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.”)
Category: posts
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.
¡Jai-Alai!
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!
The 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.
Whoo
Hah hah, I’m tired… whooooo!!! The paper is done. It may be good, it may not be… it was a long day/night though. We need another graphics person, so it doesn’t have to be me.
Unread
Here’s a good little utility that displays your unread mailcount (in all boxes) in the menu bar. Handy if you’re hiding the dock.
Dollars and Cineastes
An article in the New York Times magazine on the death of indie film. Or the rise and fall of indie or whatever you want to call it. You can only make so many indie films before become part of the industry. A gem of an indie film that’s made made on a shoestring budget will appear again — they always do. Indie film directors like to make movies. If the people with money like the movies, they offer the directors some cash. They still make movies they want to see, but they have money to do it with; you just don’t get a heartbreaking story attached to the making of it. Real indie directors make documentaries.
It’s art
Art Garfunkel got caught with dope on Saturday, around 12:20pm on Saturday. It’s good to know that our old hippie friends can ride around in their limos getting high. He commented, “If I was on a raft about an hour west of England, I’d be gettin high and it would be like yeah.”