Today I found myself looking for a public domain, Wikipedia-style blank map of Zimbabwe. Could I find one? Could I buggery. So... I the author of this work, hereby release this map of Zimbabwe into the public domain, worldwide. No guarantee is made or implied of completeness, correctness or fitness for any purpose. All possible liability is disclaimed, blah blah blah:
The Yazidi are a sect of Yazdanism, also known as the Cult of Angels, a pre-Islamic Kurdish religion, sharing some common mythology with other middle-eastern religions - Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity. Wikipedia describes their creation story:
The tale of the Yazidis' origin found in the Black Book gives them a distinctive ancestry and expresses their feeling of difference from other races. Before the roles of the sexes were determined, Adam and Eve quarreled about which of them provided the creative element in the begetting of children. Each stored their seed in a jar which was then sealed. When Eve's was opened it was full of insects and other unpleasant creatures, but inside Adam's jar was a beautiful boy-child. This lovely child, known as son of Jar grew up to marry a houri [pure/heavenly/delightful being] and became the ancestor of the Yazidis. Therefore, the Yazidi are regarded as descending from Adam alone, while other humans are descendants of both Adam and Eve.
So.. Here we have God's Image, Adam, whacking off into a jar over a childish "my peepee is better than your peepee" fight with his girlfriend, and he gets the jar pregnant. Suck on that one, Abrahamic religion :-)
Lovable crackpot Erich Anton Paul von Däniken had some theories on this story with the theme of extraterrestrials creating life on earth test tube-style, which is kinda interesting considering Rei Ayanami and her relationship to the angel Adam in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Hope nobody sprained an ankle in that leap. Evangelion is littered with symbols and code, much of it almost Christian but not quite, I'm wondering how much resonance there will be watching it again after learning more about the Cult of Angels.
Actually, this site is banned all over the world, from UAE to Boston. As many readers will be aware, Boston was recently a victim of a heinous plot to blow up the city, and everyone in it, using D batteries inside Mooninite Lite Brites. Police responded swiftly and decisively by blowing up a city traffic counter that treacherous actors unknown (in the transit department) had chained to a lamp post. So I understand why its necessary to take certain dangerous freedoms - such as reading this blog - away from the Boston public. I'm actually quite pleased to be Banned in Boston, even if only on municipal WiFi; it's a longstanding accolade of porn and progressive writing:
Boston was founded by Puritans in the early 17th century. Puritans held highly negative views regarding public exhibitions of sex. Boston's second major wave of immigrants, Irish Roman Catholics, also held conservative moral beliefs, particularly regarding sex.
In the late 19th century, American 'moral crusader' Anthony Comstock began a campaign to suppress "vice." He found widespread support in Boston, particularly among socially prominent and influential officials. Comstock was also known as the proponent of the Comstock Law, which prevented "obscene" materials from being delivered by the U.S. mail. Some critics have pointed out if the list of banned words were strictly enforced, then even the King James Version of the Bible would be unmailable.
Following Comstock's lead, Boston's city officials took it upon themselves to ban anything that they found to be salacious, inappropriate, or offensive. Aiding them in their efforts was a group of private citizens, the Boston Watch and Ward Society. Theatrical shows were run out of town, books were confiscated, and motion pictures were prevented from being shown; sometimes movies were stopped mid-showing, after an official had "seen enough". [Wikipedia Link]
As a regular user of the Net, it's often surprising to remember how repressive most countries continue to be. In Zimbabwe, my home country, homosexuality and all kinds of porn are still illegal due largely to the influence of the Catholic Church. The UK and US continue to have formal censorship boards for 'safeguarding public decency' that operate from guidelines laid down in the 1950's and '60s. The timing is important, these laws were created to enforce the patriarchy of a completely different culture than the one living under these laws today.
The UK Obscene Publications Acts of 1959 and 1964 inform the current British Board of Film Classification. Laws used to decide what the public should be allowed to see were laid down before the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, before the gay rights movement of the 80s, before the contraceptive pill was developed and before the advent of multiculturalism.
Melonfarmers.org maintains a list of the boards recent decisions. A telling excerpt about the previous chairman of the board, concerning Texas Chainsaw Massacre:
James Ferman, newly appointed secretary of the BBFC, was very influenced by [sensationalist] advance publicity. He convinced himself that there was no way that the sustained terrorisation of a young woman could have a beneficial effect on the British public. Well, correction here. He was worried about the effect on the British working class. After the film had been shown, uncensored, to members of the British Film Institute at the London Film Festival, Ferman got up on stage and, thinking he was among friends, said,
"It's all right for you middle-class cineastes to see this film, but what would happen if a factory worker in Manchester happened to see it?"
When they heard this gaffe, the audience became hostile, and Ferman was visibly shocked. He never again referred to the true nature of his job as a censor - to stop working class people being stimulated by controversial films. [link]
This situation today is little different, both in the UK and the US, and it's quite odd. Perhaps I live in a bubble of liberal thought, surrounded by easygoing, progressive people. Perhaps the cultural mainstream really does want to be cosseted from the 'depravity' and 'moral decay' of filmmakers.
I doubt it though. I look on with spanner wielding glee at a generation being raised with the internet, exposed to every variety of sexual preference and behavior through the daily spam in their email. Encountering porn and 'social deviance' constantly though childhood. I think they'll turn out just fine, and I wonder what they'll make of the censorship their parents and grandparents pushed on each other.
Jerry Falwell is dead. Oh well. All over the blogosphere there is much jubilation, as well as a sense that we don't really want to be celebrating the death of a fellow human being, even one so very foul and hateful. Falwell spread the most homophobic and intolerant interpretations of Christianity and helped shackle the Republican Party to religious fundamentalistm. PositiveAthiesm has a collection of quotes.
So... Some are making jokes. Some are having parties. Some are undecided. Some are writing pornographic gay fanfic starring the Rev Falwell to mark the occasion. The last seems to me to be the most appropriate. I'm no good at gay fanfic, instead I took all the fundamentlist crap out a Chick Tract. [toast] Here's to a more tolerant world [/toast].
Made with Ze Frank's scribbler thing, a fantastic example of how computers can be used to enhance creativity, rather than confine or suppress it. Anyone can make an attractive drawing with this, even with a nipple mouse :-)
And you heard it first on CNN. This just in: CNN uses Markov chain to generate headlines. Celebrity bacon orphan shock! Ruminant is pants fire. And now back to our main story: Person's Noun Emotive!. Poor CNN, I remember using it for news, but in recent years it's just entertainment, opinion and rhetoric masquerading as news (ie, the domain of blogs), with a tiny bit of actual news mixed in, like the drop of real orange juice in 'Real Orange Juice(tm)'. Oh well. Nice to know GW is all huggy-kissy today.
Michael S. Malone is a rather patronizing fellow who recently wrote an article banging on about how kids these days don't have any respect for his lawn the authority of Authority. He's especially critical of Digg community members who engaged in an online protest against site moderators. The mods were suppressing an AACS key for reasons of legal liability. Nobody hacked anything, there was no packetstorm or viruses. It was perfectly peaceful civil disobedience in a democratic community, people expressing their values with their votes. To hear Mr Malone tell it, it was freedom-hating commies and anarchists committing crime. (continutes after the jump...) [read on...]
The Caspian Sea Monster was a secret Russian vehicle devloped during the cold war, a type of Ekranoplan or 'Ground Effect Vehicle'. They are a form of aircraft that fly a few meters above the surface, close enough that vortices cannot form under the wings. Very fast, stable and efficient. This one pictured had (has?) a lifting power of 1000 tonnes, could travel over 400km per hour and was effectively invisible to RADAR and SONAR, being above water but below the radar floor.
There's another, smaller one nearby. This type was kitted out as a missile platform and was intended to provide a serious hazard to shipping. Just a thought - aren't there organizations besides the Russian military who might want to move large quantities of stuff quickly and cheaply over great distances while being invisible to radar? The radar of those meddlesome coast guard people for instance, and their nosy friends at customs and immigration? (continues after the jump)
You ever notice that the followers of any arbitrary religion will never believe that is what they are? 'You all share a belief system that we have chosen at random', 'No, our beliefs are not random, we are the only ones who will get to paradise after we survive our deaths.' A quick search of the Catholic encyclopedia for the word 'arbitrary' seems to show that the authors believe that random action is characteristic of groups other than themselves, and I think other faiths will share this conceit. Which causes me to wonder, if you or I were a God, would we care to make sense and behave logically? I don't think I would.
I likes me some cam hacking; random webcams used for building security or just attached to an unsecured network somewhere. The best ones are often found right out in the open, via a special Google search. I've seen some wonderful stuff over the years - from hundreds of Chinese people ballroom dancing to sunrise over Los Angeles - but few are as cool as the Dollcam. At least, that's my name for it. 85.235.16.148 is the IP address used by a single Axis brand webcam to stream video of a a doll on a turntable. Specifically, a blonde doll in national costume spinning endlessly in front of a picture of mountains. That's it. Some person or persons set up this scene in front of a $200 camera, hooked it up to a Swedish broadband connection and keeps it supplied with electricity. In the weeks I've been watching it the camera has moved once, so its now closer to the doll. There must be a motive, a static IP alone would cost me GBP 20 or so, but I'm absolutely stumped as to what its purpose is. Googling turns up some comment about this cam from last November when (shock!), it apparently stopped spinning.
A fertile imagination could turn a few possibilities, maybe the doll's part of a window display in a travel agency, and it's nobodys job to fix a broken camera mount that should face the other way. Maybe its not a camera at all, it's a web server with a loop of video that's emulating a webcam, but is really a disguised front door to some sort of private service, not for public consumption. Maybe it's a demonstration model, or a honeypot. Security people do that sometimes, they'll set up a system with no apparent purpose to the public in the hope that they'll get hacked or infected with viruses, so that they can catch samples of wild malware for study and learn of new exploits on their firmware. Maybe its an art project, and in some gallery somewhere is a big projected map of the world with little people icons that light up to show the location of humans and robots watching the doll. (continues after the jump)
When you dream that you're falling, do you have a moment when you realize you're falling, but aren't yet screaming in terror at the concrete and trees rising up to smash you? Do you ever notice if you are the only thing thats falling, or is there debris and other people? Or rain?
A couple years ago I wrote a Greasemonkey script to patch up the display of iFriends SuperSearch and fanclub pages. I'd been ripped off by this outfit and was briefly motivated by pique, pettiness, vengeance and a love of boobies. And then, a short while later, I got over it and stopped caring. And mostly the world didn't care either. I posted the script on my blog, nothing happened. Then a few people downloaded it, then a whole bunch more nothing. Then, all of a sudden, some chathosts got pissed at me, and then calmed right down again. And then one day I was the third result on Google for the term 'iFriends'. Holy crap! Wasn't that an exciting story? Here's the graphic novel:
Anyhoo, it turns out that iFriends system architecture is an incredibly poor, ill thought out, unmaintaintined, insecure, outdated, inconsistent, unergonomic, low resolution, unattractive, tag-heavy, popup-spewing, privacy-destroying, 2001-looking heap. But it has a large, varied stable of chathosts and an archive of their shows.
It has been known for some time, by many, that due to the complete lack of security on iFriends it is not actually necessary to pay for any resource on the site, which is just as well because of the #2 Google result for q=iFriends. My greasemonkey script exposes some thumbnail and low resolution images, but everything, from recorded peep shows to unpublished material to live video chats are accessable. It's a porn hacker's wet daydream. (continues after the jump)[read on...]
Does this man look like the legendary gunman Vash the Stampede? That droopy-eyed, weak-looking, bristle-headed, promiscuous-looking donut freak of a man?
And we're back... welcome to the new strix.org.uk, things will be a little unsettled during the course of the update, expect this Fully Operational Battle Station to coming around Endor's horizon by the weekend. Expect dead links to some of the cameras until then.
North Korea has a website, and it's pretty, er.... nifty. You can buy Kim Il Sung's classic eBook "10-POINT PROGRAMME OF THE GREAT UNITY OF THE WHOLE NATION FOR THE REUNIFICATION OF THE COUNTRY". You can learn about the glorious North Korean Government:
The Chondoist Chongu Party
The Chondoist Chongu Party is a democratic party formed by Chondoist peasants on February 8, Juche 35(1946).
It was formed with the objectives to oppose imperialist aggression and subjugation, join in the work to secure national independence and build a rich and strong democratic country with the partiotic idea of “defending the country and providing welfare for the people” and the independent spirit of “driving out westerners and the Japanese”. [link][Patriotic Japanese Translation Link!]
Yep, sounds patriotic to me :-) The site also features several important art works in the medium of 'Illegal North Korea Cellphone Wallpaper!'. Feast your eyes on this:
Surprise! Notice how the chicken doing the surprising humps and then holds on. Real chickens don't do it that way round, which is the artist's way of letting us know that this narrative is in fact an allegory, meant to be interpreted carefully and with an open mind. As the gripping storyline unfolds, the unnamed artist bares his soul, in a poignant, subtle retelling of the history of North Korean peasant workers. The white chicken represents the proletariat, and the brown one also represents the proletariat. The sunset shows the great deeds of the present being immortalised in history, and the ground is an eternal, sublime symbol for Barbera Streisand Dolly Parton. Ahh, such complex poetry masterfully rendered in simple images of life. The title of this work? 'Love'.
Truly, North Korea must be the greatest nation on earth to have moulded such genius. I see the US Government's website doesn't have any chickens "surprising" one another (whyever not? shame on you USA!) Anyhoo, check it out yourselves:
One of the coolest things about making tools is getting to see what other people use them for. My Google Video search thingy is now thoroughly redundant, but it was cool when I made it (Way back before GooTube, back when Google Video didn't yet have a feature for searching for video) it's still used, mostly for finding porn. I keep a log of searches, for my own statistical fiddling, some of the queries people (you! the public) make are pure gold. Some recent nuggets:
dress like a target
the eyes of the amaryllis
birth vodeos
Blood thirsty hamsters
sex dog woman.video free
ugly sugar babes
maiden hoon
neil strauss
girl turned into fish
monster orange vp
the birthday massacre
neurlogical testing
long haired freaky peolple hk
the internet is for porn
blind melon
octopus eats shark
import models
second loudest guitar
angry kid phone sex
jeff up and down
infected mashrom
how to put on a tampon
dumbest dog you will ever see
flaming ball of death
foreskin
nurburgring
heart surgery video
girl to fish in u.k 2006
guns dont kill people rabbit do
schnauzer grooming
winky song
james my son age 3
farting preacher
what old people do for fun
automatic ingman
hit him balls OR nuts
Soft-tissue mobilization, trigger-point release
crazy tractor guy
shaving cream
when mannequins attack
PAPUA NEW GUINEA people
great indian laughter vidoes
august burns red
monkey mating
bbc how do you solve a problem like maria
gay biker boot sperm
matrix dance
beyonce having sex
prostate massage
VAGINAL BIRTHS
cry of the snow lion
dancing midget
business squats
fergilicious
ufo footage
goosehead
motorshow bologna
most haunted french and saunders video
scorned woman
jesus will survive
screaming at cat funny
jurassic fart
ron jeremy butter
alien big cat
face dancer
illegally danish
make way for noddy
blonde walkl athletic track
holy grail Flagellants
body popping
scary car commercial
rainbow fight
walking octopus
pot noodle
hug a grandad
elvis on trapeze
BOY EATS TEN CHICKENS
drug tested spider
3 foot ninja
my sister bogwashed me
furby
damn you warm beer
Jehovahs Witnesses Exposed
lord of the broom
burning leg
hippo and dog
tractor boy funny video
log drivers waltz
pooty ass
ULTRAD0NKEY.COM
squirrel nut zipper
leafjumping
jewish islam
singing Hipo
whats that smell
penis exercises
wanna be spider man
vatican sex video
And my favorite:
make me smile
Thinking of making a video, but can't pick a subject? This is what the people want (well, except for that one guy who searches for 'horse mating' and 'mating horses', over and over, day after day. Word up!). Note: there are some kickass potential band names in this list. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Burning Leg! *applause*[read on...]
David Plotz is reading the Bible and blogging it on Slate. His coverage is excellent and deals with many questions I've long had about the Old Testament but never got round to looking into. For instance, the business with Jonah and the Fish (a) does anyone actually believe this story, that some dude lived for three days inside a sea animal - Pinnochio style - and (b) why is this framed as Jonah and the Whale? Jonah 1:17 clearly says 'fish'. Because modern versions have edited it in :-) Unlike unicorns and dragons, whales are not mentioned in the bible at all. Nor are cats (ie: Felis Cattus Domesticus). Anyhoo, Exodus:
Chapter 35 through Chapter 39
When you need to build a tabernacle, whom do you call? Bezalel*, of course. Again and again, Moses talks up this guy, whom God endowed 'with a divine spirit of skill, ability, and knowledge in every kind of craft.' Bezalel and his sidekick Oholiab get more mentions in Exodus than anyone but Moses and Aaron. They're only subcontractors, but God loves them.
...
Chapter 40
God names feckless Aaron as his high priest and declares that Aaron's descendants would be an 'everlasting priesthood throughout the ages.' Couldn't the Israelites do better than that? First of all, Aaron (Mr. Golden Calf himself!) is probably the most incompetent and faithless man among them. If He'd picked anyone at random — You, Uriah in the tribe of Asher, come over here and put on this sacral vestment — God would be more likely to find a suitable priest. And even if Aaron were the holiest man in the Sinai desert, the inherited priesthood would still be an iffy idea.
Google AdSense has a testimonials page, these are usually very lame - often fictional quotes dreamed up by PR people, PR people posing as customers whacked on MDMA:
I'd like to thank Shady Company for a fantastic product, it's increased our revenue by 12,000% since an hour ago, and its such a pretty color. Whee! Look at the colors! The after-sales people are fantastic, I love you guys, I love you so much, I just want to touch your shirt... wow, thats so... amazing... your shirt... it feels so furry... wow. Dr Martin Horseworthy, Nebraska
Sometimes they have a picture of a potato-looking goober to go next to it, so you'll know that someone this white and this bald may endorse the product. But this is Google and I'm interested to see some examples of ad placement they think work well without interfering too much with the site. Enter testimonials:
Check out golf-equipment-tips.com down the bottom. Things to notice:
The site does not exist, the domain is registered anonymously with Tucows, but that could mean anything. Hanzi dead link.
Google has a cache of a single page from December of last year, so the site did at one time exist, and it looked something like this:
The text ads on the left are AdSense, the text ads on the right are LinkSynergy ads. This is a clear breach of 'Wesley Atkins' AdSense agreement:
'General: You further agree not to display on any Serviced Page any non-Google content-targeted advertisement(s)'
LinkSynegry is a spyware related company and the number one result on Google for that name is a page on how to remove their hideous malware, so Mr. Atkins may not hold his site visitors in great regard. The content of the page is MaxFli's own marketing text, copied verbatim. There are links at the bottom to the rest of the pages which existed on the site, which together with the repetitive text make a good example of keyword stuffing, which Google frowns upon. AdSense policy prohibits 'Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages.' This is the excessive repetitive kind.
I would wager that none of the other pages contain any real original or valuable content, or even a useful arrangement of content, the site was put up solely to host ads. This is verging on a blackhat site. Again, Adsense policy is that: 'No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.'
So... a spam site violating Google's policies and recommendations that did not even stay in business is Google's idea of a 'success story'. Hmmm... little oversight there.
I should note that I am a big fan of AdSense, I use it on several of my sites and it pays the hosting costs. I could use more intrusive placement to increase my CPM, but I don't need to, and y'all wouldn't like it. They're the only game in town as far as I'm concerned, which is why I stuck with them for the past two months while the ads were turned off (Google was sending me a postcard with a PIN number. They do that, be warned.) For comparison, I spent a year trying different ad layouts and formats from Amazon on a another site, referred them a bunch of people and... nothing, they acknowledged the traffic and that's it. Not one brass farthing. Lot of good that was. I do wonder about the quality of Google's services since they went public, they don't seem to be showing the innovation or commitment to 'Dont be Evil' that they used to. Oh well, still better than Yahoo :-) Thank you Adsense guys... I love you... can I touch your shirt...
UPDATE: April '07, Google have made a new testimonials page.[read on...]
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