Delicious!
Posted by Ray @ 12:01 pmA spate of recent US Supreme Court rulings have set the ‘net community abuzz. But the SCOTUS’ decision on Grokster v. MGM aside, there’s another ruling [Kelo v. City of New London - warning: PDF of the judgment!] that allows city governments to take privately owned land and give it to another private entity, if doing so will benefit the government.
(A brief, shallow digression into the law - the case involved the government’s power to seize privately-owned land for its own purposes. In the US it’s called “eminent domain”; Singaporeans may be more familiar with the term “compulsory purchase” of land. Whatever the case, it is generally accepted that it’s okay for the government to take land for its own purposes/public purposes/beneficial purposes. But in a 5-4 bare majority ruling, the SCOTUS held that eminent domain is also applicable for private development.)
Now, in a daring, absolutely hilarious move that everyone should have seen coming, a private developer is seeking to use this new ruling on eminent domain to build a hotel on SCOTUS Justice David H. Souter’s land (he was one of the judges who voted to allow eminent domain to be used in this manner).
To add insult to injury, the proposed development is called “The Lost Liberty Hotel”, and will have a cafe named the “Just Desserts Café” (!).
Best of all, should the Town Council vote yes, it will be utterly and completely legal.
This is the stuff I love waking up to in the mornings =).
Don’t you just hate it when…
Posted by Ray @ 6:51 pm
I profess a certain weakness for panel #4, myself.
Trying this out as an experiment - putting the comic in the main body as well. Perhaps this will give rise to a diverse chunk of intellectual discourse that will broaden the horizons of all who read the comic.
Then again, perhaps not.
Does this solve the prior inability to target a comment at a specific comic? Let us know!
I need a sketchbook
Posted by Zeng @ 1:28 am
Time is running, its definitely running faster than me : )
I’m trying to find time right now, especially time to get a new sketchbook cause I run out of using any free space from my previous sketchbook. Updates for the comic will be back very soon. In the meantime I look like this right now.
Korea II: Food
Posted by Ray @ 6:14 pmUpdate 27 April 2007:
Hello BoingBoing readers!
I’ve uploaded the videos of live squirmy seafood onto youtube, just in case we take a pumelling. Remember, youtube wasn’t such a big deal back in 2005. For some reason, though, the sound did not get through. So I’ve left the original links intact, for those who want them… but please use the youtube!
Youtube links:
And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Dinner is served (this is actually just the appetizer).
The fish here are fresh. They just catch ‘em, cut ‘em and serve ‘em. They’re so fresh, in fact, that they’re still squirming when they’re served to you.
[Right-click and select “Save as” for video: Squirming Fish.avi (2.71MB)]
No part is wasted. The head is chopped up and later made into a delicious fish-head stew, to be eaten with rice and kimchi and other delicious stuff (the side-dishes included sliced octopus tentacles, marinated spicy octopus tentacles, kimchi, seaweed, various slices of sashimi, and bean curds).
If you squint, you can actually make out the fish head:
The fish isn’t the only fresh thing here. The sea urchin eggs are fantastic (the urchin itself is, of course, still squirming); as is the sotong (cuttlefish). Yes, the cuttlefish is also squirming. It’s just that fresh.
[Right-click and select “Save as” for video: Urchin.avi (1.37MB)]
[Right-click and select “Save as” for video: Sotong.avi (0.98MB)]
Seeing as I ate so much, I couldn’t possibly show you everything. So here’s a quick montage with every meal that I managed to photograph (forgot my camera on a few occasions - my bad!).
Left: Stuffed pig intestines. Right: Pig intestine soup.
Left: 5 out of the ~15 dishes served as appetizer. Right: Lunch itself.
Left: Octopus tentacles. Right: A sort of fried pancake (common in Korea).
Left: Korean melons (Now now, not those kinds of melons…). Right: Sliced. They’re delicious.
Raw cow meat. Yes, raw red meat. It’s really good!
The insects again. I believe they’re silkworms, but I’m not sure. These came in a can, and were surprisingly tasty. Who woulda thunk?
…And that’s all, folks! Ate a few more things but they’re probably not worth mentioning. Ah, Korea ^_^.
Interlude
Posted by Ray @ 2:27 amMSN Conversation excerpt #2:
[Name Withheld - do i look 17 or 21?!]:
A 17 yr old asked me for my no. today
[Name Withheld - do i look 17 or 21?!]:
I feel BAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Rayonnair:
Yeah, it must be so tough being attractive huh.
Rayonnair:
You poor thing
[Name Withheld - do i look 17 or 21?!]:
bah.. he was SEVENTEEN
Hmmm…
I’d comment on how some gals would kill to look that young. I’d comment on how some would kill to look that good. I’d comment on how most people would think it was sweet if a young lad came up and asked for their number. I’d comment on how, even after I pointed out (albeit obliquely and sarcastically) the hitch in her reasoning, all she could think of was her own discomfort; blind to the rest of it.
I’d comment on all these things… but she wouldn’t listen.
Sometimes, there’s just nothing I can say ^_^.
Korea!
Posted by Ray @ 3:20 pmOne thing is immediately apparent upon arrival - I can’t drive here. The drivers are all nutcases. Traffic lights are optional; construction trucks U-turn in the middle of major streets; cars don’t just slow down for speed cameras, they actually swerve onto road shoulders and dirt tracks to avoid them; the list goes on.
Not only are the traffic lights optional, they seem to exacerbate the situation. Y’see, the lights here count down to green. That’s Red, to Red-Orange, to Green. If there ever was a way to encourage youngsters to recklessly race down deserted roads, traffic lights that count down to green are it.
The above shot was taken from a car I was in. Nutcases!
You’d think the chaos would make pedestrians more wary of vehicles. Not to a Korean! No, a Korean says “Nabei! You in the big car, who do you think you are!? Come lah! Come kill me if you dare!”
…I really can’t drive here.
This one’s for the ladies.
I had a brief road-trip along one of the major highways that run the width of the Korean peninsula (that’s where I took the photo of the up-turned car above). Along the way our guide stopped by Penis Land.
Penises! Penises everywhere!
Egads.
That’s all for now. My culinary adventures will have to wait till the next post. Just as a preview of things to come, here’s a picture of some delicious insects:
Finished half the plate ^_^.
WWDC Day 4 - Apple Land
Posted by Ray @ 4:13 am
Flags, from left to right: The United States of America; the California State Flag; the Apple Flag.
Today, the lot of us (developers) went to Cupertino, where Apple Computers HQ is located. This is where it all begins, people. This is where a bunch of geeks got together to create what is (arguably, and currently) the most easy-to-use OS in existence. This is where Steve Jobs works.
(Incidentally, Jobs is also the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios. Maybe you’ve heard of them?)
Our purpose at Cupertino?
The Apple Campus Bash!
There was food, food, food, food, alcohol, food, food, food, alcohol, and food. Oh, and we had a live band playing - The Wallflowers.
The high point of the evening, however, wasn’t the band. Nor was it the food. Nor was it the free flow of alcohol (beer and wine). Nor was it feeling like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.
No. The highlight of the evening was my most ultimate impulse-buy ever:
In my defence, it was 15% cheaper.
So now, I leave San Francisco to spend a couple of days in Korea. I hope immigration doesn’t give me a hard time. See ya’ll in a bit, folks.
WWDC Day 2~3
Posted by Ray @ 1:53 pm[This post has been edited to remove all references to XCode, Development, Cocoa/Carbon, Core Data/Image/Audio, OpenAL, OpenGL, and other geeky stuff that you probably aren’t interested in - Ray]
As is required in this day and age, the convention center is wired. It’s 3 storeys tall, and has wireless access points for each level. Unfortunately, it’s dying under the user load. There’s some 3,800 attendees here, and even a fraction of that number simultaneously using a single wireless network severely bogs everybody down.
Lucky for us, the convention center also has communal hard-wire ethernet tables where you can connect to the internet at a blisteringly consistent 200+ KBps.
I was going to take a screenshot of a torrent downloading, but it finished before I could capture it. Heh.
It wasn’t until I fired up iTunes that I saw just how cool having gobs of people networked up could be. See, iTunes has this “share my music” thing going, and I can browse other people’s playlists and such. And unlike the crappy wireless network, the ethernet connections are fast enough that anyone can listen to anyone else’s music library.
So here I am, audiophile and music-lover (hell, isn’t everybody?), listening to gobs of songs by artists I’ve never even heard of, in genres I wouldn’t've considered listening to, in a place I’d never thought I’d be in.
WWDC Day 1
Posted by Ray @ 11:42 pmUpdate (later in the day):
The security here is so tight, even the dog has to wear a WWDC tag.
Damn cute, that.
Update (just after the keynote):
It’s official; Apple is moving to the Intel platform. Steve Jobs said so, heh. Briefly: 1) Apple has been developing OS X simultaneously for the Intel platform all the while; 2) Developers can compile a “universal binary” to run on both Intel and PowePC platforms; 3) Even if you don’t have an Intel-specific program, Intel-based macs can transparently emulate PowerPC programs (through “Rosetta”).
More thoughts on this later; I gotta pop down to Calvin Klein for a bit, and then lunch.
I am indeed enjoying myself in San Francisco. The weather here is a fantastic 20-odd degrees celsius (that’s with the sun up) and that more than makes up for any inadequacies I feel from being in Brobdingnag. I could write about the Muir Woods, or Al Catraz, or the Napa/Sonoma Wine Valley, or how I got lost in some ulu part of the city, but I won’t - for I am here at the Moscone Convention Center (must use American spelling) patiently awaiting Steve Job’s keynote speech.
The biggest anticipated announcement, of course, are the rumours of Apple’s pending move to the Intel platform. We’ll see how that goes down when Steve Jobs talks later.
Some really cool stuff has already happened, though. Yesterday was Student Sunday, and we had a special guest speaker - the creator of the delicious library! Wil Shipley was really entertaining. I find myself jealous of some of the other participants, who got to clone the delicious library using core data… …
…um, okay, I shall stop geeking out on everybody now.
The line is moving! Updates to come.
Saturday
Posted by Zeng @ 2:45 am
Lifes sucks when you are deprived from music and the girls around complain endlessly about not having enough of anything and guys around them ain’t up to standard in their performing/entertaining skills. Being an intellectual whore is tough over here man.
Anime updates : Heard of an anime called basilisk?its another ninja anime! My friend said its ” Worthy of my expectations of real ninjutsu art” unlike some *ahem* ninja animation currently hyped now.
I’ll give a mini review of it once i see it hehe.
Movie updates : The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy , its a pretty clever, monty python and fun type of show.I strongly suggest anyone who follows British TV to go check it out.
Anyway its pretty fun to see mini skirts back in action here because of the heat. *grins*