Pascal's Penses

Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don’t speak."

Ozymandius

"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whos frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandius, king of kings:
Look on my words, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Artists On Stealing

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

TS Eliot

My purpose in reading has ever secretly been not to come and judge but to come and steal.

John Updike

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

Igor Stravinsky

Copy anyone but never copy yourself.

Pablo Picasso

I only steal from the best people.

Michael Caine

He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own...will be obliged to imitate himself.

Sir Joshua Reynolds

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.

Louis Armstrong

To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Marcus Aurelius

Useful Information

Fatwallet Magazines Thread: "Here's a no charge toll-free service called OneSwitch which will switch all your magazines for free in one phone call. I did it with like 10 of mine when I moved. The phone # is: 1-800-235-6263."

Unique idea

Draw a pig personality test
Determine some facts about your personality by drawing a pig.

Can you believe your eyes?

Akiyoshi's illusion pages

Riddle me this

The Tree Riddle: "This multiple riddle dates from the 19th. century. To solve it completely, you are required to identify 65 names of trees.
Even we don't know all the answers. Where we do know (or think we know) we have provided hyperlinks. Click on a link if you want to see the answer. Text that is written in red indicates that we don't know the answer."

A giant magnifying glass and tiny people =

Ant City

The Worst Jobs in History

The history we are taught usually features the lives and times of the great and the good, of the haves and not the have-nots. But the famous aristocrats and monarchs could not have existed without the battalions of minions who performed the tasks that were beneath their masters.

In this website, we take you on a journey through 2,000 years of British history and the worst jobs of each era.

Interesting Reading

The Straight Dope Front Page

In Just-

spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee
e.e. cummings

Time for Art

Viewing Japanese Prints

"Illustrated essays on the artists, designs, and techniques of traditional and modern Japanese woodblock prints"

Flash Ad Targetting and Profiling

This is a VGMusic Public Service Announcement.:

"Recently, it has come to my attention that Macromedia Flash ads can store information on ones computer even if you have cookies disabled. This is one of the reasons that Flash ads are becoming more popular.

Macromedia wrote an article on how to disable this, but it's dry and boring. Here's the solution:

To stop sites from storing information on your computer: Go to the Global Storage settings page, move the slider all the way to the left, then click the Never Ask Again checkbox.

To remove existing content stored using Flash: Go to the Web Storage settings page, then click the Delete All Sites button.

This has been a VGMusic Public Service Announcement."

Pascal's Penses

Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established."

Standing on my soapbox

A step in the right direction: "An RIAA attempt to force two universities to hand over the identities of college students bit the dust when Judge Russell A. Eliason of the US District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina, agreed with the students that the subpoenas violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)."

Good News

p2pnet.net - the original daily p2p and digital media news site: "ISPs won't be forced to reveal the identities of Internet subscribers accused of music piracy to the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) - or anyone else.

The news, a crushing blow to the RIAA in its intimidation campaign against alleged p2p copyright violators, comes with today's appeals court decision to strike down a lower-court ruling that supported subpoenas issued under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)."

Ways to fight back against the music companies

Bring CDs to a library: "It sounds almost insane, but if the major labels could, they would probably try to ban libraries. Maybe you're upset that the major record labels are suing families. Or maybe you just got an iPod and you want to do something useful with all those CDs. Either way, bringing your CD collection down to the local library is easy, legal, and a genuinely nice thing to do."

Human Virus Scanner

What viruses are you suffering from?

WORDCOUNT

Tracking the Way We Use Language

Pascal's Penses

When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true."

In order to understand what the other person is saying, you must assume that it is true, and try to imagine what it is true of.

-- George Miller

Scary and Fascinating

Unique ID - The numbers that control your life: "You're identified by dozens of numbers. Your phone number, your driver's license number, your social security number, your zip code, your license plate, your credit card numbers. I find these numbers fascinating. Who distributes them? What can they be used for? How can you use them? How are they issued?"

Say What?

"President Union will address the nation on the state of the Bush."

_ Hampton Pearson, news reporter, WBZ TV

This is addicting!

Fly The Copter - South Coast Diaries - Seethru Zine

I'm always on the lookout for fun websites and neat flash stuff. My top score here is 608. What's yours?