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Signs of the Apocalypse
Recently we've had several sure signs that the Apocalypse is upon us. It's always a bit murky interpreting portents and omens, but I think these are clear indicators of impending doom. One, songs about instant messaging. Two, D'oh is now an official part of the English language. Three, square watermelon. I don't know how it could get any clearer than that: we're doomed.
Has anyone ever heard of the band prozzak?
They're a small (some would say annoying) band up here in canada, and their last big single was entitled "www.nevergetoveryou".
If you actually go to that site you can hear it streamed, at least the last time I checked.
BONUS: features the "uh-oh" sound from ICQ. That alone is worth listening...
Expression on your wife's face when she learns you payed 82 fu**ing dollars on a watermelon: Priceless
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It is also the same way they get the pears inside bottles of Clear Creek brandy. People think it is some weird technological trick. Instead they just tie the bottle on the tree and the pear grows inside it.
Now if they could just get the brandy to taste less like some sort of industrial waste contaminant...
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Never mind the song. Her whole act is a sign of the apocalypse. I'm only 26 years old. I should not be getting grumpy and curmudgeonly just yet. But now I can't help it. How can parents let a 12 year old dress like that in front of a camera? Never mind the Napster issue, or how the RIAA's manipulation of the intellectual property laws are cheating the artists. If the music industry lets Western culture decline to the point that 12 year olds are expected to dress like that to get stage time, it deserves to lose every penny to bootlegging.
On the other hand, she hasn't been signed yet. Hillary Rosen: take note. If you have anything resembling integrity, you'll blacklist this kid for a few years, or make sure she gets a few pointers from Charlotte Church.
Everyone! Download that mp3, reverse the audio and start looking for subliminal messages :)
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Does it matter what shape the kittens are, as long as they taste good? Mmmmm.....Chinese food.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
That was supposed to be out LAST YEAR.
I'll believe it when I see it at HMV in person.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
You know, I hope Apple doesn't sue these guys...
Well, maybe not a whole lot.
But ever hear of the Colorado river? Starts in (surprise) Colorado. Used to run out to the Pacific. Now, is used up pretty much in its entirety en route, both for fresh water & electricity. So, when you secede, better invade a few states, so as to avoid having them cut off your water....
Then again, there HAVE been a large number of CA people moving to CO in the last couple of years. OMG!! The invasion has already started!!!
They even admit it's at least 3 times the cost of a 'normal' watermelon (in Japan).
BUT...
I can see a use for it -- catering. All those swanky functions, with shaped fruit, and origami vegetables... and...
and ice sculptures!
Am I the only one wanting to get the rind off by running it through a food-grade bandsaw? I wonder if the skin is thicker at the corners, and the fruit inside is signifigantly rounder than the package...?
Bah, the things look just wrong. There's gotta be a lot of labor in getting them to grow proper in their little tempered glass cages... and if you read the article, notice the attention to detail -- all the stems come out the exact middle of one side! Somebody has way too much time on their hands.
They'll be sunk when next year's fridge comes out and the manufacturers change the shelf dimensions, though...
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Sorry, I dont find it funny. Actually I find it kind of scary. Even if it is false someone will try to do it after reading this page and a kitten will suffer (well, that's a theological debate).
How we know is more important than what we know.
Hmmm... Apocalypse, eh?!
Internet + Apocalypse = $$
"How you can profit from the coming Apocalypse"
Well, we all know it is coming. Some of us are even getting prepared. Most of us are wondering what to do. I'm still looking for my towel.
So far, though, everyone refers to it as "the" apocalypse. Shouldn't we have a choice? That's where this explosive market opportunity starts. We are now offering partnership equity positions in a new user-friendly, broadband, multimedia, object-oriented, fully scalable, fault-tolerant, interactive, Internet-enabled, web-based, and open source PERSONALIZED APOCALPYSE.
Create your own personalized apocalypse experience at www.myapocalypse.com
Offer may vary by country, state, and religion. Actual apocalpyse may vary. Prerequisites may include IE released for Linux.
A dingo ate my sig...
If anyone thinks this wouldn't result in both those prescheduled blackouts plus about as many additional ones as would have occurred anyway, I have a slightly stale CA "deregulation" plan to sell you.
Granted, there has been less talk of those plans, in recent weeks due to mild weather so far - and there is always the chance that the weather will continue to cooperate by being unusually mild - but clearly state officials are notably depending on virtually nothing unexpected happening - it is being assumed climate is going to occur instead of weather, and that citizens will heed frankly moronic pleas to only use air conditioning when the weather isn't hot enough to require it.
Meanwhile, our state governor is doing his best to prevent enough energy being available by trying to force the federal government to put price controls on electricity, ala President Jimmy Carter's debacle that nearly forced gas rationing, and the state's powerful environmental wacko lobby is gearing up to enforce their BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) ideas to prevent as much new generating capacity from being built as they can manage.
As for your "seceding" troll - it could be nothing else - you seem to be forgetting the large quantity of energy CA is leeching off the rest of the United States. Sure, the Peoples Republic of California might be able to build some tanks - but they aren't going to get very far trying to take over the energy supplies in Mexico and the states to the north they'll need with the Sierra Club telling the tank engines to run on "conservation". Expect everyone in the new "country" will pull together and share resources? Maybe you should rent and watch the movie "Chinatown". While your TV still works.
How long until the first house is built out of these things?
Note: in place of mortar, the joints should be filled with Velveeta.
Sometimes it's more fun to go along with it.
Isn't the anticipated switch to an "electricity for part of the day" third-world infrastructure (and the contention by the idea's promoters that this would be a good thing!), and the discovery of the populace there that they can vote themselves subsidized electricity out of the state budget, evidence enough?
Well, my neighbor's cat approached spherical, with no more apparent manipulation than overfeeding and its own laziness.
More of an oblate spheroid, of course, due to gravitational distortion.
Hi, friends:
To anyone that feel some love or respect for any kind (form) of life...
There is a japanese man living in New York that sell "BONSAI WATERMELONS". Look beautifull, isn't it???? But it is anything, less beautifull!
The guy put the watermelons in glass bottle, put a probe in their anus, that get out through a gap in the bottle to depense pee e faeces.
For the watermelons to take the bottle shape, they are feed with chemistry to melt the seeds, then he keeps the watermelons for the time that they can survive. They can't move, walk or clean up. This cruelty is the last fashion in NYC, China, Indonesia, New Zeland, because it is a "decoration fruit". If you want more information take a look in this site :
http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/bkmethod.html
and how the babies are put into a glass bottle in
http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/gray.html
and
http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/bnw.html
We are making a list to send to Fruit Protection Association in USA and Mexico, and to TV news, to stop this. We are very thankfull for your help and we ask you to send this e-mail to everybody that love water melons and respect the LIFE, so put your name in the end of this list, and copy this e-mail and send.
"browser", "cybersex", "internet relay chat", "MP3", "webzine", and more. (By the way, the OED story was on plastic yesterday.)
The shareholder is always right.
Those watermelons looked more like cubical to me. There wouldn't be much point in buying a square watermelon...
These cubic watermelons look rather like they use Illegal Bansai Kitty Technology...
Todd was also pushing PatroNet, which I still think is a spiffy idea, and which I'm surprised isn't discussed more here on /. in view of the MP3 brouhaha, so the next day I headed for the web page. There, big as life, was "Click here to hear Todd's latest song, 'I Hate My ISP'!"
So, friends, the apocalypse started a while back.
...silly words from a cartoon are not in the dictionary. I bet that link is totally bogus. I'm going to click it now and... D'oh!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It's a perfectly cromulent word.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
A teeny-boper country-western song. *shudder*
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
This isn't going to be the standard "I submitted the Doh is in the OED story two days ago and it got rejected" whine. I mean, I did submit it two days ago, but when I did it, I also included this story about the new Simpsons DVD box sets. So this whine also educates and informs.
Ok, I know I've been trolled, but *COME ON*!!!
Isn't it obviously impossible?
The photos are mostly real (hold a kitten up against a piece of glass, take its picture, let it go). But does it even make sense? "Malleable bone structure"?
Why do so many people fail to see the joke?
Tell you what, we'll give Dubya a sense of humour to bring back with him and share...
But consider this: US Spy plane lands on Hainan Island (China) at a chinese air base and the Chinese are letting the US get it back (Honestly, raise your hand if you ever thought the US would extend such a courtesy, then go back to wondering if a bear shits in the woods), now to get the EP-3E spy plane home, the US is using a russian Antonov 124 cargo jet. Gee, maybe North Korea could pitch in some cutting torches or something. This sure is weird.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
CowboyNeal is left out of consecutive polls.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
This is probably a little too late to reply, but I hope ya catch this...
A guy I work with, his daughter is an MIT student who was involved in this student prank. The goal was to prove what can be done with photoshop. The cat was lured into the jar with a treat, as soon as the cat went into the jar, it's picture was taken... in photoshop it was then made to appear that the cat was crunched up inside of the glass. There was absolutely no harm done to an animal, except for maybe the unhealthy treat.
There was a Dilbert epsiode (when the series was airing on UPN) about this. Dilbet had engineered a high-protein plant, and, as a bonus, the "meat" which came off a vine was cubic and thus was able to be stacked and saved space. Dilbert reasoned this would be a cure for world hunger, as the plant could grow in not so good conditions.
This just serves to remind me that we actually live in an as-crazy world where fiction and reality have no contrasts.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
They don't roll around in the shopping cart and crush my square eggs.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
Next thing you know, we'll also have square cats.. oh, wait..
Torg, come out of the spaceship. Nothing can stop Torg.
The correct question to ask is whether square watermelons would be popular in the States if they were sold for $15 a piece (4 times the price of regular watermelon). And then the answer is a definite "maybe".
Instead of making watermelons refrigerator-friendly, why don't we make refrigerators watermelon-friendly? This way we could still buy those cheap watermelosn, instead of those expensive square ones!
I can picture it now.... Big round refrigerators filled with watermelons...
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
- Toroidal watermelons, so you can hang them on your shower curtain rod, thus saving even more space in your fridge.
- Helical watermelons whose spin leads to increased projectile accuracy.
- Fractal watermelons which look the same after you hurl them at the wall.
- George W. Bush-head shaped watermelons. As decoys.
That's four ideas right there to help hasten the Day of Destruction, and I don't even like watermelon.Inventor of the LOLbalrog meme.
I was watching the news tonight, and for some reason the BBC picked up on this square watermelon drivel - guess it was on Reuters or something. Anyway, they show it on the preview, and during the break my dad tells me how they do it - I'd guessed genetic engineering, when it is in fact just allowing the fruit to grow into a square enclosure. So how did he know? He'd done it when he was a kid... in Iran... in 1960. He proceeded to show me photos. Apparently this was a regular practice at the time - what's the deal with us First Worlders catching on so late?
I can't believe there's a news article about these watermelons... First off, no, their not genetically engineered. If the method is the same as the one I know (developed by a guy I know), after the plant flowers and grows into a tiny little melon-wannabe, a clear acrylic case is fitted over it. As the fruit grows, it's forced into the shape of the case. I believe part of the reason the suckers cost $82 is due to the fact that the failure rate is rather high, resulting in deformed looking, very esthetically unpleasant melons. ;-)
The article says "Japanese farmers", but I wonder if it was based on the works of a guy I know. Although I won't mention the name here, he's a self proclaimed agriculture researcher (Japanese), that has been working on these square melons for atleast 22 years now. (That's when I first heard of them, in '79.) He has also worked on things like square eggplants, but I don't know if those ever took off. The tomatoes did, but were not economically viable... go figure. (Actually, I remember we all laughed at the idea back then too, since even in Japan an $82 square melon is more of a joke than a fruit product!)