an interesting page that demonstrates different sorting algorithms in java using an applet to allow you watch it sort visually. pretty cool...I've used this site as a reference a few times over the years, so I figured it's time to share it with the readers...uh, reader here.

Sorting Algorithms

From wired news: Smut Trading Outstrips Tune Swaps

"ITunes looks great -- I especially like the chance to preview so many songs before I listen to them," added one Mac owner. "But for my porn, I'll stick with Kazaa."

"We love file trading," said Kevin Blatt, sales director for the Triple X Cash, which operates the Collegefuckfest.com and Rectalrooter.com websites. "Why? It's called greed. We've found a way to monetize that sharing."

Damn, and I was just about to try and register Rectalrooter.com. maybe the .org is still available...

Once again, this fine content brought to you via -brian

and more photos of trains...maybe the train symbolizes something for me...but what could that be. Anyhoo, here's some more photos:

"Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?"

-Henry Miller

Mark: Tam, how'd this movie end up in our netflix que?: Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

Tam: ooo, thats a good one! Jesus comes back to earth only to find that he has to do battle with vampires.

Mark: that does sound good.

This indie film garnered awards on the festival circuit, including Slamdance, Zombiedance, the Fargo Film Festival and the Santa Cruz Film Festival. The far-out story has Jesus finally returning to Earth -- but he must contend with a world under assault by a band of vampires. Mary Magnum and the god of Mexican wrestling, El Santos, help Jesus fight evil in this oddball horror-comedy.

As of April 26, 2003 there have been 4836 Cumulative cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) reported, and of that number approximately 5.9 percent have died (around 290 deaths) worldwide.

Last year in the US there were 42,850 traffic deaths. That is around 117 deaths a day related to auto accidents.

Flu deaths in the US average about 36,000 a year.

150,000 Americans die each year from lung cancer.

World Health Organization info related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The last post reminded Tam of our old roommate Eric. The local grocery store had a free board where you could post items for sale or what have you. Eric posted many items. Tam's favorite being:

For Sale: One salad, Caesar. slightly used.

Using Craigs list to the fullest.

To the cabbie who stole my toaster

Why did you do that? I would have paid you - I hope it short circuits and burns down your house!

My boss is out of town this week, and since I work for a company of three (the first is also out of town) I have been working from home for the last couple of days. I like working from home, but It certainly has its drawbacks. Here, for posterity, is a list of pros and cons for Mark working from home:

Pros:

1. Pants optional.
2. Ability to crank Zepplin I louder than anyone would find remotely enjoyable
3. Shirt optional
4. der gute hund at petting distance
5. Lunchtime break to be had on the hammock in our backyard
6. Tam can bring me lunch if I bellow loud enough (which most times is never)

Cons:

1. Checking the mail, and forgetting I'm not wearing shirt or pants
2. Leaving Zepplin I on repeat, and being too lazy to reach over to turn it off
3. Talking to myself becomes an extensive conversation that quickly becomes an argument
4. I'm boring, and god forbid I have to spend the whole day alone with myself

keeping it real | zippythepinhead.com

her husband's name was darrell lipschitz (via - bluishorange)

When we were kids, there was an unfortunate soul by the name of Lipschitz in the Huntington, NY phone book. We'd call about once a week and ask, "If your lip shits, what the hell does your ass do!?"

I bet the lipschitzs are more than grateful for caller id. If the Huntington Lipschitzs are reading this, my sincerest apologies.

the boondocks

And now, a word from our sponser:

aerolatte

The world-famous, award-winning, best-selling "original steam-free milk frother", that has launched many an imitator

And I've been steaming my milk like a sucker.

Us
"The images you are seeing on television, you are seeing over and over and over. It is the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase and you see it 20 times. And you think, my goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?" asked Mr Rumsfeld.

Them
In the capital, looters ransacked the Iraqi National Museum, smashing display cases to grab treasures dating back to thousands of years to the dawn of civilisation in Mesopotamia. "They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity... They were worth billions of dollars," said the deputy director, Nabhal Amin, weeping openly.

This Modern World: Our Top Priorities

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war...and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

- James Madison, April 20, 1795

Hero Builders.com

Talking President G.W: This American President 12" Action Figure Doll is similar to our Hero Action Figure except that it talks !!

Babbling Osama: Get your very own talking terrorist. He's 12 inches tall. Listen to him babble his terrorist nonsense.

and sound clips to boot.

via -brian

Saddam proud he still killed more Iraqi civilians than U.S. - the onion

A little insight into the company I contracted for last year: Lawsonisms

Are there any unknowns that we are not aware of?

from -brian

Omni Graffle, and the perl fridge magnet stencil.

stolen quite shamelessly from megnut.

Is it 'cause I'm so young that I look so damned sexy. Naw, its the cigarette. Who are we kidding.

But I can't hold a flame to you Pete, err patches...

our killing is better than your killing...we's got god on our side, and that's the real god, not that towel wearing god. Oh, and we want a presence in the middle east, and oil, oh yea, and those terrorist that bombed us, well didn't but kinda did cause theys a-rabs like those other a-rabs that did bomb us, and oil...and freakin' 9/11, and the ocean can't protect us any longer from Sad...err..Os...err the a-rabs...THESE COLORS DON'T RUN! oh yea, and we're freeing the Iraqi people...for oil, err democracy, cause we felt waiting ten years would really let it settle in, the oil that is.

Interesting paper on Just War Theory

and for all you hippie, pacifist, commie, french lovin' terrorist out there...who the hell do you think you are, protesting for peace, hippies...If Gandi was here, I'd slap his peace lovin' ass...etc, add bad country western song about ford and I-rockin' Iraq here, and call pacifists dumb whiners while song fades:

I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.

Martin Luther King's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

and more lefty idiot rantings...damn commies, err terrorists...

Papa Bush apparently has enough common sense to know that his son's hawks, now controlling America's national security, are not true conservatives but radical extremists.

This sense is clearly shared by Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser during the 1991 Gulf war. In a speech to the Norwegian Nobel Institute on April 8th, Scowcroft urged the US to let the United Nations organize the postwar administration of Iraq and warned that a quick push for democratic transformation could explode into sectarian violence or civil war. And he argued--as he did last August--that preemptive war against Iraq was an unwarranted and divisive distraction from the fight against global terrorism. Scowcroft also lamented that the UN Security Council and other "structures we've built to handle our security are under significant stress and may not survive to serve us in the future."

- The Phantom Antihawk

last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I turned on the alarm clock to set it, spun the dial, and out of the tinny speaker blared a DJ from one of the many classic rock stations to be found here in the New York tri-state area. He proceeded to play phone messages of people supporting our troops over seas and of people praying for their safe return, a nice sentiment. Afterwards he blared, in classic rock DJ style, "UNITED WE STAND!", and immediately cued up warpigs. I guess I can understand mindless patriotic fervor (kind of), but maybe you should read the lyrics of the songs your cueing up after you voice your support for war...

Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.

Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.

Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
               --Black Sabbath, War Pigs

So I know the words to a Black Sabbath song...whats it to you!?

As I have watched our country move its people, forces and will towards war, I have been struck by the might of the modern political PR machines that help define public opinion and public consensus. I am also struck by the insanity of the idea that has been pandered to the people in this country defining the press as liberal, a press and media that is controlled by a handful of corporations and conglomerations that control a vast majority of the media (and wealth) in our country today.

…Today, only six corporate behemoths play a major role in virtually everything we see on television, from the programs to the pipeline of cable or satellite delivery: CBS, News Corp., Time Warner, Viacom, The Walt Disney Co. and, of course, General Electric.

I don't think most people know how most of the main media now fall under the control of a small number of giant corporations and extremely wealthy and willful people…I don't think they give much thought to how the so-called marketplace of ideas is increasingly a function not of what people need to know as citizens, but what they can be sold as consumers…

-- Bill Moyers

People who protest the war with Iraq have been dubbed anti-American, ignorant, or simply stupid hippies, the UN reduced to a bunch of winy peaceniks, France to ungrateful losers. There is a long list of brilliant minds and world leaders who are opposed to war with Iraq, but the media in the US has successfully reduced this list to a group a fanatics waving rainbow flags and stopping traffic.

One of the pillars of a democratic state is freedom of speech, freedom of the press. It is ironic that the one democracy that has this freedom written into its very constitution seems to be least willing to execute it.

Our invasion with Iraq disturbs me. I am against the war in Iraq, and I am against the violation of international law and our dissention from the United Nations and our complete disregard of the Security Council. But, what disturbs me more is the state of the media in America today, and the complacency of the Americana people and our willingness to accept the drivel that is fed to us as news. Our unwillingness to search for the ever elusive truth and our willingness turn our eyes from the rest of the world, and righteously claim that we know best.

Saturday Night Live's Censored Song

..when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this tube?...

- from the screenplay Network

First week of work. I think its going pretty well, but this getting up in the morning deal is kinda fucked up. I'm not myself unless I can put in a good ten hours under the sheets.

Today I walked out of the office for lunch, and I had completly forgotten I was in New York. When I hit the street it was like waking from a weird dream. Gotta lay off the mushrooms at work.