While I haven’t really played World of Warcraft in a few months, I did log on recently to finish those holiday achievements that I didn’t do last year. After knocking out Love is in the Air and the Lunar Festival (with 30 minutes to spare), I finally finished that meta-meta-achievement What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been.
I was required to write a poem for English class today, a specific type of poetry called found poetry. Basically for found poetry, the author just takes lines from a source (headlines, road signs, song lyrics, etc) and makes them into a poem. So here is my quick attempt at it using just of Montreal lyrics.
Poems of Montreal (Found Poetry)
My mind rejects the frequency
Still, I only feel alive when the VU is flashing
Try to find a way to spike the senses
It’s static craziness to me
You turn the dial, I’ll try and smile
Oh, I just never smiledI felt the darkness of the black metal bands
The Greek chorus of my skull is choking on their dulcet tones
Alarms going off in my head
Rapture rapes the muses
And the void that’s left confusesI was a landscape in your dream
You might forget them but your nightmares
they don’t forget about you
Look, the sky is peppered with sea birdsI was never young, even as a child
You know, I waved your flag, back when no one else did
Do you remember our last summer as independents?
I just want things to be the way they used to be
You keep me lit like antediluvian Troy
I’ve been messing around with python lately, since I want to learn a programming language. This weekend I decided to sit down and write a script, so after much deliberation I wrote one that pulls weather data from Google’s weather API and displays it in the console. I know it probably isn’t correct form, but it works. If you want to check it out, download it below. I want to store it on the server anyways.
Python source code: Google_Weather_Fetcher_script.zip
Windows executable: Google_Weather_Fetcher_exe.zip
I read the Engadet liveblog earlier today and saw the Apple iPad at the announcement earlier today. I have to say, I have some mixed feelings regarding this product.
I’m going to go ahead and compare my earlier predictions to the actual device, and see how I matched up after the break.
Yes, I know it has not been announced officially, but c’mon. If you believe Apple is going to reveal anything less than a tablet today, you’re insane. With the recent spike in rumors from credible sources (like the New York times) and hype surrounding this event, Apple will get bashed on if they don’t announce the tablet or something better. If Apple was not going to announce it, they would have said not to get our hopes up a long time ago.
While watching the famed Times Square ball drop in New York City, I was thinking about all of the great technologies that have affacted my life over the past decade. From the iPod changing how I listen to music to the ever-expanding cloud computing scene, this decade represented fantastic growth in both software and hardware.
Next decade, I want to see a few technologies die. Burn in a fire, wilt away by bankruptcy, I don’t care how they die, just that they do. It’s not really that I have any personal problem with all of these crazy inventions, but I believe that the ashes of these antiquated tools will provide fertile ground for interesting new possibilities, especially on the web. You can read about them after the break.
Dear Amazon,
You people are geniuses. Seriously. I love this little device. Today, I was reading while laying down, and I didn’t have to worry about physically turning pages. I was reading The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett and the word ‘rota’ appeared. Since I didn’t know what it meant, I used the built in dictionary to find the definition of the British word for ‘roster’. It is amazing.
I figured I would spread a little Christmas cheer with this cut of The Big Bang Theory Christmas episode. It’s hilarious. Really.
Watching these latest episodes of Dollhouse has made me, like many other fans, very upset. The first season of Dollhouse sucked, most of us realize that. It was simply too slow. But now that Fox has canceled another one of Joss Whedon’s shows, the latest episodes are simply amazing. Why is it that Fox always cancels Whedon shows like Firefly or Dollhouse right when they are getting good? Anyways, Sci Fi Wire has a list of 7 (8 really) ways that Dollhouse could have been better, and I agree with most of them. Especially this one:
4. Echo, with her ability to access different personalities, is a character that should have evolved early in the series and not at the end of it. Let’s face it, Eliza Dushku doesn’t do dumb Doll well. Most any actress would have had trouble with this role, considering that her character was too often either childlike boring or schizophrenic, especially in season one.
Read more here.
The senate recently whipped up 60 votes for the new health care reform bill, and adbge isn’t happy about it. He wrote an open letter to congress, and here is an excerpt:
I’m baffled. I thought that healthcare legislation would never pass without bipartisan support. Sure, I understood on a technical level that it would be possible for Democrats to force this down the public’s throat, but I never imagined they would be mad enough to do it.
I still can’t even believe that the legislation will pass. I find myself hoping that the Democrats will splinter at the nth hour and Congress can go back to the drawing board. Preferably, they would stay at that drawing board forever and never pass anything, ever.
You can read more here.