Sin City Comic vs Movie

The Sin City movie will be out soon. If you are wondering how close it is to the noir comic that is based on, check out the comparison here. Quite impresive, I would say.

So it goes

I just finished reading the short anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut. Writing an anti-war book, it says, is like writing an anti-glacier book. You just can't stop them.
The main character travels back and forth in time, to WW2, to the present, to the past, to his end, everywhere. What? Well, it does make sense. After all, everyone can travel in time, the Tralfamadorians taught him.

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes'.

Many compare this book to Catch-22. Although both books are about WW2, and are on the funny side, their spirit is very different. Where Catch-22 is about the madness of war, Slaughterhouse-Five is about the madness of giving meaning to war memories.
The prose is musical and easy. If you want a funny, light read, about a complex subject, like the Dresden fire-bombing during WW2, by a brilliant, unique author, check it out. It is an excelent study on the mind of a war veteran. In a scale of terrible monsters of land and air, this book beats Godzilla, Mothra and King Kong all together.

You have bad taste in music

Thanks to one of my friends for suggesting the site YHBTIM. In it there are videos of a guy pointing out to fans of popular music that they have bad taste in music. My favorite video is the one where he makes the Linkin Park fans start chanting "Linkin Park is a Roller Coaster", and then points out how Roller Coasters look dangerous but are perfectly safe.

y&j: character creation basics: part 1

Character Creation Basics

There are several basic steps to follow when creating a 1st level character. To start you will need a photocopy of the character sheet, pencil, one six sided dice and plenty knowledge of 16th century Caribbean.

0. CHECK WITH YOUR YUCAYEQUE MASTER
Your Yucayeque Master (YM) may have house rules that you’ll need to know when creating a character. Also, it could be useful to know what characters the other players are playing to balance the team. Not everyone can be a Taino Naboria.

1. ABILITY SCORES
Roll your character ability scores. Determine each one by rolling the six sided dice, adding 3 to that number, multiply it by 4, divide by 22 and subtracting the number rolled.

2. CHOOSE CLASS AND RACE
Choosing class and race is one of the most important aspects of the games since you can’t play a character without race or class. Also, some classes are better suited to certain races. You may want to select a class that you feel comfortable with. Don’t choose a class that you don’t know how to use. You (and your peers) will find the game much more fun if you don’t have to scroll through pages and pages of yaguas each time you want to cast a spell.
The basic races are Taino, Caribe, Spaniard and African. Race assimilation is also common, mixed races are Mulato and Criollo. The classes are Santero, Naboria, Medico Brujo, Jibaro, Vejigante, Cocinero, Pirate and Colono.

Happiest place on Earth

I'll have to bump my friend's blog with this article.

The subjective well-being rankings are one part of the largest social-science study ever. The World Values Survey, an ongoing investigation by a global network of social scientists, measures social, cultural and political change on all six populated continents.
[...]
Generally, the wealthiest nations tend to be the happiest. But Latin American societies, particularly those around the Caribbean -- Puerto Rico, Colombia, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic -- prove an exception. Inglehart calls it "the Latino bonus."
"They're not the richest people in the world," Inglehart said. "You seem to get a plus for being Latino."

According to the study, Puerto Rico is the happiest place on the planet to live in. Take that, Disney!

more culinary greatness

1 Spam Can
7oz Cheez Whiz
1 or 2 peppers
some milk

blend everything in the food processor.

delicious with bread.

a crimson rose and a gin tonic

I can't drive safely anymore. I am readdicted to Katamari Damacy and I keep thinking in things I could roll up with my Katamari. For a moment I even started to think the names of the things that I could pick up:
Toilet Paper, Cow, Beer Ad, Bike Boy, Old Woman, Police Car.

y&j: yucayeques and jutias

Oubao-Moin

El río de Corozal, el de la leyenda dorada.
La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.
El Río Manatuabón tiene la leyenda dorada.
La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.
El rio Cibuco escribe su nombre con letra dorada.
La corriente arrastra oro. La corriente está ensangrentada.
Allí se inventó un criadero. Allí el quinto se pagaba.
La tierra era de oro. La tierra está ensangrentada.
En donde hundió la arboleda su raíz en tierra dorada,
allí las ramas chorrean sangre. La arboleda está ensangrentada.
Donde dobló la frente india, bien sea tierra, bien sea agua,
bajo el peso de la cadena, entre los hierros de la ergástula,
allí la tierra hiede a sangre y el agua está ensangrentada.
Donde el negro quebró sus hombros, bien sea tierra o sea agua,
y su cuerpo marcó el carimbo y abrió el látigo su espalda,
allí la tierra hiede a sangre y el agua está ensangrentada.
Donde el blanco pobre ha sufrido los horrores de la peonada,
bajo el machete del mayoral y la libreta de jornada
y el abuso del señorito, allí sea tierra o allí sea agua,
allí la tierra está maldita y corre el agua envenenada.

Juan Antonio Corretjer.
Mulato. Jib(lvl18)Tim(lvl5)

Intellectual, dude!

We met this girl who really wanted to be taken as an intellectual, but it was painfully obvious to everyone in our table that she lacked the new point of view, the life experience, the three-digit IQ, or the literacy skills to pull it off, dude. She, an English major, wasn’t smart enough to just shut the fuck up, dude. You can only talk about how people "should think outside the box, dude" for so long until you start sounding like a Taco Bell commercial, man. To sum it up, I will just quote her: "Dude, I read a lot. And that is why I have a great great great great vocabulary." [sic]

culinary arts

Limbers are delicious and with the hot weather we've been having these days I would love to fill my freezer with limbers de parcha.
I've always wondered how "limber" should be written. I know where the name comes from but I have seen thousands of different ways to spell it.
Someone should make some research on limberology.

gmail

I have used gmail for sometime already and it continues to impress me. It is incredible how they were able to come with so many incredible ideas as to fix e-mail completely. Even if they didn't offer 1 gig storage space gmail would still be my favorite mail service.
The conversation system is wonderful and so obvious that it makes me wonder why it took so much time for some company to invent it. The contacts system is a feature that I rarely used with my other e-mails, but gmail made it perfect.
Now if they would only remove the "invite a friend:" window from my inbox.

The Sandman

I just finished reading The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, for my third time. It is easy to say that The Sandman is the best comic book series ever written. I can say that after reading for the third time the 10 volumes (+2 extra ones) I still keep finding all these little details that shock me, quotes that I can't get out of my head, or just magical moments that touch me.

Each volume composes an arc inside the much longer story, where love, meta-epic, myth, horror, family conflict, a bunch of dreams, stories, and histories are braided together brilliantly. A master piece that changes the reader as Dream (also known as Morpheus, Sandman, Murphy, Oneiros, Lord Shaper, the Prince of Stories, The King of Dreams), the anthropomorphisations of dreaming, changes.

The change is subtle, or not, provoked by his own brothers and sisters of the Endless: Destiny starts his path, Desire provides the catalyst for his romances, and Despair the after taste of his bad choices, Delirium accompanies him in their search for Destruction, and Death is there for everyone, all the time. Along the path he visits hell, provokes the wrath of Morningstar, Lucifer himself, inspires Shakespeare, creates nightmares, has difficulties with his son, faces The Furies, The kindly Ones, and more importantly, defines reality.

If you have a passing interest in mythology, can't believe a comic could be very intelligent and thought provoking, or just want to understand that the Endless are just themselves, not bad, not good, just them, check the series out, you will not be dissapointed.

I'm not blessed, or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do, and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes; in hospitals and forests and abattoirs. For some folks death is a release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them. -Death

Not knowing everything is all that makes it okay, sometimes. -Delirium

Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. -Morningstar

The price of getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted.

P.I.G.S. = Pork Ingesting Golden Shower

I remember I visited a pig farm and a pig was peeing, while another one was drinking the piss, like drinking out of a fountain.

about the pigs

It wasn't a pig farm, it was a slaughter house. They killed the pigs in Saturday mornings so I usually woke up with the screaming of the pigs. Sometimes the pigs broke free and appeared near my house, so I went running to hide under my bed.
Maybe those pigs traumatized me or something because I've always felt some passion for farm animals. About 75% of my nicknames have been pig or cow related.

Hogzilla

Where I was growing up there was a pig farm right behind my house. Whenever they were going to sacrifice an animal, you could hear their panic screeches in my house. My lil bro was deathly afraid of them. If he had nightmares about them, I wouldn't know, but I'm sure it would have been something like Hogzilla, the 8', 800 pounds gigantic pig that was found, and killed, in Georgia. Follow this link for the full article, as well as a picture.

Moskau

What would have happened if during the late 70s you put in a blender Genghis Khan with The Power Rangers dancing like The Village People in Germany?

A really really weird and funny music video!

Thanks to Sheplan for more info on Dschinghis Khan!
The lyrics, babelfished from the original:

Strangely and mysteriously
Towers from red gold
Coldly like the ice
Moscow
But who really knows you
White, a fire burns
In you so hot

[...]

Kosaken hey hey hey lifts the glasses
hey hey
Natascha hectar hectar hectar you is beautiful
hectar hectar of Towarisch hey hey hey on the love
hey hey
On your well-being brother hey brother ho
hey hey hey hey
Moscow, Moscow
Throw the glasses to the wall
Russia is a beautiful country
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey
Moscow, Moscow
Your soul is so large
The devil is the matter at night there
Hectar hectar hectar hectar hectar, hey
Moscow, Moscow
Love tastes like caviar
Girls are to kiss there
Ho ho ho ho ho
Moscow, Moscow
Come we dance on the table
Until the table breaks down
Hectar hectar hectar hectar hectar

Generation Gap

I already feel the generation gap in my university. Being from the 1997 class, it is weird seeing freshmen with 2004 class shirts in campus. The gap difference becomes more and more obvious with TAing. For example, it is small enough that there is a non-zero probability that I will run into a student at a party, bar, etc. But then, situations like the one that happened today come up every now and then to remind that, yes Virginia, Phobos is old.
Someone came to ask me about a circular motion multiple choice problem during my office hours. The problem read something like:

The Beatles White Album LP runs for 28 minutes. How many revolutions does it make during that time?

Well, I said, most LPs are 33RPMs, so, it is approximately 28 times 33&1/3. so, on the order of 930 revolutions. I then looked, and one of the choices was 932 revolutions. Done.
The student gave me a blank stare. "I hate physics, it is so hard!" Then, as I explained in more detail, we realized that the difficulty of the problem wasn't the math or physics, but the fact that the student did not know what an LP was, or what I meant by 33RPMs. In fact, I don't think she had ever played a vynil LP. "They shouldn't use obsolete technologies in these problems."
Sigh. I had to explain how an LP worked, how there were several speeds that you could play them, etc. "How did you know at which speed to play them?" I explained then how if you played at the wrong speed, it sounded either like Tom Waits or The Chipmunks sometimes. "That sounds retarded." I then started to talk about digital vs. analog, sampling rates and so on, and just gave up on the whole issue.
Yes, you had to choose the speed of the freaking LP, and walk in the snow uphill both ways while playing them, and we liked it that way.

The Muppet Movie sing-along

I went to see The Muppet Movie sing-along at Alamo Draft House. I haven't seen this movie in years, and it was more violent and sexual than anything I remembered. Kermit having sex with the always-horny Miss Piggy, a drunken bar fight, a cowboy showdown and much much more. And one of the songs said something like: "Lets get hi! / Floyd could use this verse."
The funny script, great cast (Mel Brooks!), catchy songs and the whole production value make this movie deserve 10 Oscars and a Fields Medal. You can't beat The Muppets!

Animal: RRRRRRAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!
Floyd Pepper: Oh, yeah, that's Animal. Show 'em what you do, Animal.
Animal: I what do! EAT DRUMS! [chews on a cymbal]
Dr. Teeth: No, no, no, no, no, *beat* drums, *beat* drums.

Kermit the Frog: It's too bad the dancing girls are on vacation. This crowd's getting ugly.
Fozzie Bear: If you think this crowd's ugly, you should see the dancing girls.

Light World vs Dark World

Check out these beautiful overworld maps made out of screenshots from Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Light World vs Dark World

This game ages so well.

Szilard: President Truman Did Not Understand

Leo Szilard, one of the scientific minds that pushed the Manhattan Project, later became a big champion against nuclear weapons. In this interview he makes some predictions that, looking back, were incredible accurate.

Q Did you think then that the Russians probably were working on the bomb?
A I had no idea of this. The question before us was: Should we think in terms of America's having a long-term monopoly of the bomb after the war, or will Russia have the bomb before long also? I had no doubt that we would start an atomic-arms race if we used the bomb.

Duct Tape

I just made myself a duct tape wallet. Check out all the things you can do with duct tape!

First Strike

The policy change is official in corUScant.

While U.S. forces have long helped to bolster foreign militaries through a variety of assistance programs, the new emphasis on aiding them against internal threats marks a significant departure from the traditional focus on guarding against potential cross-border aggression.

The galaxy is the US protectorate and territory, the rebels must be destroyed.
About questions regarding if they would conduct searches in the the Outer Rim, mostly controlled by the Hutt, looking for the stolen plans for a weapon of mass destruction code-named "Death Star", the spokesman responded.

"I don't think that the world gives us the luxury of picking areas," he said. "We have interests all over the world."

Not only the rebels pose a threat with those weapon plans, but in planets such as Tatooine they could easily sell them to highest bidder through the Jawa networks.

Suicidal girls

I've met more than enough of them now. They are usually somewhat attractive, quite interesting, smart, twisted sense of humor, different and crying for attention. Next time I meet one, I'm just going to help her out. "That is a fucking great idea, after all, you are worthless. But, here, cut them along the arms lenght, not across. You don't want them to patch you back up at the hospital, do you?"

Bloch is in Google

Thanks to my friend for pointing out that Joshua Bloch, the author of Effective Java Programming Language Guide, moved from Sun to Google.

Joshua Bloch is a Principal Engineer at Google. He was previously a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems and a Senior Systems Designer at Transarc. He led the design and implementation of numerous Java platform features, including the JDK 5.0 language enhancements and the Java Collections Framework. He is the author of the Jolt Award-winning book Effective Java. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia.

Saint Pat

I am a groupie now. Our friends from the celtic band have been very busy with the irish festivities this week. Yesterday we went to three of their eight gigs.
I should get more into irish music, I really like it.

effective java

I'm reading the Effective Java Programming Language Guide and I can't believe what a great book it is. I love programming, however there are many things that you don't think about until a Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems tells you. I find the book to be pretty light reading which is great because I have to alternate its reading with studies and work.
It included two posters describing the java libraries hierarchy. They are awesome, however I can't find a frame to fit their akward proportions.

musical geniuses

I didn't know that there were so many musical geniuses out there. I understand that people can get somewhere if they practice, but there's another level beyond that. There's a level that you can not achieve unless you are truly devoted to what you are doing.
I went last December to New York and saw this guy playing the drums. Pretty impressive huh? Well then see this guy playing mario tunes in his guitar and this guy playing them blindfolded in his piano. Finally, I never thought that you could make music with these things.

here i am.

I had a friend who told me about this thing called the "internet" about 15 years ago. "I'm making a page right now," he told me "and once I put it online people from other countries will be able to see it through their computers." I guess that at that time they were still using text-only browsers.

Anyway, that story is not true, but it seemed like a nice way to introduce myself. Hi.

Legion

A few days ago I was forced to install Real Media Player to see a video from the Canadian Curling Championship, that, by the way, is a beautiful conservation of linear momentum exercise.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me! For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you evil spirit! Then Jesus asked him, What is your name? My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many. And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them. He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

-Mark Chapter 5: 6-13

Real Media Player is Legion.

Revive, Restart

Me and my brother recently lost our blogs under mysterious circumstances. So, we have decided to revive them from the ashes, combine our efforts into one blog, adding our number of posts, multiplying the randomness, dividing the work, modulus-dividing the outcome, exponentiating the humor, Root Mean Squaring the blame, renormalizing the theme, square integrating the wavefuction, cross-producting the directional vectors, averaging the guilt, and changing the address to this one.

If you have read our blogs before, welcome back my olde friend. If you have not, you are still welcome, and I do not plan to write anything special. I'll have just the usual posts with weird links and the usual daily stuff that your neighborhood theoretical physicist would write about.

Phoenix Ignition

Phoenix Ignition by
Thrice

Like a phoenix ignition
like a crematorium
Like a swelling volition
from the barrel of a gun
From the ashes and the embers
like a rocket I'll ascend
Like a cry gone up for a fallen friend

I'll ascend

Everyday tear down the walls
till cornerstones remain
Coming one step closer all the time
And although we will never reach perfection always persist to try

No regrets, just rebirth
move forward, and ignite.
Incandescent Reinvention
a new renaissance

a new fire each day!