Today I’ve got a list of Difficult English Words you can use to impress your friends with and really stand out as the nerd you are. If you’re also a coder then you may appreciate this collection of bit twiddling hacks — there’s something there for everyone, and of course it also has the famous HAKMEM bit counting algorithm. City Shrinker makes large things look very small. It’s hard to believe that these aren’t models. For the audiophiles and cat-lovers, here’s Purrcast, the sound of cats purring. And last, but not least, this man is my new hero.
Media
Linkage Three
To celebrate the recent attacks on it, this site has gotten a facelift. Like it?
- Fireball Shooter – Alke and Manfred should love this.
- A Time Traveller Wiki – that idea is so simple and brilliant, why hasn’t anyone done this earlier?
- Das Fest des Huhnes is a documentary about Austria with a twist – it’s told from the view of an African film crew.
- Do Not Reply!
Olympic boycott?
The fire is lit. The games must continue. Today the German national Olympic Committee announced that they will participate no matter what. My guess is that the Chinese would have to carpet bomb Tibet for anyone to boycott the games now. Too much is riding on having good economic relations with China, and officials cannot afford themselves even minor criticism.
Which means that it is now up to us as consumers to decide for ourselves whether we want to see these Olympics or not. I urge everyone who is in favor of a boycott not to tune in the summer, not to participate in the discussion of winners, losers and gold medals. Our governments may not be in a strong enough position to say no, but we certainly are.
Piracy & PC Games
I wish I could have put it as eloquently as the author of this article.
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won’t buy your game, then why support them? That’s one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It’s irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you’re in the business of selling games that is). It’s only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
In other software markets, getting 1% of the target market is considered good. If you need to sell 500,000 of your game to break even and your game requires Pixel Shader 3 to not look like crap or play like crap, do you you really think that there are 50 MILLION PC users with Pixel Shader 3 capable machines who a) play games and b) will actually buy your game if a pirated version is available?
By the way, Sins of a Solar Empire looks like a really great game. Put it on Steam and I’ll probably buy it.
Enno is listening to…
Die Ärzte – Deine Schuld
I know, I know. Bad flashbacks from high school. But this song is so true!
Windows Music
Music made only from Windows system sounds. Another one here.
Film-Fragebogen
Alke asked me to fill out this one. Okay, here we go then:
1. Which film have you seen more than ten times?
I haven’t seen any film that often. I’ve watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Leon a lot, though.
2. Which film have you seen more than once in a cinema?
The Sixth Sense, once in Brasil and once in Germany.
3. Name an actor that would make it more likely for you to watch a movie
Kermit the Frog
4. Name an actor that would make it less likely for you to watch a movie
Keanu Reeves
5. A film you regularly quote from
Withnail & I: “You should never mix your drinks”
6. A film-musical where you know the lyrics to all the songs
No way.
7. Music from a film that you have sung along to
Zoltan Spirandelli, Der Hahn ist tot
8. A film that everyone should have seen
The Straight Story is a beautiful film. But I have also recommended Das Leben der anderen to everyone who wanted to listen (and a few who didn’t).
9. A film that you own
According to the movie industry, I cannot own any of their films, just pay for them. As a consequence, I don’t own a DVD or VHS player. So the only valid answer to this one is probably Steal this movie
10. Name an actor who did not start his or her career in film and surprised you with his acting?
Somehow I have a feeling the interviewer is fishing for Patrick Stewart here. But I’ll say Humphrey Bogart. Although I really don’t know enough about actors’ past lives to answer this.
11. Have you ever seen a film at a drive-in?
We don’t have those here.
12. Ever made out in a cinema?
Yes.
13. A film that you’ve always wanted to see, but never gotten around to?
Many. Mongoland springs to mind.
14. Have you ever left the cinema because a film was terrible?
No. But I should have done it more often.
15. A film that made you cry
I’m a very emotional movie-goer, laughing out the loudest and crying first of all the viewers. Just to give you an idea, I cried in King Kong.
16. Popcorn?
Yuck.
17. How often do you go to the movies?
About once a month, but that depends on the schedules of my friends, since I don’t watch movies alone. I’d go more often if they did. I catch as much as I can of the film festivals in Oslo.
18. What is the last film you watched in a cinema?
It’s actually been a while. Rocky Balboa. And yes, I cried in that one, too.
19. Favourite Genre?
Despite the answer to the last question, I like intelligent movies like Memento.
20. What was the first movie you saw in a cinema?
The Jungle Book. What percentage of my own and later generationn have started with a Disney film, I wonder?
21. What film would you rather not have seen?
The Proposition was a monumental waste of time.
22. What was the strangest film that you liked?
Me and You and Everyone We Know. I got free tickets for this, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have watched it, and I would have missed out on a great film.
23. What was the most frightening film you have ever watched?
I watched Alien late at night when I was 13 or 14 years old, and that was pretty scary. Not scared enough though, we watched it back-to-back with part two which turned out to be lame and not frightening at all.
24. What was the funniest film you’ve ever seen?
That’s hard to quantify. More recently, I laughed a lot in Over the Hedge.
Halbwissen Marke SPON
Der Spiegel ist schon lange immer weniger lesbar. Diese Woche haben sie ein Norwegen-Quiz, bei dem mit vor lauter Un- bzw. Halbwissen doch schlecht wird. Mal ein paar der dümmeren Schnitzer:
Knapp 50 norwegische Kronen sollte man [für einen Hot Dog und eine Cola] schon einplanen, damit ist der Snack immer noch billiger als ein Bier in einer Kneipe.
Falsch. Ein Hotdog mit allem Zubehör plus Cola kostet an der Tankstelle 36 Kronen (4,45 Euro). Das ist übrigens genausoviel, wie fünf Minuten vom Osloer Bahnhof in unserem Lieblingsrestaurant ein halber Liter Bier kostet.
Mitglieder [des norwegischen Wandervereins] erhalten günstigere Übernachtungspreise in den 430 bewirtschafteten Hütten und können sich Schlüssel zu unbewirtschafteten Hütten ausleihen.
Fast richtig, aber irreführend. Der DNT (Den Norske Turistforening) ist kein Wanderverein, sondern ein Tourismusverband. Mitglied muss man nicht sein, um in einer der Hütten zu übernachten, obwohl die Preise für Mitglieder in der Tat günstiger sind. Das lohnt sich aber erst ab einer größeren Anzahl von Übernachtungen wirklich.
“Bokmål” heißt “Büchersprache” und ist heute das offizielle Schrift-Norwegisch, das von den meisten Einwohnern des Landes geschrieben wird.
Bokmål ist mit 85% die verbreitetere der beiden norwegischen Schriftsprachen, aber nicht das offizielle Schrift-Norwegisch, sondern nur ein offizielles Schrift-Norwegisch. Das ist Nynorsk nämlich auch. Insgesamt ist die norwegische Sprache aber eher ein abendfüllendes Thema.
Ansonsten: Das Thomas Dybdahl hier angesagt ist, ist nur noch bedingt richtig, sein letztes Album “Science” hat nur noch mittelmäßige Kritiken gekriegt. Besser, weil aktueller und wirklich im Radio gespielt wäre hier vielleicht ein Verweis auf Marit Larsen gewesen.
Generell ist das ganze total nutzlos. Wer die Antworten kannte, bekommt den Eindruck, daß hier aus einem billigen Marco Polo Reiseführer stümperhaft kopiert wurde. Wer hofft, etwas über Norwegen zu lernen, der bekommt ein paar Fetzen Halbwissens mit, die ihn im Urlaub dümmer aussehen lassen, als er es evtl. ist. Vielleicht weiß er aber ja wenigstens, dass es nicht in Schweden liegt.
Who wants to win a neuron?
This is a clip from the French version of Who wants to be a millionaire.
If you don’t understand French, the question is “what revolves around the earth?” and his options are A) the moon, B) the sun, C) mars and D) venus.
And now for some experimental nudity.
My blog is already blocked in the UAE, but just in case someone thinks about unblocking it, here’s some objectionable nudity for you all.
See this article on boingboing for what this is all about. And yes, boycott SmartFilter.