Give That Man A Research Grant

Len Sassaman's Orkut "about me" statement gave me a good chuckle:

Some day, I will invent a machine that turns all marxists into ants. Then, we will all be happy.

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The semicolon always seemed a bit queer to me, too

A stray semicolon has slowed an injunction to stop the San Francisco same-sex marriage-a-thon. The LA Times writes 2nd S.F. Judge Delays Ruling on Gay Marriages:

Superior Court Judge James Warren told plaintiffs late this afternoon that they would likely succeed on the merits of their case but said he would not issue a court order until they corrected a punctuation error in their legal filing.

"I am not trying to be petty here, but it is a big deal That semicolon is a big deal," Warren told attorneys, according to an account by Associated Press.

In documents filed with the court, the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund had requested a court order that would force the city "cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to and/or solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples; to show cause before this court."

"The way you've written this it has a semicolon where it should have the word 'or'," the judge said. "I don't have the authority to issue it under these circumstances."

;)

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There are 10 kinds of people... (extended edition!)

At O'Reilly Network, I write: There are 10 kinds of people... (extended edition!) [2018-07-02: O'Reilly broke link, & worse, made it a redirect, so link here updated to grab from Internet Archive]

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Gojomo: Two Full Years Ahead of Wired News In Headline Pun Technology

Wired News, February 10, 2004: Please Don't Squeeze the Sharman

Gojomo on the O'Reilly Network, January 21, 2002: Copyright Industries: Don't Squeeze the Sharman!

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Bitzi Bitcollider 0.6.0 Released

Bitzi has released version 0.6.0 of our Bitcollider utility.

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Don Asmussen Returns

After a too-long vacation, the SF Chronicle's hilariously hallucinogenic current-event cartoonist Don Asmussen is back with 2 panels this week...

a mash-up of NASA mishaps and Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction"

an in-depth exegesis of John Kerry's (intermittently) furrowed brow

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I'm not easily squicked, but...

New Scientist: Pig-human chimeras contain cell surprise

Pig-human chimeras have pig cells, human cells, AND novel fused cells containing mixed pig-human nuclei. And those fused cells can catch pig viruses that previously haven't crossed the species barrier.

It's a trans-species viral superhighway!

I wonder if they're testing these part-human pigs for above-average-pig intelligence. At some point I picture one of the pigs -- let's call him Wilbur -- surprising the experimenters with a fully vocalized "what the hell do you think you're doing?"

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Lycos says: Janet Jackson Superbowl Breast Stunt Biggest Search Topic Ever

Lycos 50 Daily Report: Janet Jackson Makes History

It's staggering -- the risque superbowl halftime stunt generated more followup searches at Lycos, and presumably other search engines, than any other event, including the September 11 attacks.

We've seen the surge at Bitzi, but only starting late Monday night, when this page of user-reported info about a janet jackson superbowl breast stunt JPEG suddenly became a top hit at a major search engine.

We got the largest inrush of browsing traffic in our history soon after midnight... and that was only the beginning. By the morning, we'd hit our hosting bandwidth cap (quickly upped) and at one point were running at 15 times our usual bandwidth usage. That would have been even higher, if not for the predictable server problems which are revealed by such a flash flood.

Other files -- animated gifs, videos of various formats, alternate photos and even doctored remixes -- were also reported to our catalog. As of this writing, some of our top local search hits for janet jackson superbowl include:

1. janet_jackson_superbowl_breast_video_clip.wmv / 570850 (557.5KB)
2. janet_jackson_superbowl_breast_animated_tiny.gif / 452793 (442.2KB)
3. janet_jackson_superbowl_breast_plus_justin_timberlake_photo.jpg / 885062 (864.3KB)
4. janet_jackson_superbowl_breast_collage_photo.jpg / 49258 (48.1KB)
5. remix_superbowl_janet_jackson_breast_justin_timberlake_doctored_animated.gif / 343175 (335.1KB)
6. r2794264459 Janet Jackson Tittie Photo Super Bowl XXXVIII Tit Boob.jpg / 20269 (19.8KB)
7. Janet Jackson's breast superbowl 35 halftime 2004.mpeg / 1081348 (1.0MB)
8. Janet Jackson's Breast Exposed Superbowl 2004 Video Clip.mpg / 3021200 (2.9MB)
9. Janet Jackson boob, breast slip, paste - Justin Timberlake rips off her shirt, exposes her at Superbowl.wmv / 1482578 (1.4MB)
10. Janet Jackson boob, breast slip, paste - Justin Timberlake rips off her shirt, exposes her at Superbowl.avi / 1361920 (1.3MB)

I provide this information, of course, simply as a service to the readers of my blog, be they carbon- or silicon- based. Bitzi doesn't host these files, or any others, but is an increasingly reliable guide to what's floating around on P2P networks.

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