN FIELD. THERE ARE EXITS TO THE NORTHWEST AND WEST. A SWORD IS LYING ON THE GROUND > GET SWORD I DON'T KNOW...
• Commented on Thieves who stole from child get a public shaming
  Is it just me who finds the choice of that sign's font.. ehrm.. suspicious? Yes, the court's original sentence called for the sign to be in Comic Sans, but that was overturned as cruel and unusual punishment....
• Commented on Thieves who stole from child get a public shaming
  Humiliation has a strong deterrent effect for recidivism; just look at the prisons were prisoners have been forced to wear pink uniforms. Yeah, the sheriff who runs the jail is under about ten different kinds of investigations (another new one...
• Commented on Edmund Wilson's all-purpose "get lost" letter
  Simon Singh's book on Fermat's Last Theorem had a pair of good examples along these lines. Prominent math professors would get inundated with crackpot "proofs," so one of them printed up cards that read, "The first error in your submission...
• Commented on Arthur Goldwag on the queen of the "birther" movement
  CYMK: I'd say it's a little too cynical to say that there's never any accountability at the ballot box. (Unless you're of the mindset that there are two parties--the Green Party* and the Rep/Dem party, in which case it's a...
• Commented on Arthur Goldwag on the queen of the "birther" movement
  By the by, I'll come out as a non-Birther: I genuinely believe Obama's eligible, a citizen, a natural-born citizen, a super-duper-natural citizen, whatever. That said-- In my 7th grade civics class, they taught us that "assault," under common law, basically...
• Commented on Arthur Goldwag on the queen of the "birther" movement
  I am respectfully agnostic on most religious issues, lean leftwards politically, and am resolutely skeptical when it comes to the paranormal or the outlandish. I hope I am not dogmatic or snide or gratuitously ad hominem, but please don't hesitate...
• Commented on Canadian folk singer dies after coyote attack
  Seriously, this is bizarre. Coyotes eat squirrels and sparrows, and the smarter ones run away from angry raccoons. It's terrible if this is what pseudo-domestication does to them, which I guess is plausible, but I almost wonder if there wasn't...
• Commented on Arnold Schwarzenegger's coded F-bomb in veto
  I'm more interested in the odds of this being caught, unless the people who "noticed" it first were tipped off by the guilty party. My guess is that an Ahhhhnold staffer did this on purpose, sent it out, then smirked...
• Commented on How to memorialize friends who have passed away on Facebook
  I have EVERY intention of setting up some kind of auto-posting script with YEARS' worth of status updates for the amusement and horror of my former friends. If Facebook puts the kibosh on it, I will give them such a...
• Commented on The $147.72 "audio grade" power socket
  Sure, this looks like a great deal, but you have to watch for the subtle indications you're getting a substandard product. First of all, there's the suspiciously low price tag. $150? That wouldn't pay for the deionized dusting spray for...
• Commented on Helping Mick Jagger in a toy store
  I checked him out and he wrote a check. (Oh, I don’t need to see ID from you, Mr. Jagger!) As soon as he stepped away from the counter the owner grabbed the almost $1000 check and said that she...
• Commented on When Country Bear Jamboree was serious business
  The pipe is what makes the whole thing work....
• Commented on Flag of Benin Empire may be the best flag depicting a decapitation in the history of the world
  It's not bad, but it needs to be contemporized. There's plenty of room in that red field for bold white capital letters reading PWNED or LOL STFU....
• Commented on Harper's Weekly for September 29, 2009
  Bear in mind that this is just a fragment of a decision, and that judges are often obliged by the particular language of a law to follow seemingly absurd arguments to their logical conclusion. I doubt the judge was secretly...
• Commented on Wisconsin Tourism Federation loses to WTF, changes name
  Too bad. Madison alone is good for dozens of what might have been called "WTF moments."...
• Commented on Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Burqini
  I'm just going to throw this out there, in the hopes that it will prove more constructive than controversial: Islam ≠ the entire category of religion any given Muslim ≠ all Muslims What one Muslim does ≠ What Muslims do...
• Commented on Zabihah.com and Halal Dining
  Surely it hasn't escaped Mr. Tariq's notice that his beliefs are in conflict with the beliefs and non-beliefs of a large proportion of his countrymen. It would be very worthwhile for him to take a moment to comment in his...
• Commented on Storm-sewer dwellers of Las Vegas
  @6 (Spencer Cross): Not only that, but from what I observed the last time I was there (before credit slips), I'd guess that in the first 50 years of slot machines in Vegas about $1.15 in spare change was accidentally...
• Commented on Lamp that runs on human blood
  I understand the objections that people have about the bigger message, but I'm just in love with the idea of art that causes actual physical pain and suffering. Any "artist" can be "edgy"--this guy's giving us ACTUAL SHARP EDGES. Rock...
• Commented on Katie Couric's salary exceeds combined budgets of NPR's top news shows
  How on earth can they do All Things Considered for $14,000 a show?! Something must be amiss with how those numbers are being generated, or interpreted here. I mean, never mind if it's the best journalism in history or just...
• Commented on Drumming fingers prop
  I wish I could convey how impatient I am to own one of these....
• Commented on Oligarch's yacht has a laser anti-photo screen
  I'd say it's fair game, except I'm worried about the technology spreading to, say, train stations, so that the city can prevent you taking pictures of the station. But then you could also, presumably, prevent the city from taking 300...
• Commented on UK: Treatment of (gay) genius mathematician Alan Turing "appalling"
  This is remarkable, given how the early negotiations with the PM's office (conducted entirely via IM) went: TuringFans: We'd like you to issue an apology to Alan Turing. UKPM1: WHY DO YOU LIKE ME TO ISSUE AN APOLOGY TO ALAN...
• Commented on Pigeons are faster than DSL
  Now, this is very funny, but I think that over pigeon-traversable distances in which latency isn't an issue, the pigeon will always win. Intriguing insight. Are these pigeons compatible with pre-Intel Macs?...
• Commented on Steel velcro that supports 35 tons/square meter
  One square meter of it supports up to 35 tons at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius. I can't go into details, but as a James Bond villain with a dastardly plan involving Michelangelo's David and the surface of Venus,...
• Commented on The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics
  The myth seems to have originated in the Enlightenment desire to invent the conflict thesis. Careful, Roach. You don't want people to think you don't completely support the notion that science and religion are polar opposites, utterly incompatible, neurologically mutually...