Amusing: October 2006 Archive Page

--Stephen Colbert on Blogs (Youtube)

Efthimiou sup­posed that the first vam­pire arose Jan. 1, 1600, around the be­gin­ning of a cen­tu­ry dur­ing which some of the first im­por­tant mod­ern writ­ings on vam­pires ap­peared. The re­search­ers es­ti­mat­ed the glob­al pop­u­la­tion at that time, based on his­tor­i­cal re­c­ords, as 537 mil­lion.

As­sum­ing that the vam­pire fed once a month and the vic­tim turned in­to a vam­pire, there would be two vam­pires on Feb. 1, four the next month, and eight the month af­ter that. All hu­mans would be vam­pires with­in 2½ years. --Math vs. vampires: vampires lose (World Science)

Help! Trapped in a text adventure!
- Marc Laidlaw

Machine. Unexpectedly, I'd invented a time
- Alan Moore

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Cryonics: Disney thawed. Mickey gnawed. Omigawd.
- Eileen Gunn

MUD avatars rebel: virtual Independence Day.
- Paul Di Filippo

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news?"
- Steven Meretzky --Very Short Stories: 33 writers. 5 designers. 6-word science fiction. (Wired)

--Wishes (Despair, inc :( )

"You want feel-good and heartwarming, right?" Scorsese said. "I can do that. Or I can do casual violence with no strings attached. You know I can. What else you want? Kung-fu wire-work? Mentally disabled guy? Boring Robert Redford-style fishing movie? Just tell me what to do, I'll do it. Done. End of story. Give me my Oscar and I'm out of here. Poof." --Martin Scorsese's Next Film To Be Three Hours Of Begging For Oscar (The Onion (Satire))

If I wanted to meet people, I wouldn't be sitting on my ass filling out a MySpace profile. So I skip that and move on to Interests. Exhaustive lists of interests are a major feature of MySpace pages, which is odd because very few of them include "reading other people's exhaustive lists of interests." I put down a few of my passions (cabin fever, eyeglass wipes, people and animals named "Esmerelda"...) and move on to the trial by fire: musical interests.

Frankly, I can't afford to list anything. You know the part in The Hobbit where Smaug the dragon accidentally reveals a vulnerable patch on his chest and subsequently gets shot down like a fire-breathing partridge? Revealing your favorite bands is kind of like that, only not incredibly nerdy. --Lore Sjöberg --MySpace Avoidance Fails Miserably (Wired)

In a carefully phrased, 128-bit encoded announcement that has challenged U.S. security agency procedures, top officials of the National Cryptography and Information Security Council warned that "FrpX-K5jE-Oc4n-e5Dn" if "Ha4d-87gH-uiH3-gB5r-g8Bh" late Monday. --U.S. Cryptographers: 'FrpX-K5jE-Oc4n-e5Dn' (The Onion (Satire))

Is this the way we will all be 'enjoying' our television programmes and computer games in the future?
--One giant step for home entertainment? (Daily Mail)

Many a Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Flash (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

"We are certain that the 16 editors, 417 freelance photographers, and both writers at In Touch will continue to give little Sutton Pierce the attention that a growing child of celebrities requires." --Britney Spears Loses Custody Of Child To In Touch Magazine (The Onion (Satire))

--[E-Mail is for Old People] (User Friendly)