Pigs & Spiders

A Grand Proposal

2012-02-14T06:20:08Z

The rumors are true. My proposal to Liz was captured on video. Unfortunately, because the venue was so busy and generally loud, the video needed a little help to make it interesting. Help I was happy to provide. So here's the Director's Cut* of how it all went down.

*As in, the director threatened to cut me if I posted this.

She said yes.

2012-02-12T15:35:02Z

Bear v. Wolf

2012-02-11T04:00:47Z

This is a video of a bear cub playing with a wolf pup.

No. Really.

h/t: Andrew Sullivan

Bring on the Singularity!

2012-02-10T23:12:47Z

Every once in a very great while I read about something that someone in Congress is doing that isn't designed to end the Internet or send us all back to the Dark Ages. It's rare, but it happens.

Such is the case with a new bill introduced in the Senate and the House (and it's got bipartisan sponsership, fancy that!) which would regulate the amount of time govenerment sponsored peer-reviewed research paper (ie, your tax dollars paid for the lab mice) could spend behind the paywall of a science publication.

Which really makes you wonder why the hell they were allowing publishers to make money off of research we already paid for in the first place, but it's still worth correcting.

So my guess is that it will never pass and some Republican will spend an hour of the House of Representatives' time railing against Marxist nature of the bill.

Coming Soon.

2012-02-10T05:19:44Z

Looks like the iPad 3 will be announced in a few weeks, because when Jim Dalrymple gives a one word response, it's usually a spot-on word.

This also means that in about three weeks we get to read a lot of stories about how it's "Just the iPad 2 with a few improvements." and how "Steve Jobs would have done _______ if he were still running the company."

Wankers.

Reboot

2012-02-10T01:05:38Z

I'm rebooting the Pigs & Spiders site. All that means is that it looks different (maybe better?) and that I've told myself I'm going to actually post here again.

Why?

1.) I've been feeling guilty about not keeping up with it and apparently it takes just a little over a year of nagging guilt for me to actually take action (taking notes?).

2.) While facebook has proven iteslf to be a very fun place to post my thoughts and share those things I find on the web that I find interesting, it's also a broadcast medium in the sense that anything I share or do there gets thrust in the nose of anyone with whom I am freinds. If you bothered to come all the way here (past the burning wastelands of MySpace and through the lake of sorrow that is Google+) you're at my mercy and I don't feel so bad about spamming away with all things that make me angry/happy/sad/geeky.

So no looking back and we'll all just pretend that I didn't completely ignore this site for a year.

Deal?

State of the Union

2011-01-26T01:50:04Z

State of the Union

You Have Seven Days Left

2010-12-17T23:00:59Z

Every Christmas I watch the (now rarely seen) Muppets classic, A Muppet Family Christmas. This is by far the best work Henson ever did with his Muppets in my opinion, and it features both the classic Muppets as well as the various creatures and characters of Sesame Street, the Fraggles, and the Muppet babies. And Fozzie's mom. And a Jim Henson cameo.

So now you have seven days to seek out the original uncut 1987 version* and watch this christmas special.

Here's a taste to get you movin':

*because American record companies own the rights to several of the songs in the original broadcast, only the European and Canadian versions of the film still carry the complete show)

Bah Humbug!

2010-12-16T00:00:44Z

Reason #10,456 why American's should loathe the US Senate:

"It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out, frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff."

That's Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona (How did Arizona get SO lucky to have such FANTASTIC politicians!?) on how absolutely uncool it is for Harry Reid to schedule votes between Christmas and New Years. Cause, you know, that's the Holy Time.

I'd like to help the Senator out, since I'll be at my desk that week, but, frankly, I don't think my office has the authority to ratify the new START treaty.

Oh, and here's Reason #10,457 for those keeping count.

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

2010-12-09T00:00:40Z

The only thing sadder than how quickly a Republican will roll over and play dead if you toss him a tax break for the super-rich is how easily a Democrat will turn into a snarling ball of stupid if you hurt his fragile fee-fees.

We may live in an enlightened age of high technology and fast information, but lately it seems all our intellect was left back in the 18th century:

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789