Archive for September, 2009

Photos of Folsom Street Fair 2009

September 29th, 2009

Say what you will about Folsom Street Fair, it’s a great opportunity to take photos of weirdos and naked people.  Of course, the old rule about public nudity always holds true: exhibitionists are never the people you WANT to see naked.

Anyhow, on with the photos!


IMG_0343

House party

WHORE: We Honor Ourselves with Respect and Empowerment

WHORE shirt

IMG_0237

Viking girls

IMG_0251

Now, Cardinal… the rack!

IMG_0286

Here’s the rack in use for a flogging.

IMG_0350

Ice penis

Kink.com

Kink.com

Paddles for sale

Who wants to buy a paddle?

IMG_0367

Gold’s Gym dance area

I like walks on the beach, spring rain storms and taking it up the ass

This would make a great Craigslist personal, I bet.

IMG_0242

For the ladies.

Folsom Security

Security…?

Silicone woman demo

Silicone breasts… and a silicone woman to go with them.

Silicone woman (and real man)

Several silicone women.

No Levitating

September 21st, 2009

No levitating, Mon-Sat 6AM – 11PM.

No Levitating

Spotted outside Roxie Cinema.

Also noted on 16th and Valencia newspaper kiosk (aka Hip Hop Shoe Repair.)

Newspaper industry: Part 2

September 16th, 2009

In a previous post, I had some very negative remarks about the news media.  In this rant, I went over some serious problems in today’s news reporting that I don’t feel are being addressed.

Despite some semi-constructive criticism at the end, I think it comes off as both weak and harsh at the same time.  The tone is a lot meaner than it should have been, and yet in many ways my complaints don’t go far enough.

Fortunately, via BoingBoing I was alerted to a similar posting by Dan Gillmore which says a lot of what I tried to say, only better.  Read his post here.

(No really.  Go read it.  Come back when you’re done!)

The key message of Gillmore’s post is that the news media has an important role in its community and a responsibility to maintain reporting quality standards.  Some of his points are more important than others.  I would argue that the online-only components (4 and 8 ) are actually the least critical; assuming the remaining suggetsions are actually put into play, links and online services are merely nice to have.  Whereas interpretations instead of copying quotes, aiding the community as a top priority, etc. are absolutely mandatory.

There is a simple conclusion to all of this: as a news organization, the responsibility to report the whole truth and nothing but the truth is key.  Telling us what someone said is good, but without fact checking, it’s irrelevant.  Our leaders bend the truth all the time, and if our news organizations don’t show us where reality ends and the distortion begins, then who will show us?

For now, it seems, nobody will.  What a shame.

C/C++ with Eclipse Galileo on Mac OS 10.6

September 13th, 2009

Getting Eclipse to compile your C/C++ applications on Linux has always been a breeze.  On Windows, it’s always been hell.  And on Mac, it’s somewhere in between.

Here’s what you need to get started:

Your Mac OS install DVD has a few optional components that aren’t part of the standard installation.  One of these is XCode, which is Apple’s wonky IDE.  It comes with the GNU toolchain, which is exactly what you’ll need.  If you’ve installed the right thing, you should be able to open a new terminal window (note: a NEW terminal window) and run “gcc”.  If it’s installed, it will return with something like “gcc: no input files.”  Which is true — you didn’t give it any input files.

Now onto the next problem.  Eclipse’s C/C++ Development Tools (CDT) plugin doesn’t work with 64-bit binaries without some significant tweaks because it won’t recognize the binary as a valid application. And on Snow Leopard, GCC compiles 64-bit by default.  Damn!

There’s two workarounds for this, use whichever one suits you best (but not both!):

  1. Switch back to 32 bit binaries. In each project, right click and select Properties, and open the C/C++ Build section, and click settings.  Under MacOS X C++ Linker, click Miscellaneious.  There’s three text fields; in the one that just says Linker flags, add “-arch i386” (without the quotes).  Then go to the GCC C++ Compiler section, hit Miscellaneous, and add the same text to the Other flags box.  Now you just need to do a clean build, and you should be good to go.
  2. Don’t use the Run dialog.  You can use the Run External command to run the 64-bit executable.  This can be somewhat annoying if you have several build options, or you like changing the name of your project.  But it works.

Remember, you only need to make ONE of the above changes. Don’t make both!

Hopefully this helped someone out there.  And even more hopefully, this will be fixed in the next verison of Eclipse.

Update: forgot the “i” in “i386” and added emphasis about only making one of the two changes.

Anger 2009

September 9th, 2009

Everywhere you look recently, people seem more angry than usual.  It’s not that we’re angry about something new — we’re all just letting the little things get blown out of proportion. We’re placing our anger where it doesn’t seem to fit.

We see it every day. On the road and on the street, people are getting into verbal confrontations over small mistakes. On the news, we see citizens yelling misguided and untrue talking points at their government representatives. The spitfire threads on the internet seems to be outpacing everything else (even porn) for the first time.

What is all this? Why is this happening?

My first hypothesis was that the echo chambers are getting louder. The obvious example is cable news networks, which sink to lower lows with every passing day. People watch these “news” networks to have their own opinions validated. It’s like fans of WWE wrestling yelling at one another to suppor their favorite wrestler. The key difference being that WWE matches are fake and don’t really matter, whereas decisions made by governments can have far-reaching implications on our dalies lives. But in both examples, people get mad when their “side” isn’t victorious.

Another example of the “echo chamber effect” is online. Again, we have political shouting games, with DailyKos, Drudge Report, etc. taking the little things out of proportion. But we also see this anger effect on personal blogs, celebrity gossip sites, and bastillions of stupidity like Encylopedia Dramatica or 4chan. It’s no different than the echo chambers on TV.

But the echo chamber effect hypothesis leaves a lot unexplained. These echo chambers have existed for a decade or more. Why are things getting so out of hand only now?

This line of thought lead to an interesting conversation the other day with an acquaintance of mine recently. I think we came up with a better answer:

Let’s assume I’m correct about the premise that people are more angry recently; this is difficult to prove (I’m not a psychologist or a statistician) but the observation seems correct. If that’s true, then what else could be causing the anger problem?

Answer: the recession.

And if you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Even if your job or school is doing fine, you know someone who has been affected. Probably more than one person. Things we took for granted are going away, like workplace benefits, low taxes, cheap public transportation, etc. Here in California, state parks are being shut down, college is becoming more expensive, and even the poison control hotline is in jeopardy.

A recession is something outside of our control, we can’t do anything about it. Most of us don’t even understand the cause. But we all feel the same helplessness.

Q: What do we do when we’re helpless?
A: We get angry.

In short: it’s the economy, stupid. We’re mad for a reason, and that reason is that our safeguards have failed us. Our government failed us. We all should have seen this coming and we all should have saved more, worked harder, and fought it off.

But getting angry at each other doesn’t help. Anger makes everyone’s life unpleasant.

I have a temporary solution — humor is the best medicine. To cure all this negativity, I propose laughing at our own perils and not taking ourselves too seriously. The recession is a tragedy; permanent or temporary, us humans have been laughing off our own personal tragedies for centuries.

Let’s take it gently, and remember that no matter how mad we are at the moment, we’re all humans in the end. You… me… everyone.  We can never forget that.

How to survive a nuclear blast

September 2nd, 2009

In the mid-20th century, Americans were concerned with surviving a new threat: nuclear weapons. Unlike previous types of bombs, nukes could wipe out entire cities in a single blast, burn the surrounding area, and give survivors cancer and other serious health problems.

Thankfully, American scientists invented two foolproof methods of surviving a nuclear blast: hiding under your desk, and keeping your house clean.

That’s right — you can prevent certain death with a desk and a broom! And if you survive, you can just buy a toupee to hide your bald spot. Here, I’ve collected three 1950’s nuclear blast safety videos narrated by 1950’s narrators. Enjoy.

1. Duck and Cover

The message of Duck and Cover is simple: turtles are impervious to nuclear attacks. If you’re not a turtle and/or you don’t have a shell, a desk, table, or even your hands will suffice. Also: watch out for monkeys.

2. The House in the Middle.

Who knew cleaning and painting your house could protect you from hydrogen bombs? Actually, the video never really implies that you will survive; just that your house will still be standing, or will burn more slowly. At the very least, whatever is left of your body will be in a tidy house. That alone should be comforting to the rescue crews, assuming anyone survived the nuclear holocaust long enough to find out. Isn’t that reassuring?

3. Medical Aspects of Nuclear Radiation

Okay, this one is a little long. But did you know that your body is run by tiny dwarfs? Or that you have “sex cells” which are conveniently off-screen? Or that a toupee is “treatment” for radiation exposure? They did have one good piece of advice about a nuclear blast: “Be somewhere else when it happens.” Wow, thanks for that advice.

Now that you’ve seen these videos, I’m sure you’re an expert in surviving a nuclear blast. Especially if you’re a disembodied 1950’s narrator. Good luck, and don’t forget to keep your desk tidy.

Impromptu punk show at 16th and Mission Bart plaza

September 1st, 2009

Today (Aug 31st) I arrived at the 16th St. Bart at around 7pm and walked right into a punk show. There were at least three bands rotating with 2 song sets. Unfortunately I have no idea who these bands are or what the event was called, if anything.

I managed to get a few crappy iPhone pics for your enjoyment.

All three bands used the same equipment, including this PBR microphone.
PBR microphone

Due to the rotation, I saw this band first and last.
IMG_0450IMG_0475IMG_0474

The drummer in this band had a very long and very blond rat tail.
IMG_0456IMG_0458IMG_0460

The singer in this band moved much faster than my crappy iPhone camera could handle. But you go to the impromptu punk show with the camera you have — not the camera you might want or wish to have at a later time.
IMG_0468IMG_0471

Dancing at a punk show isn’t normal. But on meth it is.
IMG_0454

It ended exactly like you would expect.
Police bikeParty's over, man

Full set is here.

Update: a commenter at Mission Mission provided a band list.