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All Hallow's Eve
It seemed like a shame to delete all the Hallowe'en submissions coming in today, so let's see if we can figure out something useful to do with them. Tonight is a full moon, which is a bad thing if you happen to be around animals. Several readers sent in Mac O' Lanterns of various types. One soul sent in a Jack O' Linux. This guy carves big pumpkins (be sure to click the arrows to see the finished versions). And if all else fails, bring out the Gimp.
Its not just a full moon, its also a blue moon (2nd full moon inside a calendar month). The first blue moon on Halloween since 1955.
This halloween will be very special, with the crisis we are living and some superstitious facts. CNN tells us: To make the superstitious even more jittery, a constellation associated with the some end-of-the-world beliefs will also be at the top of Wednesday night's sky.
Look a great article about this at cnn.com .
"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." -- Linus
From the article:
what's so unusual about a blue moon on Halloween is that it last shone over California in 1944. And there won't be another until the year 2020
And:
The blue moon was originally defined by the Maine Farmer's Almanac in 1819 as an extra full moon within any season. Later, however, the respected publication Sky and Telescope altered the almanac's definition and since then it has come to mean the second full moon within a single month.
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
The mascot is Wilbur. Duh.
_sig_ is away
The Gimp link mentioned in the body of the story has 1108 hits as of right now. Let's measure what the /. effect can do.
10-31-2001 Duuude, me and my buds have a great idea -- we took our machine and put it in a pumpkin -- we call it "Jack-O-Linux" get it? Linus would be proud!
11-04-2001 JOL (Jack-O-Linux) has begun to smell. I'm beginning to regret not putting in a fan as playing Quake tends to heat it up quite a bit and makes the rotting stench almost unbearable... should've used a Crusoe.
11-06-2001 JOL caught on fire today. I think a piece of rotting pumpkin flesh fell onto the sound card and caused a spark... I'm not really sure though, as I'm afraid to look inside the pumpkin.
11-07-2001 Fabreeze doesn't work on pumkins
11-09-2001 The JOL exploded today as I was browsing slashdot. Apparently the Methane inside the pumkin built up to critical levels. Now my room smells like an odd mixture of farts, pumpkin pie, ozone, and death. Funny thing though -- JOL still boots.
11-10-2001 Drinking with my buds tonight we came up with a great idea: B-E-O-W-O-L-F..
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
The effect of the phases of the moon on human nature and behaviour is well documented; some studies show positive aspects of the association and some show negative aspects. Crime, crisis incidence, human aggression, human births, and traffic accidents are all positively correlated with the phases of the moon.2-6 Some articles have suggested that the full moon has no influence on human insanity, alcohol intake, drug overdose, trauma, or the volume of patients in emergency departments.
Translation -- studies on the effect of the lunar cycle on various things turn up contradictory results.
Nonetheless, the study linked here looks pretty sound to me, with fairly objective data measurement and P less than 0.001. I'd be interested to see a better breakdown of the animals involved but this sample seems to be so heavily weighted to dog bites that it probably doesn't matter.
Of course, the sort of people who style themselves "skeptics" confidently assert that the lunar cycle has no effect on anything. Those guys always rub me the wrong way, anyway, but if you're going to be a superior, sneering prick about other people's ideas, you should at least make sure that your "debunking" is accurate.
It's like how in college, your professors tell you that much of what you learned in high school is false. And then you discover that just about everything you were taught in college ws wrong.
I wonder if the pumpkin computer overheats. After all, it's components are kinda GUI, er...I mean gooey. I wonder if seed slime lubricates the hard drive? Those boys need more to do.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
Go to the Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group homepage, and check out the great Tux jack-o-lanterns linked at the top of the page!
I was just too stoked to see this. Those wacky kids over at sCary's carved pumpkins the other night. The best, hands down, is the middle one here. I dont ever think I've ever seen a Thundercats logo in a pumpkin. Even better: shugaMom was the one who carved it.
Shamelessly stolen from yahoo..
To make the superstitious even more jittery, a constellation associated with the some end-of-the-world beliefs will also be at the top of Wednesday night's sky.
The Seven Sisters constellation, which looks like a small cluster of grapes, has long been a signal for the time of year to honor the dead - such as All Saints Day, Nov. 1.
According to myth, the Seven Sisters constellation is at its highest point in the sky during a great calamity, possibly the biblical flood or the sinking of Atlantis. The Aztecs and Mayans believed it would be overhead at midnight on the night the world comes to an end, Horkheimer said.
The Seven Sisters and the full moon will both be directly overhead at midnight, he said.
.....
I guess its time to tick off items from my Disaster Check list...
Rapid Nirvana
My (very religious) friend told me today that it's Martin Luther day for Lutherans.
I suggested that he should go trick-or-treating; as a "trick", if people don't give him candy, he could nail the 95 theses to their door.
Just a friendly reminder!
Random Musings
The mac-o-lantern was cool, with the rear projection and all.. but I was hoping somone actually took an old mac, gutted it, carved it out and threw a candle in there. THAT would have been cool
Don't Tread on Me
This was last year but it turned out pretty nicely: Gimp-O-Lantern.
--Ben
Don't forget the lovely and talented jack-o-lanterns up for display on Rotten.com.
-j
Torg, come out of the spaceship. Nothing can stop Torg.
Now days we call the 2nd full moon in a calender month a blue moon. But that was not the original definition.
Usually a season has 3 full moons, the last one often being called the harvest moon. On occasion, a season has 4 full moons. The last moon in the season is still the harvest moon. The 3rd full moon in a season with 4 full moons is the Blue Moon.
You can find this history in Sky and Telescope
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
After carving my pumpkin last night, a friend noticed that it strongly resembled one famous kernel hacker: http://www.xeme.com/~elanda/pumpkin/possessed.html
Its not just a full moon, its also a blue moon
I'm often said to only get laid one in a blue moon... Hot sex for me tonight! YAY!
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
It would have been even more hillarious if he turned it a quake server for halloween-theemed quake...although I don't know if you can get away with that in a military school.
Finding God in a Dog
I wonder how many times he had to explain just what the hell this is supposed to be.
Actually, I'm not sure what type of thing the Gimp is, myself. What is it and why does it grin so? And where's its body?
And what's with the blue seamless paper and light boxes used in those photographs? Geeks are supposed to use cheap digital cameras with glaring flashes, with a stack of Jolt cans in the background.
Today, I bought a bus ticket.
The expiry date is 01.11.01 11.10.
Of course, the purchase date was 01.11.01 10.10.
I found this totally hilarious. Perhaps I should get out more often.
I heard on a news report yesterday that sailors on the ships by Afghanistan where having door decorating contests.
You have to have something to releive tension and provide a tie back to your homeland, especially on holidays. I wouldn't consider Halloween a major holiday, but I'm sure it helps them mentally.
More power to them.
load "linux",8,1