AlaskaMisc

globeandmail.com : Top U.S. soft-drink makers take the fizz out of school

Virtual Crime Scene

Crime Scene Virtual Tour (CSVT) - VR Solution for Crime Scene Reconstruction

This seems a very cool example of applied technology. The computer revolution is sometimes pooh-poohed for seemingly making life MORE complicated, not less. Yet, this tool demonstrates a technological integration put to good use. Of course, someone has to learn to USE the application, which is likely to alienate some officers. I'd like to see something like this integrated into a full featured GIS application, providing thematic spatial analysis of recent criminal activity for better connecting of the devious mind's dots, so to speak. If this thing hits some kind of DB for storage of all it's data, then we could spatially-enable it for sure.

And you think roundabouts in the US are confusing...

Magic Roundabout - Swindon

A miracle of modern traffic engineering! I also blogged it on StumbleUpon

- you can check out the badass aerial photo there. Go look!

User: dogzballz | LibraryThing

User: dogzballz | LibraryThing

I apparently share 87 books with this LibraryThing user; given his funny-crude username, I guess that's a good thing... Most of our shared books are fiction, which is to be expected, I suppose, though I've always thought it would be fun to find someone out there that shared the same bizarre range of interests as I - electronics, sociology, history, physics, science fiction, computers, programming, energy, politics, renewables - the list just goes on and on. Should such a person eventually create a LibraryThing account, catalog their library, and find that I am their bibliographic doppleganger, would they be interesting to me and vice versa? Or would it be akin to meeting a person of the opposite sex but from enough of the same mold to just annoy the hell out of you?

An Interview with Douglas Adams, Winter 1998-1999

An Interview with Douglas Adams, Winter 1998-1999

Douglas Adams, of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame waxes eloquent on lack of religious belief, or rather his conviction in the non-existence of god. I was particularly happy to read this quote: All opinions are not equal. Interestingly, this is a sentiment which is often held by the Right in opposition to the runaway Liberal post-modern cultural relavitism of the late 20th century, at least until the uber-religious conservative fundamentalist freaks in this country want their crazy creationist drivel taught in the same context as tested scientific discourse. Sheesh.

Blogger Templates - A Flash Slideshow

Blogger Templates - A Flash Slideshow

This is pretty fly. In my rush to aquire as much skookum Web 2.0 esoterotica, I've started a Flickr account to receive the veritable flood of publication quality images that are sure to flow from the spanking-new Kodak P850 that Charmin and I recently bought. Right. So far, I've had the thing for a week and have only taken shots of the inside of my nose and some cups on a table. Ah well. If I did have bad ass pics, I'd use this thing to show them off.

beautiful agony - facettes de la petite mort view

beautiful agony - facettes de la petite mort view

So, I just StumbledUpon a site devoted to pics and vids of average Joe's and Janette's faces during climax. While I could rant about the decent of humanity into an Internet-fueled voyeuristic orgy of neighbor's-navel-gazing, I won't. Instead, I'll sit here impressed with the rather surprisingly nice ways that technology has allowed us to appreciate those things that are beautiful and human - e.g. normal men and women in the throws of passion. Would that we could find more ways to demonstrate to our collective selves the good things about us, without risking pasteurizing our consciousness of the bad things.

What the....?

In the far-fetched event that anyone on the Enter-Sparks has stumbled across this nascent blog, here's what it's about: jack.

Who am I, you might ask? And while you're at it, what the hell is "Esoterotica"??

I am Justin Martin, who in another life thought it was funny to create the user name jmart, just because it rhymed with K-Mart and I was dumb. I'm a computer professional that gasp has never had a blog before this, and was only prodded into action because LibraryThing has a wicked widget that displays random entries from your library. Cool. So, not having any sort of electronic womb within which to nest my nifty library list, I humped it over here to Blogger and got with the proverbial program.

Now - Esoterotica:

I am the consumate polymath, at least in the dank recesses of my own cerebrum, and thus myriad subjects interest me. Indeed, something really only needs to be a subject to be interesting. A free-thinking mofo at heart, I am driven to seek out the new and the unusual, a task made all the more satisfying and, need I say, distracting by the N-ter-Web and its infinities. Therefore, my blog, such as it is, shall consist of all kinds of crap that I find interesting, making it not terribly different than the other 200 million personal pages out there. Esoterotica is my clever characterization of the attractive, addictive nature of knowledge for those of us inclined to be terminally curious. Who knows - this gig may change tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Just read "Jarhead" by Anthony Swofford

Damn. This is one hardhitting book, and a very good one at that. Swofford lays out his Marine experiences for all to see, good and bad, and does so without making any comentary on the political veracities behind warfighting. His message to the reader: whatever the reason for going to war, never forget the cost to those who wage it and upon whom war is waged.