Plants - Day 26; update

The pot marked "Volatile" has now spawned quadruplets. Not bad, I just naturally assumed that there would be only one since the strongest one would eat the weaker, but there you have it.



The largest one is yet within reach of the smaller ones so I suppose the status quo will be upheld... For now. Frail(s) has as of yet to grace us with his (/their) presence, probably because I accidentally watered the pot from above on Day 3. I do not function well when woken up in the middle of the night - or in the middle of sleep for that matter. I've actually woken up in the middle of a phone call, very disorienting. Apparently I was awakened by the phone, managed to press "answer", hold the phone to my ear and fall asleep only to wake up a few seconds later wondering who I was talking to. Anyways, I think I'll name them all "Volatiles" for now - no sense giving names to the wee ones, they'll probably go belly up within a few weeks anyhow. Or I could make it my business that they would go belly up within a few week, all but the one called "Volatile" of course. Haven't decided yet. Deathmatch is always an option, but due to my track record with plants I think I'll at least try to keep them all alive - to improve the odds that one of 'em will make it out alive.

Kris Kuksi of kuksi.com

"The great liberator" - click the image for a link to Kuksi's high-res photo.

















"The Guardian" - click the image for a link to Kuksi's high-res photo.

"Propaganda Am-Bush Machine" - click the image for a link to Kuksi's high-res photo.

Related articles;
Paintalicious - "Kris Kuski’s Grotesque Series".
Dark roasted blend - "The Art of the Grotesque"

Non-related article;
The Spoony Experiment - The Thing videogame review
Extract from 'Raising the Dead: A True Story of Death and Survival' by Philip Finch (Via CDNN)

Plants - Day 19; breakthrough, a

Volatile has sprouted. And not in the Grim Fandango "kicked the bucket" sense, but in more of a "growing plant" kind of way. Still no sign of Frail though - the lazy bastard. It's still a bit early for solid foods, but the apparent sign of life from Volatile is a big step in the right direction.

Soon they shall both rise from the dirt to cleanse the apartment of my enemies, the stalks shall run red with the blood of fallen flies.

I am currently in early planning stage for an automated, modified remote controlled car with an integrated motion sensor. The idea is that Frail or Volatile will be placed on the roof, the car will be positioned on the floor and then actively track flying objects, calculate intercept patterns and position the plant within striking range of the object - be it a fly, mosquito or otherwise. More advanced plans entail the use of a remote control, for instance a Wiimote, to designate target priority - i.e. "take that one first, he's second". However development has as of yet to be scheduled, we're not even in beta.

Hot tub - Chicken wings & salsa sause

These little thingies were on sale at my local ICA supermarket. For the (scary) bargain price of 10kr (the equivalent of 1,63 USD) you get a 190g (6,65 oz) bucket of chicken wings with salsa and a wet wipe. That 190g with bones by the way. These tubs were to expire on the 23/3 - that's in 5 days, so I suppose that was one reason for the reduction in price. Including a wet wipe was a nice idea, but I submit that a fork would be far more useful. The whole thing is somewhat perplexing since the instruction clearly state;

"Remove the lid, dip, fork and wet wipe."



"Remove the lid, dip, fork (not included) and wet wipe." would've been more honest but perhaps a bit too abstract.

I checked the other tubs, and sure enough - no forks. Besides, a fork and a wet wipe seems like a redundant combination - if you use a fork (properly) there should be no need to wipe your fingers. Well, I guess it's all moot anyways- there is no fork.

They're really sticking it to us good, there's even a picture of the fork on the tub - look!

Alas, these were all the parts
I got.









To heat the wings you just remove the accessories, poke a few holes in the cellophane (using the not included fork), heat in microwave for 30 seconds, shake tub, heat again for 30 seconds and serve.

Apart from the bones, the chicken parts were rather tasty and not very crunchy. The salsa was a bit sweet - but they did call it "salsa sauce" so I guess I'll let it slide.

In summation; definitely worth 10kr, but the idea kind of falls short since it's chicken wings and not chicken filé/nuggets - who the hell likes bones in their food anyways?

Anonymous

Things of interest

I just had to take a picture of the horror, sorry for the crappy quality - I used my camera mobile. This is one of those squishy toys you get to borrow during blood donations - except this one had a horrible rendition of a world map on it. As you can see someone needs to read up on their geography. The other side was equally horrible, North America was about 2/3:rds the size of Latin America and with it's scooped out area at the eastern shore it looked like a big "C".

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks has a ton of images like these, "misinterpreting bad punctuation since 2005".










[This used to be a embeded video]
Most of you've already seen this video (or variations there of) but for those of you who haven't you're in for a treat.
Just count the passes.
[Had to remove the crappy embedding job, I removed the link line but the video still stretched outside the designated frame and I didn't want to scale it down. Here's a direct link instead.]

This problem struck Systembolaget in Storuman (pop 2,400) as well, although I did have cash on me for once so I guess it all worked out for me. // For our non-Swedish reader(s?), Systembolaget - (current) holder of the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly had a computer failure the 15:th of March and could only accept payments in cash. In Bollebygd thirsty consumers took out money from the local Ica supermarket which ran out of change.

This is a link to a text from Abyss & Apex, a short story as told through an Internet forum about timetravel and the potential problems free roaming travelers may cause.

Job

FYI; I just got a job in Stockholm, working for a reputable IT company no less. But do not despair, R.O.R.B. will not regress into the decadent swamp inhabited by office gossip blogs. Here at R.O.R.B. we (it takes one to write and one to read - that makes two of us, hence "we") dip into the random insanity of the world, rant, review and hopefully ever so often give information that sometimes, in just the right light, resembles good advice.

More trivia; I've removed my C.V. from all the different recruitment/career sites I was registered on - so no more of this crap. I left home at 18:00, spent the following morning in Stockholm and left for home in the evening, arrived very early the following day. During that period I recieved a total of 36 e-mails. Supplemental; I hate to travel by train.

Fraudulent e-mail petitions

Spotting fake Internet come-ons are easy, however most people do not think twice when they get a sign-up-petition in the mailbox.



These petitions are a way of striking at the recipient using a DoS (Denial of Service) attack, denying the target use of his/her e-mail account. Here's a short check-list of how it's done;

1. Take an instantly lovable cause
(use words like "free", "save", "stop")
2. Add graphic images/video to illustrate the cause
(getting people angry/sad is key)
3. Add "send to all friends" and "when X number of names,
send to [target e-mail]"

The basic math; you get one mail petition. You sign your name (creating a unique list with your name at the bottom), send mail to 5 friends. 5 friends sign and send to 10 friends. There are now 50 unique petitions, all with your name somewhere at the bottom - and this is just in 2 steps. This goes on (for each individual copy of the petition) until the number of "signatures" reaches the X mark (some petitions has a X of as high as 500 "signatures") and someone sends the mail to the target, who's inbox will overflow in a sea of duplicate petitions. Here's another interesting thought; to get 500 unique names in a chain petition e-mail, every one of the 499 recipients must only send the petition to one other person (the 500:th sends to the target) - sending the petition to just one more person creates a branching list, once more proving the futility of these petitions.

Needless to say do NOT forward these types of petitions, inform the sender that it is a hoax (give a link to this post for instance) and remember that everyone's got the right to be a sucker once or twice.

And there you have it

I'm officially not paying the TV charge. I called Radiotjänst in the morning and asked that they would explain to me (slowly, as if I were the president of the United States) why I had to pay the TV charge for a small plastic box which on it's own is as useful as a cigarette without a lighter.

Apparently I pay for the mere privilege of having the possibility of watching their transmissions. There are so many good and crazy analogies to that, I think I'll just skip it - make your own [here]. Anyways, I packed up the Digital Box and sent it on it's merry way (it now resides in a friend's storage space), called Radiotjänst again and politely asked them if they would consider letting their starving day time actors starve a bit longer - I kind of need my money for the time being. Sure enough, I did not have to pay. Finally. I've been pissed off for the last 24h, perhaps I can relax now.

Update; SVT (Swedish television), employer of the goon squad also known as Radiotjänst (executive branch of the extortion scheme), wants to start broadcasting their crap on the Internet - which by their screwed up logic (see above) means that since everyone with a computer and an Internet connection CAN watch their crappy programming (the mere possibility, not actual use) and hence must also pay tribute to the starving daytime actors they employ - the so called TV charge. That does not make any sense what so ever - Hata Radiojänst och SVT också för den delen!

How the hell can they charge me for something I cannot get rid of?

I got a call from Radiotjänst today. Apparently they knew that I had a so called Digital Box and therefore had to pay a rather steep charge for owning a device which receives transitions (2032kr/year for 2008 - that's 322,82 USD!). This charge goes to the Governments radio and TV broadcasts which means;


A: the evolution of Swedish non-profit TV programs, and just when you thought TV had reached the bottom
B: money into the hands of undeserving B-actors with too little talent to do real movies/series
C: a fee for a service I despise and never use
and not to mention the fact that: I DO NOT OWN A TV!
"But that does not matter" says the woman on the phone "If you own a box you must pay". She kind of caught me off-guard, so I just ended the conversation after she so confidently noted that she's putting me on a donor list to the starving day actors they employ. I did protest and added that I hate the crappy box and would gladly get rid of it (violently, if possible) - after all I did refuse to pick it up in the first place, but the landlord insisted (I'm pretty sure he won't take it back and I have to leave it when I move out - it belongs to the appartment or some non-sense to that effect). But nope, that did not fly according to her - I was fucked. And when I was going to call back to pick up the fight, they were closed for the day! She called me at 17:10, they close at 17:00! Well, they are not getting my money. I WILL beat this, mark my words!

Compressing, isn't it?

Things tend to get more interesting under pressure but under compression bad things start to happen. Technically, compression does generally not pose a problem for diver's (not counting partial pressure problems) - it's the decompression that screws up things. The same thing holds true for MP3 players (notice the nice little 180 I did there, now we're on the subject of MP3 players). Compression makes neat little packages of large .wav files which then can be decoded by MP3 players. Unfortunately most compressions are lossy (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 for instance, commonly refered to as just "MP3" which technically speaking is to general of a term to provide any usefull information), chopping away parts of the original sound file. I think we all can agree that below 192kbps good songs go bad, and if you're listening to your music with headphones - Very bad. At 192kbps and above (beware of crappy VBR ripps though) there should be no added noise, clicks or distortion but MP3 files are by their nature lossy and a fair amount if information is trimmed from the song in favour of a smaller file size. Cheap/bundled headphones usually helps to distort the clarity of the music which makes small imperfections hard to hear since the headphones lack the definition to accurately reproduce minute details of sound. With most middle-end-and-up headphones the sound opens up greatly which adds depth and detail to the sound quality but also brings out the imperfections. There are basically two ways to prevent compression related audio problems - either compress the songs in a very high bitrate or don't compress the songs at all (there's also a third option in between the two, lossless compression). Most people prefer to compress their music since the idea of a single file weighing in at 34MB for a 3:24 long song seems excessive (P.O.D. - "Alive" in case you were wondering). However compression removes much of the depth and tends to make songs sound more "flat". It's hard to explain but it sounds like the instruments and the singer kind of melts together at the edges, the boarder between the two is somehow faded and muddled. There's also generally speaking a sensation of listening to music in front of you rather then around you with compressed songs - hard to explain, but hopefully that makes sense to someone. This also makes a huge difference in immersion for me, I get pulled into the songs to a much higher degree. Granted, the difference is usually only observed when listening to non-compressed songs - but once you go uncompressed it's hard to go back.

I did a little test on my iPod Shuffle. I uploaded two versions of "Alive", one in 192kbps .mp3 (4,7MB) and the other in 1411kbps uncompressed .wav (34,2MB). I sat down in my sofa and started with the 192kbps version. It sounded alright, I was hard-pressed to find something to really complain about although something just didn't sound right during the busiest parts of the song and the singing felt a little bit flat. Then I moved on to the uncompressed song. Wow... It was like a veil had been lifted from the song. The bass was well defined, deep and controlled, the singing was detailed, precise and very clear. Again this is very hard to articulate, you have to hear the difference for yourself. As 192kbps it a fairly low bitrate, I made a third version of the song - ripping it with iTunes in 360kbps AAC. This version was virtually indistinguishable from the 192kbps in my ears, both had that flat-ish sound to them. The sound of the uncompressed song was so much clearer so much... Just "more" I guess. The bass was lower, the singing were higher and the cymbals were razor sharp. I redid the test with Nightwish - "Feel for you", one file in .wav and the other in 256kbps MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3. This time I shuffled the songs on the Shuffle so I didn't know which was .wav and which was .mp3. As I listened to the first version of "Feel for you" on the playlist my first guess was .wav, but wasn't sure just yet. After 30 seconds I knew, if this wasn't .wav it was the best compressed song I've ever heard. I connected the Shuffle to the PC, and sure enought - the first version was the uncompressed file. Unfortunately I was unable to test the Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) (a reportedly lossless codec, which reduces the file size with 40 to 60%) since the Shuffle does not support this format.








The bottom line; MP3 players with suitable headphones can really get a boost from uncompressed or lossless compressed files, but even with lossless compression files will get considerably larger then your ordinary lossy MP3 file. Unfortunately people in general are surprisingly unconcerned with sound quality considering the money they payed for their MP3 players. The trend today has drifted MP3 players from "Music Player" to "Mediocre Multimedia Center". Apparently every MP3 player must have a minute color display and a hand full of crappy puzzle games to appease the general public. Here's an idea; Since a MP3 players due to it's relative size and capacity is unfit to be anything more then a music player - why not make a music player? Strip away all the crap and make the best MP3 player ever. Apple was close with the iPod Shuffle, although the omission of ALAC does not make sense and even I understand that the general public demands a screen. The cold hard fact is that a portable MP3 player in any role other then as a music player will be a half-assed compromise. Retailers sell Mediocre Multimedia Center player on the sheer "wow" factor of their additional and unnecessary functions - not sound quality. Consumption at it's worst, "If the consumer doesn't know what he wants, sell something flashy with a lot of gimmicks". And some of the reviewers are not helping either, Appleinsider actually wrote a six (6!) page online review about the 3G Nano, without a single comment about sound quality. None. It's not even mentioned in the final pros/cons roundup - "volume" was mentioned once, but that's as close as they got. They wrote, and I quote; "The biggest annoyance with the new Nano is the games compatibility issue". What the...! Who cares, it's supposed to play music - and judging from your review it's anyone's guess how well it even does that! According to CNET Asia the sound quality of the 3G Nano "still sounds just middle-of-the-road" in case you were wondering.

Plants - Day 3; destruction imminent

Frail woke me up last night.
At around 00:14 I was watching/half sleeping to "the Wire", I had a few episodes on my PC.




I was rudely awakened as the right speaker started making a series of unhealthy noises at a less then pleasant level of volume. Apparently the humidity underneath the sheet of plastic covering the pot had created a small pool of water at the edge of the plate which leaked through the sheet. I reached for the amp and turned it off. As I lifted Frail off the amp, I could see a few drops of water underneath the plate. The amp did not short circuit and it does seem to work just fine today - or as fine at it usually does anyways. Both Frail and Volatile have now been demoted to a more kiddie proof hydration system - a small bowl with the plastic sheet covering the pot inside the bowl. This had aught to prevent any further "accidents". As punishment for his disobedience I've demoted Frail one level, he is now as -1, Volatile keeps his place at the starting level of 0. Frail has yet to be reached for comment as he for the time being lives a secluded life underneath the soil. Authorities speculate that by the time Frail makes himself available for inquiry the statue of limitations will prevent any further actions against the accused.