Time flies

Hört på tunnelbanan idag, lite förenklat:

A: Japp, onsdag imorgon då!
B: Ja - ha! - mitt i veckan!
A: Jomen det går fort.

Ja, tänkte jag, det går fort, och funderade på hur vissa verkar behandla livets stadiga lunk som något nödvändigt ont. Det är nästan som om de bara försöker ta sig förbi livet, som om det bara är ett hinder på vägen. Vart de nu är på väg.

Jag undrar hur de kan klara sig undan ångesten och depressionen. För den finns väl där för alla, bara man känner efter? De kanske bara stretar enträget framåt, knuffar sig förbi och fyller upp varje tyst minut med prat om lägenhetspriser och busslinjer och renovering bara för att slippa höra sina egna tankar. Har de faktiskt någonting att se fram emot på helgerna, eller är det bara ett till tidsfördriv? Varför vill man egentligen fördriva tiden, är inte det något man vill behålla?

Nu låter det här inlägget kanske depressivt och tungt, men det beror nog på att jag har suttit och läst igenom hela Johan Rheborgs blogg. Den är både deprimerande och inspirerande, till exempel fick den ju mig att prova på svenska för en gångs skull. Det är väl positivt?

Best of Slashdot

I read Slashdot for comments like the one below. In case you haven't followed the digital revolution, "iTMS" is Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Amazon MP3 made my Mac snappier! by Zhe Mappel (607548)

People are always asking me, "Professor MacSnappy, why do you buy your music from iTMS?"

No one reason, I reply stroking the Van Dyke beard that looks so rakish with a black turtleneck (it has fully grown back in since that regrettable incident with the calipers, thank you for asking).

For a full analysis of my shopping habits, perhaps it is better if I quote from my ten part, 3,400-word blog post on the subject, which can be found carefully archived at my site, DaringTurdball.com.

"When I see a new car ad on TV and just have to 'run out' and buy the music playing in the background, there are few things I like to put in order first. You might call them 'ducks,' and say I am getting them 'in a row'--but just make sure it's a digital row, and that the ducks are all downsampled audio recordings. Ha, ha--or should I say, Quack quack!"

"One, I don't want too high a bitrate. High bitrates are known to use up A.R.S.E. (Auditory Response Synchronization Energy), a finite resource found in the resonant bones that frame the auditory canal. In layman's terms, higher bitrates wear out ears faster. You only have so much A.R.S.E. Why splurge?"

"Second, I take the 'fidelity' in high fidelity seriously. That's why I want to lock down my music as securely as a 13th century feudal lord securing his wife's genitals before he rides off to the Crusades. Doing so requires strong DRM so that my musical 'honey pots' don't end up getting 'stirred' by any other portable music players. I like knowing my songs are safe and won't be getting roughly used by a Zune on the side."

"Third, like most Americans, I don't want to pay too little. Everyone knows there's a direct relationship between price and quality. I like knowing my song has received that extra special touch of attention, even if it's just someone leaving on a light for it at Apple. Who knows? Maybe while it was waiting to be downloaded, The Steve walked by and gave it the old 'thumbs up' or even a 'peace sign'!"

"Adequately priced low-bitrate songs belted down with high-quality DRM so that they won't fall out of my iPod: yes, it's what I call a musical 'match made in heaven'--thank you, iTMS!"

Orisinal

In case you've missed it, Orisinal: Morning Sunshine has the cutest and most original Flash games ever. The creator, Ferry Halim, must be a genius.

Links & Conspiracy

Here are a few funny/awesome links.

• Minesweeper and NP-completeness If you like Minesweeper, logic gates or math, check it out. This article proves that they are all intricately connected. It's pretty awesome if you're slightly nerdy.
• Titanic 2! It's the sequel to the blockbuster Titanic! Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is back! Very exciting, even to me (who haven't seen the first movie). Plus, I would probably be a bad blogger if I didn't link to it.

And here's the conspiracy. I was looking at the episode guides for Lost, Medium, and Alias. I was looking because both Medium and Alias have been on hiatus, and I wanted to see when they were coming back. I suddenly noticed something weird: All three series are airing episodes with the same name, "S.O.S.", all within a week! Two could be a coincidence, but three?! After careful deliberation, I'm fairly certain it's a hidden message from enslaved writers who are locked away somewhere in the labyrinthine catacombs of the once pure and beautiful Angel City, where the peaceful inhabitants - who once lived in a utopian society free of sickness, death and evil thoughts - are ever fearful of their tyrannical occupants from the dark and twisted Holy Wood. I bet that if you play all three episodes simultaneously, something will appear...

Cyril Takayama

I've discovered some excellent Japanese magicians thanks to the internet. One example is the Yamagami brothers (山上兄弟) who currently hold the Guinness world record for youngest magicians. The age thing is kind of gimmicky, but they're just so cute and great at what they do that you can't help but adore them. (In contrast, there's an extremely gimmicky magician who insists on pretending to be French, manhandling the language in the process: "Torés biaan!") My favourite so far is probably Fujii Akira, a skilled magician with a very amusing and entertaining act, who works almost exclusively with playing cards.

However, my latest discovery in japanese magic is Cyril Takayama, who strictly speaking is an American of japanese descent, born and raised in Hollywood. Despite only being Japanese on his father's side, his Japanese is perfect, which apparently made him eligible to appear on several japanese TV shows, where he goes by the nickname Zero (セロ), since Cyril is probably the least pronounceable name ever. His image is somewhere between David Blaine and David Copperfield, and he does a good job of adapting his tricks to the japanese audience by conjuring up food out of thin air. (I don't know about you, but at least I get the impression that japanese TV shows are always about food.)

Luckily for you, dear reader, a lot of his tricks are available for easy watching on YouTube, a service you might recognize since I use it myself to post videos here. The following is a list of clips I found, from which I've excluded one or two repetitions of the same trick.

• Making coins
• Tea ceremony
• Ice coffee
• Cafe latte
• Hamburger trick (you may have seen this one; I saw this and the following one quite a while ago, before I knew who he was)
• Masquerading as old man
• Cards, kisses and candy
• More candy
• Bird and fruit in Chinatown
• Chewing gum and torn-up yen bill
• Card in water
• Ambitious card with a great twist
• Flying yen bill
• Levitating girl
• Bottle cap
• Glass table
• Card and window 1 (subway)
• Card and window 2 (cafe)
• Card and window 3 (under water)
• Card prediction
• Darts prediction (with Yaguchi Mari, yay!)
• Rubberband (old trick)
• Supermarket (he's made of money!)
• Matches and coin
• Bungee jump
• Shadows and chopsticks
• Shadows, cards and food (w/ japanese celebrity)
• Knife and cards (w/ japanese TV drama cast)
• Broken watch (w/ japanese comic duo)
• Popcorn (w/ korean star)
• Disappearing/reappearing stuff (w/ japanese actor)
• Will do magic for food
• Prediction with a twist
• Disappearing act

That's all folks!

Flash links!

OK, I'm going to make a link dump post and no one can stop me because it's my blog. Seriously though, some of these flash animations are pure genius, and I simply had to share them. It didn't feel right to just hoard all these links. I guess you could say I'm doing my part and giving something back to the world (NB: you'd be wrong).

All links in this post open up in a new window. The first two are on Newgrounds, where you'll have to click "Watch this movie!" to actually see the animation.

• Walk-Smash-Walk This is a delightful music video of sorts. The creator, Sakupen, apparently made both the music and the animation. I found it both exhilirating and relaxing in a Zen kind of way.
• Dad's Home The very same Sakupen also made this humorous animation chronicling a father's chaotic homecoming (i.e. "Dad is home", not "Home of dad"). I laughed out loud, and I loved the moral of the story.
• Nightmare City This is a masterpiece of animation, although the story and the music could both use a bit of work. Still, a must-see.
• 十一月 (November) Excellent art, animation and music, and even a little plot twist. As opposed to most other animations by Maru Production, this one requires no knowledge of Japanese.
• Magical Trevor, parts one, two & three It's more of those zany looped songs from Weebl's Stuff! (You know, like Kenya! What do you mean you haven't seen Kenya?!) My favourite is without a doubt Magical Trevor 2; I only included the others for completeness.
• The Child That Smelt Funny Very strange, long animation (9 minutes) by David Firth, but also very amusing social commentary. The British accent makes it very reminiscent of Aardman animations; I'm especially reminded of Rex the Runt's chaotic style of storytelling.

43 things

A Japanese friend of mine who is teaching herself Swedish showed me 43things.com. I think I had seen it once before and not really understood what it was, but this time I really got hooked. I set up a list of things I want to do, and I will try to check back on that page as often as possible and keep myself motivated to do the things on the list. In fact, I should put that on the list: "Take your 43 things seriously", or just "Check your list of goals often". My username there is joaquim (I can't believe it wasn't taken).

In unrelated news, my older brother is in China. So that's one thing to check off his list, although he doesn't keep it on 43 things. It's cool, he seems to be having a blast. Check out his blog, there's a link to it somewhere around here. Don't read too much of it though, my blog will fade in comparison.

Now, one thing I won't have to put on 43 things is taking pictures with my mobile phone. I just can't get enough of it. Here's a few to start with, and then I'll post more as often as I can remember.

For those of you not from Sweden, this is how buying candy in a swedish supermarket looks like. At this particular date, it was 49 SEK/kg. A fair price.

This is one of my favourite candy flavours: licorice. It also happens to be a hit with the female population of China, or at least the one my brother knows there. This photo looks pretty as a thumbnail, but the large version really shows off the crappiness of my phone cam.

Tune in next time for photos taken on the bus, when bored out of my skull while commuting to/from work.