How Half-Life went from trouble to success
A Gamasutra article by a Half-Life developer. One insightful point: "Players should always blame themselves for failure." [Printer-friendly link from Robot Wisdom.]

Death of Radio Free Yogurt
Eheu! My Technosphere creature has died after only one [Earth] day of life. The questionably punctuated obituary: "Radio Free Yogurt was created by Tim 23 days ago. It has died, sadly all that remains is its carcass. It has killed 0 creatures and has mated 0 times." A poor legacy. I blame the government. My new creature, a carnivore, is Amazing Salamander Twist. Its number is 77366 and you can monitor Twist at the above address. The picture makes it look as though its eye is stuck on its teeth. Now there's an evolutionary advantage. Uh oh, there are about 20 carnivores and 0 herbivores on my screen. Gulp. [He's dead too. "Eaten by prey." My pride!]

Bradlands: A nightingale sang
Flutterby draws my attention to this piece which starts "I met Jason in the same way I've met so many of the most interesting people in my life, by which I mean that I paid him to have sex with me." The piece includes a short version of a toast that I've always loved, said to be popular among WW2 pilots: "Here's to us, and who's like us? Damn few, and they're all dead." I wonder now if my version is the non-canonical one.

Canon S10 test shots
As I learn to use this new digital camera, I have been trying to see what difference the various camera settings make. Happily, this site has done it for me. Man, I have a lot to learn.

Clark Kent and Superman
A terrific comment by Ted Elliot about why we shouldn't expect Lois Lane to recognize Clark Kent, even if he didn't wear glances.

The Widgett Interview: Michael Clarke Duncan (John Coffey from The Green Mile)
You really want Michael Clarke Duncan to succeed after reading this interview. Except maybe the WWF part. [Note: The interview is down the page a bit. If the article has changed completely, check these archives for December 8, 1999.]

Missing Mars lander for sale on eBay
At first I thought the pranksters were claiming to have nicked the poor probe, but their take on the scheme requires much less effort.

Slashdot and the loss of the Mars probe
Not surprisingly, Slashdot readers are still in NASA's corner after the loss of the most recent Mars probe. So am I. There are a lot of great lines in the main Slashdot thread about per-capita spending. One person pointed out that losing the probe cost every American 60 cents, the equivalent of every American losing money to a Coke machine. I particularly like this subthread which is a response to someone arguing that the NASA money could be better used to feed the needy. One response: "Would we be any more compassionate as a society if we failed to explore space? There is already enough moeny to feed every starving child on the planet. We CHOOSE not to feed them. Yes, thats right, no more blaming evil corporations, government, or the space race. There is plenty of money to solve social ills, but we CHOOSE to buy BMW's and large screen TVs instead."

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com
The site claims that this is the longest word in the English language. That's a pretty loose application of the word English.

Police Say Dead Man Was Not A Celebrity
Headline from a Los Angeles news site. They even work OJ Simpson and a Bronco into the story, although that might be a requirement of their style guide.

The Jain's Death
I've read Patrick Farley's work before and I've read about the Jains before, but this piece is possibly the finest work I've read on the web, ever. Go now. Visit the rest of e-sheep when you can.

Drudge on Seattle
When Drudge gets his dander up, he can actually be a great read. A quote: [Clinton said we need] "A way that requires governments to empower people with tools and conditions necessary for individuals, families, communities and nations." Sorry, Mr. Clinton. Here, people empower governments. We thought you knew.

The Scoop Page
A page that assigns weblogs points based on whether they posted popular stories before anyone else. Currently I have 261 points. Evhead leads at 669. I have to wonder if anyone ever actually posted a story after seeing a link from this site. More likely, we both saw it at some unindexed place and then posted it separately. In a related story, I need a catchier pitas name. Tim.pitas.com isn't as eye-catching as Mooselessness would be.

Streaming Canadian TV
Canadian TV channels are now streaming in low quality Real Video. Now I can watch City TV movies in Victoria! If I had two hours and bionic eyes to spare.

Monkeybagel on the riots
An insightful first person account of the Seattle protest from a sysadmin caught in an office building downtown. Includes a few transcripts of the police radio band.

Binary math for third-graders
A transcript of a guest speaker using the Socratic Method to successfully teach the concept of binary numbers to third graders. Imagine having him for a teacher.

Freedom
Montreal's ZeroKnowledge has released version 1.0 of their anonymizing software. Surf, e-mail and chat without your IP being logged or your privacy otherwise being violated. They are charging for the software (after a three month demo period), so I may wait until the version number clicks past 1.0. Don't miss their perfectly written why you need Freedom page.

Reclaim the Streets
The Seattle riots show the force that can be mustered by groups and individuals affiliated by little other than a dislike of The Man -- especially when The Man himself can be forced into responding and becomes part of the protest. This group, Reclaim the Streets, has apparently focused its energies on making the most of the protest and not worrying so deeply about the ideology. They should fit right in.

WTO Seattle
So, what's all the ruckus about? Oh, I see.

PayPal
This free service lets you transfer money from your credit card to someone else's credit card. They compare it to the ability to e-mail money. I'm intrigued, but I think I'll let some other folks work the kinks out. Having your web mail hacked is one thing, but I don't want to see some IRC group dedicated to e-mailing people my money.

China researches passive alternative to radar
This is so Star Trek. "Newsweek said China's new Passive Coherent Location (PCL) system tracked the signals of civilian radio and television broadcasts and picked up aircraft by analysing the minute turbulence their flight caused in the commercial wavelengths." Significance: stealth planes may no longer be stealthy.

Corporate Naming
A hilarious account of corporate naming agencies. Quotes like this make me wonder if the journalist isn't drifting into fiction here and there: "But if it's your own brand, how can you possibly be objective? I mean, would you name your own baby?" Redhill thinks for a minute, then backpedals. "I mean, of course you would name your own baby."
     Corporations interested in the name "Mooselessness" may apply to the e-mail address above. Focus groups have associated the name with innovation, caring, reliability, and the threat of unspeakable nuclear destruction.

Apathy
The link list on this pitas page beats anything I've seen. The links themselves are arranged into abstract ASCII art, complete with mouseovers. Wah! I just noticed he's got a link to my Christmas wish list pita. Buy me the minidrive, man! The minidrive!

Case Study: Nuclear Terrorism in New York
An analysis of what could happen if a 150 kiloton nuclear bomb were detonated in the Empire State Building. This thought has crossed my mind before. Some places in the United States, such as New York and DC, seem like such obvious targets for terrorism of mass destruction that I would be frightened to live there. Now, the world hasn't seen a true attack like this (nuclear, viral or radioactive), but is it so improbable? Will it remain so? I like my small Canadian town. In an, um, earthquake zone.

BarnesAndNoble.com trusts mission-critical app to Windows 2000 beta
I love that headline. The rest of the article is basically "No, really, they are." Good luck, babies.

Lileks on the Beeb
James Lileks gets on the BBC to talk about food safety, because he made the Gallery of Regrettable Food, which is actually about pictures of food. His points were wise though. The BBC is so smart.

The Timna!
Intel's new chip is named after me. Unfortunately, it's also their new groundbreakingly-low-end chip. Figures.

Marmalade
Ooo, disorienting. I was flitting from place and place and landed on Marmalade, only to find that one of her links leads here to Mooselessness. The link was about The One Ring, which brings them all, just as promised. That's the first time I've come across a link to my own page. Marmalade's page is Hello-Kitty cute, tests positive for Great Big Sea, and she has a diary too. I suggested The One Ring in a Slashdot thread about Christmas presents and it was moderated up to 4. Hope Badali Jewelry makes a zillion dollars.

Older Mooselessness entries
If you're looking for even older Mooselessness stuff, you can head to the archive page.