https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDQKh4HTgS8
😮
Monthly Archives: March 2015
unicode geekery
the most current version of UNICODE, (v.7.0) has an emoticons block, which has, predictably, been incorporated into the most recent versions of your most popular operating systems in your most popular “mobile devices” (i.e. cell phones, tablets, etc.)…
but, because of the fact that they’re emoticons, i.e. pictures, rather than words, the interpretation of the emoticons in this block is, apparently, open to wild speculation about what they actually “mean” or “represent”…
which makes things A LOT more confusing, rather than clearing things up, as emoticons were intended to do…
for example, U+1F624 FACE WITH LOOK OF TRIUMPH looks like this, according to UNICODE:
looks like this in Mac OsX and iOS:
and, honestly, to me it looks like a “haughty” face rather than a “triumphant” one… either that, or it’s someone with an outrageous mustache…
another one that is even more confusing is U+1F632 ASTONISHED FACE, which looks like this, according to UNICODE:
and looks like this in Mac OsX and iOS:
which looks to me like a DEAD face… seriously, why don’t they make his eyes OPEN and not X-ed out… 😐
and then we get into non-real (for people in the west, anyway) glyphs, such as U+1F472 MAN WITH GUA PI MAO, which is in the “Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs” block and NOT the “Emoticons” block — a confusing aspect that is shared by a lot of the other “emoticons” in the version of unicode that the general public uses — which looks like this:
and in iOS it looks like this
i guess it is somewhat more understandable if you know that GUA PI MAO is a type of Chinese skullcap, but even knowing that doesn’t make it particularly useful to a western person…
and a lot of the things that pass for emoticons, but are something else, according to the UNICODE standard, are weirder than that… for example, the world-famous U+1F4A9 PILE OF POO, which, according to UNICODE, looks like this:
and, according to apple, looks like this:
i can think of a few select circumstances where the PILE OF POO glyph might be actually useful, and a whole bunch more that would definitely be silly, but why it got included in UNICODE is so far beyond my understanding that i am totally baffled.
“god”…
i was listening to “pastor” david mitchell on the radio this evening, and what he had to say really angered me for a number of reasons.
he’s a predestinarian, and he believes that “god” made two different kinds of people: sheep and goats. sheep need a shepherd, and will go to heaven, but goats don’t, and won’t. goats are, basically, canon fodder. find a job that is too disgusting, degrading, dehumanising, or what-have-you for a sheep to do, and there’s a goat that is perfect for the job.
or, at least, that’s what “pastor” david mitchell would have you believe.
problem is, for “pastor” david mitchell, that the same “god” that created sheep also created goats, and, while sheep get to go to heaven, there are a lot more goats that end up going to hell… which isn’t very “fair” for a “god” that’s supposedly a loving being who would not that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life.
what it comes down to is that i’m a goat: regardless of how much “christians” like “pastor” david mitchell would try to convince me, i’m not interested in worshipping a “god” who made me a defective being whose fate is sealed from the beginning to suffer eternal torment. if i’m a goat, then it won’t do me any more damage to blaspheme the “holy spirit” or to say that Tina Chopp is God, because i’m going to hell, regardless…
on the other hand, if i were a sheep, i could blaspheme up one side and down the other, and then accept jeezis as my “saviour” and everything would be all right again.
which, i suppose, is why “pastor” david mitchell assumes that people don’t know whether they are sheep or goats, because even the goatiest goat could change their mind, some day, accept jeezis, and get a free pass to glory…
and how, according to “pastor” david mitchell, is one to determine whether one is a sheep or a goat? if you are “concerned” about your “salvation” then you are a sheep. if not, you are a goat. simple as that.
problem is, for “pastor” david mitchell again, people like me, who are concerned with what he calls “salvation”, but are not inclined to worship a “god” who can’t — or won’t — create all people to be “saved”… are not inclined to worship a “god” who creates sheep and goats, and says that the sheep are “saved” but the goats are “damned”…
if someone can come up with a “god” that doesn’t discriminate between his creations, who says that EVERYONE is welcome, leaving none out — including gays, athiests, hindus, muslims, tri-sexuals and hippopotami — because they don’t “believe” the right way… then i’ll take notice.
until then… watch out, because when i start talking about God, everybody’s going to run away, screaming and covering their ears. 👿
i suppose this is the only time i’m going to have to update this in a while…
so the moisture festival starts this week. i’ve got a sancapators rehearsal on wednesday, and then i play with the sancapators on thursday. then i’ve got a fremont philharmonic rehearsal on saturday. then starting a week from wednesday i play, with snake suspenderz, one show each wednesday, thursday and friday, three shows saturday, two shows sunday and one show monday. then i’ve probably got a fremont phil rehearsal on saturday, april 4th, and on wednesday the 8th i start all over again, with the phil, one show each on wednesday, thursday and friday, three shows saturday, and two shows sunday. my recollection is that last year i got sick on one of the days that i played with the sancapators, and spent the rest of the festival recovering. i’m going to try to avoid that this year, if at all possible.
moe broke a tooth few weeks ago, while she was on her way to las vegas, and then she broke another tooth about a week later, which she had pulled about a week ago, which resulted in dry socket, a very painful condition that i would have preferred she NOT have to suffer. she went to the dentist today to get her crown made, for the original tooth she broke, and she’s got another appointment to have some other work done in a couple of weeks. it makes me really glad that i’ve got indestructable teeth (seriously, ever since i was a kid the dentists i have gone to have shooed me out of their office as quickly as possible so that they can get actual, paying customers in their chairs, and some have been rather obvious and rude about it), but i wish she didn’t have to go through all this, because i know how painful it can be. 😐
i splurged and bought a USB turntable that actually works (compared to the sony turntable that i had, which appeared to work, but didn’t, in some extremely significant ways that weren’t actually evident until almost the end of the project), and re-started on the process of rendering all of the remaining vinyl in the house (which is a surprisingly small amount at this point) into a digital format that can be played on “today’s” devices. i’m rendering the vinyl albums into .flac format, for burning onto CDs, .ogg format for playing on my desktop, and .mp3 format for playing on my phone and tablet… of course i’m also thinking of how this whole project can be monetized once i’m finished with my own projects, because i can’t be the only person with a hoard of obsolete but desirable music… 👿
some jehovah’s witlesses just came by our house. it’s the first active evangelisation attempt we’ve had on the house in a very long time. the last time i was taken off guard and actually took their line of drivel for a minute before i ejected them from the property, but this time i was alerted (thanks to zorah, who barks at anything that moves, so i had to be a little aware, as well), and i met the guy on the front porch and told him that i wasn’t interested in his drivel before he even had the chance to say anything. i went back in the house and, while i watched, four more people in a car drove up, so i went down to the driveway and said, very clearly and slowly, “Tina Chopp is God! Praise her OR DIE!!”… i suppose now they’re going to call the police on me, but it was worth it. 👿
by the way, this post is at least partially because my sister posted that she and her husband are “not very exciting people”… the reason you’re not very exciting people is because you don’t try hard enough… 😛
growl
we had a snake suspenderz gig at the old-folks home in renton this afternoon.
we have actually been hired by this particular old-folks home for four gigs throughout 2015. this is the second one. the third one is in april, and the fourth one is in october.
you would think, because of the fact that THEY KNOW WE’RE COMING, that they could pull their corporate head out of their ass for long enough, as they agreed before the previous performance, to get us FUCKING PAID ON TIME… 😛
but if you thought that, you would be wrong… AGAIN… 😛
and, as we experienced the last time, if we simply refused to play, our audience, which has absolutely no control over the redistribution of wealth, would be the ones who suffer. 😡
rehearsal season is here
monday i’ve got a fremont phil rehearsal. tuesday i have a sousa band rehearsal. wednesday i have a fighting instruments of karma rehearsal. thursday i have a snake suspenderz gig. sunday, a week from today, i have a fremont phil gig. wednesday week, i have a fighting instruments of karma rehearsal… then the moisture festival starts…
oy… 😐
hrmph…
yeah, i’m still here…
i was cleaning up in the workshop today and i found the keys to the thule box, which i had to have new ones made several months ago when i wanted to use the thule box for something and couldn’t find the keys. they were sitting on the surface of my secondary workbench, under a massive pile of other projects (at least 5, going back to last summer) which either got abandoned, or the detritus from finishing never got cleaned up. i didn’t finish cleaning up, but i made a significant start. maybe tomorrow.
i’ve got my DX7 on my desk, because i want to work with reason to find some synth voices that i don’t have to tweak, so that the next time i go to bellingham i’ll have something ready to play live. about half of the time that i spent playing music last week was actually tweaking the voices to get something that didn’t sound like it was part of a pop song. i would use the DX7 voices except for the fact that the internal battery is dead, and i have to take the synth completely apart to replace it. fortunately the battery is really common (i have a couple of them that are still in their blister pack), but replacing it is something that i think i want to have help with, much in the same way that i needed help replacing the brake pads in my old car… not that i don’t know how to do it, but someone who knows how to do it to make sure that i don’t do things incorrectly, and to help if something breaks.
this is after taking my piano to bellingham, in the hopes of being able to use that, but one of the first things that was done to it after i left was that one of the tines was broken (number 50) and, until a replacement is found, the piano is currently in storage in the attic, which is doubtless a lot safer place for it than where it was, under the window in my living room.
but, as much as i would like to, the probability that i will be going to bellingham in the next few weeks is low, because of the looming moisture festival and its surrounding chaos.
the moisture festival is approaching at an appalling rate, and i am, once again, playing in three out of the four bands at the palladium: The Fighting Instruments of Karma, Snake Suspenderz and The Fremont Philharmonic. i have rehearsed and/or played with snake suspenderz (or significant portions thereof) and the fremont phil enough recently to know that we’re probably going to do okay, but we could use more rehearsal, and i haven’t played with the FIOK enough to be absolutely certain that we need more rehearsal, but probably aren’t going to get it. i’m still ambivalent about my participation in the moisture festival, but my vocal ranting has been dissipated somewhat by the inclusion of snake suspenderz in the lineup of show bands… but i didn’t donate $100 last year to get a star on the wall, like i did two years ago, and, unless the “stipend” is well above where it was last year, it’s not likely that i’m going to donate this year either.
today has been a banner day for people or robots trying to crack my shit… once again, i will advise you that if you try to login using anything other than the correct username and password, you get two attempts and then you are IP blocked for two weeks. after that, you get two more attempts and then you are blocked for a month. here’s a final hint: the username is NOT admin. 😛