Cogs can think.

I want to save something for posterity.

Tumble weed made out of ass hair in the Grand Canyon.

Really, don’t ask.

Meanwhile, in #haiku:

[05:43] Thom_Holwerda: link
[05:43] Thom_Holwerda: god im waking up at 5am just to update osnews
[05:43] DeadYak: hah
[05:43] absabs: :D
[05:43] Thom_Holwerda: i should be getting paid for this nonsense
[05:44] Thom_Holwerda: cant these guys do their thing according to old-world time
[05:44] Thom_Holwerda: GMT, you know.
[05:44] Thom_Holwerda: my cat sure is cheerful at 5.44am

This is a photograph made on set of THE FILM. Which has been postponed until 2009 because MGM is broke.

Which means another gazillion months until the best television series of all time ever and ever forever is resurrected.

I wish I could meet Ellen Muth. Contrary to Fiona, Ellen appears to be relatively approachable, spending quite some time at several conventions around the US. Which happens to be the problem: I live in a glorified swamp on the wrong side of the pond. She’s also quite active on Ellen-Muth.com, answering fan questions on the forum. Sadly, the forum is a rather large mess so even though I have a few questions for her others might find interesting, I haven’t a clue as to where to post them. Hint: ONLY OCD PATIENTS MAKE GOOD MODERATORS.

Didn’t Eugenia once get to interview her favourite actor on OSNews? Maybe someday, OSNews will allow me to interview Ellen (or Fiona).

You’ll be amazed as to how flexible I can interpret “Exploring the future of computing”.

God, Allah, fate, nature, the cosmic goat, call it whatever the fcuk you want, fact is its sole purpose is to screw me over.

There’s a BeBox rev. 8 dual 133Mhz incl. all software for sale in The Netherlands. Distance? Drivable. Price? EUR 600.

BUT I’M NEAR BROKE.

Ok, so I have this 22″ widescreen flat panel superdeluxe 1680x1050 display. For someone growing up with MS-DOS and 800x600 SVGA, that’s a lot of screen real estate.

So why do people insist on maximising Firefox when they sit behind my computer? It kind of makes me think of that thing that I have where when I touch one cheek, I have this uncontrollable urge to touch the other one too.

The difference is that I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for my behaviour and I’m sure I’ll find it one of these days.

Banned in the US and many other countries back in 2003 for being too graphic (we Dutch got to see it full on, though), this is one of the best videos ever made.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

I love it. This is how I like music videos: graphic, confronting, nauseating, with a message. Just one of Robbie Williams’ many masterpieces. “We sing love songs so sincere…”

TAKE THAT celebrities.

I’d like to introduce a new addition to the family.

Sex is yet undetermined, but they believe it’s a girl - meaning her name will either be Deesie (’Dutchified’ Daisy, as in, Daisy Adair, protrayed by the ever so attractive Laura Harris) or Alice (as in, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). I really can’t wait until the end of June when she’s ready to leave her mother.

Deesie or Alice - it’ll all depend on her character.

I’m also extremely curious as to how Twiek will react. He’s used to having the entire house to himself, so I wonder what he’ll do as soon as the new kitten arrives. My guess is he’ll puff his tail and dive under my bed, as he always does.

PUSSY.

For a long time now, I’ve been wondering how it’s possible that some people can be extremely excited and happy about the tiniest of things, the tiniest of achievements, gestures, or presents, while others need so much more in order to be happy. How is it possible that some people seem to take on life’s most fcuked up moments effectively, while others seem to cringe at even the slightest of missteps?

There’s a multitude of reasons, of course, but one of them, I think, is what I now call the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness (I came up with that all by myself, nice eh?). See the below diagram:

There’s a scale that goes from infinite unhappiness, to infinite happiness. Somewhere in between sits your Lifetime; your most difficult and unhappy moments define the border on the unhappiness side, while your best and happiest moments define your border on the happiness side. You spend most of your life somewhere in the middle, but whenever something, for instance, really sad happens to you, it depends on your border on the unhappiness side as to how well you’ll be able to cope with it.

If it falls within the border, you’ll most likely be able to cope with it fairly well. It will affect you, no doubt, but you’ll get over it. If it falls outside of the border, it will be more difficult to deal with - and the further outside the border it falls, the harder it will be to deal with. Of course, this works cumulatively; a lot of unhappy events falling within your border of unhappiness can add up to drive you outside of the border. After the events outside of your border are over, and you’ve dealt with them accordingly, even if it took a lot of time and effort, your border moves up a few notches, and your Lifetime will become broader.

In other words, your personal definitions of “infinite unhappiness” and “infinite happiness” coincide with the border of your Lifetime area. Happiness, therefore, is relative.

An inevitable consequence of the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness is that not everyone will have a Lifetime of equal width or position. I believe that this is something that can cause major problems in relationships - platonic and romantic. Let me explain.

Even though no one thinks in terms of Lifetimes and infinite whatevers, most people realise subconsciously that their Lifetime might not be as broad or narrow as that of another. Personally, I’ve had my share of really unhappy and sad moments in my lifetime - I have two mentally ill brothers that have wrecked havoc on my parents and I since before I can even remember, and I’ve been through things of which the mere thought can still bring me to my knees - even now, now that my parents and I rarely have contact with my brothers, their names make me cringe, and certain songs that I have connected to them can severely break my day. I won’t detail it all, because it’s really none of your business and I don’t want to sound like a nancy, but it’s been pretty rough.

Add to the above the fact that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, and all the crap that followed from that, and you cans see that my border on the unhappiness side is closer to the infinite unhappiness side than that of others who’ve had less troublesome lives.

Now, let me assure you, I’ve not had a bad or unhappy youth - quite the opposite. I have an infinite amount of great and very happy moments in my youth, I had every thing I could have ever wished for (well, except for ‘normal’ brothers, that is), and I’ve been blessed with the best parents one can ever wish for.

But I digress. So, for someone of just 23 years old, I have a fairly broad Lifetime area on the Happiness Scale - but I realise that a lot of other people have even broader Lifetimes, because they have been through a lot more shit than I have. In other words, I, and with me many others, realise that something that might make me very unhappy, something that makes me depressed and miserable, can seem like a relatively minor and unimportant incident to someone whose Unhappiness border is a lot further down west - and I act accordingly.

Trivially put, I won’t loudly whine about my phone being stolen to someone who just had their entire house robbed empty, including their cars and wallets.

However, this doesn’t go for everybody. There are quite a few people on this world that do not realise that happiness and unhappiness are very relative terms. That in and of itself is not a problem - it only becomes a problem as soon as these people come into regular contact with someone with a much different Lifetime area than their own.

A person who does not understand the relativity of happiness, and who has a very narrow Lifetime area quite far towards the Infinite Happiness side of the scale, might complain loudly about things that seem utterly and wholly irrelevant and insignificant to someone with a Lifetime area closer towards the Unhappiness side of things. If someone continually complained to me about healthy sibling rivalry, saying it made them very unhappy and depressed, I fully sympathise with that someone, because I realise that’s all he knows - he’s never seen sibling rivalry go beyond what is considered healthy. To him, it’s a major problem, and I’ll treat it as such, and discuss it as such.

But what if I didn’t realise the relativity of happiness? The guy or girl could piss me off, could annoy me with his constant whining about something I would consider insignificant - you can imagine how that wouldn’t really strengthen my relationship with that person. In fact, if it goes on long enough, it might damage it. I’d be pissed off because he whines about what I consider to be nothing, and he would be pissed off because I belittled a problem that is very much really affecting him and making him unhappy.

This theory can explain a lot more than mere troublesome personal interactions. Ever wondered why people who live in third world countries often appear to be very happy and cheerful, even though they barely have a thing to eat and have to worry about whatever the hell they have to do to live through another day? Exactly - the state of being required to make them happy is a state of being that would put us rich and fat westerners three light years outside of our unhappiness borders.

Take the Theory of Infinite (Un)happiness into account whenever you deal with people, and trust me, it will make your life a lot easier. As soon as you actively realise that happiness and unhappiness are relative terms, you will make yourself a lot happier.

Right so I’ve really been enjoying Star Trek: Deep Space 9 for the past week or so. It’s by far the best Star Trek series if you ask me - it’s grittier, dirtier, darker. Not the ridiculously perfect world of the Federation and Starfleet, but the fledgeling and unstable world of Bajor. And let’s face it, Bajorans kick major butt. Passionate, proud, and their uniforms aren’t as nancy as Starfleet’s.

The whole history of Bajor, Terok Nor, and the Cardassian occupation is much more interesting as a background than, well, whatever the background was in The Next Generation, because it really didn’t have one. Voyager’s background is nice too, albeit too much like TNG’s, and Enterprise’s was a tad bit too… Weird, at times.

I loved when Jadzia Dax (totally hot, by the way) asked Miles O’Brien, what’s a spectral magnometer? and O’Brien replied, I don’t know, I haven’t built one yet - DS9 has these subtle cases of self-deprecation.

Anyway, I can’t wait for the Dominion War to break loose.

As I was watching the chillingly well-written “Duet” episode, I was fumbling around with a piece of paper to fold it into a sort of spike, so I could use it to clean my trackball. As I was done cleaning the darn thing, I unfolded the paper back into its original state, and then I realised the piece of paper looked a lot like some sort of science fiction space attack cruiser. Before I even realised it, I was flying that thing through the air while making woosh and pshoooo noises.

God it’s good I live alone.

YouTube comments are generally the worst thing the intertubes have ever brought forth. However, as always, the exception confirms the rule. YouTube comment on an interview with Fiona:

She makes me want to have kids just so I can pretend that she’s the mother!

I’m SO with you.