Slashdot Mirror
Halloween Roundup
Herewith a selection from the holiday-themed submissions today. severedfinger writes, "CNET reports that this Halloween some people are using the alphabet-search system on the new iPods to communicate with the dead. The writer uses an iPod nano to test the new craze. He plugs it into a loud stereo system to 'increase the scary quotient when a spirit picks a track,' and the editorial staff begin to talk to a spirit called 'Brad.'" And markmcb writes, "If you've never read much about the history of Halloween, Nick Dilmore offers an entertaining and snarky summary of how the holiday came to be. From the article, 'Halloween, that festive time of the year when kids dress up in fantastic costumes, bob for apples, and go trick-or-treating. Well, unless they live in a community that has done away with Halloween because some Christians say it's a holiday for Satan, or some Jews say it's too Christian, or some Wiccans say it makes fun of their religion (which has as much to do with ancient witchcraft as P. Diddy has to do with Bluegrass...).'" Finally, check out MAKE's geeky / tech DIY guide to "amazing costumes, scary tech, pumpkins, and gross food."
Can anybody redirect me to a tutorial in which it shows you how to look like a ninja with just a t-shirt.
While these halloween decorations are a bit over the top, /.'ers
might find 'em entertaining and worthy of "News for Nerds"
... so far,
it has raised over $14,000
for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Disease.
7000 lights along with giant inflatable Pumpkin, Frankenstein, and Homer Simpson - D'OH. View with three webcams, control (yes, turn 'em on/off & inflate/deflate) with X10, send Instant Text Messages via webcam, view Google Map of surfers, and enjoy or cuss at the Franken-Homer cursor & Adams Family Music.
Website suggests sending your trick-or-treats to charity
They both suck.
Evil is limited trick-or-treat times. Seriously, when I was a kid, trick-or-treat started at about 3:05 (school's out) and ended around 10:00pm. In that time we'd cover about 12 linear miles of tightly packed houses and amass about two garbage bags full of candy each.
Today, most cities only allow trick-or-treating between 6-8pm....blah.
I like how the big foot is crushing the iPod at the top of the page. It made me laugh.
In the Philippines, which is probably the most catholic country in the world, Halloween is the day you go to the cemetery and honor your relatives who have passed. It is a national holiday and pretty somber. But Christmas is the holiday where everyone throws costume parties and they all go crazy.
Obviously, the most important Halloween event today was my releasing a silly vampire game! It's slightly NetHack-inspired and Yipe!-inspired, except you get to eat placentas and suck blood. Yeah.
Tess the Vampire! (There is 1 naughty word on that link.)
Frog blast the vent core.
Is it real control? Or is it more "Perl-Fu photoshop the images to make it look like you have Control" Control?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
you have to mention the day of the dead, which is actually tomorrow
while some christians may be uptight about halloween, in deeply catholic mexico and the philippines people actually go camp out in graveyards tomorrow
uptight christians must also recall that christmas trees are coopted from prechristian druidic tree worship, and that the time when christmas itself is celebrated actually predates christ as a roman winter solstice festival, saturnalia, and really has nothing to do when christ was really born at all
so perhaps in a couple of hundred years, halloween will become known strictly as a christian holiday, its real pagan origins shrouded in time, just like christmas is today
so let the coopting begin: someone suggest a new, christian-centered name for halloween, and suggest a christ-centered event the day was "meant" to celebrate
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
liquid nitrogen, webcams, hatchets, dissection kits, power tools are used in this high-concept pumpkin carving contest by the editors of popular mechanics magazine. video, podcast, blog and photos included...
The bread was, IIRC, baked with honey, making it more of a treat, getting a better reaction from those receiving them than: "Oh, bread... with currants... lovely" (followed by an awkward moment.)
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
"'Halloween, that festive time of the year when kids dress up in fantastic costumes, bob for apples, and go trick-or-treating. Well, unless they live in a community [...]"
Or perhaps we're just not American and don't want to get involved in yet another commercial event invented and promoted by businesses in the name of profit.
Question: why do American's call Halloween a holiday? In my book a holiday involves time off work.
Anyway, hoping to find a pub tonight that's ignoring this "holiday" and have a good evening my way, not the way defined by big business for you sheep out there...
From the "total waste of time" department.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I personally think the worship of God Mammon is evil.
While the holiday itself is fine, it's become what most holidays turned into: A way to spend money. That's not what it's about. No matter what religion it is supposedly rooted in.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No doubt, trick or treating should not be limited to 6-8pm, that sucks. But if you are time limited, use a simple technique I pioneered in 3rd grade. Have at least two, if not three or more costumes ready. You don't really need full costumes, just masks. Don costume #1 and hit up all the houses in a reasonable area. Note which houses give out the best/most candy. Don costume #2 and hit up only the best houses. Note which of those are still giving out the best/most candy. Don costume #3. Hit up the best houses again. Using this technique you should be able to maximize your candy gathering potential in any circumstance.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I have always found it ironic how evangelical/fundamentalist churches often shun the Christian aspects of the holiday (dead people) to embrace the pagan aspects of the holiday (the harvest). I don't know whether to laugh or . . . well I just laugh.
Don't forget about Ishtar, er, I mean, Easter! Christians do not try to "christianize" these holidays, but recognize them for what they are.
blah blah blah
is the amount of code I have to write.
You do realise that Halloween is "hallows evening", eg the night before All Hallows Day. Otherwise known as All Saints Day, and a public holiday in many countries. I don't know the full mythology, but supposedly on the night before all saints day, evil gets it's big night out of the year. So halloween itself might be seen to be the opposite of the christian festival, but is pretty closely tied to it. All saints day was I think supposed to be for all those saints who did not have their own special day.
Of course, probably before the year 0 there was some existing festival around this time...
I called it. iPods are possessed by evil spirits.
and that prechristian holiday was called samhain (mentioned in the omninerd story above)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or, we could just do what most Christians do (including my father, a Lutheran minister): have fun with it, and don't take it too seriously.
I thought we established that "P." Diddy was no longer to be used
All we know for sure is that its more desperate attention-whoring by hulkster/komar.
Umm... How does does one "lead" in such a "field of study"?
We call it "Embrace, Extend, Destroy."
Blessed Be, D00d...
"someone suggest a new, christian-centered name for halloween, and suggest a christ-centered event the day was "meant" to celebrate"
That name would be "halloween," as in "all hallow's eve," or "all saints' eve."
He Is Awake In my soul A seething hot-bed Of all that will come and will be My Darkest Angel, Come, Sweet Prince of Oblivion. We Are Consumed One and All We beckon Your Call Ashen earth, wake of The Hallowed Harvest Us, O' Lord that we may walk in Your Shadow Lo And Behold My Brethren Perse is the Sunset We are Harbringers of the Void His Mechanism, Stillborn Severance In Vivo Remember, Satanists aren't perfect, but they know someone who IS!
As is Kenova, West Virginia, the armpit of Huntington, which is itself the armpit of West Virginia (and its not even in the coal fields) wasn't scary enough, just add a 125 year old Victorian and 3000 or so carved pumpkins.
Check it out: http://www.wvpics.com/Pumpkin%20House.htm
"Wiccans say it makes fun of their religion (which has as much to do with ancient witchcraft as P. Diddy has to do with Bluegrass...)" As a actual Wiccan I can say it definitely has a lot to do ancient witchcraft, it is just that our religion isn't afraid of change and it helps our religion evolve and change over time and not be stuck in some 5,000+ year old paradigm that is totally unpractical. If you look at most of the religions today few (if any) actually resemble what they did in ancient times. Although Halloween is a fabrication that makes fun of our religion to the point of altering the very name of the holiday and altering everything to the smallest of detail of what the holiday is about to encourage fear and hate. The actual name of the holiday is of course Samhain, or the celebration of the end of summer and the fresh new beginning sometimes celebrated by a bonfire. Although to the contrary Halloween makes all wiccans feel that this time of year is when the horrible stereotypes of us and our religion are exploited to the maximum degree in a negative fashion. The question is though, how on earth could it not offend us? It is exactly the same as having a "lets all hate Jewish people today" and telling people Jews are hooked nosed robbers, fat greedy bankers, and of course for the kiddies, child molesters. Better yet have it on Yom Kippur but change the name to something more Christian of course. I mean everybody besides neonazis would be against this right? Then why have it about our religion? I hope that puts at least some of you into our shoes.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, tomorrow is not "all-hallows day," as this is a later Western Christian (Roman Catholic) feast. There is an all-saints day in the Orthodox Church but it falls at a different time of the year and has no odd rituals associated with it. Christmas is not celebrated on Dec. 25 necesarily because of a pre-christian festival, but because the Church of the Nativity was consecrated on December 25th. You can argue that it was consecrated on this date because of the pagan festival, but I don't think that it is scandelous, or belittling, to try to co-opt a previous practice with a newer practice (from the viewpoint of trying to stamp out the older practice).
In many medieval Christian communities odd superstitions, and associated practices, got carried forward from older practices. Fortunately that doesn't mean that they are Christian practices or represent true christian teaching. Unfortunately in many communities, and even with people outside of those communities, these superstitions have lasted so long that the people do not know where one set of beliefs start and the other ends.
while some christians may be uptight about halloween
If you meet anyone like that, just tell them "Happy Reformation Day" and suggest they dress up as Martin Luther.
If they're actually Catholic instead of just Fundie Baptist, you'll have the added benefit of outright offending them instead of just making them uptight.
Of my own free will, I decided to build my own brain slug for Halloween.
come for the naked robots, stay for the zombies
Wow! That is the worst looking, most over-cluttered website I have ever seen. I think you just gave me ADD.
Anoka, Minnesota claims to be the early adopter of contemporary halloween in the US.
Sounds plausible. Since it is my ancestral pioneer home, I should be allowed to say the delinquents probably needed distraction. Anoka seems like Minneapolis/St. Paul's Lovecraftian "old" white trash suburb compared to other "new" white trash suburbs best left nameless. If there is a fossilized decades-old fetus to be found in a jar in a storage locker (just as an example mind you) -- it'll be found in Anoka/Coon Rapids.
The table's rumbling
The click wheel's turning
No I was not pushing that time
It spells M-S-Z-U-N-E
The table's rumbling
The click wheel's turning
No I was not pushing that time
F-U-C-K O double F
(Ouija Board)
halloween celebrates YOU!
No way Jose. The Romans never touched Ireland, and they left Scotland to the Scots (even built Hadrian's Wall to keep them out). That leaves Wales, Cornwall and Brittany under Roman rule, although even there Asterix and his mate stopped them in their tracks!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
This year, we have someone down the block who has:
The overall effect is of a carnival dark ride. A cheezy one.
That other guy's link seems to be a rip of this: http://www.rit.edu/~djl5698/images/ninjalesson.jpg
BTW, the candy haul was good this year. Many young children were frightened and other people successfully confused by our ninja antics. We also really freaked out one guy by climbing onto his roof and whispering to him through his skylight.
Heh, this post's capcha is "mischief".
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
I figured the /. crowd would get a kick out of my jack-o-lantern this year. The realistic lighting is powered by a bundle of six RGB LEDs, each individually controlled by its own tiny PIC10F200 microcontroller - so technically my pumpkin is pulling 6 MIPS right now :-P (The 'flickering' pseudorandom table is generated with the blue channel all 0s, and the green limited to about 3/4 the intensity of the current red value so that it can only produce a flame yellow and not a sickly green...)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Thank you.
For anybody who asks: I celebrated Halloween by fucking a handsome Russian. He was an excellent lover!
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Oooh, you are so getting bitchlapped by Eostre. She WILL come for you!! :)
Picture's a huge 8ft bunny chasing a guy down the street LOL
The truth shall always be free: Boris Floricic is Tron.
Can anybody redirect me to a tutorial in which it shows you how to look like a ninja with just a t-shirt.
Step 1: Don't go to the Halloween party.
Step 2: Get detailed notes from a friend.
Step 3: Amaze people with your "recollection" of the party.
Step 4: When they ask what costume you were wearing, just say: "Oh, I was a ninja. That's why you didn't notice me". Voila! Instant ninja costume!
HTH HAND
--
AC
Halloween does *not* "make fun of" Samhain. The Samhain practiced today is just an ancient word applied to the festival by modern people. Personally, as a bona-fide initiate of an accepted lineage of British Traditional Wicca (BTW), I can honestly tell you that the existance and/or celebration of Halloween has absolutely *zip* to do with Wicca. Notwithstanding, Wiccan do celebrate the date in question along with some similar meanings (such as honouring the ancestors, etc). However in practice it's only Eclectic Neo-Pagans mis-labelling themselves as "Wiccan" that have any sort of panty bunch over this particular issue. Sorry. None of the BTW that I know of care one way or the other. It's a great time for kids and adults alike.
BTW, if they could code it so that you had to make a charitable donation before you could close the page, they'd be fucking billionaires in no time.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Although you'd need to avoid confusion with the popular all-girl beat combo of the same name.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it