A site that breaks down the Mandarin phrases used in the Serenity universe. One of my favorites:
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"WUOshang mayer, maysheen, BYEN shr-to"
"I will close my ears and my heart and I will be a stone"
River, continuing to pray in Chinese after breaking into English [novelization, p. 207]
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. - William Hazlitt
links for 2009-02-28
New laptop (part 2)
So, with little hope but a "worth a shot" attitude, back to Best Buy I went. After a quick chat with the most helpful people at the Lohr Road (thanks Stefani and Ken!), I swapped the Dell for a MacBook (last of last year's models); never had to pull out a card.
So far, I'm still getting used to the MacBook. The keyboard layout is just different enough that I keep hitting the Caps Lock key instead of "a", and I do miss the backlit keyboard, but so far so good.
I've never actually owned a Mac before, so this is going to be an interesting trip.
2009 SXSW Music Is Out
Well, the seeds are up and available for your downloading pleasure. Get them here.
[via Metafilter]
links for 2009-02-23
"In one sense, all of this drooling rage is nothing more than the familiar face of extreme right-wing paranoia..."
This has to stop. Propaganda has changed to hate speech.
links for 2009-02-19
We LOVE the Netflix streaming service, but the Xbox fan running while watching is driving me nuts. This review isn't pushing me to buying another device, though.
(tags: netflix)
Pricing Fail
Fix this:
$0.99 x 10 < $9.99. I know it's less than a dime, but come on. How hard is it to write a check for this?
Diether Haenicke, former WMU president, dies at 73
I was never fortunate to meet him personally, but he authorized a grant for me to attend a writing conference (after being shot down hard by the Dean).
He was intensely dedicated to the University and it and the city were better for it. The entire system--and Kalamazoo in general--has lost one of it's great advocates.
Diether Haenicke, former WMU president, dies at 73
links for 2009-02-07
Convert a log from one type to another, such as a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 log to a Windows XP log, or a binary log file (.blg) to a comma-separated values (.csv) file.
In the event of light posting...
Be sure to check out my Google Reader Shared Items. That page has many of the posts I share, along with the occasional comment from yours truly. I post a lot more stuff to that link than the main page, so I encourage you to subscribe/bookmark/monitor that URL along with this fabulous page.
Confessions of a Closet Singer
I can, sort of, sing. By "sort of", I mean that I can hit notes with some accuracy within a fairly limited range. I can, sort of, do falsetto. I can add vibrato, if it's in my very limited range. Basically, I can sing anything baritone as long as it doesn't require, yah know, strength.
I have surprising power in the mid ranges. Ok, surprising to someone who doesn't or can't sing; not so surprising if you nailed lead on your high school Into The Woods audition. In a different vein, I have Open Mic Power; I can belt out that pop hit from the 90's like no one's business.
The unfortunate consequence of this is: I think I can sing. And I can't. I mean, I enjoy singing and nothing will really stop me from doing so. Well, accept an audience. I sing in the car, the den, when I think no one's listening. But I don't seek out venues to sing anymore.
To top it off, I'm a friggen prude about it too. I won't sing karaoke, I won't belt out in a public event with religious music (funerals or weddings), I don't even attempt anything atonal. I'm not A Singer, but I like to sing. I'm the singer in the closet, the shower crooner, a Pocket Elvis. (OK, maybe not Elvis... I can't dance.)
But I want to sing. It's seriously a bad thing. I think I can, I've heard that I can. I actually know that I can, in limited capacities (Kalamazoo '98 Open Mic!) But that was a decade and a lifetime ago.
Does that make me old, sad... both?
Em, come back
Guy Adams from The Independent tracks down Eminem (aka Marshall Mathers). A classic rise and fall story, but one that needs one more chapter. Come back, Slim, if not for yourself, then for Detroit. Lord knows that city needs a voice again.
What is that noisy IoT device on my network?
That's the first question that popped up when I installed AdGuard Home on my Raspberry Pi last night. Within minutes, hundreds of querie...

