found at the 34th St BDFV platform

If you see a suspicious package leave it for the cleaners at Coney Island - it is garbage.

The Exterminator unexpectedly buzzed this afternoon, on the first saturday of the month. We hectically ran around and cleaned up the food lying around before we let him in, afraid, as if our mothers were knocking, of being chastised for our slovenliness.

Wikipedia is the logical successor to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I say this having spent a good hour and a half on it today.

[Ed. May8/2005: This has been pointed out. Slate beat me to it.]

AP Photo from Iraq

Tue May 3, 7:34 PM ET
Picture released by the U.S. Army Tuesday, May 3, 2005 shows a U.S.
Army soldier comforting a child fatally wounded in a car bomb blast
in Mosul, 360 km (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May
2, 2005. 15 Iraqis were wounded in the combined suicide bomb attack.
(AP Photo/U.S. Army)

Today is Yom HaShoah. It showed up on my Palm's calendar this morning, and it wasn't hard to figure out what it was.

And in my lifetime, we've already been through the genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

How about some of that old fashioned imperial intervention folks?

British Election Day.
Cinco De Mayo.
National Prayer Day
Spring Fevah.

Am I missing anything?

Does one need an excuse to get in contact with people you haven't spoken to in many years? Are the above reasons sufficient?

State of Affairs

sigh.

tactics tactics comrade

I had to restrain myself from using the word "retrospect" in the
common context when sending an email to Dantz (the creators of the
Retrospect software) tech support today.

"In retrospect..."

oy.

Batman Begins

The trailer is pretty. And it is made by the director of memento.

Highlights of the slashdot thread:

Direct link to the full screen trailer.

Ninja reference:

Batman can kill anyone he wants! Batman cuts off heads ALL the time and doesn't even think twice about it. This guy is so crazy and awesome that he flips out ALL the time. I heard that there was this time he was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon Batman killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw Batman totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't believe that Batman has REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or he will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

American psycho reference:

I live in stately Wayne Manor. My name is Bruce Wayne. I'm 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I'll put on an ice pack while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep pore cleanser lotion. In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser. Then a honey almond body scrub. And on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then apply an herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an aftershave lotion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye balm followed by a final moisturizing protective lotion. There is an idea of a Bruce Wayne, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me. Only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our life styles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.

Shana refers me to these amazing sites:

A simple search with the terms "***** *******" led me to a site with some of the
most beautiful urban and architectural decay images I have seen.


Here: http://b.f11.org/

And Here: http://buffaloexploration.com/index.htm


Don't know why or how I landed, or if, indeed, I have.

Guess the search terms.

Scientists create animals that are part-human. Or Flowers for Algernon.

Mice with human brains

In January, an informal ethics committee at Stanford University endorsed a proposal to create mice with brains nearly completely made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist Irving Weissman said his experiment could provide unparalleled insight into how the human brain develops and how degenerative brain diseases like Parkinson’s progress.

Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who chaired the ethics committee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice’s behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.

My feeling on this is that if you kill a being that displays human-like behaviour, you're committing murder. The Turing test should be applied here.

No let me rephrase that. If you kill a sentient being, you are committing murder. A mouse with human brain cells that happens to show signs of sentience would be fascinating, and the bar will probably be far lower for people getting pissed off if you're killing animals with human brain cells.

But I'm not against the research.