A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

V.'s Commentary on Video Games

I simply could not have said it better, so I won't even try. Read this.

V, we have to talk about FFXI, by the way. I have resisted playing the game, but now that I know someone who plays, I may have to reconsider.

High Speed Amphibians

Gibbs Aquada | Homepage

The Gibbs Aquada, the first High-Speed Amphibian Vehicle, is a marvel of technology. It goes up to 160 km/h on land and 50 km/h on the water, which is the world speed record for cars on the water. It is also about $250 000 USD. And you need both car and marine insurance to operate it. For those with more money than sense. Even more interesting is the picture of the evil frog here. To enlarge, click it.

"Mwah-hah-hahhh. It is only a matter of time, now."

You do not need GMail

via Joe Grossberg: I have been wondering why people are so into GMail. So has this guy (the comments are what it's about). And Derek said: "‘Cause you have to be “invited” to get one. It’s like a secret club. It is far better than hotmail or yahoo mail." A lot of the early comments say this in many different ways. It's a damn good marketing gimmick. And even if it has a better UI (that's user interface, for the non-techies) that has pretty much nothing to do with why most people are using or would use it. But if you insist on having it, then Derek seems to have found a way to get an invite.

You're all sheep.

Brain Surgery

via Warren Ellis of Die Puny Humans: Inspirational entry of the day goes to Jeannine, also known as Neener.

Neener is having brain surgery today to fix her Chiari 1 malformation. This is basically what happens when your cerebellum protrudes into your spinal column, like a hernia. Not surprisingly, this can cause all kinds of problems. What's scary about it is that not only is there a congenital version, but there are acquired versions of this as well, so without reading too much about it, it means that this could happen to you. Of course, if I had to have brain surgery, I wouldn't mind having a party much like Neener's the other night.

What I really liked was the symbolism of everyone shaving their head at the end of the party, although I could understand how some people might feel uncomfortable with this. Yes, I am thinking of one in particular.

Well, Jeannine, good luck. I'll try to catch updates on your husband's blog.

Wankers are Japanese, not British

I love Japan, even if the Japanese are all aliens.
Wanking Tandem Wanking

It's not the fact that they are talking about masturbation in both articles. They could be talking about just about anything and I would laugh. I simply love the way these contributors write. "Playing the banjo"? Classic.

How to crush an 18-wheeler without noticing

Where can you find a vehicle that uses so much fuel that it isn't even measured in miles per gallon, but in gallons per mile?

Also, from Gizmodo, possibly the most beautiful science images of the year. Nanoflowers.

Reagan "defamed"

This reporter embodies all those bimbo stereotypes. And she doesn't even know what defamed means.

Should Rick Garcia have left that message in the memory book? Was it appropriate? Should Julie Staley have reacted differently? Were her actions questionable?

Crazy Japanese

Sex on brain sends guys screwy

Some highlights:

"My job has me doing sales calls all day, so whenever I take a break it's always in a fast food joint," a 37-year-old furniture salesman tells Spa! "I'm always surrounded by teenage girls and my mind becomes a harem. It's sheer delight to burn an impression of these girls into my mind, then head off to the bathroom to relieve myself in more ways than one. I find that by the time I make it to the toilet, I'm almost near a climax anyway."

Have you ever seen Japanese porn? It's...well, sick. And if you think the teen genre in North American porn is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. I once said that most men can tell the difference between reality and fantasy, but under the right circumstances, maybe that isn't so easy. Clearly I wasn't thinking about Japanese men. Even better:

"In my imagination at least, I've raped every single one of the women working under me. They're no good at their jobs, so I figure they've got to be of use to their boss in some way."

Oh, those crazy Japanese. You know those night schools that they have in Japan for kids to get on the fast track to some school? One mother, apparently known for her great parenting skills, killed her own son when he refused to attend school 16 hours a day. Apparently child abuse is on the rise in Japan these days.

The thing I like most about this site are the headlines. "Hopelessly Hirsute Fry Fur for More Feminine Feel". "College for specs braniacs into courses and sex maniacs' intercourses".

All of these stories are interestingly perverse. I like this one: "Senior slaying pops age limit on crimes of passion".

"Everybody else in the home hated us for living together. We wanted to get out of there and into a home of our own, but things didn't work out. We thought when they changed rooms around, we wouldn't be able to live together anymore. I didn't want to leave him, so I thought it'd be best to kill him," Shukan Shincho quotes Suzuki as telling the police when admitting to the killing. "I choked him with my apron strings. But he opened his eyes and looked to be in such great pain, so I gave up that idea and suffocated him with a pillow instead....'Hayashi-san was also pretty close to other women in the home,' Shukan Shincho quotes Suzuki as telling the police. "I thought that if we were separated, he would begin seeing those other women. I couldn't bare that, so I decided to kill him."

I guess I'd be called Parker-san in Japan. I like that.

Man Hands

A man's hands tell if he's good in the sack

This is interesting. It's an article with women imagining that a man driving or typing would know how to massage breasts, or double-click their mice.

Men who occasionally allowed their tongues to poke out of their mouths mid-conversation were also viewed in a surprisingly favorable light.

"It shows he likes cunnilingus," a 28-year-od housewife exclaims to Spa! "He likes oral for sure. When he does that, he's trying to send you a message that he really likes licking."

I always thought that those guys were just a little slow.

Guilty bystander gets 15

CBC News:15 years for murdered girl's stepmother

This is a little scary. A woman who did nothing while her husband killed, dismembered and attempted to hide the body of his 5-year-old daughter got what she deserved: 15 years in the slammer. I wonder how people tried to rationalize her actions. They must have thought that she was paralyzed with fear. That's what the defense lawyer said. She was "portrayed...as a victim of two abusive, arranged marriages."

Those fucking ethnics.

Being Bilingual Bolsters Brain

I guess my father was right to teach me French and English.

Cousins

Some thoughts on cousins:

I now know how first and second cousins twice removed and such, work. After consulting this page, I now understand everything (as long as there is no trangenerational coupling).

What this means is that most familial relationships can be thought of in terms of cousinhood. 0th cousin, 0 times removed has a special name: brother or sister. When they have children, they are your 0th cousins, once removed, better known as nieces and nephews. If they are yours (or more generally, from your branch) then they are sons and daughters. Your grandfather's brother is simply your first cousin, twice removed.

When you go back in time generationally, your ancestors increase exponentially, but of course this isn't true, because that would mean that there would be more unique people on the planet at one time than there have ever been. People marrying their cousins was common, not because there were fewer taboos then, but because there were fewer people then. It was a big deal to meet someone from another village a even few hundred years ago, and there weren't even half a billion people anywhere 2500 years ago. Incidentally, the product of a union of first cousins is related to its parents by being their first cousin, once removed. The product of a union between brother and sister is related to its parents by being their 0th cousin, once removed, or niece/nephew.

This leads to a pretty convenient naming system then. For any two people, they are nth cousins, m times removed. Special cases:

1. n=0, m=0: brother/sister;
2. n=0, m=1: son/daughter (same branch) niece/nephew or aunt/uncle (different branch);
3. n=1, m=0: first cousins;
4. n=0, m=2: grandparents/grandchildren (same ancestor, same branch) OR great-aunt/uncle, grandniece/nephew (same ancestor, different branch);
5. m=0: nth cousins;
6. n=0: great-great-...grandparents/children OR great-great-great aunt/uncle, or niece/nephew (notice the extra "great" there).

   Pretty cool. If there are mistakes, let me know.

   Posted by JonasParker at 12:51 PM | TrackBack

Postings II

People who know me know that I like (or dislike) particular numbers. Sometimes I like them because they are prime, or perfect, or simply important to our daily lives. Some seem to think that these observations about numbers are particularly brilliant, but they are nothing more than what we all learned in Grades 7-9.

This page, however, shows the importance of numbers up to 9999. It's like a wet dream to me. For instance, the mundane number 26 is not mundane at all: it is the ONLY number to lie between a perfect square and a perfect cube. Prepare to be intrigued. I can feel your intrigue already, yes I can.

I simply cannot get enough of this beach volleyball game. I haven't made it past level 5, which is when you get the password to see them play topless, but it's worth it even without the cartoon titties.

And another sign-making site, this time with an interesting backstory. Lcpl Ted Boudreaux took a picture with a couple of Iraqi children last year. What the sign originally said is unclear, but the most popular one is that "Lcpl Boudreaux killed my dad and knocked up my sister!". I would like to think that an alternate one is the reality: "Lcpl Boudreaux saved my dad and rescued my sister!". But the probable truth is, I doubt we'll never know.

Last, but not least: one of the last US CIVIL WAR widows died recently at the age of 97. This is very interesting. This woman married her neighbour in 1927 at the age of 21. The neighbour was already an 81-year-old Civil War vet with children and ganrchildren of his own. The two of them had a son in 1928, and the old man died in 1931. Two months later she married her husband's grandson, or her step-grandson. They were together for more than 50 years.

Now that creates an interesting family tree. Her first son (by the vet) is now her second husband's uncle. Her (step)grandson is the (step)father of her first son. But her grandson's father is her (step)son. or something like that.

But it gets better. Her second son by her second husband is her first son's brother, obviously. But the brothers are also great-uncle and grandnephew. And it gets more complicated. That's why people shouldn't have children transgenerationally.

I'm a pervert

Like Jailbait?

I think I only got about half of these, so I am technically some kind of pervert I suppose. I wonder if women would score higher. This isn't really an fair test, because it assumes that all men look at are a woman's thoracic and abdominal areas. I could have scored much higher if I had been able to see their faces.

But I do get their point. Girls are sexualized, there is a double standard that is damaging for everyone. Girls are supposed to be chaste and wholesome, but there aren't any famous "role models" out there that do not dress in a sexy way, or act in what many would consider a slutty manner (which isn't usually a fair thing to say, but that's a pretty popular opinion). Men are not supposed to think "that way" about someone who looks 25 when they are 17, and if they do, there is surely something wrong with them. Or at least that is what Susan Faludi or Andrea Dworkin would have you believe.

The major problem I have with this site is that he can't spell "hypocrisy". Almost no one can it seems, though.

Outdated Laws

Looking at the stupid laws that are out there these days, you might expect to have places like Alabama that has things still on the books like the original Rule of Thumb: "It is illegal for a husband to beat his wife with a stick larger in diameter than his thumb." (Jasper) Or this respectful gem: "It is unlawful to howl at ladies inside the city limits."

In Blythe, California: "You are not permitted to wear cowboy boots unless you already own at least two cows." Somehow this makes sense. In San Francisco: "Persons classified as "ugly" may not walk down any street." And they saw fit not to repeal this one. How is it that it is highly unacceptable to discriminate against those that are homotranswhatever (especially there), but "ugly" people can't walk down the street? I would really like to know the origin of that law.

You would expect to have laws that make sense in places like New York State. You'd be wrong. Because the penalty for jumping off a building is death. This seems to apply to any building, even a shack ten feet high. Death!

Here's a beauty: "A fine of $25 can be levied for flirting. This old law specifically prohibits men from turning around on any city street and looking "at a woman in that way." A second conviction for a crime of this magnitude calls for the violating male to be forced to wear a "pair of horse-blinders" wherever and whenever he goes outside for a stroll." That I'd love to see.

Another thing about Alabama: "Women are able to retain all property they owned prior to marriage in the case of divorce. However, this provision does not apply to men." A rightfully bitter coworker says that the same law is her as well. This means that men specifically are not guaranteed to keep their property after a divorce, but women are. This is probably true in lots of places. If I ever find more specifics about this kind of bullshit, I'll write more about this. Needless to say, getting married, legally speaking, gives men little incentive.

Postings I

$87,000,000,000.00

That's a lot of money isn't it? Click the link to get a perspective on it.

Who wants to adopt a genius? Even I would be willing to learn her language just to hang out with her, or rather, her parents, since this performance prodigy is only three years old.

Royal Bank Royally Screws Up

Royal Bank Snafu Screws Millions out of Pay

Myself included. I was supposed to get paid yesterday, but nothing so far. This appears to me to me a total meltdown of their transaction systems. They say that I won't get hit for NSF charges or anything. I'll believe that when I see it.

UPDATE 6/6/04: They said that everything is back to normal for virtually all customers, myself included. About fucking time.