Dead Programmer's Cafe

Blog

  • Japanese, Irish and Soviet Sock Glue

    I wonder what was the thinking process of that Japanese person who decided : hmmm, what if I take very loose socks and glue them to my legs. Well, that doesn’t matter. Be you a tiny Japanese schoolgirl or an overweight computer geek you can purchase DX Rabbit brand (I wonder if I even want to know what DX stands for) sock glue and matching socks online.

    Apparently Irish dancers also use sock glue. Also they probably use the glue on the theater seats for Riverdance performances.

    In the Soviet Union a few of my classmates wore socks that could stay up like that without any glue. They also stuck to the ceiling if thrown up there.

  • This Post Is 99% Tentacle Porn Free

    We were angering Cthulhu in a Korean restaurant in K-Town again.

  • Untitled

    Jaunted to the mythical Isle of Coney with my wife last weekend. And when I say jaunted, I mean took the train, not teleported. Idiots at dictionary dot com say “origin unknown”. Unknown my ass. The term for teleportation (and by extension for quick trip) was invented by Alfred Bester in his sci-fi story “Tiger!Tiger!” and is one of the few words that kind of became a part of English language. Not in the “robot” sort of way, but still.

    Here’s my old workstation. And when I say workstation I do not mean computer.

    And here’s Coney Island’s famous non-functioning parachute training tower. For some pictures of the tower in use please go over here as I do not own any cool postcards of it.

    As a child I remember being scared of a tall towering structure on some beach in Odessa. I wish I could find a picture… It looked nothing like the parachute jump tower, but left me with the same haunting feeling.

  • Gastronautic Updates

    I wrote about the caterpillar infecting fungus called cordyceps, right? Well I went to one of the herbalist shops on Avenue U and purchased $40 dollars worth. In fact that was the smallest amount I could buy since the damned fungi cost about $200 an ounce.
    Here’s about a quarter of my haul:

    They smell faintly of chocolate and dust. The caterpillar part tastes like cardboard and dust. The protruding fungus has a tingly – sour taste, not unpleasant at all. I did not notice any health effect.

    Moving on. I also wrote about a corn infecting fungus that the Mexicans call Cuitlacoche. I ordered a can of Monteblanco brand Cuitlacoche through Amazon and Mexgrocer.

    The giant fungus infected corn kernels have a texture similar to slippery jack mushrooms and a slightly smoky flavor. The ingredients include onions , jalapeno peppers and epazote ( Skunkweed aka Wormseed, aka Mexican tea aka West Indian goosefoot aka Jerusalem parsley aka Hedge mustard aka Sweet pigweed which supposedly has “antiflatulent powers” ) which kind of make it hard to say what it really tastes like on its own.

  • The Attack of Politically Correct Job Titles

    Nex time I’ll be updating my resume, I’ll know what to put as my title for that period of time when I worked in a supermarket in Chinatown. Carry Out Associate has a ring to it, doesn’t it? And for my Nathan’s clam bar work experience I’ll put Bivalve Analyst.

  • Lvalue and Rvalue

    Seems like there is no stopping with political stuff trying to get into my life today.

    Here I am, reading through code. Programming, one might say. And then I come across this. What do you think does a function commify() do to a staunch conservative, all American array? That’s right. It turns it into a left-wing, pinko communist comma delimited string.

  • It Takes All Kinds

    Have you ever seen a Chairman of a 57.19 billion dollar company with a weblog? What’s interesting about his blog is not the run of the mill left-leaning political content, but the comments. Suckups, crackpots, business idea pitchers who are both suckups and crackpots. Makes for good reading.

    By the way, this begs for an interesting question. Who is s the richets blogger in the world? Larry, Bill and Steve do not blog, Warren rants in his yearly reports, but technically that is not blogging. Pierre could probably win this contest.

    Also of note: tree hugging, union friendly makers of Shit Be Gone Toilet Paper and Democrat bashing makers of W Ketchup equally benefit from capitalistic ideals of novelty product industry. As cool as these products sound, I try to make my purchasing decisions without involving politics. I don’t need the toilet paper because I have a fancy ass-washing Japanese robot toilet and I can’t have ketchup (which is mostly made out of corn syrup) because of my low carb diet. But I finally surrendered, and I am about to shell out a lot of money for the most expensive espresso machine ever. Which is …. is … is made in France.

  • My New Investment Stategy

    tells me to read New York Times instead of the good ol’ Fair and Balanced. Hey, it’s not only fair and balanced. It’s also a good investment. Yesterday’s 25 cent copy sells for as much as $51. That’s like 20,300 % gain in one day. Now, if only my stack of TV Guides appreciated like that …

  • You Gotta Respect Jager

    I might be fascinated with the keg technology but Jagermeister Tap Machine totally blows it out of the water. It seems that it shares the design with Dr. Kevorkian’s machine though.

  • Armonk Blue

    Speaking of the color. Here’s a magazine that was thrown out by some professor at my college:

    IBM Systems Journal Volume 21 #4 1982:
    “With the use of the computer as the art tool, our cover symbolizes the interaction between man and machine. Two of the papers in this issue discuss usability considerations for the design and development of interactive systems”.

    There is no credit for the cover art, but my guess that it would be attributed to J.F. Musgrave who is listed as Art Director.

    Screen closeup:

    I like a lot of things about this picture. The sleeveless white shirt, the ugly tie, the beer gut, the coffee mug, the expression on the headcount’s face. The ASCII art on the screen. The eery transition effect in the background.

    Don’t you think that “Armonk Blue” would be a good name for a Benjamin Moore paint?