tsujigiri

The editorial comments of Chris and James, covering the news, science, religion, politics and culture.

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." -Douglas Adams

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Little girl turns tsujigiri

"Tsujigiri" is a Japanese word meaning "Samurai who kills a man with a sword in the street." This very creepy story from Mainichi Daily News seems like a perfect post to usher in our blog's new title:
Mainichi Daily News: 'I sat her down because I wanted to slit her throat. I always intended to kill her,' the 11-year-old girl currently in custody told the police. The girl, who fatally slashed Satomi's neck with a paper cutter in a room at their Sasebo elementary school, has admitted she chose the location because nobody would be able to see what she was doing. ...The pair then argued briefly about comments about the girl that Satomi had posted on a website. The girl then moved behind Satomi, used one hand to cover her victim's eyes and the other to unleash the deadly strokes with the paper cutter that killed her classmate.

Friday, June 11, 2004

Breslin

Not really inimitable, because plenty of people have, but he's still good:
Jimmy Breslin -- Reagan should be on a $3 bill The great American news industry, the Pekinese of the Press with so much room and time and nothing to say, compared Reagan to Lincoln and Hamilton, they really did. This is like claiming that the maintenance man wrote the Bill of Rights. And almost all the reporters agreed that Reagan was the man who brought down Russia in the Cold War. Just saying this is absolutely sinful. The Cold War was won by a long memo written by George Kennan, who worked in the State Department and sent the memo by telegram about the need for a "Policy of Containment" on Russia. Kennan said the contradictions in their system would ruin them. Keep them where they are and they will tear themselves apart. We followed Kennan's policy for over 40 years. The Soviets made it worse on themselves by building a wall in East Berlin. When they had to tear it down and give up their system, Kennan was in Princeton and he sat down to dinner.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

James here again. I figured I'd take a break from graffito-tagging Reagan's casket and finally react to having an image of an audio recording of a bunch of crappy B-grade celebs reading the Bible pop up when you Google images of my name. I had hoped to find some wonderful, embarrassing stuff having to do with Mr. Winstead, but Google has let me down. Chris is clean. In fact, he's better than clean. He's a dynamo. He just recently informed me of a certain favorable career move. "Cool", I thought. "Years of hard work toward something really CAN pay off. Fuck you, eternal pessimism!" So Chris is an EE guy. At least that's what he's been telling me. And we started college at the same time (1995), and, appropriately, graduated in approximately the same year. At least that's what I thought. But I was wrong.
U. of Southern Miss Astronomy and Physics Alumni News: Christopher Winstead (BS ’88) is now Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Southern Miss. [...] Christopher Winstead, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy, leads the approximately $2 million Eagle Eyes project. The focus is developing optical methods incorporating novel signal processing techniques for the detection of nuclear materials. The project results have application in Homeland Defense.
"1988!" I exclaimed. "A full seven years BEFORE he entered the University of Utah as an undergraduate! And Homeland Defense?!? I and Chris's ould pseudo-anarchist cronies would perchance take issue with such a besotted connexion! Methinks doings afoul be afoot!" Thicker? Observe:
Chesterfield County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors Board Bits 04/14/04: RESOLUTIONS AND SPECIAL RECOGNITIONS -- Adopted -- Resolution recognizing Mr. Christopher Winstead for his contributions as Resident Engineer to Chesterfield County.
"Engineer?" I ejaculated. "Be that electrical in nature? Mayhaps the tales of this Mr. Winstead will eventually resolve themselves into the realm of the 'true', after all, forthwith!" But, alas, the Board Bits sayeth naught. "Zounds," said I unto mine self. "Chris must assuredly have acquired access to some manner of High-Energy Teleportation device, or perhaps have utilised his prodigious gifts of charm and wit to curry the favor of a grieving widow who simply happened to have come into possession of such an Impressive Technological Device upon the unfortunate event of her husband's demise, in order to effectively and efficiently fulfill the duties of both of these Highly Important and Mentally Demanding positions, in addition to his already Taxing and Thankless activities in Edmonton." I had become fully ready to kneel in fealty to Mr. Christ-Offer Winstead, and exclaim Hosannahs from mountaintops in his name, when I came across the following:
DBZ : Millenium Battle - a Dragon Ball Z fighting game: idea designed by Christopher Winstead: DBZ : Millenium Battle - a Dragon Ball Z fighting game Arcade System 2D fighting Basically this is the DBZ fans dream game. 2D with graphics matching Stree Fighter's and the flashy eye candy. this game would play better on an arcade because it has seven buttons on the lay out. But I hope you enjoy my idea. Down at the bottom is a better description of the game. Story Mode: Compete against the computer with the Z fighters in increasingly difficult battles through all the DBZ sagas by training your character raising Ki levels just like in Build Up Mode with various trainers and fighters from the series.
"Odds bodkins, sayeth I!" I said. "Forsooth and whence lieth reason? What the fuck is Chris talking about? Doth he an Eternal Grudge against Proper Punctuation and Otherwise Correct Grammatical Usages hold? Alas, not having engaged in the Efficient and Effective Play of Video-based Competition Games for several ages now, I speak from a place of Increasingly Apparent Ignorance, but, reason forces my conjecture: What the hell is 'Stree Fighter'? Misseth I somewhat something somewhere?" Ye olde Idea Reviewer for that particular illustrious website had this to say regarding Wine-ustead's Dragonball Z idea:
For some reason we are getting more and more DBZ game ideas. I really good DBZ fighting game would of course be cool, but I think you might have spent too long writing about not too interesting details. Idea Reviewer: -Vegard Aure-
"Whither, M. Aure? A rather Impolite and Ignoble Response to our Winstead's admittedly Rote and Commonplace idea, thinketh thou naught? Perhaps Our Winstead suffereth enough at the hands of this Abominable and Ignominious Cur, Vegard, himself the recipient of a name better suited to a Foul and Difficult Villain of Yore in a Medieval-set Video-based Competition Game! Enough!" And with that, my search for the Secret and Hidden Machinations of Kaiser Krist Win-stead summarily halted.

This is good, from BoingBoing:
Monolith and digital copyright: BoingBoing reader Jason Rohrer created an app called Monolith, which "munges" together two arbitrarily-selected binary files (called a Basis file and an Element file) to produce a Mono binary file (with a .mono extension). Jason says the resulting Mono file will not be statistically related to either file, hence becoming an interesting tool for exploring the boundaries of digital copyright (what is the copyright status of the resulting .mono file?)

Here's another good, rather level-headed article from the BBC:
Critics question Reagan legacy

Monday, June 07, 2004

Thanks, Drudge. As always, you're fucking around with stuff and subtly and not-so-subtly manipulating headlines and accentutating the righty version of events, but your occasional, however half-assed, attempts at parity often lead to good stuff. If you haven't seen these already, here are a few links to some nice Reagan articles.
Boston Herald: Cuba says Reagan should "never have been born" MSN Slate, Christopher Hitchens: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan Axis of Logic, Greg Palast: Killer, Coward, Conman - Good Riddance, Ronnie Reagan
The Palast piece is particularly exquisite. His disdain for Reagan is so pronounced and personally attested that several sentences are misshapen and confusing, as if he's stuttering in anger.