Threepwood '01

Posted 2/17/2001 by Beorn
The Music of the Internet! Help train a neural network to make beautiful music based on your ip. For some reason, the music reminded me of the Ultima Underworld games - except it's more pleasant noise than actual music.

Posted 2/17/2001 by Beorn
Terminator 2 was apparently some kind of really expensive FX-movie back in 1991. I finally got around to seeing it yesterday, but didn't notice any expensive-looking effects. Oh, you mean they spent all those millions of dollars on that liquid metal-thing? Ah, I see. But it's still a great action movie. It would have been better than the original if they hadn't chickened out at the end, typical Hollywood committee style. Schwarzenegger's best scene is the bar fight at the beginning - it doesn't get any more archetypal action hero than this. And I will always remember Linda Hamilton's look at the end of Terminator 1, (repeated in this photograph).

But wait, there's more testosterone to come! I must see Rambo 3 tonight on TV2. I watched T2 because I heard good things about it, but the only reason I'm watching Rambo 3 is to find out what all the cool kids and wannabes in elementary school was talking about all the time. The greatest honor in fourth grade at Lyngheim in Mo i Rana back in the 80's was owning a Rambo knife (or knowing someone who did). I've watched First Blood twice, (it's actually pretty good), without seeing anything that could create legends in a schoolyard, so I hope to unravel the mystery tonight. (Finally the cool kids will want to hang out with me - awright!)

Music of the day: High energy dance and metal. Thank God for AudioGalaxy - I've forgotten about Napster already.

Posted 2/17/2001 by Beorn
So Norways state attorney wants to ban nazi symbols, following what may be the first nazi murder here in decades. This is even more silly than my tendency to quote Monty Python all over the place. Would linking to swastikas become illegal? How about illustrating this post with one? I might, if this is made into law - but I won't now. The swastika still a repulsive symbol, no matters its original meaning, and no matter how tempting it is to provoke the true enemies of democracy.

Anyway, usually I would just leave it at that, shake my head and get on with ignoring peculiar norwegian laws as usual, but with the election coming up I decided to see what the various parties think about this, or free speech in general. FrP and Høyre seems least uncomfortable with freedom of speech. AP says little about speech, and plenty about fighting racism and prejudice. SP mentions freedom of speech several times, but imho sounds very vague and unenthusiastic about it. At KrF, freedom of speech is just an empty cliche. Venstre wants to legalize blasphemy (!) but doesn't mention racism. SV and RV at the far left expectedly support tough laws against racism.

All in all, I doubt a law against nazi symbols will meet much resistance in Norway. Benevolent censorship is the norm, not the exception, here.

Friday, February 16, 2001

Posted 2/16/2001 by Beorn
As I explained at Kuro5hin recently, it's about bloody time I get updated on norwegian politics again, with an election coming up in September. The way I figure, i'm better off getting my propaganda from the source, and not through the regular media. When I read a party press release at least I know it will be biased in a predictable direction. When I read some random journalists interpretation of a party press release, I still know that it will be biased - but not in which direction. I can compensate for the bias I see, but not the one I don't see.

After looking around a bit, it appears that Høyre, Venstre, RV and AP has their own newsletters, which I've now subscribed to. SV, KrF, FrP, SP are the other parties eligible for a place in the parliament (- not bothering with a newsletter is their loss). The more I read, the less I want to vote, but at least I'll do my part keeping our worst, most unsuitable politicians away from power.

Speaking of politics, the sex scandals in populist/libertarian FrP keep escalating. I don't know what to make of all this. Norwegian media are notoriously biased against what has recently become one of our major parties, but several public accusations of rape can't be dismissed as the usual backstabbing common in this village idiot sandbox. But it's also suspicious that the accusations were made right in the middle of a bitter war of nomination, and not when the rapes supposedly occured over a year ago.

(Hm, perhaps Blogger was the wrong choice of weblog software. It's very buggy - this post is a rewrite of one that got lost in SQL errors.)

Posted 2/16/2001 by Beorn

"Ginny speaking," she said politely. "Gee, I never got a phone call from a strange man before!"
"I am Death," Zane said carefully. "I received your letter."
"Oh!" she cried, whether in joy or fear he could not tell.
"Ginny, I do not think I will come for you soon. You have your life ahead of you.
But if I do come, I promise to wake you first. I will not take you in your sleep."
Her voice was tremulous. "Gee - you mean it? Really?"
"Really. You will not die before you wake."
- Anthony Piers, 'On a Pale Horse'

Morbid way to begin a weblog, no? It seems fitting, though, to begin with the end. Now that's settled, I can get on with documenting what happens between.

Why?
1. I have too much time on my hands.
2. There's cool stuff going on, everywhere, begging for me to comment it.
3. I can now direct new and old friends to this daily updated weblog, and not my static boring homepage, (hence fewer death rumours.)
4. I need somewhere to link to the stuff I write at Kuro5hin so it ends up in the search engines.

Posted 2/16/2001 by Beorn
It is with great pride - and anticipation - we announce the Threepwood weblog, written, maintained, researched and directed by Beorn aka Bjørn Stærk. During the 22 years Beorn has graced our planet with his presence, his failure to set a mark on his surroundings has been absolutely remarkable. With astounding courage he has failed to save the lives of thousands of poverty and war victims, not to mention his invaluable participation in not reducing the crime rates of his current hometown Oslo, Norway. Thousands have read his brilliant rhetorical masterpieces and walked away completely indifferent. Truly an example for all of us to follow.

With this in mind, it could only be a question of time before popular pressure convinced us to give this remarkable fellow - and, let us not deny it, humanitarian - his own, personal soapbox.

Sincerely,
Your bearstrong.net staff.

Threepwood '01 archives