Well, at least my blog is migrating. I'm posting more and more over on my personal website, so LJ is often getting the short end of the stick. I'll probably cross-post the occasional article, or at least a link, but if you want to stay in contact, you should add grobyunplugged to your friends list.

And here's the promised link: Todays' article is about beautiful sculptures based on math operations. (For the graphics geeks - includes picture of cast-iron Voronoi network)

Ah, another treaty brought to you by a great administration. The Cliff's Notes version: We allow other nations to enforce their laws, and we get the same in return. Never mind if their laws and our laws clash.

I could go into more detail, but I've already written it up on my other blog.

For various reasons (explanation soon) most of my writing will move over there. I'll have to investigate a solution how to channel this back to LJ so I don't have to leave you guys... Any suggestions appreciated!

And, what's even better, I didn't splurge on it. No sir! Not a single cent. And it's still unlimited fun. If you've ever wanted to waste some time on the net, it's exactly what you're looking for - a movie poster generator. More details and pretty pictures (with cats!) ( behind the cut )

And if you're really bored, they have even more flickr-related toys.

Enjoy! (What can I say - I'm easily amused...)

Halloween is nigh! Repent! No, wait - that's a different topic. So let's not repent. Instead, let's celebrate! And part of celebrating Halloween is having a Jack-o-Lantern. A nicely carved pumpkin that scares everybody to death.

As a non-US born person, I've never done this before. I'm mystified. If you feel the same, or are just wanting to explore cool new carving patterns, or simply want to be an expert pumpkin carver, there's a website with all the info. I shall have a most awesome pumpkin this year!

And in case you're wondering were that nifty little icon came from: It's part of a free icon set at the Iconfactory

Context: Long discussion about feminism, sexism. Topic brought up: Why is it socially acceptable for women to wear pants, but not for men to wear skirts. The point I am trying to make: There's not much interest in changing this, so it's probably going to stay that way for a long time.

My quote:

Educating the public that clothing shouldn't
matter - let's just say it's an uphill battle.

Some people just have a way with words....

I'm busy right now, so only a quick link to a funny webpage... "How to turn your hamster into a fighting machine". Necessary knowledge for desperate times.

Just wanted to share a wonderful piece of e-mail with you:

Hey guys,

I'm trying to start up a grassroots movement. If you have a string of
(Mardi Gras) beads, wear them for the next few weeks in honor of the
loss of New Orleans and Biloxi and other places hit by Katrina

Uh. Yes. That's a brilliant idea. At the same time, I'd like to ask all women between 21 and 35 to randomly flash people, symbolizing their connection with the newly homeless.

Sometimes, I really wonder....

Anyways, if you actually want to do something about this, how about donating to the American Red Cross.

Or, in case their website is still struggling, call 1-800-HELP-NOW.

Glass beads, indeed.

Ok. I'm a geek I guess. Got my first "first post" on slashdot and actually consider that newsworthy. I so need to get a life.

(No - nothing profound. Just bitching, as usual ;)

As you've all heard by now, I'm sure, Google Desktop Search 2.0 is out.. Here's what Reuters had to say.

The heart of the system is a tall, rectangular "sidebar" with a set of panels that provide glimpses into the latest "live" information of interest to the user. It actively learns from each move a user makes to personalize what is featured.

"Hi, I'm your search assistant. It looks like you're looking for porn right now?"

"We really want to have people be able to sit back and watch the Web come to them,"

Yep, I can imagine that. Much easier to sell ads to a passive audience.

Innovative features include a headline syndication system that adds Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds of frequently visited sites, without any special user intervention

And why would I want this? Just because I visit a site frequently doesn't mean I want it in my feed list. I am actually capable of adding it myself if I want to.

Google Desktop Search 1.0 was a pain. (Resource hog, no search for file names, etc...). 2.0 looks bad enough that it won't reach my hard drive at work. And I don't need it at home - that's what I've got OSX for ;)

Once more, I'm waking from the dead and return to my blogging habits. Hopefully, this time I'll stay a bit longer. I'm sorry, but I was quite tapped out and felt like there was nothing to say, not even funny remarks.

In the unfunny department, I just posted an article on killing WinCE help topics

On the funny front, I give you:

The Penguin Bitchslap

( Animated GIF )

I give you, verbatim from their RSS feed:

'Teleporting' over the Internet in our lifetime?

Also: BBC to launch free media player

Being the eternal optimist that I am, I got tickets for "Batman Begins" - after all, the previous didn't look to bad. Oh boy. You would've thought I learned from the previous four.

First of all - I know that acting has sort of gone out of style in Hollywood, but this one was on par with Star Wars. Second, there used to be this whole "story" thing in movies. We don't really need that any more, I guess. Haphazardly connected events with plot holes rivaling pot holes on Chicago Streets in spring seem to be enough to carry a movie if you've got a franchise to sell on. And to top it all off, the events progress at the pace of an aging snail after an opulent meal.

So maybe the visuals? It's all in the visuals, right? It's a stylish experience? Sorry, but no. There was the attempt at it, to be sure, and some of the visuals were well done. But overall, the style was inconsistent and just plain overdone. (Hey, you GOTTA have 'production values' for a summer movie, I guess...)

Even that would have been forgivable, if it had been an action flick. Unfortunately, there's the fact that all the fighting scenes are horrible. For every single fight, we go close up (it's a wonder that we don't creep up the characters nostrils), it has to be a hand-held cam so it's nice and shaky, and more than a second before a cut seems completely unacceptable. Result: You have no idea what's going on in that fight. It's obviously a bunch of people beating each other up, and that's that.

Kudos to Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine though - against incredible odds, they deliver a good performance. It's sad that the best performance comes from supporting characters, though...

In summary - if you haven't been to it yet, save your money.

I've got a nice littleFlash game for y'alls. That is, if you can live with a little bit of gratuitous violence...

Fresh from Japan, the newest creepy toy: A cat robot. Also good for those of us with allergies...

The worst part? I feel tempted to get one...

So I've been comment-spammed. Not a big deal - happens to a lot of people. You just hit the delete button, and you're done. However, this was positively entertaining comment spam. I fell almost of my chair laughing, so here are the two choicest quotes from it:

"Meanwhile, we should devote as much time to studying serious theology as we devote to studying serious fairies and serious unicorns."

(Suggesting we spend more time on studying poker instead... :)
And, of course, the best one:

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."

I'll still delete comment spam, but I must say I enjoyed getting this one. Obviously, the effect of all those spam filters is that spammers have to write almost meaningful comments. This is getting good ;)

In an attack of California Beauty Consciousness(tm), I've decided it's about time to recapture the lost feeling of being in high school - I got myself braces. It' so much fun I already started counting down days till I can get rid of them again...

Not jat jish ish important newsh - I jusht felt like sharing.

My old employer, Midway, has recently announced they're doing five new games based on Cartoon Network properties. I'm saddened to hear it. I mean, it's bad enough that this industry is already flush with license-based games (that quite often make you gag for their lack of ideas).

But Auqa Teen Hunger Force?.

I'm sorry - that seems destined to be a flop. Yes, it does have a loyal following - but it's a rather small group. Don't believe me, ask Google. About 63,000 hits. (And I've been generous and haven't quoted the search term!)

A property like GTA gets about 1.3 million hits. But lets look at slightly more obscure things. Midways own "Shadow Hearts", by no means a hugely successful title, garners 234,000 hits.

I'm surprised - when I left, the new CEO seemed to be lining things up nicely, and the stock performance certainly reflected that over the last couple of months. I hope I'm wrong - I certainly don't want my friends to be out of work.

[Edit]
grahamwest points out that my search query contained a typo - it's Aqua "Teen", not Aqua "Team". That moves it up to about 200K hits. It's still below Shadow Hearts, which got about 70,000 sales - my point still stands. The number of hits compares to shows such as "Just Shoot Me!"

It's niche. Yes, it targets male adults in the magic age range. (18-24). It definitely has a chance.

But the only TV-show based games I know of that sold well is "The Simpsons". "Road Rage" as well as "Hit&Run" - but that show is wildly more popular than ATHF. (About 3 million hits - 15 times as many)

My prediction stands - this is not going to be a smash hit.

(Crossposted to my new site www.robertblum.com)

Not quite, not quite. You notice how this always was the Temporary Home of the Rant? For a long time, I've been fiddling with setting up my own website, and I finally succeeded in setting it up.

Does that mean I'm leaving all the friends I found here on LJ? Au contraire, my dear - it just means I'll take the boring posts about programming and math off here. You'll still have to suffer through my political ideas, random musings, and the odd haircut picture.

In case you do want to check out the new place, it's www.robertblum.com. What will you find there? Almost nothing, except a short article on decomposing matrices. Unless that's actually a topic that interests you, you might want to stay away - it can put you to sleep easily :)

AdCritic Interactive: "ACLU Pizza" (Via Jon's Radio.)

The ACLU movie is certainly scary - and true, to an extent. There are a couple of pizza delivery services that do get your address from caller ID. (And it's extremely convenient :).

The really interesting part is the reference to Memeflow, though - using del.icio.us and bloglines to measure the popularity of a particular idea. (I'll start calling it "meme" once I've proactively realized all the synergetic potential of the global village - or something like that)

It's the same underlying idea. The only difference, for now, is that bloglines and del.icio.us aggregate. Sort of. If you have an account at del.icio.us, I'll be able to see most of your bookmarks - and get quite a lot of info about your likes and dislikes.

That's the problem - shared information is incredibly powerful, but it's very hard to limit its uses. No matter what safeguards you put on it, someone, somewhere, will share some of that information without permission. (Yes, Chicago DMV, that would probably be YOU!)

I guess it's true what they say - information wants to be free. Just make sure that the pieces that are important to your privacy stay in a maximum security prison.

Just a quick ping, letting you all know I'm still alive. I've been drowned in thousands of different things, but am getting close to having a semblance of a live.
Amongst the things that were necessary to get me back to the living:

• Cutting back on my RSS feeds. Really - 150+ is too much. It hurts, though. I'm waiting for a news reader that provides a Bayesian filter to bring things to my attention I might like.


• Cutting back on mailing lists. I don't exactly need to follow what the Chicago Agile Developers Group is doing, or how the Chicago LJ meetup is planned.


• Focus. I've started tracking how much time I spend at work, both working and non-working. Cranking up the working percentage allows me to get stuff done and leave earlier.


• And finally, strangely enough, adding something to my task list. I've taken up ballet classes again (so much for "I'll never dance again"...), and it truly energizes me. Well, unless I'm so sore I can't move - but even then I'm too wound up to wither away in front of the TV. My "must-read" pile shrunk significantly.

So, hopefully, I'll be able to focus a bit more energy on my LJ again. See you all around!