Solipsism Gradient

Excellent news! The marvelous J-Walk Blog is up again, due to popular demand. Thanks, John! Please don’t feel obliged to keep up a daily schedule… one or two pages a week are OK with me, I was hard-pressed to keep up with you .

Ha! I need another vacation, ASAP! The Dolphin Stress Test says so.

(link via The Presurfer)

Xeni Jardin over at the ever-cogent Boing Boing points us at the The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator. Good for at least an hour of belly laughs. She even posts a sample of a Nigerian-to-AOL translation:

XENI!!!!! OMG!!!! I AM MARIAM ABACHA DA PRINCIPAL MANAEGR COPORAET R3SOURCES OF DA EQUITY BANK OF NIEGRIA LIMIETD LAGOS BRANCH!1!!!1 WTF??? I WISH 2 MAEK U A PROPOSAL WIT REGARDS A TRANSACTION IN WHICH I R3QUIER FOREIGN ASISTANC31!!! OMG ABOUT 4 Y3ARS AGO IN APRIL 199 A VENAZUELAN BUSIENSMAN AND A P3RSONAL FREIND OF MIEN BY NME MR11!1!! OMG LOL GIOVANI VILAET MAED A FIEXD D3POSIT IN MAH BANK OF MOUNT US$13750000111! OMG LOL (THIRTEN MILION SAV3N HUNDR3D AND FIFTY UNIETD STAETS DOLARS)!1!! LOL UNFORTUNAETLY HA DEID OF CARDIAC AREST IN D3C3MBR 200AS!!1!11 WTF HIS PERSONAL FREIND I DO KNOW FOR C3RTANE TAHT H3 HAD NO RALATIEVS HARA IN NIEGRIA NOR ANY TAHT I KNOW OF IN HIS HOME COUNTRY!1!! WTF ACORDNG 2 TEH LAW HERE TEH FUNDS WIL HAEV 2 B CLAMEED BY DA GOVERNMANT OF MAH COUNTRY IF AFTER 5 (FIEV) YEARS NOBODY APLEIS 2 CLAME DA FUNDS!11!1 WTF LOL

FROM MAH YEARS OF 3XP3REINCE AS A BANK3R SUCH FUNDS USUALY END UP IN PRIVAET POKETS OF CORUPT GOVARNMENT OFICIALS1!!!1!1 I DO NOT WISH THIS 2 B TEH CAES OF DA HARD 3ARN3D INV3STAD FUNDS OF MAH LAET FREIND1!! OMG LOL I THANK U FOR UR UNDARSTANDNG OF TEH PRIVACY OF THIS PROPOSAL 2 U111!! LOL

AWATENG UR PROPMT R3SPONS3

WARM!1!1 OMG WTF LOL REGARDS

MARIAM ABACHA!!! OMG!!! LOLOL!!!!

All I can say is LOLOL!

Some further browsing in the J-Walk Blog‘s archives produced a link to The New Sorting Hat. (Skip this entry if you don’t care for Harry Potter stuff.)

Here’s what I got:

Ravenclaw!

My, my, aren’t we a brainy know-it-all? You think being smarter than football-jock Gryffindor, inbred Slytherin, and fall-for-anything Hufflepuff makes you Merlin’s gift to the wizarding world. You probably think you’re smarter than Dumbledore. An arrogant, stuck-up jerk is what you are, and in your heart of hearts you know it. Admit it. It’s prats like you who make school suck for the rest of us.

Well… what do you know? This thing seems to work!

There’s lots of other interesting stuff at John’s Freeloading Home Page, such as The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Cliches, The Evil Henchman’s Guide, several reviews and essays about science fiction, politics and raytracing, and last but not least, The Divine Hotline:

You have reached the Almighty Creator of the Macrocosmic Universe. Please keep the following in mind when seeking resolution for your problems:

* Applications for assistance may be made at any time. I reserve the right to take no action on problems for which no application is made.

…

* My former policy of issuing credentials to select human agents has served its intended purpose and has been permanently discontinued, and all credentialed human agents have been recalled from field service. Any and all credentials presently observable in the field are of human origin; none have been issued by Me.

…

* Rejection of proffered assistance may constitute grounds for non-resolution of the problem for which the assistance was provided.

…

* I reserve the right to do as I please.

Life’s full of surprises. Yesterday I was surfing the net in preparation for my upcoming trip to Paris for the Apple Expo. Booking the extra legs to and from São Paulo was no problem. I’ll leave next Thursday (Sept. 11), stay in Amsterdam for two days, then on Sunday (Sept. 14) it’s off to Paris. Steve Job’s keynote is on Sept. 16, then we’ll have time to see the first two days of the exhibition and conferences, and we fly back on Sept. 18.

It took some searching but I even found a relatively inexpensive hotel not terribly far away from the Expo. At first I had no such luck for Amsterdam, though… everything was either full or demanded a minimum stay of 3, 4 or even 5 days! Site after site reported back that there were practically no rooms available in Amsterdam from Sept. 12 to 14. And there were some obscure references to “during IBC”.

Hm. Sounded familiar, somehow…

Of course, IBC is the International Broadcasting Convention, and it turns out that Apple is an exhibitor there too. So I immediately took steps to register for that, too. And again I lucked into one of the last available hotels; somewhat out in the suburbs but next to a train station, and a little more expensive than planned but still bearable. So we’ll get two conferences for the price of one…

I can’t understand how one could travel in the dark ages before the Internet…

John Walkenbach writes the J-Walk Blog, which is one of my all-time favorite weblogs. Today was a typical day for John, linking to Pencil Ads, Guitars for Girls, Baby Names, Advances in Wine Cork Technology, The WD-40 FAQ, and Satan’s Laundromat, to cite just a few. I could go on and on…

Today’s favorite is “Who’s on first” by Lincoln Spector:

Ultimate SuperDuper Computer Store. Can I help you?

Thanks. I’m setting up a home office in the den, and I’m thinking of buying a computer.

Mac?

No, the name is Bud.

Your computer?

I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.

Mac?

I told you, my name is Bud.

What about Windows?

Why? Does it get stuffy?

Do you want a computer with Windows?

I don’t know. What do I see when I look out the windows?

Wallpaper.

… {two pages of this snipped}

Hello? Hello? Customers! Why do they always hang up on me? Oh, well. Ultimate SuperDuper Computer Store. Can I help you?

Posted by Ronaldo:
Well, I read Dune again every three years or so. The books are so well written, that every time it feels like I’m reading them again for the first time, finding new meanings in the text. I think the epic is so multifaceted that you can always look at it in a different way each time. I just wish Herbert had completed the seventh book though.

I’m so busy, I absolutely had to post this one .

codepoetry pointed me at 0xDECAFBAD who writes (“courtesy of purl”, whatever that means)

I must not attend meetings. Meetings are the mind killer. Meetings are the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my meeting. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the wasted time has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

If this is absolute gibberish to you, you haven’t read Frank Herbert’s Dune, or any of its sequels. I wish I could read it again for the first time…