From a few weeks ago around launch time, Facebook ads as aimed at spaceship engineers:

( Read more... )


Tonight, hilarious API specs:

( Read more... )

This starts out, somewhat predictably, with a bet. My cousin sent me an instant message one fine afternoon.

[12:53] Azz's Cousin: So... I lost a bet.
[12:53] Azz: oh?
[12:53] Azz's Cousin: do you know anything about casting edible molds?
[12:54] Azz: ... my mind just went a very bad place from that. Please tell me that the end result of the loss of this bet is not a chocolate penis.

I was hoping. Alas:

[12:55] Azz's Cousin: How did you guess?
[12:55] Azz: but for edible molds silicone is a common substance
[12:55] Azz: ... oh dear
[12:55] Azz: well, my mind automatically went to the worst place I could reasonably think of.

Since it is useless to fight against the inevitable, I considered my token protest to have been made, and climbed aboard the WTF train. ( A proper Saga ensued, with pictures. )


(Share with discretion. I don't really need my dad in this if he doesn't read DW.)


[update 6/23: a double-ended one.
( Image. )

So at breakfast today, Mr. Out mentioned that someone whose car he drives got a ticket from a traffic camera. He was grousing about how the owner of the car had, instead of stating that it wasn't them and sending in ID to prove it and not saying who it was, gave away his identity, so now Mr. Out is going to get the ticket.

I pointed out that this is probably karma.

"WHAT!?!" Mr. Out said, outraged. "How--! Why--! I don't--!"
"From what you've said about your driving," I said.
"I never--! What!!"
"You know, the cellphone thing", I smirked, gesturing.
"And you were all 'I'm on the PHONE!' ", our supervisor chimed in, shaking an imaginary cellphone at other drivers.
"How did you hear about that!!" Mr. Out demanded.
"You told us," about four of us chorus. "Over breakfast the other week."
"...Oh."

At this point, Mr. Out attempted to justify his driving. This was not particularly successful. He kept using worse and worse examples, including the number of times he has been pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving, which has always been cellphone-related, sleep-related, and/or steering-with-his-knees related. After about the third iteration, I started to mime tossing dirt out of a pit with a shovel. One of the new ladyfolk, the one who was actually something like awake, started dying laughing even before that.

My decision to not drive with Mr. Out stands.

"So You Hacked Our Site!" -- a tale of utter technical incompetence. Put down beverages. (Non-technical people might even get a giggle out of this.)

I am having far too much fun with this website:
http://limerickdb.com/?383 -- not safe for Abe.
http://limerickdb.com/?379 -- eBay.
http://limerickdb.com/?362 -- Orson Scott Card.
http://limerickdb.com/?389 -- relative silliness.

LOLcat Rede. (In case you haven't seen it yet...) ... now it needs illustration.

I Can Has Cheezburger is hiring.

I have personally assisted in the discombobulation of an entire team meeting, and I'm so very proud of myself.

Our supervisor called us off the phones early for the team meeting, and sat us down in the conference room. I'd been plotting just such a thing for at least a week, and had cunningly brought in an egg.

This was no ordinary egg. No. This is a cunning toy, fashioned by those who know exactly how the mind of a small boy works, and are hell-bent on exploiting that knowledge for personal profit.

The toy consists of:
1) A transparent outer sac, shaped roughly like the shell of an egg, and consisting of a few millimeters' worth of that sticky, elastic gel that diverse other toys are made from. It's generally fashioned into long, violently-colored, hand-shaped slapping devices, or sticky things that resemble yo-yos, or the tongues of frogs. It picks up lint with ease, but comes mostly clean after being gently washed. (Don't try to dry it.)
2) Transparent liquid inside the sac, to all appearances either water or albumin.
3) A firm, but not hard, sphere, afloat (or a-sink) in the liquid inside, colored a violent yellow.

When cradled, it retains the shape of an egg. When thrown, it deforms from the force of the hurling, and lies in a splatter-shape ("yolk" merrily protruding) on its target for some short time before regaining its original integrity.

It's perfect.

I palmed it on my way to the team meeting. Not wishing to appear the fool, I did a "dry run" of my plot before our supervisor came in: I hurled the "egg" at the whiteboard he would be standing in front of. As advertised, SPLAT! it made a perfect impact on the board. I snickered and plotted. I had scored a seat next to the Pagan Dude. The remainder of the team filed in, including our supervisor. I bided my time. The meeting started out with our supervisor perched on the sideboard. I waited until he went up front to begin the main business before I struck.

My timing was perfect. My aim was not: instead of splatting nicely on the whiteboard, my shot went high, and it hit the wall above the whiteboard, catching sideways and not making the perfect broken-egg splatter, instead tumbling down in a graceless lump. Our stunned supervisor nevertheless grabbed the thing, examined it, and tossed it back: not at any one of us, but at the window by the door. It worked right for him, at least. Smoking Lingerie Chick snagged it before it would have dropped into the wastepaper basket and played with it. The meeting continued. Bored at last, she passed it along to Pagan Dude.

I am not so vain of my own perceptive powers as to say that I saw this one coming. Pagan Dude delighted in the egg. He poked it, prodded, it, squished it, squeezed it, squashed it, poked it some more. I did, however, begin to have slight misgivings. At length, he poked the "yolk" into a little pouch of the sac, and SQUEEEEZED...!

As with any other elastic material put under unbearable strain, the toy exploded, splurting the water inside all over Pagan Dude, his sweatshirt, the conference table, and my sleeve.

The meeting ground to a dead halt as everyone, supervisor included, stared, then burst out into uncontrollable laughter. Pagan Dude's eyes were as round and wide as fried eggs. He, clearly, hadn't seen this one coming. It took a full five minutes before order, and dry, had been restored.

After the meeting let out, Pagan Dude continued playing with the shell of the toy. It was still sticky and somehow more grotesque, with just a small hole to show for its injury. We proceeded out of the conference room into the call center proper, with its high ceiling. Pagan Dude tossed the egg high into the air ... only to not catch it as it didn't fall down. It had smacked into the tile of the suspended ceiling and stuck fast there.

The Egg of Damocles now lurks over one of the cubes. We have no idea when it's coming down.

[Edit 4/22/2008: video of the second instance of the toy.]

news: LOOK AT ALL THIS COOL BLINKING SHIT!! We'll be 100% implemented and look exactly like MySpace by a year from today, on April 1, 2008!

burr86: "Thanks 4 t3h ADD!!1!!"
Eastern Users & Those Anticipating This: "Nice one. Happy April Fool's Day to you too!"
Users West of Chicago & Not Prepared Yet: "$#@*(!@#*(. ... Oh. Right. April frickin' Fool's Day."
Users Who Haven't Caught On: *freak out, rant, run around in circles screaming*
Ashamed to be Caught Out Users: *delete ranty comments after realizing what day it is*
burr86 and other helpful news denizens: *reply to ranty comments before they are deleted* "Check your calendar! ;) "
Ashamed to be Caught Out Users: "WTF. I DELETED that PDQ. How did you...?"
burr86: *hasn't turned off e-mail notifications*
Unamused Users: "Laa-aame. Wasn't LJ supposed to be cool and funny back in the day?"
Paranoid Users: "Laugh it up, but we'll see who's laughing when changes like this REALLY HAPPEN! This is a vision of dystopia here."
The NSFW-sensitive: "Big! Red! Finger! LJ-cut!! My eyes! My children's eyes! My boss's eyes!"
Vgift Addicts: "Please tell me the finger vgift is for reals, at least?"
/b/tards and other offsite buddies: *lovefest*
lj_dirtycache: *have a really scary style*
MySpace Mockers: *act like stereotypical MySpace users for the lolz*
Spammers: *spam*
Maintainers: *delete spam*
burr86's inbox: *catches fire*

efw presents: A Bujold thread. (efw is the Existential Flame War, where instead of flaming, one describes the flame in the time-honored fashion made popular by Title of the Song.

For those who appreciate a fine SG-1 slash: synecdochic: "Attention."

Via A.J. Luxton: http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/02/happy-valentines-day-from-writer-beware.html and http://www.sfwa.org/beware/twentyworst.html -- places and people to back away from, or run away from.

Now there are more things that Mr. Welch may not do during an RPG. And, for those who haven't seen it yet, Skippy's List.

hcolleen: "There's room on my bookshelves! I won't have to purge for a while!"
me: "It sounds like you have a reading disorder."
...yes, my roommate and I are total geeks.

A comedy of errors, starring the door-to-door religious, several dogs, and runaway milk production!

The final (I hope) installment in this particular IM-random problem:

[12:42] [email protected]: hey who is this
[12:43] Azure Lunatic: We already had that conversation. You added me, I don't know you, so why the hell did you add me?
[12:44] [email protected]: i dn who u r lol
[12:44] [email protected]: asl
[12:45] Azure Lunatic: Not very much.
[12:45] [email protected]: not very much/
[12:45] Azure Lunatic: I don't know very much ASL, just parts of the Manual Alphabet.
[12:46] [email protected]: wow ur cool
[12:48] [email protected]: how old r u
[12:49] Azure Lunatic: Old enough to know how to spell and know how to push the ignore button now. Bye-bye, little troll!

http://xkcd.com/c91.html -- pwned. Not all of them are this good.
http://xkcd.com/c90.html -- jacket.
http://xkcd.com/c109.html -- spoiler.
http://xkcd.com/c116.html -- city.
http://xkcd.com/c122.html -- quirky.
http://xkcd.com/c134.html -- myspace.
http://xkcd.com/c136.html -- science fair.
http://xkcd.com/c137.html -- WORD.

http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/5370878.html -- more myspace. For the whole family! (Not work-safe text.)

So after India slammed into Eurasia, it suddenly developed rivers! ( *groan* )

The noted philosopher claimed that an alien tractor beam had wrested control of his car from him, causing the five-car pile-up. The police determined that it was in fact driver error due to distraction and not paying attention to traffic. Why? ( *GROAN* )