?

Yes, this post needs a question mark.

Wow.

Not to insult creationists or anything, but really, it's kind of hard to take you seriously when this is the kind of crap you're trying to argue with.

Merry Boxing Day

Here's an insanely stupid webpage. I'm currently planning a practical joke on the person who created it, or rather their contact info.

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sponsor

"I see what you're trying to do, but I think if you want to make up for the meat someone doesn't eat, one should eat twice as much one would normally, provided one consumes an average amount of meat. In addition, I think that if you spend all this time complaining about vegetarianism, these people who are good enough friends with you to agree to be taken out to dinner, won't be your friends much longer. However, based on the rest of your webpage, I think that losing friends is your primary goal as a human being."

With any luck, my message will get on the hate mail page.

EDIT: On second thought, maybe not.
EDIT THE SECOND: Why would I even want to do that? I mean, it'll just make me look dumb, which I'm not, and I think he gets enough hate mail as it is.

Snow! Finally!

Well, not any real snow, but over at youtube, there's a very exciting virtual snowfall. Take a look:

Anyway, yep. If you haven't seen it yet, it's on display on channels and videos and stuff. I'm not aware of the specifics, but it can be seen! And by the way, I'm not putting in a link for youtube, because if you need the url for youtube, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to use the internet...

Anyway, on that note, I have one thing to say:

How To Play Riven On Mac OSX

I apologize in advance if I've accidentally already made a post like this one.

If you're a Myst-loving Mac user like me, you'll be very frustrated that you can't play most of the Myst games on modern Macs. When it comes to Riven, unless you're willing to wait for realRiven (StarryExpanse.com), there's only one option:

Thanks to the work of a few dedicated individuals, there is now a simple application which allows you to insert your Riven disc(s), and it then installs it so you can play it any time. It's very good, it works with Lion, Snow Leopard, Things, Stuff.
Anyway. So I tried installing it a few months ago, but, much to my dismay, when it finished processing all the discs, the files would self-destruct without warning. So I thought, well, I'll just copy the files over manually. It can't be that hard. I did so, and it was able to play. However, I hit yet another roadblock. Whenever it got to the point where my five-disc version would ask you to insert disc 1, the game crashed. So I decided, arr, the loot belongs to us, matey! In other words, I gave up and pirated the DVD version. It was so much easier. I have no idea why I didn't just do that in the first place. From there, I did the automatic install, and it worked perfectly. Summary: don't use CDs. Use the internet.
Anyway, I'd recommend this method for anyone who doesn't want to spend time looking for their disc(s), trying to get the formatting right or whatever you might have to do. Or, if you have a MacBook Air like me, or any other computer lacking an optical drive, do it as well! So, here are the necessary links:

Riven X:

Click me!

Riven DVD Edition Torrent:

Download!

And, if you've been in a coma for the past 10 years:

Shame on you! (just kidding)

Hovenbeet Strikes Again!

I'm on a weekend trip to Toronto right now. Tonight, I went to a restaurant known as "Alice Fazooli's". They had a piece of artwork on display called "Simple Twist Of Fate". They had a little comment book thing, so see if you can figure out which one I wrote:

Anyway, yeah. Silly me. And if you're so interested, here's the actual picture. If you look at the label, it's going for $600, which is quite the bargain in my opinion, so I wonder how she even makes a living, unless she makes one painting every two weeks, right? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Um, anyway. Here's the picture:

So, moving on to other stuff. In a few of my posts, I've mentioned, SOPA, or, the Stop Online Piracy Act.  Anyway, as I've said, I do not feel like explaining why it's so bad (it's not because I'm cheap. 'cause I'm not.), so just read their latest email newsletter madoo:

------------------------------------

Alexander,
Holy moly.  We did it -- at least for now.  The House Judiciary Committee looked certain to vote for the Stop Online Piracy Act today.
Instead, because of the work of so many rank-and-file Internet users, the bill's lead sponsor acknowledged that our concerns are legitimate, and adjourned the committee without holding a vote!
Of course, there's always more to be done.  Will you shoot a quick email to Harry Reid to tell him to stop pushing the Senate version of the bill?  He's threatening to call a vote in January.
Here's Wired's take on what went down:

The House Judiciary Committee considering whether to send the Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor abruptly adjourned Friday with no new vote date set – a surprise given that the bill looked certain to pass out of committee today.

It's amazing work: Politicians are, for the first time, having to contend with the Internet as a political force -- and we might actually win.  
But now we need to focus attention back on the Senate, where Marjority Leader Harry Reid says the PROTECT IP Act will be the first bill he calls for a vote next year.
Will you let him and your Senators know that they need to stop pushing this legislation?  It's an election year, and they don't want to do any heavy lifting.  Pushing hard now could get them to back down altogether.
Keep up the great work.
-Demand Progress
P.S. This week has been incredibly inspriring to all of us, and it'll probably inspire your friends too.  Will you let them know what just went down?  Just use these links:

	If you're already on Facebook, click here to share with your friends.
	If you're already on Twitter, click here to tweet about the campaign: Tweet

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One last thing -- Demand Progress's small, dedicated, under-paid staff relies exclusively on the generosity of members like you to support our work. Will you click here to chip in $5 or $10? Or you can become a Demand Progress monthly sustainer by clicking here. Thank you!

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------------------------------------

THE END (not really)

Also, I want a ferrofluid. So much.

~FIN~

Blah

Don't feel like explaining this one. Just go here and sign their petition of whatever:
http://demandprogress.org/

300 Views!

Here's a little treat:

The very first MEUSM Thing is in the possession of Hovenbeet, and has been even before the Big Bang. How this MEUSM Thing was created is currently unknown, even to Hovenbeet. However, it fell out of the sky on the Bag, so it is believed to be the physical manifestation of a machine made by an omnipotent, multi-dimensional race of gods. A few minutes before the Big Bang blinked into existence, Hovenbeet was trying to figure out how MEUSM Things worked. Meanwhile, SteveMig, who still lived with Hovenbeet for a lack of his own Space Organ, was sneaking around the Great Space Organ playing the bagpipes. Suddenly, he burst into the room Hovenbeet was in, and began playing the Bagpipes very loudly, in his young foolishness. This caused Hovenbeet to get a nasty start, and he thus flung the MEUSM Thing he had been fiddling with to go flying into the air. It then bounced off the ceiling, and headed back for Hovenbeet's head, which it bounced off. It then was propelled across the room and landed inside SteveMig's Bagpipe. Since MEUSM Things respond to physical violence and abuse, one can imagine what this might do. It created the Big Bang, and also created 36 more MEUSM Things, which may be the significance of the number 37.

That's just an excerpt from the in-production Beethovenist Bible.

300 views! Yay! Bye for now!

D'ni Font

So as many of you people who may or may not be reading this on a regular basis or just happened to stumble upon my blog...
Um, anyway.
I am a large fan of the Myst series of video games, and also the culture they revolve around known as the D'ni.
The D'ni were a very sophisticated race, and Cyan Worlds has done a very good job at making that sophistication show through. They've thought through every aspect of their race. In fact, one amazing person known as Richard A. Watson, employed at Cyan, has made a language and unique lettering system. As a result, it is inevitable that a fancy font would arise, and therefore it is inevitable that I would have have that font. Here's a sample of it:

As you can see, if you looked at the large version, the detail is very high, and I wasn't anywhere near being zoomed in all the way. Anyway, that being said, you can download the font here:

http://linguists.bahro.com/essentials/Dn______.TTF

You can search pi here:
http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery

Um, yeah, that's just a random thing. I don't have a good reason for including it.

Now, if you haven't noticed, I've altered the look of my blog slightly. It now uses Times New Roman as a font in some places, because I believe it is serious looking enough to make it look like things should be taken seriously, or at at least important, but not so intimidating that it gives my blog that scary, high-tech internet look, which abides by my philosophy of the internet which is that it should be for everyone and not just technology people who don't feel intimidated by this whole "internet" thing. [ALERT ALERT MELODRAMATIC SENTENCE AHEAD] As a technology person who doesn't feel intimidated by this whole "internet" thing, and, as it probably evident by now, is obsessed with detail, I feel that this change of font is a good deed for humanity.

Did you know that the internet was originally developed by a team led by some guy called Tim Berners-Lee? Queen Elizabeth II decided to knight him for some reason. But really, Tim's just this guy, you know? Anyway, I feel way more comfortable with the internet (not that I ever wasn't) now that I know who the people were behind it. And actually, something cool, there was an original webpage for the internet, explaining what the project was about.

http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

What the heck?!

So I've been looking through a lot of my traffic sources lately. The top one is this:
http://www.massprofitsites.com/?hop=diamondium
And I've had another top one that is like that, but it's called "mobile money machines" and uses a "backdoor" of the internet to get you money. I'm pretty sure these things are just a stupid scam, but why SO MANY WEBSITES?! And how did people get redirected here anyway? RRRGH! I hate when I can't figure stuff out.

Anyway, another thing I wanted to talk to talk about is that THE COVER FOR THE BEETHOVENIST BIBLE MIGHT BE DIFFERENT THAN I POSTED! OH MY HOVENBEET! Anyway, so yeah, it's probably just going to say "MIG", or be like the one now, but have something completely irrelevant in the background. So, yes, that's all for today. The Beethovenist Bible is still in progress, and might be coming out sooner, but probably later.
MIG

Infinite Screen Sharing

You know when you have two mirrors directly opposite each other, making an infinite display of whatever's around the edges? Well, today I did just that, but the technology way.
First, I went on to my computer, and shared the screen of another computer. I then shared the screen of My computer with THAT computer. Since each computer is staring at the other's screen, over and over and over, you get an infinite loop. I now present, infinite screen sharing, from the other computer's perspective:

So, yes. If you have two compatible computers with screen sharing enabled, you can try this any time. It won't harm your computer in any way; it's just a cool trick you can do.