Friends of My Friends

I don't know if many others do this but...

...when I'm bored or avoiding work looking for interesting stuff on the net, I'll click on an LJfriend and then click on their friends posts. Most of you have a nice, eclectic mix of people on your friends list; some of you have everyone who was ever born on your lists; and (sorry) some of you have a giant trainwreck of friends. Only one person had no friends (except for me, apparently).

Today I clicked on a particular friend and discovered an incredibly eclectic, clever bunch of people. This flist reads like an alternative Boing-boing ! So cool is this flist that I am posting some of the recent, interesting bits. Oh, and out of politeness I'm not revealing the friend whose flist I'm hijacking: if you're really OCD, you can figure it out with little effort.

[coyotegoth posts:]
Cut n’ pasted from mhael, in spacexploration:

NASA is letting people vote on the name of the new Space Station Node, and currently "Serenity" is leading by a landslide. But our girl might have some new competition from host Stephen Colbert, who last night urged his viewers to write in his name in the Suggestion Box. So head over to NASA and help make sure our Lady flies!

(Not that Stephen Colbert isn’t absolutely ginchy, mind you...)

[The comments on this are pretty amusing, too (Xenu!--heh-heh)]


[von_krag does a lot of humorous "Today in History" posts. A few funny citations from today:]
Today in History - March 4

1519 - Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their wealth. He finds and advanced civilization of peaceful natives and disrupts their quaint customs like slavery and human sacrifice. We did get chocolate out of the deal, though.

1813 - Russian troops fighting the army of Napoleon reach Berlin in Germany and the French garrison evacuate the city without a fight. This is an act the French learn to do well.

1899 - Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 m wave that reaches up to 5 km inland - over 300 dead. FEMA slow to respond. Bush widely blamed.


[rolanni notes that:]
Well, what're y'all staring at me for?
All I'm doing over here is typing. Go read something, why don't you?

Random House is giving away books here. Lotsa crunchy goodness on offer: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb; Her Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik; Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; Settling Accounts: Return Invasion by Harry Turtledove; and Blood Engines by Tim Pratt.

[drplokta has written the most techno-above-my-head essay that I have ever seen on LJ. I note him here specifically for tori04 and realityengineer. Here is the first paragraph of his essay titled, "Imminent Death of the Net Predicted":]

So, our website is run out of three separate hosting centres, each of which has its own statically routed IP block (a couple of /27s and a /26). Site 1's block is under 213.x.x.x, site 2 under 146.x.x.x and site 3 under 80.x.x.x. We use F5's Global Traffic Manager (GTM) on BigIP hardware to spread the user load (up to 22 million pages per day) across the three sites (and also Local Traffic Manager to load balance across individual web servers within each site). We cache some user data in the web application, so we use cookies (with an eight hour lifetime) to identify which server you're currently on, and we send you back to that server where possible, even if it's at a different site (we have high-bandwidth private links between the sites). [ Complete essay here]

Lastly, a friend of the friend posts a link to yet another friend's* wonderful story about a duck:
The most surreal thing I ever participated in, as a disability-assistant at O'Hare, was a woman in a wheelchair flying with her pet duck.

Big white duck, like in Charlotte's Web and other fine set-on-farms fiction. In a duffel bag. Wearing a harness, with a little leash clipped to it, and a diaper.

He was exceedingly interested and pleased with everything he saw, his head swivelling from side to side as I pushed his owner down the concourse towards baggage claim, making little half-swallowed 'quackquackQWAAquackquack' comments to himself under his breath.

Apparently, on the trip out, despite her having checked and triple-checked the legalities of flying with "a pet bird," the gate attendant decided to get shirty with her about how he was livestock and not going on HER plane. The passenger was firm but unyielding, and finally, with an air of wait-till-your-dad-gets-home, the attendant said it was up to the pilot.

The pilot looked the duck over and said, "I don't see why not." Then, after boarding the passenger early, asked if he could borrow the duck -- they put him in the pilot's chair and took pictures, then gave him a wings pin for his harness -- because it was his first time flying, you see. The return-trip gate attendant tried to pull the same thing, and when the pilot arrived, he looked the duck over again, phlegmatically, and said, "I flew the duck here, I'll fly the duck back."


Other things found on this flist: color coordinated handcuffs; photos from the dress rehearsal shoot of "Henry V as steampunk noir"; a review of the ultimate Titanic reference source ("Titanic: the Ship Magnificent"); and lots of good posts from food_porn! And these were just on the first page of his flist posts!


*It's actually more complicated than this, but my brain got a cramp. The post is from almeda

Friends of My Friends

I don't know if many others do this but...

...when I'm bored or avoiding work looking for interesting stuff on the net, I'll click on an LJfriend and then click on their friends posts. Most of you have a nice, eclectic mix of people on your friends list; some of you have everyone who was ever born on your lists; and (sorry) some of you have a giant trainwreck of friends. Only one person had no friends (except for me, apparently).

Today I clicked on a particular friend and discovered an incredibly eclectic, clever bunch of people. This flist reads like an alternative Boing-boing ! So cool is this flist that I am posting some of the recent, interesting bits. Oh, and out of politeness I'm not revealing the friend whose flist I'm hijacking: if you're really OCD, you can figure it out with little effort.

[coyotegoth posts:]
Cut n’ pasted from mhael, in spacexploration:

NASA is letting people vote on the name of the new Space Station Node, and currently "Serenity" is leading by a landslide. But our girl might have some new competition from host Stephen Colbert, who last night urged his viewers to write in his name in the Suggestion Box. So head over to NASA and help make sure our Lady flies!

(Not that Stephen Colbert isn’t absolutely ginchy, mind you...)

[The comments on this are pretty amusing, too (Xenu!--heh-heh)]


[von_krag does a lot of humorous "Today in History" posts. A few funny citations from today:]
Today in History - March 4

1519 - Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their wealth. He finds and advanced civilization of peaceful natives and disrupts their quaint customs like slavery and human sacrifice. We did get chocolate out of the deal, though.

1813 - Russian troops fighting the army of Napoleon reach Berlin in Germany and the French garrison evacuate the city without a fight. This is an act the French learn to do well.

1899 - Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 m wave that reaches up to 5 km inland - over 300 dead. FEMA slow to respond. Bush widely blamed.


[rolanni notes that:]
Well, what're y'all staring at me for?
All I'm doing over here is typing. Go read something, why don't you?

Random House is giving away books here. Lotsa crunchy goodness on offer: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb; Her Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik; Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; Settling Accounts: Return Invasion by Harry Turtledove; and Blood Engines by Tim Pratt.

[drplokta has written the most techno-above-my-head essay that I have ever seen on LJ. I note him here specifically for tori04 and realityengineer. Here is the first paragraph of his essay titled, "Imminent Death of the Net Predicted":]

So, our website is run out of three separate hosting centres, each of which has its own statically routed IP block (a couple of /27s and a /26). Site 1's block is under 213.x.x.x, site 2 under 146.x.x.x and site 3 under 80.x.x.x. We use F5's Global Traffic Manager (GTM) on BigIP hardware to spread the user load (up to 22 million pages per day) across the three sites (and also Local Traffic Manager to load balance across individual web servers within each site). We cache some user data in the web application, so we use cookies (with an eight hour lifetime) to identify which server you're currently on, and we send you back to that server where possible, even if it's at a different site (we have high-bandwidth private links between the sites). [ Complete essay here]

Lastly, a friend of the friend posts a link to yet another friend's* wonderful story about a duck:
The most surreal thing I ever participated in, as a disability-assistant at O'Hare, was a woman in a wheelchair flying with her pet duck.

Big white duck, like in Charlotte's Web and other fine set-on-farms fiction. In a duffel bag. Wearing a harness, with a little leash clipped to it, and a diaper.

He was exceedingly interested and pleased with everything he saw, his head swivelling from side to side as I pushed his owner down the concourse towards baggage claim, making little half-swallowed 'quackquackQWAAquackquack' comments to himself under his breath.

Apparently, on the trip out, despite her having checked and triple-checked the legalities of flying with "a pet bird," the gate attendant decided to get shirty with her about how he was livestock and not going on HER plane. The passenger was firm but unyielding, and finally, with an air of wait-till-your-dad-gets-home, the attendant said it was up to the pilot.

The pilot looked the duck over and said, "I don't see why not." Then, after boarding the passenger early, asked if he could borrow the duck -- they put him in the pilot's chair and took pictures, then gave him a wings pin for his harness -- because it was his first time flying, you see. The return-trip gate attendant tried to pull the same thing, and when the pilot arrived, he looked the duck over again, phlegmatically, and said, "I flew the duck here, I'll fly the duck back."


Other things found on this flist: color coordinated handcuffs; photos from the dress rehearsal shoot of "Henry V as steampunk noir"; a review of the ultimate Titanic reference source ("Titanic: the Ship Magnificent"); and lots of good posts from food_porn! And these were just on the first page of his flist posts!


*It's actually more complicated than this, but my brain got a cramp. The post is from almeda

Friends of My Friends

I don't know if many others do this but...

...when I'm bored or avoiding work looking for interesting stuff on the net, I'll click on an LJfriend and then click on their friends posts. Most of you have a nice, eclectic mix of people on your friends list; some of you have everyone who was ever born on your lists; and (sorry) some of you have a giant trainwreck of friends. Only one person had no friends (except for me, apparently).

Today I clicked on a particular friend and discovered an incredibly eclectic, clever bunch of people. This flist reads like an alternative Boing-boing ! So cool is this flist that I am posting some of the recent, interesting bits. Oh, and out of politeness I'm not revealing the friend whose flist I'm hijacking: if you're really OCD, you can figure it out with little effort.

[coyotegoth posts:]
Cut n’ pasted from mhael, in spacexploration:

NASA is letting people vote on the name of the new Space Station Node, and currently "Serenity" is leading by a landslide. But our girl might have some new competition from host Stephen Colbert, who last night urged his viewers to write in his name in the Suggestion Box. So head over to NASA and help make sure our Lady flies!

(Not that Stephen Colbert isn’t absolutely ginchy, mind you...)

[The comments on this are pretty amusing, too (Xenu!--heh-heh)]


[von_krag does a lot of humorous "Today in History" posts. A few funny citations from today:]
Today in History - March 4

1519 - Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and their wealth. He finds and advanced civilization of peaceful natives and disrupts their quaint customs like slavery and human sacrifice. We did get chocolate out of the deal, though.

1813 - Russian troops fighting the army of Napoleon reach Berlin in Germany and the French garrison evacuate the city without a fight. This is an act the French learn to do well.

1899 - Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 m wave that reaches up to 5 km inland - over 300 dead. FEMA slow to respond. Bush widely blamed.


[rolanni notes that:]
Well, what're y'all staring at me for?
All I'm doing over here is typing. Go read something, why don't you?

Random House is giving away books here. Lotsa crunchy goodness on offer: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb; Her Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik; Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson; Settling Accounts: Return Invasion by Harry Turtledove; and Blood Engines by Tim Pratt.

[drplokta has written the most techno-above-my-head essay that I have ever seen on LJ. I note him here specifically for tori04 and realityengineer. Here is the first paragraph of his essay titled, "Imminent Death of the Net Predicted":]

So, our website is run out of three separate hosting centres, each of which has its own statically routed IP block (a couple of /27s and a /26). Site 1's block is under 213.x.x.x, site 2 under 146.x.x.x and site 3 under 80.x.x.x. We use F5's Global Traffic Manager (GTM) on BigIP hardware to spread the user load (up to 22 million pages per day) across the three sites (and also Local Traffic Manager to load balance across individual web servers within each site). We cache some user data in the web application, so we use cookies (with an eight hour lifetime) to identify which server you're currently on, and we send you back to that server where possible, even if it's at a different site (we have high-bandwidth private links between the sites). [ Complete essay here]

Lastly, a friend of the friend posts a link to yet another friend's* wonderful story about a duck:
The most surreal thing I ever participated in, as a disability-assistant at O'Hare, was a woman in a wheelchair flying with her pet duck.

Big white duck, like in Charlotte's Web and other fine set-on-farms fiction. In a duffel bag. Wearing a harness, with a little leash clipped to it, and a diaper.

He was exceedingly interested and pleased with everything he saw, his head swivelling from side to side as I pushed his owner down the concourse towards baggage claim, making little half-swallowed 'quackquackQWAAquackquack' comments to himself under his breath.

Apparently, on the trip out, despite her having checked and triple-checked the legalities of flying with "a pet bird," the gate attendant decided to get shirty with her about how he was livestock and not going on HER plane. The passenger was firm but unyielding, and finally, with an air of wait-till-your-dad-gets-home, the attendant said it was up to the pilot.

The pilot looked the duck over and said, "I don't see why not." Then, after boarding the passenger early, asked if he could borrow the duck -- they put him in the pilot's chair and took pictures, then gave him a wings pin for his harness -- because it was his first time flying, you see. The return-trip gate attendant tried to pull the same thing, and when the pilot arrived, he looked the duck over again, phlegmatically, and said, "I flew the duck here, I'll fly the duck back."


Other things found on this flist: color coordinated handcuffs; photos from the dress rehearsal shoot of "Henry V as steampunk noir"; a review of the ultimate Titanic reference source ("Titanic: the Ship Magnificent"); and lots of good posts from food_porn! And these were just on the first page of his flist posts!


*It's actually more complicated than this, but my brain got a cramp. The post is from almeda