the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows
From Japan Today:
Seventy-nine percent of people polled in Japan said they support a female monarch on the imperial throne, far outnumbering 4% who are against it, and 16% who said they are ambivalent to the idea, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said Tuesday.
There’s some good news for Koizumi in that article, too.
I previously mentioned the possibility of a female imperial ruler. To be honest, I think it would be neat. Maybe not as neat as a female prime minister…
The title of the article is “Taxman pays teen girl to fondle her breasts“. However, later in the article we see that
Morimoto paid the third-year junior high school girl 20,000 yen to let him fondle her breasts at a karaoke box in Yokohama’s Nishi-ku at about 3 p.m. on Sept. 11 last year.
So, you see, the tax man didn’t pay the teen girl to fondle her breasts. He paid her to let him fondle her breasts.
Sheesh!
From Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough:
The latest example of TV network self-censorship because of FCC concerns came a few weeks ago during a rerun of a “Family Guy” cartoon. Fox electronically blurred a character’s posterior, even though the image was seen five years ago when the episode originally aired.
“We have to be checking and second-guessing ourselves now,” Fox entertainment president Gail Berman said Monday. “We have to protect our affiliates.”
Everything should just go to cable. Or, better yet, programming on demand. People could just order whatever shows they feel like watching, whenever they want them.
David Pescovitz of BoingBoing links today to a lengthy profile of Aubrey de Grey. I previously mentioned his essay on why humans can live to be 1,000.
For reasons that his memory cannot now retrieve, de Grey has been convinced since childhood that aging is, in his words, “something we need to fix.”
Fascinating guy, that de Grey.
According to weather.com, it’s:
and it
So yeah, I’m not biking to work today.
I am driving, though, and I’d better, like, leave now.
According to this article on MSNBC, a 13-volume report has been submitted to the UN that indicates that if all nations meet their promised amount of development assistance to poor countries–0.7% of each nation’s gross national income–then extreme poverty would be eliminated by 2025.
I literally started to cry when I read this.
“PCs and lifestyle”? It makes it sound like English is my second language ;P
MSN and c|net are having something of a torrid affair, I guess. Here’s an article they collaborated on. It’s about PCs that fit a room’s design.
At the end of the article they link to another one.
Is that a Media Center PC–or an end table?
My hand hurts, so I don’t feel like retyping all the crazy thoughts these articles gave me. Instead, I’ll just paste part of my chat with Brooke. Sorry for the laziness.
me (15:02:27): I’m reading some articles about designing furniture to hide PCs
me (15:02:43): there was a show I saw YEARS ago where someone had designed their living room to be a home theater
Brooke (15:02:48): oh yeah? neat!
Brooke (15:02:54): I’ve seen those; they’re really cool
me (15:03:04): and all the electronics and stuff was hidden behind beautiful wood panels
me (15:03:11): but my favorite part was the coffee table
me (15:03:16): it had built-in controls for EVERYTHING
me (15:03:27): with like a mini LCD screen or something
me (15:03:52): I’m thinking it would be nice to have a specially designed coffee table with a fold-up section that would reveal a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
Brooke (15:03:56): oh NICE
Brooke (15:04:00): heheheheheh :-)
me (15:04:06): you know, it doesn’t have to be especially fancy
me (15:04:15): just so it looks nice, and hides the peripherals ;>
me (15:04:26): you know what I also think would be cool…a recipe PC
me (15:04:29): for in the kitchen
me (15:04:39): of course, this is more silly
me (15:04:55): but it would have its own little printer so it could print recipes on 4X6 cards
me (15:05:05): and also a little LCD screen if you just wanted to look at it on there
me (15:05:20): and I think it should be able to access web databases of recipes…maybe through a subscription service
me (15:05:24): surfing the web would be too dangerous for that
me (15:05:32): you wouldn’t want to get a virus in your dinky little recipe PC
me (15:05:41): it wouldn’t even really be a PC, more of a function box
me (15:05:45): is there a word for that?
me (15:05:49): :>
Brooke (15:06:11): there’s one, now……. ;-)
Brooke (15:06:17): recipe pc
me (15:06:24): it could be connected to the house’s server, and all the recipes and things could be stored there
me (15:06:33): so basically, I’m thinking it would be a dumb terminal
me (15:06:53): man, there are so many cool things you can do with computers
me (15:07:04): I’d like to integrate them better into my lifestyle
me (15:07:14): right now if I want to do anything on them I have to come into the office
me (15:07:24): I’d like to have more convenience for tasks that I find useful elsewhere
me (15:08:30): “The design company’s other prototype is a wall-mounted system with a removable 12-inch LCD screen; it can be managed from a distance with a remote control, or the screen can be detached to function as a tablet for someone relaxing on a couch. Becker said the idea is to have a display option suited to traditional PC tasks such as e-mail and Web surfing, tasks that are often clumsy at best when executed via the screen of a TV set.“For the most part, Media Center is geared toward media,” he said. “The idea with this is that you can also bring some of those common PC functions to the couch.””
me (15:08:32): see, that’s kinda neat
From Cornell News:
A Cornell University research group has made a sweet and environmentally beneficial discovery — how to make plastics from citrus fruits, such as oranges, and carbon dioxide.
I love science!!
…and the Life of Riley archives are available. No new comics, yet, unless you count Dreams in Digital, which I have no interest in whatsoever.
But it’s still nice to see that they’ve finally got their website working.
From the new FAQ:
Q1 :: What happend to the Life of Riley (LOR) Comic?
A1 :: LOR has been around for over four years now and there is much more we want to do with the current story line. However, after ***MUCH*** deliberation it was decided that we are going to take an indefinate hiatus on the LOR project until we can dedicate the time we feel it deserves.
I’m looking forward to LoR’s return :) Click here for the main ClanBOB homepage.
I have to do something. We’re at a standstill right now. We can’t move forward. All we can do is maintain the status quo.
Sometimes I think I would be glad to get another job, any job, just so we’d have more income. But when I actually go looking, I usually dislike the idea of actually doing the jobs I feel I remotely have a shot at getting. I apply anyway, and I do my best to tailor my resume, and I never get called. (Or I do get called, and go through a bunch of interviews, and then end up not having enough experience after all, something you’d think they could have weeded out by looking at my resume…)
Today I was so depressed at the thought of all the things I want and can’t have due to money that I went to bed for several hours. As I was lying there trying to go to sleep and get everything off my mind, I thought, “I need to decide what I want to do, and then do something about it every day.” But all I could think of as I drifted off was “learn Japanese”. I don’t think there is a whole lot of demand for that here in Augusta.
I had an idea recently, and I’m still considering it, but there’s a startup cost involved that may very well be prohibitive. I could host it on this webspace, but that would limit my space and other options. Even if I got it all set up, I would have to spend money in order to gather the content (I don’t want to be specific here, in case I actually end up doing it). Bleh.
But I need to do something.
Damn it.
I was going to go to Kentucky this coming weekend to put my dog out of her misery, but it seems that she isn’t actually miserable. She is still able to eat and go to the restroom. She hasn’t lost any weight. She still goes up and down the stairs, on her three remaining legs. She still gets excited when Ben arrives at the house (he’s the one who always gives dog treats). She still licks the plates when the family’s through eating. Every now and then, she’ll show signs of discomfort due to the bulbous tumor sticking out of the side of her face, but these moments do not dominate her life.
She is still happy.
And so I have asked Mom to let me know if things get worse for her, if she gets weak or unhappy or begins suffering continual pain. If and when one of those things happens, it will be time to let her go. But I can’t justify putting her down over some slight discomfort that doesn’t even really interfere with her lifestyle.
I feel like I’ve been put through a wringer.
From Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough:
A 66-year-old Romanian woman gave birth to a baby girl Sunday after years of fertility treatment and was claimed by Romanian media to be the world’s oldest mother ever.
Yep, that’ll be me. Old and gray, and dying when my kids get to high school (optimistically).
Won’t that be great?
Via BoingBoing, here’s a cool site called Hanzi Smatter that discusses silly Westerners getting Chinese characters tattooed on themselves without knowing what they mean. The most recent post has some hilarious video clips from an NBC sitcom.
Jeff recently discussed this phenomenon on Sushicam.
From the PvP blog:
Many of you have heard of the hit comic strip Megatokyo, but how many of you know that the strip was originally created by a team. Rodney Caston, aka largo, was the original writer of Megatokyo before Fred Gallagher, aka Piro, took the strip over full time.
Rodney is local to the Dallas Fort Worth area. He’s a good friend. Wek keep in touch but don’t see each other as often as we should. Such is the way of adult life, I guess. That’s something I need to correct.
Anyway, I just got news that Rodney and his wife, Ruby, are expecting their first child. So everbody lift a virtual mug and join me in toast! Congrats guys, we’re all extremely happy for you.
Luckily, this is one of Rodney’s creations that Fred can’t steal out from under him.
Oh yeah…I went there.
Ha!
(Yes, I remember when Rodney left. That was when Megatokyo stopped being funny.)