For reasons of aesthetics and functionality, I've moved to WordPress.

http://statehighwayone.wordpress.com/

There is a slight change in tone and there will be no comments.

I hope you are all well.

Last night, I had a dream that I was an actor in a remake of Indiana Jones directed by Peter Jackson. Peter started screaming in pain. I checked his head, and someone had made an incision overnight. Some kind of remote-controlled pain generator had been implanted in his head. It was soon revealed that Hillary Clinton had drugged Peter Jackson the night before, inserted the chip, and was now torturing him until her demands were met. I confronted her, but she refused to admit what she had done.

For years, we have all wondered, who would win in a fight between dinosaurs and American Civil War soldiers? Well, Professor Cline's Dinosaur Kingdom has attempted to answer this age-old question.

What you see along the path of Dinosaur Kingdom is a series of tableaus depicting the aftermath of this ill-advised military strategy. As you enter, a lunging, bellowing T-Rex head lets you know that the dinosaurs are mad — and they only get madder. A big snake has eaten one Yankee, and is about to eat another. An Allasaurus [sic] grabs a bluecoat off of his rearing horse while a second soldier futilely tries to lasso the big lizard. Another Yankee crawls up a tree with a stolen egg while the mom dinosaur batters it down. Mark has augmented some of these displays with motors: toothy jaws flap, tails and tongues wag.

Cleverbot: What is the most important principle of Darwinian Evolution?

Ryan: survival of the fittest

CB: No that's Darwin.

R: What's the answer?

CB: Answer to life?

R: What is the most important principle of Darwinian Evolution?

CB: Survival of the fittest, why do you ask?

Kick Turing's ass at Cleverbot.com.

Worldmapper is a neat little tool that produces maps of the world where countries are shown in a scale proportionate to various statistics. What you see above, for instance, is the proportion of all "territory level decreases in carbon dioxide emissions between 1980 and 2000, that occurred there." That's why a few continents are missing.

Hat-tip to greenUPGRADER, who has a whole bunch of them in the post that links to.

"Use meat tenderizer for enzymes. If you can't find tenderizer, try using pineapple juice or contact lens cleaning solution." My kind of science. And I find myself wondering... what does DNA taste like?

Here's a curious thing. Alley Insider has found that Fox News photoshopped (sorry, Adobe, I mean altered an image with Photoshop or perhaps some other image-altering tool) photos of people who, presumably, they don't like.

Christopher Hitchens has changed his tune on whether or not waterboarding is torture - after trying it out for himself.

As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Jim Webb wants to be Obama's vice-president. While the Wikipedia page is informative, it won't paint the picture that 23/6 ("some of the news, most of the time") has painted with its rundown of Webb's vital statistics. The quote from one of his novels, at the bottom, is... memorable.

The Carpet Bagger Report has an amusing little find about some people's use of auto-replace. Here's an excerpt:

But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

They are all monsters, that's the point. The show is for children, don't forget. They are monsters the kids don't have to fear. The show's message for kids was "We know you're sometimes afraid of monsters, but not all monsters are bad.

Sometimes monsters can be cute and cuddly and quirky and funny. Elmo's a monster and he has such a cute giggle! These are the good monsters.

Not like the monster sitting next to you on the sofa, watching the TV. Not like the monster WHO TOLD YOU FOR THE LAST TIME TO STOP CRYING.

Not like the monsters who kick your toys and curse under their breath. Not like the monsters who say you stole their youth and take pills because YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY. Not like the monsters who meet strange men at the door and leave you home alone. Not like the monsters who hit with their hands, or their words. Not like the monsters who come into your room at night stinking of whiskey and sweat, with madness in their eyes and a belt in their hands.

On Sesame Street, the monsters have not HAD ENOUGH, and they aren't doing it FOR YOUR OWN GOOD.

Your monsters are not brought to you by the number 4 or the letter M. Your monsters don't want you to come and play, they want you to LEAVE THEM ALONE.

Cookie monster is safe, and so are Elmo and the Count. Even Oscar and Bert are your friends even if they are bit grouchy or fussy. Your monsters think our monsters are harmless.

To them.

Your monsters bought you a Tickle-Me Elmo doll, didn't they? They bought it to JUST SHUT YOU UP ALREADY. So they let you play with Elmo and make him laugh and giggle. But Elmo doesn't just laugh and giggle. Elmo loves you, and he listens.

And he records.

And soon, Elmo is going to tell you exactly what to do.

A pretty good updated version of the famous old capitalist pyramid (below). The difference between the two shows the difference between the realities of capitalism (and socialism as a reaction to it) in the days of Marx and today. (Click here for a larger version of the new one.)

I believe the most important difference is the globalisation of the economy and the corollary outsourcing of poverty. While in the 19th century, one could, say, take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London...

Having been on the receiving end of accusations of racism for my criticism of Israel's appalling treatment of its indigenous people, and being acquainted with many people who make no distinction between Jewish people and the actions of the Israeli state, I'm always very glad to be able to point out that not all Jewish people support Israel's actions. Further, there are non-Jewish Israelis (just as there are Christian and Jewish Palestinians). And, finally, not all Israelis support their government's actions.

Of course, the majority of Israelis do support their government's treatment of the Palestinians, to varying degrees within a spectrum that most in the international community finds abhorrent. I'm not qualified to say why, but I suspect it's a combination of compulsory military service and parental conditioning. It's true that most Israelis support their government's actions, just as it's true that most Israeli chicks are intensely gorgeous.

Anyway, last weekend one Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom, marched against the occupation. They took photos. You can see them by clicking on the word: shalom.

More mesmerising than Neave TV, WikipediaVision shows where anonymous edits to Wikipedia are being made, almost in real time, and what is being edited. And there goes the rest of my day.

Paul Neave, a British flash designer, has made my day with Neave TV. He recommends a "deep-seated urge to be totally bewildered", which fortunately I possess, and I was not disappointed. Random clips from shows and movies from around the world, switching channels with every click.

I was subjected first to some Russian talkshow with a dancer in an electronic suit that played electronic music with every move of his body; then a clip from a Godzilla film; then Dave talking to HAL in 2001; then the ever-wonderful Rejected animation. I had to stop there, because I could see this seriously eating into my work productivity.

Nice work, Paul Neave.

Just quickly.

I'm enjoying the hell out of tutoring.

It's my birthday today.

Auckland is sorry to see Richard Bol leave, on account of he's awesome.

"No one would suggest boycotting Britain for invading Iraq. No one would suggest boycotting France for nuclear testing in the Pacific."

Ladies and gentlemen, the "centre-left" of New Zealand politics.

Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, she's been at a conference of like-minded centre-left world leaders. Nice.

It has recently come to my attention that there are certain of you, dear readers of this esteemed web log, who have it in mind to defame me. And, whereas I find it the pinnacle of the basest flattery to do such (can anyone else see the oxymoron?), I fear I must discourage you from doing so.

While my suit is not yet sub judice, anything that may be said between now and when this action finally comes to court may unfairly prejudice my chances of ramming a big, fat legal cock up the collective arses of the Harland-Smith family.

To conclude, don't test my patience.

I may have overestimated how much free time I'll have.

Hiatus again. Sorry. There are a bunch of other people with rights to post in this blog, AND THEY'RE VERY BLOODY WELCOME TO DO SO. Even Tama, who'll probably just use it to invite people to defame him.

Apologies for the two weeks of silence. I've been busy getting into the swing of things being back at university. I am now studying postgrad philosophy (political philosophy and free-will research); tutoring first-year students on Freedom, Rights and Justice; continuing to embody pure awesome; and editing New Zealand's first poker magazine, the first issue of which comes out in April.

So, as you can imagine, I've been quite busy.

But not so busy that I can't find something fucking cool for you today.

Behold: the universe is fucking large.

If you don't know how this works, most of the stuff below involves clicking on a picture to expand the text beneath.

Being linked to by a popular blog is like having visitors showing up unannounced. On one hand, I'm delighted. On the other hand, I'm quite naked, and my wang (which here represents the absence of today's post) is flapping about in the open.

So, just quickly, here are 13 unconventional facts that affect the (US) dollar, and if you like me grew up on Usborne books, delight in a full web scan of The Usborne Book of the Future.

I leave you with this thought:

We perfected toothbrush technology decades ago. Why is society's resources going into inventing new kinds of toothbrush (cheek cleaners? cheek cleaners?!) and going into marketing them when children are dying from lack of simple clean drinking water? Is this system efficient? Is it guided by a benevolent invisible hand? Or is it rather the invisible claw of increasingly amoral systems of surplus production and consumption?

And when ATMs were invented, why were bank tellers not sent home to pleasant paid retirement for the rest of their lives? What are we heading towards? We could already satisfy the needs of everyone on earth with significantly less than 40 hours a week in labour. As technology increases, labour is worth more - so how come fewer work at supplying necessities - and more work at supplying unnecessaries - rather than everyone working fewer hours?

What are we heading towards? Is there an end to this cycle within the current framework? Does anyone have time to think of these things when they're working hard to earn money to buy things they're reliably informed that they want?

Roy Orbison cling-film porn and peace to all of you. Have a safe weekend.

PS. Russell Brown so sexy.