onThis is a problem. It's seriously a factor in why I don't post so very frequently. My website just really looks terrible. I want my website to look smooth, simple and easy to read. Instead, it looks like this:
Not only does it look bad, but its internals suck too. Why is three-year old PHP code from a time when I thought MVC and <!DOCTYPE> tags were bad running my website?
Four Island 3.
It's a comin'.
onHi, remember me? I'm the failspaz that failed to even fail during Kirby Week and instead failed even more and hasn't posted since. No Christmas post (well, that's happened before). No December 29th post. What? Anyway, we can hope that will end soon because my first prediction for 2011 is that, as with previous years, Four Island will suddenly become popular amongst its frequenters again on January 1st. Here's hoping! crosses fingers so hard that nothing happens
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, predictions. Last year's 2010 in Song was a major fail (oh god, that seems such a short time ago), so I'm going to revert to something better that we'll all enjoy: random predictions! Are you ready? I'm not ready. Let's go!
January 1st Four Island, due to it's annual four-month-popularity spell, suddenly becomes popular and as a result, Starla's other router explodes, forcing her to put the only other router in the house, her new Apple Time Capsule, in the dirty, gross, disgusting basement. As a result of that, Starla prints "WANTED" posters for her Time Capsule and drops a pile of them in the spot where it used to live.
January 28th Someone realizes that Four Island isn't up. In fact, it hadn't been up since January 1st because Starla, in her infinite intelligence, forgot to forward the ports. Random sidenote: backing up from the basement is slow.
February 2nd Drifty writes a story about police constables rushing a Russian prison and saving Regina Spektor, who had been imprisoned because the government didn't approve of chemotherapy. Unsurprisingly, Starla thought the story was real and Drifty's email service soon fell to a denial of service attack. Which is rather stupid if you think about it because Starla and Drifty both use Gmail.
February 3rd Starla's printer, Matilda, bails her out of imaginary jail for DoS'ing one of Gmail's servers, platonic.superman.kindle-porcupine.gmail.com. Matilda gives Starla a stern talking to, and then prints her out an ice cream cone in FORTRAN.
February 8th iOS 4.3 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch is released, giving the devices such new features as time travel, peace-making, house construction, reliable mortgage analysis and the ability to view a page in MobileSafari without it refreshing every five minutes.
February 21st The world comes to an end. Or at least begins to. IANA officially runs out of IPv4 addresses and someone, somewhere finally realizes that "Oh god, this is serious." In unrelated news, Google founder Lawrence E. Page decides to run for U.S. president. He pledges to put AdWords in all of our subways and replace cable TV with YouTube.
March 3rd Apple announces the successor to the iPad, the Max-iPad, which is "bigger, better and has a name that's even easier to make fun of." Needless to say, everyone immediately pre-orders one.
March 15th Starla releases Season 4 of Pillowcase. The first comic depicts a pillowcase buying an iPhone and jailbreaking it. Needless to say, everyone is confused.
March 16th The iPhone Dev Team release a new jailbreak for iOS 4.3: PillowBreak. Needless to say, everyone is even more confused and Starla is pulled aside for questioning.
March 28th Apple releases the Max-iPad. The first 1000 people to arrive at the Apple Store in Manhattan witness a shipping blunder as Apple unpacks the newly released Max-iPads and realized that FedEx accidentally sent them the wrong thing. Happy Apple customers walked away with $500 hygiene products and didn't realize the mistake until they tried to play Angry Birds on them.
April 4th Optical media officially becomes obsolete. Smiley is seen jumping around in the background shouting "HA! I WIN! TAKE THAT!" Starla is sad until she realizes that obsolete != nonexistent (they still make vinyl records, you know) and buys a subscription to "I'm Old And I Still Like CDs Magazine".
April 17th Prices of condos go up after presidential candidate Lawrence E. Page announces that if elected, he will make it mandatory by law to install spam filters in all USPS mail trucks.
April 18th Prices of condos go back down after it is realized that 2011 isn't a presidential election year.
May 1st Starla gets "May Fever", as she calls her nonsensical obsession with the month May, and releases a remix of "Girlfriend in the City" by Nelly Furtado that is supposed to illustrate why. Needless to say, it doesn't.
May 5th iTunes 11 is released with new features such as "Even Uglier UI!", "More Annoying Social Networks!", "When You Buys Songs From Us, We Make You Sign Your Name In Blood!" and worst of all, the inability to import songs from CD. Starla doesn't upgrade to iTunes 11. For some reason, everyone else does.
June 6th Pyro achieves the fastest time for solving a Rubix cube while doing her nails and saying the word "serendipity" in a questioning manner: infinity.
June 7th Starla gets a MacBook Pro and is so excited about it that she accidentally spills kerosene on her server.
June 17th The iPhone 5 is released with a CDMA chip. AT&T immediately goes out of business.
July 7th Someone says "Hey, maybe we should start switching to IPv6 soon." He is ignored.
July 29th Tumblr experiences some downtime. Starla's old computer also has a kernel panic, someone makes a jokes about the Max-iPad, a cat is found in a tree and the sun rises in the east.
August 3rd Nicki Minaj dies a horrific, lack-of-talent-related death. Justin Beiber, Jason Derulo and every rapper start worrying about the likelihood of releasing another album.
August 8th Timbo94 writes a True Falsity about purchasing the rights to Cardcaptor Sakura. Everyone is so surprised that someone actually out-waited the latency to write a True Falsity that someone, somewhere is sued and something, somewhere explodes.
September 9th The first Homestar Runner video of the year is released. Everyone immediately forgets about the hiatus and watches in excitement as Homestar says something funny and is subsequently stuffed in a bread drawer.
September 22nd In celebration of Four Island's anniversary, Starla releases Four Island 3, a grand rewrite of Four Island in Ruby on Rails. Everyone is so stunned with the beauty and magnificence of the new website that Starla is immediately arrested and a background search is done based on the suspicion that she stole the website from someone.
September 23rd fourisland.com expires.
October 10th Starla is released from prison due to the fact that she talked about The Crucible and Kate Nash too frequently. She subsequently opens her web browser only to find that fourisland.com has been replaced with porn.
November 10th The world actually comes to an end as the RIRs all run out of IPv4 addresses. All Mayan-superstion believers are surprised as armageddon arrives a year and a month earlier than they expected it to. Starla laughs at them from the side, and then realizes that the end of the world isn't necessarily a good thing, so she backs up her server and runs off with her Time Capsule.
November 11th Nobody is around to troll the Internet about a certain redundancy of the date because the world ended.
There you go! Random Predictions for 2011. What's interesting is that while my predictions for February 21st and November 10th are humorous, they are actually going to happen (albeit possibly on earlier dates). Not the Google presidency thing, the exhaustion of IPv4. It's going to be interesting to see how this year pans out because this is actually rather serious and it's going to happen. Lol, I can't wait to laugh at 2012 believers. Anyway, I hope you've all enjoyed 2010, because tonight, it's all going to be over! And let me be the one to say: "Oh GOD, that was fast." :P
onOkay, so, wow! It's December already! Please allow me to say:
WHAT THE AMANDA FRIBBING PALMER?!?!!?
Yes, this year has gone by incredibly quickly, though if you notice, we had a much better year this year than 2009. 2009 was just plain... bad. But 2010 isn't quite over yet, so let's keep things going semi-well!
Anyway, first of all, I just realized that 24 Ways started again! IT REALLY IS THE CHRISTMAS SEASON! :P It really is quite a good blog, so if you're not subscribed to it yet, make sure you do so before the letter self-destructs!
Next, I want to apologize to yet another person who commented on the Annetenna post and whose comment was deleted. My blog software majorly sucks and I'm working very hard at rewriting it. If the author of the comment is reading this (the comment mentioned something about the author's versions of the MP3s getting ruined and contained a link to the Internet Archive), please resubmit your comment and I'll ensure it gets through.
Do you know what else is fun? NONSENSE! I've been playing with it a lot recently and it's come up with some humorous quotes:
* JAL is melting Hatkirby's pants Smiley: What the fsckBluemonkey: Good day fine sir or madam Drifty: I am useless when I am sawing a Douglas. Tamasys: THE CHEESE GATE IS OPENING! Bluemonkey: Do you want a nicely skinny Smiley's Bender? Tamasys: I'm sitting on Ozzyfrog in bathroom Bluemonkey: ....bie* Drifty is asking "Do you want a mindnumbingly immense protein bar?" Bluemonkey: ....bie Drifty: I hate Pyro because she's so fat!* Ozzyfrog is eating Mary Poppins JAL: GAH JAL: I desire JAL!* Tamasys is being square * Bluemonkey thinks Tamasys is roundPyro: I love Bluemonkey because he's so Oklahoman!Sammi9494: My computer is going to a toilet because it is so white!Hatkirby: I collect bootleg drugs.Pyro: WHERE IS MY CAT???? Gryphic: It's in a fireplace! Pyro: YOU PHONE! I PUT YOU THROUGH A FIREPLACE, AND THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT ME? * Gryphic is found ugly 253 days later at The Land Of Coincidence with a printer in her mouth Pyro: I despise Gryphic!Drifty: Your mom is mushy?!?!?!! * Drifty is found dead 32 days later at a salad bowl with a Cooaso in her mouth* Pyro is listening to Grace Kelly with her Illinoisan Jolly Ranchers * Pyro thinks Pyro is great* Pyro is about to sing * JAL runs far awayYes. Lolwhut? :P Anyway, that was a pretty random post to start a pretty random month. Yes. Here's your cookie. steals a house
on
It was a good idea. :P
onYES. YES. YESSSSS.
It may be a week later than I hoped, but IT'S TOTALLY COMING! This Sunday is a very special day for people who are obsessed with repeating dates: This Sunday is October 10th 2010. As in, 10-10-10. And something else special will be happening on Sunday. At 10:10 10-10-10, THE IOS 4.1 JAILBREAK WILL BE RELEASED! I AM NOT SPECULATING, IT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED! :D
Things have progressed to the point where we don't expect anymore roadblocks. ETA for greenpois0n is 10/10/10 at 10:10:10AM
FINALLY! :D I'm so excited, this is going to be great-tastic!
UPDATE: SHAtter will be for fourth generation iDevices only (a.k.a. iPhone 4 and iPod Touch fourth generation).
UPDATE 2: And it's definitely going to be untethered. This just keeps on getting better and better! :D
UPDATE 3: More info has come in! It appears that SHAtter is not technically untethered. However, Comex, the guy who brought us the awesome JailbreakMe jailbreak, has utilized one of his apparently large array of userland exploits to make GreenPois0n untethered. What this means is that on iOS 4.1, GreenPois0n will be untethered, but after Apple fixes the exploit, you'll only be able to get a tethered jailbreak. This isn't too bad, though! First, your fourth-generation iDevice is still jailbreakable for life. Second, Comex could possibly release another userland exploit if the current one is patched. Third, if you don't upgrade to anything above iOS 4.1, you'll be fine! :D
UPDATE 4: What is this? MORE NEWS! Not only is GreenPois0n going to be released on Sunday, but rumors AND CONFIMATIONS have come in saying that geohot, a hacker famous for the blackra1n jailbreak, has returned to the jailbreaking scene and is planning to release limera1n, a jailbreak based on a bootrom exploit completely unrelated to GreenPois0n's, on the day AFTER GreenPois0n is released. Most notable is the fact that limera1n should be able to jailbreak third generation iDevices (iPhone 3GS and iPod touch 3rd generation) that were left out in between redsn0w and GreenPois0n's jailbreak windows.
yes, the news about geohot is true, the day after we release ETA he decides he wants a piece of the #pie
and yes it is a different bootrom exploit, he wants us to use it in GP, but there's no way we'll make our ETA if we do
We are not changing our release date. If we can implement @geohots before 10/10 we will use that, otherwise we're using ours. #roadblocks
UPDATE 5: There's been a lot of controversy surrounding the suddenly announced limera1n jailbreak. The Chronic Dev Team, for one, are not amused. Specifically, they're pissed. The dilemma is that if GreenPois0n and limera1n are both released now, Apple will be able to fix both holes by the next generation of iDevice (or sooner :O) and two perfectly good bootrom exploits will have been "burned". The current state of things seems to be that Chronic Dev is trying to implement geohot's exploit as quickly as they can, but if they can't do it before tomorrow, they'll release GreenPois0n. This is mayhem! Depending on who you listen to, everyone's the bad guy, but apparently, geohot discovered his exploit months ago and was sitting on it until Chronic Dev announced an ETA for GreenPois0n. Some say that he thinks that SHAtter is better than limera1n and is trying to save it for later by forcing Chronic Dev to not release, some say that he's a a-hole who's just trying to get some publicity. However, his timing may actually just be coincidence--October 11th 2010 will be the one-year anniversary of his famous jailbreak blackra1n.
What's going to happen? Who the candy-cane knows? All I hope is that I'll be able to jailbreak my iPhone 4 tomorrow morning and that nothing will threaten my jailbreak-happiness.
onYeah, I'm just going to borrow a few minutes of your time to rant about something that annoys me for a reason I cannot fathom. There's a myth going around that ketchup is a brand name (like how adhesive bandages are almost always called "Band-Aids") and that the substance as actually called "catsup." You know what I say here?
FALSE!
After about a minute of looking around Wikipedia, I found the answer. But before that, just think for a minute. What is ketchup? Really, what is it? Those in Australia know this better than we do in America because it's not often called "ketchup" there. What's it normally called in Australia?
Tomato sauce.
Yeah, if you've somehow forgotten, ketchup is tomato sauce. No, it's not the same tomato sauce you put on your spaghetti, but seriously, it's a sauce made out of tomatoes. It's not like sausages, where you don't know what it's made of; ketchup is tomato sauce. Really.
As for catsup, I think I'll let the Wikipedia article speak for itself:
Ketchup (also spelled catsup, catchup, ketsup) is a condiment that in modern times is usually made from tomatoes.
Catsup is simply an alternate (and obsolete) spelling of ketchup. They're the same exact thing, and neither one is a brand name. So there.
I guess now you know how silly I get when someone is wrong, somewhere. Oh well. :P
onOh my god, I have to share this.
This is a tangential story, but not one with a particularly happy ending.
Yesterday, while I was bored, I spent a whole bunch of time reading quotes from the XKCD Quotes Database. I came across a quote that linked to TV Tropes. I was doomed before the page even finished loading.
For those who don't know, TV Tropes is like Wikipedia multiplied by a hundred million. It's about devices and conventions that authors can and will use in their works, many of which have become clichΓ©d and a list of them and the works themselves. This site is infamous for it's ability to keep you trapped within it's walls all day. I went from LaserGuidedAmnesia to FairlyOddParents to LotusEaterMachine, sidetracked temporarily to 1408 (scared myself a bit reading about that), back to Oubliette, to HighOctaneNightmareFuel, to NightmareFuel and finally to FridgeHorror. While I opened many tabs off of FridgeHorror, I never got to read them. Sitting inconspicuously in the middle of the page was the link that brought would inevitably be my downfall. As TV Tropes would call SchmuckBait:
"Animal Crossing is made of this trope. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see here, but don't expect to sleep at all for a few days. No, really."
I DIDN'T LISTEN.
The link led to a story called "The Terrible Secret Of Animal Crossing". And let me tell you, it is quite scary. The fridge horror can be quite amusing the first few times (I love how Tom Nook says "Everyone who works here wears a uniform!" AND THERE ARE NO OTHER WORKERS :P). Don't get me wrong, it's unbelievably awesome story, but it's most likely the same awesome as The Ring or The Number 23. It's like creepypasta with Animal Crossing. I don't know what creepypasta is, but I wanted to say it because it sounded funny. Now excuse me while I get my DS and empty my inventory of gyroids. has a heart attack when she inadvertently digs up a gyroid GET IT OFF OF ME- shot
It was a bit exciting, too, as my favorite Animal Crossing character Tangy appeared in the story a few times. She appears in my (not as insane, but still pretty weird) Animal Crossing story "Obsession" and is the first character I ever met in my copy of the game. We quickly became best friends :P. Also, our birthdays are on the same day, WHICH IS AWESOME. :P
Anyway, I invite you to read it. The Terrible Secret Of Animal Crossing. Read it. I can't say that it's more insane than House Of Leaves (which I also love!), but seriously, be smart and read it during the day. I didn't. And look what's happened to me? :P
Finally, if there's one thing that I've taken away from this experience (and you'll understand when you read the story):
I am *NEVER** going to summer camp again.*
onHello, it's me again! Before you scream and run away to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time, and I'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me away ha ha, they're coming to take me away, LISTEN. Yes, I'm ranting about something in uppercase letters that doesn't pertain to the English language. Shock and horror.
Anyway, this rant is mainly about my "No WWW" policy and EDUCATING the CHILDREN with THE TRUTH. THAT'S RIGHT LITTLE JOHNNY, THAT WASN'T SANTA CLAUS UNDER THE MISTLETOE! IT WAS YOUR REAL FATHER! Um, anyway, I felt the need to do this because first of all, I run Four Island at a Class B no-www compliance level and I've never actually talked about it and because last week, after explaining a bit about how the World Wide Web was not the same thing as the Internet to my cousin, she rebounded with this: "So, does that mean that Four Island isn't part of the World Wide Web because it doesn't have a www?"
No, Keke Palmer, it doesn't. (Lol, seriously, no offense, I like ranting! PLEASE DUN KILL ME- static) Let's begin with what a URL actually needs to be part of the World Wide Web. No, it's not the "www.", it's the "http://" that most people have only seen in their community college's Computing 101 course where they get to learn how to increase the font size in Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.03. The World Wide Web (which was invented by Tim Burners Lee, who is awesome) actually goes by another, less common to non-techy people, name: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol. I'm not really going to go into it much because I'm afraid my popcorn will get cold but basically, the Internet is full of many, many different ways to transfer information and the way you use the Internet to see webpages is HTTP. That's what that "http://" in front of URLs means; that it's going to let you see a webpage or a picture or a sound file. Or a picture of a sound file... or something like that. The reason that it's necessary is because, as I said earlier, there are many different ways of transferring information on the Internet and you have to tell your computer which one you want. However, many people don't know this because most web browsers created after 1650 automatically add the "http://" if you "forget" (read: don't realize the existence or necessity of) it.
On the other hand, there's "www." I have witnessed some horrible things with "www."s such as someone reciting a link to someone at a computer and the person at a computer MANUALLY ADDS IN a www. even if the other person didn't say to add one. I see people go "Hey, let's Google that" (which, by the way, you shouldn't say because it's trademark infringement (yes, I went the Googleplex last week and it was awesome (YOU GET FREE CANDY AND SODA! SO WORKING THERE! :P))) and go to their computer and type in "WWW.GOOGLE.COM". Yes, in all caps, but that's not the point; the point is that they added four completely unnecessary characters to what they had to type WHICH MADE THEM MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO CARPEL TUNNEL! SEE, FOLKS? USING WWW. IN FRONT OF EVERY URL CAN KILL YOU! DON'T DO IT!
The use of "www." in front of URLs most likely came from the old standard of putting your servers at subdomains corresponding to their function, such as "www" for web servers, "mail" or "smtp" for email servers and "ftp" for FTP servers. However, THIS ISN'T NECESSARY! IT'S JUST A STANDARD! In fact, as some of you may know, if you leave out the www. in a URL.... IT WILL STILL WORK! OH MY GOD! HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!?!?! It's possible due to a magical thing call DNS and the kindness of your local detergent salesperson.
The reason why I don't like "www."s is because it makes me angry when I see people think that it's necessary and that the Internet is the same thing as the World Wide Web and was invented by some guy named Bob. I'm sure some guy named Bob has set up an intranet in his local laundromat that wants to go "TOTALLY DOT COM", but he didn't invent The Internet. Also, I think domains look prettier without the "www." in front. www.fourisland.com. fourisland.com. Yeah, someone's winning Hottest Domain Of The Year.
Also, while, I'm at it, no, Obama does not have a button that can turn off the Internet. There is no conspiracy or CIA cover-up because IT'S PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT BLOWING UP PLANET EARTH. (However, you could theoretically disable the Internet for people who aren't insane and memorize IP addresses by blowing up the 13 root nameservers of the Internet, but they're heavily protected (seriously, people have tried to attack them. Twice). Wow, that would be an AWESOME movie: "NO! WE HAVE TO SAVE THE INTERNET!!!! NAMESERVER G IS GOING DOWN! HAND ME THAT ETHERNET CABLE! WHY ISN'T DMAP INSTALLED ON THIS COMPUTER?!?!?")
I'm sorry, I'm off to file copyright papers. That idea is just too awesome to let go.
onLet me start off by saying that I don't like soccer. In fact, I don't like sports at all (unless you count competitive typing (98 WPM, YEAH! :P)), but even I know about....
THE VUVUZELAS.
Some of you may be lolling right now, but it's not funny! Those poor people sitting in the stands, trying to watch some stupid ball sport should be pitied! What, the people who don't like vuvuzelas? Heck no, I know a vuvuzela-hater that owes me five bucks. They can go eat pasta with NO BUTTER for all I care.
I mean the poor people who like vuvuzelas! It's so sad to see it happen. Because, they're everywhere. That old lady who walks down the street by the side of the supermarket every day at 2pm? SHE'S A VUVUZELOR! That toddler who pees in your petunias every five minutes? A VUVUZELOR! That high school junior that lives across the street from you? Not a vuvuzelor, but he's a pervert, so you can go stab him if you wish. But you get my point. These poor people have been INFECTED with the CURSE of believing that vuvuzelas are βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
I'm sorry you had to see that. My imaginary cat jumped on my hard drive and ate a cookie. As a result, I can't tell you exactly how the vuvuzelor virus works. BUT BEWARE. Next time you are walking down the street and someone is internally bleeding because they just ripped their larynx out with their vuvuzela, DON'T GET TOO CLOSE! You could catch the virus from their disease-ridden instrument! Or you could lose your aural sense, which would also be pretty bad, BUT NOT AS!
So, buyer beware and welcome to Grammatown. Stay away from vuvuzelas, because otherwise, I'll write another weird story like this. And next time, it'll be about you, your mom and your embarrasing foot rash. Oh-yeah. Pokemon.
onOH MY GOD THIS ONE ANNOYS ME VERILY. Okay, so, do you have any younger siblings or sapient pets that have a VERY LOOSE GRASP ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? I actually have a couple of those (guess which) and while they are very good as a source of content for my RANDOM ENGLISH RANTs, their vehement denial that their English is incorrect makes me want to take up bulldozing and drop a mastodon on their rooms. Here is their latest English horror that makes me cry:
**Starla**: None of your friends have email? **Younger Sibling Or Sapient Pet**: All of my friends don't believe in Internet. *** Starla** starts screaming and shooting **Starla**: NONE OF YOUR FRIENDS BELIEVE IN INTERNET. NONE NONE DOOMSDAY HAS FALLEN RUN FOR YOUR LIVES- *shot*While that is a bit exaggerated, my point is sort of clear. While combining "all" and a negative verb like "don't" may actually be grammatically correct as I cannot currently find anything on it, IT SOUNDS QUITE HORRIBLE. JUST SAY NONE. JUST SAY NONE. JUST LIKE YOU WOULD SAY NO TO DRUGS. JUST SAY NONE. IT'S A FEWER NUMBER OF WORDS! ISN'T THAT BETTER OR SOMETHING? JUST SAY NONE. SAY IT NOW.
Here are some practice questions to test your new knowledge. If the sentence is incorrect, correct it, otherwise, write "Correct."
- All of my friends hate you.
- None of those potatoes have been washed recently.
- Coach Z looks fat in that photo.
- All of those tapes must give us dogs.
Okay, I couldn't bring myself to type THE INCORRECTION, regardless of the fact that I did earlier in that semi-fabricated conversation I had with my younger sibling or sapient pet. Anyway, I hope that by now, I've successfully established myself as a prescriptivist. Thank you for your time.
