Even when the neighbors are quiet, the earth itself can be rather inconsiderate.
Author: Don
What the world needs now …
… are good songs about dogs.
How not to monetize your website
Can you find the online version of the Wichita Eagle in the screencap above?
Wham! Pow! Click.
This year the local comic convention was within reasonable bicycle distance, so I visited it today and grabbed a few snapshots of the cosplay. Here are a couple. I’ll be posting them at my Flickr page as I edit them.
Update: Another W.W. variation.
What the world needs now …
… is a cheerful song or two about pigs.
If I had a hammer
Update: Lydia McGrew comments on France and related matters.
What must be recognized is that the West does no good to the world at large by committing suicide through an excess of generosity and sentiment. Where will the refugees of thirty years from now, any of them, even a small number, turn to if Europe has become part of a Caliphate? How much can the U.S. help others or act as a beacon of freedom if its already weakened economy and infrastructure are further strained by bringing in numbers of people with problems we do not have the resources to handle? And as we turn into more of a police state in response to the terrorist threats we have fecklessly welcomed in, how much do we remain an exemplar of freedom to the nations and a place of safety for others to come to? And, finally, face this: The government of Germany, or the U.S., or France, has more of a duty to protect its own citizens from terrorist attacks than it has to welcome the destitute and oppressed from other countries. That’s just a fact. There are concentric circles of duty, though it is politically incorrect to say so.
See also What’s Wrong with the World.
Update II: Anthony Sacramone presents some notes on that magical era when Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony in medieval Spain.
Sulphur Island
Ken the Brickmuppet called it. Potentially the most profoundly dangerous volcano on this planet is Iwoto, alias Iwo Jima, according to Volcano Café. Arpeggio of Blue Steel makes less sense than ever.
Incidentally, Ken notes that there might be volcanoes on Pluto.
Update: the tabloid press takes note.
Domino theory, circus couture and a stuffed pig
Take Mayumi Kojima, add J-pop weirdness, a button accordion and a touch of klezmer, and you’d get something like Charan Po Rantan.
There are more videos here. There’s one album available for download at Amazon.com.
Bonus link: Sailor Moon does “Moon River.”
Disturbing the magnetosphere
Those of us who live outside circumpolar regions can watch the aurora borealis in Iceland here in real time, sometimes. If you don’t see much the first time you visit, cross your fingers and try again later.
CO2 and SO2
Volcano Café has compiled a convenient list of the nine “New Decade Volcano Program” candidates announced thus far and invited speculation about the top spot on the list. A few weeks ago I wrote about Lake Kivu in the East African Rift, which is ominously close to Nyiragongo. I guessed then that a volcanic complex involving the lake would be first or second on the list, and I still think so. The most dangerous volcano on the planet, to the best of my (superficial) knowledge, is likely the Nyiragongo/Lake Kivu combination.
Odds and ends
Life is annoyingly busy, and I will have less time than usual for maintaining my websites until the middle of December. Expect even less activity here than usual. There might occasionally be posts of miscellaneous nonsense, such as what follows, but probably not much more.
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Flickr recently introduced a “camera roll” feature that displays thumbnails of your pictures arranged either by the date taken or according to its “magic view,” which sorts them into subject-based categories. The algorithms for the latter need a little refinement.
Details, details
Saturday was the fall orchid show at the botanical garden. Although it was Halloween, Dracula vampira 1 was missing. However, there were plenty of others to photograph, some spectacular, some bizarre.
The show gave me an opportunity to test Helicon Focus, another focus-stacking application. The picture above was compiled from four slices using the default settings, the one below from five.
I also ran a stack of images that Photoshop had trouble with through Helicon. It did much better, though the result could be just a tad sharper. The lack of resolution might be due to the particular settings, and once I figure everything out I might be able to get better results. (The same set processed by Zerene Stacker can be seen here.)
Demon cats and other holiday fun
So it’s Halloween, and you’d like to watch some spooky anime, preferably available online legally for free? There are some suggestions here, but there are other series I prefer. For monsters, there’s the currently-airing Ushio and Tora. For Shinto 101 and yokai, there’s Natsume Yuujin-cho. But my first choice is Mononoke, Kenji Nakamura‘s first series and still his best. The medicine seller’s investigations are as much moral detective stories as horror shows, informed by a stringent sense of justice. If you merely want to be scared out of your wits, there are many other shows to choose from, but if you want a work of art worth rewatching and thinking about, try Mononoke.
Definitely not Jeeves
I watched the first episode of Black Butler years ago and decided that it was not for me. Nevertheless, I’d like to attend tonight’s performance of OperAnime, which combines the peculiar anime with an opera from 1880. Unfortunately, the event is being held outdoors, and it is likely to rain all evening.
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I may need to watch this week’s episode of My Little Pony. What would Ranma’s cutie mark be?
Love and compassion
Insulting the right people signals compassion, and modern people buy it because hating the nasty backward traditional oppressor is what unites modern people. Despising the right people means love.
The microwave of doom
The dangers of dihydrogen monoxide are well-known, but there are other hazards that you might have been unknowingly exposed to. For instance, studies have demonstrated that over 93% of all cancer patients have at some time inhaled O2, a powerful oxidizer. More than 87% of people with bipolar personality have looked at a full moon without adequate eye protection. Anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals exhibiting egregious political activism ingested acetylsalicylic acid during childhood. It has been hypothesized that the majority of people who during early adulthood order a steak rather than a salad will not live to see their 100th year.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have important culinary matters to attend to.
Ballet, electronica, cats and the Swedish chef
Dance and animation.
The Nyan Cat Variations. (Via Fillyjonk.)
Continue reading “Ballet, electronica, cats and the Swedish chef”
Hmphmhmphwmhphm
Let no screencap go to waste: miscellaneous illustrations for posts I didn’t write.
What comes next …
… once polkas become passé?
Barbershop, of course.
Murder and meh-hem
The Perfect Insider has very good opening and closing animations. The stuff in between, which falls somewhere between a locked-room mystery and And Then There Were None and concerns people tediously self-conscious of their high IQs, is less enthralling. I did spot a pair of red half-rim spectacles, though. If there were any rubber ducks, I missed them.
Speaking of ATTWN, here’s Eve Tushnet on Agatha Christie: “Never trust the cute ones.”