Month: January 2004

Hack value

n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for
expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being
that the accomplished goal is a hack. For example, MacLISP had
features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were
installed purely for hack value. See display hack for one method
of computing hack value, but this cannot really be explained, only
experienced. As Louis Armstrong once said when asked to explain
jazz: “Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.” (Feminists please
note Fats Waller’s explanation of rhythm: “Lady, if you got to ask,
you ain’t got it.”)

Caffeine servings

Here’s a table with how much caffeine various products contain (it’s American, but a lot of things are the same here)

Diet Coke 12 ounces – 46.5
Coca-Cola classic 12 ounces – 34.5

I guess that might be one of the reasons why I gravitate towards diet coke. That and coca-cola can just be too damn sugary sometimes.

Journal artwork

I’ve been doing some artwork for the back page of The Journal (for the short story contest). The first one came out today, unfortunately it was printed in black and white, while I was told to design in colour. Anyway, I posted the colour version here if you want to see it.

Oscar noms

The Oscar nominations are out for this year, and there aren’t a whole lot of surprises, at least not for me. And I’m happy to say that there’s no possibility of musical winning best picture this time around. There are always movies that you saw that don’t get any nominations, yet you think they were fantastic. I saw a fair numbers of movies this year, thanks in no small part to Bittorrent. I really liked Buffalo Soldiers, but it’s not much of an Academy movie. There was also American Splendor, which managed to pick up a screenplay nom. And City of God, which managed to do quite well for itself. I don’t know about Sea Biscuit for best picture, I just found it a bit cheesy. Johnny Depp got a best actor nom, that’s good news.

Breakdance party!

Papal breakdancingThe Pope hosted a breakdance party over the weekend. Yup, papal breakdancing. I really don’t know what to say, other than wishing I had found it yesterday. You know those times when you want to make up news and create photoshopped graphics but then the news event actually happens? Yeah.