Archived Blog
My brother Rob just sent me this, although you non-Kiwi’s out there are probably going to go “Who’s the #*@& is King Kapisi?”.
Some guy is doing animation for King Kapisi videos and he’s put his rough drawings, concept sketches and storyboards online, and they’re funny.
Just read about this on slashdot: It’s instructions for how to modify your standard el-cheapo webcam to work in near-infrared frequencies.
After numerous requests from our guests we have been out to Myer today and established a wedding register of specific things we would like. Most of it is kitchen related stuff (plates, glasswear, cookwear etc.) and there is a quite range of prices so there should be something to suit everyone. More details are on the wedding gift page.
I read this today in “The Battle of Corrin”, by Brian Herbert, and felt it was a particularly insightful piece of wisdom, and one which all to many people don’t appreciate.
“The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and—especially in the case of the Butlerian Jihad—thousands of years of humanity’s dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.
— PRINCESS IRULAN, preface to the History of the Butlerian Jihad”
During some random web-surfing procrastination yesterday I followed a link that lead me to a brilliant old comic that I frequently describe to other people, but which I hadn’t seen a copy of in years (as the only place I had seen it was in the back of a year 12/7th Form Calculus textbook), so here it is.
It is not sufficient only to have a society. You must have a society which is fair and just. You must have a society. which strives to provide the best for its citizens, and indeed for all or humanity, and which revels and wonders in the achievements these provisions allow.
A while back I watched a fantastic documentary on the ABC about the 1960-61 West Indies cricket tour of Australia. Today I was reminded of it, and went looking to see if I could get a DVD of it, and while I had no success on the DVD front I did find the website of the show, which in itself is quite a good read. Here it is:
http://www.abc.net.au/calypso/history.htm
Adversity is the breakfast of champions
I woke up the other day to find that I could not move my legs. It took me a moment to realise that this had happened to me in the past, and it was nothing Is worry about, as it was just due to the cat who was sleeping on my feet.
On the bus on the way to the airport today I saw a poster advertising romantic candle lit dinners at several restaurants across Wellington. It made me wonder whether candle light has always held the romantic connotations it currently enjoys.
I wonder whether it was seen as romantic in medieval times when it constituted a functional, rather than a decorative light source, or whether it was only with the advent of newer forms of lighting (such as gas and electric) that it gained its romantic significance.