My feedback loop is broken

According to accepted wisdom, you can't tickle yourself.

"Even if you do know that you are about to be tickled, the fear and unease of someone touching and possibly hurting you causes you to laugh. Some people are so ticklish that they begin laughing even before they are touched. "
So if you try to tickel yourself, there is not unease, it's not unexpected so it doesn't work.

Well they are wrong.

I'm very ticklish (as the Kodiac has doscovered, and AM before that).

I actually can tickle myself. But only if I break the feedback loop.

If I tickle myself with my fingertips, there is no response. My sides detect my fingers, and my fingers detect my sides. Feedback loop.

If I use my fingernails, the reaction is one way (I don't have many touch receptors in my nails... too many years of biting them I guess) so I tickle myself.

Is that normal?

(No? Kewl!)

take care,
Will

Pick-up tips

Randy N. Chicago posted a few gay bar tips (which might have come from something called Unzipped Magazine), but some of the tips should apply to the meat market that is Reardons.

3. The lights are dim for a reason.

4. The more pissed off you look, the more likely you’ll get hit on.

7. If someone buys you a drink, at the very least acknowledge them and say, “Thank you.” Even if you wouldn’t tie them up in bed and leave them there.

9. If you’re not picky about who you sleep with, then by all means, drink until you can’t stand up.

14. Being beautiful only gets you into bed. Being smart, funny, charming and interesting gets you breakfast the next morning.

15. The key to a successful pickup line is fresh breath.

19. If a situation undoubtedly calls for you to throw your drink in someone’s face, do it. You might never get another chance.

However not all tips apply

12. That said, you should dress like who you want to go home with.

Unless of course you can pull off a micro-mini and lipstick.
Like Dave....

take care,
Will

As sure as x is x

This board game looks like a bad joke created after a few too many drinks (or jolts).

"c-jump: Ski & Snowboard Race
Discover fundamentals of computer programming by playing a board game"

Oh dear....

Will

The Onion and Reality

I hate quoting Andrew Sullivan but this post of his got something right.

This is an old "article" from The Onion, and this is a new news article from CNN.

Spot the difference?

take care,
Will

Corrections

First off, I got it wrong. The Revs are playing the Half Moon Theatre not An Cruiscin Lan as I wrote earlier and ther are being supported by Hope Is Noise on September 30.

I also know that there is a big ambient (not techno) event taking place this weekend in Connolly's of Leap but I can't find any details about it.

Please let me know where I can find the details...

take care,
Will

Triage

We walk into the lower level of the airport and make our way into what is one of the worst scenes I've ever seen. Our jaws drop. Literally. Right in front of us is one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen in this country and would never have imagined could ever occur in this, the richest nation in the world. Sixty or so people, most of them elderly, most near death or definitely in critical condition, have been spread around the luggage area. Some are on the conveyor belt. I have a real hard time shooting this because it's so overwhelming that I know I need to make a strong image. I'm not sure I have it even to this day, but at one point there is a photograph with an older lady with her eyes sunken into her skull, mouth agape, looking in my direction. She was gazing out, not really focusing on anything. I'm fighting back tears as much as I can. I have trouble breathing: these people are so close to death and they're just lying there. The staff is completely overwhelmed - 900 people an hour are arriving into the airport. I'm shocked that they haven't kicked me out yet but when I speak to the staff they encourage me to photograph the scene, "We need all the help we can ... we can't keep up here," one of them tells me, almost coming to tears. It's hard to make these images. It's tough to press the shutter but it has to be done because this is the clearest example that this whole thing is going wrong.

Photographs of Vince Laforet at the Digital Journalist site

Gigs

Let's see,

The Revs are playing on Friday 30 September in (C0rrected) Half Moon Theatre, Half Moon Street.
The Friday before that (September 23rd) Cork Rocks features Kilterr, Eve Of Mind, Quantrum X, Exit: Pursued By A Bear in An Cruiscin Lan. That same weekend the The Beamish Experience takes over Cork city for a little while. Their site has far more details than I can handle.

I can't handle that much...

Will

Whoopsi Gras

Mark Fiore is a satire slinger who works in the realm of Flash animation. His stuff is usually funny and biting, but Whoopsi Gras hurts just that little bit more...

Will

news and opinion

First off, it's old news but I like the Peoples Republic of Cork take on the use of the mind meld technique by the county's GAA football team.

In other news, Robert A. Iger want's to get rid of windows. No this isn't an anti-Microsoft rant, but Iger is replacing Michael Eisner as the head of Disney and the window he wants to get rid of is the one between the cinrma release date and the DVD release date.

I can't helping if it could work to the advantage of cinema owners to borrow the TV sets. At the moment, the quality of TV is, well, brilliant. Alias, Battlestar Glactica, Desparate Housewives, Doctor Who, Lost and more are better than the stuff being sent to the cinema at the moment.

And there is also a "window". Usually bewtween the first airing in the US (or the UK and Ireland in the case of Doctor Who) and their transmissions in other countries.

Why not use this gap?

Show double or triple episodes for 3 to 4 weeks (US repeate schedule allowing) over here in cinemas. Somehow I think seeing an attack in deep space or a bungled seduction is better on a 40 foot screen than a 24 inch one.

And since they are made for broadcast in widescreen, there are no formatting problems.

In fact, now that the movies are being digitally broascast to the cinemas instead of being shipped on reels, it's even easier.

Would it work?
Will

pedal power

A public auction of bicycles will take place at Kevin Street Garda Station in Dublin at 11am on Thursday 6th October 2005.

Members of the public may view these bicycles on Wednesday 5th October 2005 between 10am and 3pm.

for God's sake, shut up and send up somebody

I have no idea when this download link is going to fail. There is a more complete version (and MP3 version) available here.

It's an excerpt of the "Meet The Press" interview with Aaron Broussard. It's probably one of the most heart breaking "talking-heads" I've seen.

This interview is going to be doing the rounds for a long time.

take care,
Will

breaking into an attic to see if there's anyone there to save and finding...

Boing Boing has published e-mails from a NOLA rescue worker. These are the people at the coal face of things getting way out of hand.

"There have been times on this journey I have hated being here because I can't be doing what these guys are doing, what I used to do, what I dreamed of and loved for so long. But that's not the feeling I have when I sit up against a cement wall, in filthy water, and a guy I've known for years cuddles up in me and sobs. I know that's not the way the public may want to think about their rescuers and their heroes, but that's how it is.

Swinging an axe and breaking into an attic to see if there's anyone there to save and finding a dead family of four instead will bring tears to even the most stoic of people."


Their anecdote on civil defense in Cuba and how civil defense works on hurricanes is interesting, and might be something we should look in to in Ireland if not the EU.

take care,
Will

helping out after Katrina

Look like the New Orleans Craiglist Lost and Found has become the "have you seen...?" notice board for missing persons.

Be warned, the scam site have started to appear...

take care,
Will

Someone really should get in to trouble

for this.

But they probably won't.

Good.

Will