Dead Programmer's Cafe

Blog

  • What Makes a Man Turn Neutral?

    Galen R. Frysinger’s travel pages yield an amazing selection of photos. Amongst them is what I was looking for for a long time: Turkmenbashi’s fabled Arch of Neutrality. Doesn’t the arch remind you of something? Exhibit A and Exhibit B:

    The mechanism turns Turkmenbashi’s golden likeness so that he always faces the sun. I’ve heard that the statue is made of solid gold, but I doubt that a little. On the other hand, it’s the Great Serdar we are talking about.
    Click on the image to see other amazing pictures of Turkmenian monuments.

    Now, another amazing monument was created by Zurab Tsereteli, a serial sculptor terrorizing Moscow with his horrible creations.
    Exhibit A and B:

    Don’t worry, the statue of Putin in judo gear is not full size. It’s just a sketch, the real thing will be much, much bigger.

    Mr Tsereteli wants to give this other monument as a gift to New Jersey. It’s supposed to be a monument to 9/11, but somehow I see very different symbolism in this “statue”.

  • Who Is Ozzy Osbourne? Or Bloggers, Objectivists and Ozzy Fans, Oh My

    I really hate the fact that livejournal does not provide visitor logs. I am very interested in my readership, but too lazy to put up some tracker pixels. Well, I have been looking at the image logs and found some very interesting things.

    For instance, it appears that my photography has a very broad appeal. This “Sara Beth” blogger who used this blackout photo I took (without giving me any credit) appears to be a fan of Ayn Rand.

    Sara Beth, Ayn highly disapproved of using copyrighted material without giving credit of any sort.

    But then there’s “El Chupacabra” who posted this image (also with no credit to me) in the Ozzfest 2004 section over at siN’s Metal Forums with this heartwarming quote: “Each time I look at that Incubus pick, the metal is just sucked out of me. lol”
    .

    This could be a good photo cover for Atlas Shrugged, but instead it turns on Ozzy fans. Go figure.

    In case you missed them, blackout photos are here and here.

    Hmm, I think I should try to sell at leas one of my photos to a respectable publication of some sort. I wonder what it takes to do that. Hmmm, maybe I should invest in this.

  • Pre-orders

    Isn’t it nice to be able to pre-order a book being very certain that it’s going to rock?

    Sight unseen I pre-ordered John C Wright’s The Last Guardian of Everness and Jeff Rowland’s “WIGU Volume Two : The Luckiest Boy In The World”. I recommend that you do the same.

    The new userpic is by Jeff Rowland by the way.

  • Hulk Hogan

    What’s interesting is how many people from amazing readers admit that they own a copy of “Hulk Hogan and The Wrestling Boot Band “, which Amazon reviews hail as “a musical masterpiece that makes Led Zeppelin and The Beatles look like Vanilla Ice by comparasion”, “a musical masterpiece which unleashes your senses to their full potential”. Indeed, “the beats are dope and the rhymes are MONEY “.

    I have one degree of separation from the artist in question. One of my bosses at iXL was former WCW webmaster Bill Cunningham. He had Hulk’s (or more properly Hollywood) Hogan’s home phone in his cell phone memory. Bill was a great boss. I wonder where he is now.

  • Underground Tower


    WYPIWYG? This subway control tower was automated, so if you’ll be driving a train past it, the friendly operator inside will not correct your mistake or make one (her/him)self. Instead, a cold, precise automaton will switch the tracks on your command. Think!

  • Random Lunchtime Encounters

    During my lunch break I’ve seen a grey-haired little lady in uniform with a badge of a postal police sargent. She had a holstered gun and everything.

    Then within a couple of minutes I passed very fair, balanced and hilariously named Fox anchor David Asman on the escalator. He said “But I play a decent person on TV” to his companion.

    Check out this amazing field guide to anchors. Awesome.

  • Hump Day

    Happy Administrative Professional’s Day, everybody!
    Interesting to note that this year it occures on a Hump Day.

  • Don’t Make Me Bust A Cap In Your Rink

    For the first time ever Rockefeller center rink was “capped” with a tent, its floor covered and filled with orchids for the The 24th New York International Orchid Show.

    Strange. It turns out that the first time I ever stepped on the Rockefeller center rink it had no ice.

    Interesting to note that the white orchids in which Prometheus is taking a swim in on the picture are my favorite type. I know that reception desks, spas and offices are full of them. Still, even with them being a horrible cliché, I can’t stop liking them. They are classy. Right, ?

  • Rise of The Machine or Deadprogrammer’s Throne

    Remember I was lamenting the lack of robots in my household? Well, I went ahead and did something about that. I am a proud owner of a butt washing robot.

    Yep, I purchased a top of the line Toto S300 Washlet (Jasmin). It looks kind of like that, except I have a different model toilet, different mosaic tile on the floor and walls and an orchid that I bought at the Rockefeller Center Orchid show instead of the vase with a lily. But the idea is the same.

    Now, think about the question that Howard Stern’s co-host asked Dan Rather. “Do you check after you’re done wiping?” And how many times do you have to check before you are satisfied with results? Toto washlet seat does an amazingly good job of washing your ass. I mean, squeaky clean. Really.

    Being top of the line, Jasmine seat comes with really amazing features. Believe it or not, it forces air through a deodorizing filter while you do your duty. And the dryer works much better than I expected. Yes, you have to wait a minute or two, so you should keep some toilet paper around if you need to dry yourself in a hurry.

    The machine is so smart that it remembers when you usually use it and turns itself off to preserve energy during “off peak” hours. Still, even when it enters “sleep mode” water heats up instantly and is always at the temperature that you set it. Well, almost, maybe the first couple of seconds it’s a bit colder, but not freezing cold.

    The remote control is very, very usable. I like how they hid rarely used buttons under the top cover. Cleaning is a snap.

    The only thing that is not so cool is a big fat wire loop that you can’t see on the pictures on Toto’s website. It’s located on the right side of the seat and I got to tell you, it look like that wire on the side of Borg’s head.

    I guess it’s there to remind us about the dark side of technology.

  • Adventures In Food : Kernel Panic

    Thanks to the wonders of memepool I learned about Huitlacoche aka Cuitlacoche aka Corn Smut . It is basically fungus infected corn kernels that is sometimes called Mexican truffle. And thanks to froogle.com a can of it is on its way to me from .latingrocer.com . It’s probably not Atkins safe, but what the hell.

    This really sucks, but I think Jarritos does not make any diet drinks. I guess they don’t have an obesity epidemic in Mexico.

    Also, nobody seems to be crazy enough to sell Surstr�mming. So, Inter Net merchants and search engines, you are still not perfect.

    Oh, that Vegemite and Mermite that I got from everythingaustralian.com rocks.