Category: Web

My new favorite milblogger. And SDB, who is giving it up indefinitely. Some days you are asking for it just by turning on the computer.

My one paranoia, which is really strange since I basically grew up in the sea/swimming pools/mud flats/other various bodies of water, is sharks. Luckily, there weren’t any hairy, hopping sharks back then to haunt my dreams:
http://smh.com.au/text/articles/2004/08/29/1093717842562.html (I refuse to use the utterly retarded title they thought up for the article; that’s not even trying)

Are you shitting me? Is this really Quentin Tarantino’s blog?
QT’s Diary
I want proof… Maybe it will be forthcoming when the future releases he mentions start coming out, but I’m kinda skeptical. Maybe I’ll wait for the websleuths to check it out. In the meantime, I’ll be trolling for Samuel L. Jackson in the comments (re-enable them, Q-dog!).

New Scientist has put up an amazing interview with a man who survived the Chernobyl disaster, despite being at ground zero:
Cheating Chernobyl
His description of the reactor room is forever imprinted in my mind.

If you are interested in finding more blogs with Japan-related content, be sure to stop by the JapanBloggers Webring and browse the members list. You’re more than welcome to join us if you maintain a blog that suits the application criteria. After joining (or even if you aren’t into the “webring” thing), you’ll probably want to join the JapanBloggers Mailing List (Yahoo.com account required – Register today! It’s free! Non-fattening! And all that other good shit!).
A complete list of members in the webring:
Aberrations on a Picture Book
Achikochi
AdamGraunke.com
Adrift in Japan
Adventurasia :: The Lounge
alive in kyoto
andrea’s photo blog
Antipixel
Aranami
art and japanese culture
Art Brain
asagao’s Blog
asbCreative
Band Man in Japan
Big in Japan
Blender
Blog From Another Dimension
Blogging it in Japan
Blogging Nippon
Bondi Books Blogspot
C@LLing Kevin
C. Buddha’s Hasty Musings
Cerebral Soup
CFKOZAK
Chariotaku
chipple.net
Confessions of a Grade School Role Model
consumptive.org
cultured out
deepermotive
detlog
dottocomu
ELVTR {elevator}
EOFM.net
esthet.org
Fareast
frangipani
Fred
Freyburg.com
Fukuma Hair Flap
Funk’n Blog___Japanese Underground Culture Blog
Gary’s Boring Blog
Gen Kanai weblog
genfab.com – creative and good quality and crazy
gme.jp
gmtPlus9
Harubaru * Far and Wide
heatshimmer sea of echo
Henrik
Hmmn
HOBO-SAN JOURNAL
IASnet Journal – The Beauty of Rocks
I don’t mind if you forget me
IN-duce.net
i-sako
Japan
Jap|andrew
Japandy
Japan Blogger’s WebMap
Japan Takes the Queen
Japanish
Japan. Life. Tanishi
j-dreaming
jjcha.net
Jm’s myTaste music & movie
Kakyou’s World Domination Diary
Ken Loo’s World
Kitakyushu Views
Kristen’s Japan (aka mediatinker)
Laughing~Knees
Life on the Tokyo Circuit
Live from Yokohama : Stuart Woodward
Lost In Translation
M@Blog
M@ck.:Blog.
Made In Tokyo
Marc’s Japan Adventure
Marcela’s Musings on Japan
Mayumix
ME AND OPHELIA
Mes deux neurones
metalbaby
Mikan Moblog
Mike Media
Mint Dandy
Moscow-Tokyo Nonstop
nipponDAZE
Nippon Goro Goro
Noriko’s Yapping
Obscurity
Okite
On Gaien Higashi Dori
On my mind
opinios
Order of Randomness
Ore No Buloggu
Partido Vegetal Nacional
Photokyo
Pinku!
Pure Land Mountain
Rose Tinted Glasses

A long list of games that can be downloaded for free over at the anandtech forums:
CLICK ME HARD, BABY
A lot of these are older commercial games that the developers have released for free since they are no longer really profitable and it’s good publicity. It’s a cool thing for them to do.

This one’s for Michiko, who works at a patent office in Osaka:
Lawyers Unearth Early Patents
(registration required; get login and password at BugMeNot)
Two patent history nerds found the holy grail of the patent world, get ready for this now, the X-patents (forgive me for clowning you; I’m tired of always being the only geek in the room). One of them is for the internal combustion engine! Possibly signed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson! Hilarity ensues!

For some time now I’ve received questions from a few of you about blogging software/platforms. I tried my best to reply semi-coherently, but… Unfortunately, I am almost always busy or catching up on sleep (please contact me if you need a better excuse), so I know I’ve not been much help. I did point out helpful links where I could and I stumbled upon a very good one today:
An Overview of the Weblog Tools Market
It’s a good place to start exploring from as the author has included pertinent links and presents a clear assessment of the weblogging tools market.
Update: If you were intimidated by the link above, check out this one first before going back:
What is Blogging?

You think C-rations and MREs are bad news? Welcome to better dining through osmosis.
When I was growing up, I had an uncle who was in the National Guard. He lived in Connecticut with his lovely wife on a wide spread where they had horses (horses!) and an electrified wire that ran under the corral’s top railing to prevent said horses from brushing up against it. This is where I learned, at an early age, that a long stalk of wild grass will indeed conduct electricity and make you pee your pants. Anyway, my uncle would sometimes bring back C-rats for us kids to munch on and gave us little treats like camo face paint compacts, Army Ranger booby trap manuals (use the plastic spoons from the C-rats combined with everyday, ordinary clothespins to create a trigger for trip wires), and one time he even showed me a “clacker” used to detonate claymore mines (although he didn’t let me keep this – now that was one wise judgment call). Before anybody asks, I will admit up front that I did use the booby trap manuals on our avocado farm in Camarillo to [A] lure my cousin Robert and my little sister Mika into a tiger pit (read: 2-foot hole in the ground covered with leaves and filled with water instead of pungee sticks) and [B] purposefully start a fire on our property with gopher gas bombs and diesel fuel siphoned from my dad’s car (I thought I had fully extinguished the blaze but it later started up again and would have burned down our house if we hadn’t seen the smoke when we were driving by that part of the property to go to the store. Sorry! My bad.).
The best C-rats, hands down, were the freeze dried ice cream packs, which came in one flavor, Neapolitan, and were eaten as is and did not need reconstitution. We tried some of the entrees like spaghetti w/meatballs and some questionable chicken concoctions, but these were really quite nasty, almost inedible, which is saying a lot since we were kids and ate almost anything (for instance, my favorite drink growing up was milk mixed with Dr. Pepper, and my little bro was famous for eating pillbugs). I felt really sorry for my uncle when we saw what he had to eat while out on the field (I seem to recall him mentioning that Cadillac made the C-rats for some reason. Yes, Cadillac the boat maker.). But he seemed to be having a good time overall and would regale us with tales of firing a .50 cal M2 machine gun from an APC and setting hills ablaze with tracers, playing “army laser tag” with the newly issued MILES gear, and the merits of using a Lansky sharpening kit in contrast to a common whetstone for sharpening blades. Damn, I love him for that.
He also introduced me to the Civil Air Patrol when he moved out west, and I participated for a while with the hopes of one day being able to bomb submarines off the California coast like the heroes of old. You have to remember that these were the days of Top Gun, when Take My Breath Away seemed like a good song to fantasize making out with a girl to and my buddy Dustin’s dad, a fighter pilot, was involved with actually firing a missile in the movie (he was like the coolest guy in school for a while, obviously).
But where was I? Ah, yes, osmosis. Does anybody remember that Garfield strip where he has a bunch of books strapped to his head and he’s saying “I’m learning by osmosis?” Well, I really fucking hate that strip (Whoa. Who opened the hate valve, Bodhi?). Digressions aside, might I volunteer the opinion that between the choices of eating food dry or eating food reconstituted with urine, the average soldier might just lean toward eating it dry. Like, every time. Is bacteria-less urine any less urine tasting? Or perhaps they simply don’t season the food since it would make everything taste too salty (maybe the JSDF can use this tactic for their soldiers from Nagoya).
The article mentions the damage that urea does to your kidneys, which is important I think. There is some debate whether drinking your own urine when you are dying of thirst is more harmful than good or not, mostly because its a diuretic, I think. It makes your cells shrink; it is the anti-Pocari Sweat of the beverage world. Then again, I often read about millions of people in China that swear by daily doses of urine for good health. Then again, some of the Chinese herbal shops I’ve seen sell tiger dick and toad anus for increased male potency, so I’ll perhaps keep my opinion that drinking your own pee (or eating it, even sans-bacteria) might not be in your best interest, health-wise.
Besides, it gives you peepee breath.
Update: Before Dave Barry steals it, yes Indestructible Sandwich is a good name for a rock band.

All hail the Chinese butt book pirates:

Clinton is the latest victim of Chinese publishing pirates, who counterfeit entire books and rewrite the contents. Acting on the orders of their employers, translators regularly add invented content to make foreign books more appealing, such as Clinton’s memories of his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.
“She was very fat. I can never trust my own judgment,” the Mandarin version said.
In the knock-off version, Clinton quotes Chairman Mao frequently.

MWAHAHAHA!
Go read the whole column here:
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040721-073739-2407r.htm