There’s a lot of dodgy information on romance on the web (not the least of which is on our own site), but there’s a truly excellent description on how to be romantic on rinkworks.com.  I particularly appreciate the following rule of thumb:

There is a basic rule of thumb to follow: if it’s cool, it’s not romantic. For example, high powered rifles are not romantic. Science fiction is not romantic.

If only I’d learned that earlier in life.  The author has many observations of this nature, which combine to predict the most romantic object possible:

 It is, simply, a small red candle made out of chocolate and shaped like a teddy bear holding a heart with scribbles all over it that plays a tune when you wind it up.

This corresponds with my own experience that things-shaped-like-other-things are intrinsically cute.

My one beef is that the author asserts that having food on one’s head is not romantic.  I think it depends on the food.  Who could say no to a crown of cream with a cheeky cherry on top?

The traditional gifts associated with various wedding anniversaries are arbitrary and inconsistent. For example, in Britain the 4th anniversary is celebrated with fruit and flowers, while in the US it is silk or linen. And that’s just the tradition; according to Wikipedia, the modern gift for the 4th is “appliances.” Reading the full list, the modern gifts look like they’ve been nobbled by commercial interests. Clocks? Desk sets? Fashion jewelry? Pfff.

Mrs. Bell and I follow a different system. Dmitri Mendeleev to the rescue! Since he went to all that work to organize all the elements in a nice ordered Periodic Table, why reinvent the wheel for weddings? Our first anniversary was our Hydoversary (element 1: H, hydrogen), then came our Heliaversary (element 2: He, helium), and so on.

In this system, a big landmark comes when you reach iron (element 26: Fe, iron). This is the first element at which fusion ceases to be energetically advantageous. In other words, after this point, you’d better have gotten the hang of this marriage thing, you won’t be able to rely on physics alone to help you stick together.

Mrs. Bell and I had a rather long engagement, which in fact allowed us to celebrate our Electroversary (-1: a free electron) one year before our wedding.

You can’t say that we didn’t start as we meant to go on.

Hooray for cheese!

(just testing a youtube plugin for wordpress)

Looks like Terry Pratchett has a new book out, Making Money. The previous book with the same cast, Going Postal, was wonderful. I still frequently enjoy a bacon sandwich of regret. This time, the conman Moist von Lipwig is moved from reforming the post office to reforming the central bank. Lord Vetinari does enjoy his little joke. Terry Pratchett writes fantasy, but not the dragon-and-damsel kind. His stories retell aspects of our own world in a clearer, compressed form that just happens to be consistently hilarious. They are the best modern moral tales I know of.

Via boingboing, a knitting pattern for daleks. Given my first name, I’ve always had a strong fellow-feeling for these little rascals. Who doesn’t, from time to time, feel the urge to exterminate, exterminate, conquer the galaxy, crush the lesser races, obtain unimaginable power, unlimited rice pudding, etc etc? Every young infant should have a fuzzy robotic killer to cuddle and chew on.

Brownie and Bozo resurrected an old parody they made some time ago of free web-hosts. Back then they offered “50 MBs free” - the catch being that this was literally true, you had to make your website out of the letters M and B (and at most 50 of them). Since then of course things have moved on and now we offer 500 GBs. Enjoy!

The September 1st edition of the Economist magazine has a wonderful cover. It is a version of the Google front page that at first glance looks perfectly normal, but on closer inspection has some not-so-subtle modifications. My favorite part is the “I’m feeling wary” button.

No offense meant, dear Google.

We were feeling a bit nostalgic today for the old days. Back before blogs, before web 2.0, yay, nigh on back before time itself. But even back then, there was the Broken Plank, the first Dalek Bell enterprise. I’ve always been particularly proud of the guarantee we added at the height of Y2K hysteria:

Year 1900 statement: Our computers have been carefully validated to ensure they will not confuse the year 1900 with 1900, and this site has been officially declared year 1900 compliant.

We’ve tried to rescue some of the spirit of the plank at makesweet.com, but sometimes I long for another episode in the Mr. Nibbles trilogy…

Here’s a round-up of jobs a Klingon can fall back on if the starship tactical officer gig doesn’t work out.

Klingon chef

Klingons are natural cooks. All that chopping up and boiling appeals to their instincts. Here’s a sample recipe:

Home-Style Gagh

SERVES 1-2

Find someone who has already prepared some home-style gagh. Kill him/her in honorable combat and take his/her gagh. Serve cold and enjoy.

(via McSweeney’s, lots more recipes there)

Klingon monk

Klingons are natural philosophers, very clear on their place and the place of god within the universe, as evidenced by the following conversation:

KIRA: Do Klingons have gods?
WORF: Not any more. They were all slain by Klingon warriors a millenium ago. They were more trouble than they were worth.

(via starbase118)

Klingon fashion designer

Sheldon Comics advances this interesting possibility. The characters there have the following discussion:

“But in every episode, all the Klingons are wearing different outfits.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So? So it means that somewhere on the Klingon homeworld, there’s a Klingon fashion designer. It means there’s one dude who’s going - this season: more buckles! less leather! … next season: more over-the-shoulder metal sashes! Man, I wanna see the episode about that Klingon!”

“He rides into battle gloriously! shouting: careful, that vest was hand stitched!”

Klingon software engineer

There seems to be a strange fellow-feeling amongst programmers and Klingons showing on the internets right now. Example quotes making the rounds:

• What is this talk of ‘release’? Klingons do not make software ‘releases.’ Our software ‘escapes’ leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
• Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
• And lots more…

Klingon love-doctor

Worf on Star Trek gave the young Wesley excellent advice on love, which we could all do with following:

Worf: “AAAAAAAUUUUURRRGGGGHHHH! That is how a Klingon lures a mate.”
Wesley: “Are you telling me to yell at Salia?”
Worf: “No, no, no. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects. And claw at you.”
Wesley: “What does the man do?”
Worf: “He reads love poetry. He ducks a lot.”
Wesley: “Worf, it sounds like it works great for the Klingons, but… I need to try something a little less… dangerous?”
Worf: “Go to her door, beg like a human.”

(from “The Dauphin” episode)

On makesweet.com, we have a blood-thirsty murderous Klingon offering similar advice on life and love.

Klingon Opera singer

Klingons are apparently quite into opera. Who can forget the haunting strains of Aktuh and Melota:

BOOOOW-cha-daaay…
KEEEY-cha-daaay…
Me-YO-cha-BEEN-evaaa-kaa-MOOOOR…
LIIING-tomaaa…
Oh-ma-do-VEE-kos……ZOOOOOOO!
Oh-ma-do-VEE-kos……ZOOOOOOO!

(source: SajQa). I think we’ve all felt like saying that to a loved one at one time or another.

Update: DragonConTV has a video of what depths Klingons have to sink to between Star Trek shows. Tip: don’t ask your Klingon waiter to cut your sandwich in half. He may get a bit… over-enthusiastic shall we say.

Update: Oregon is not hiring Klingon interpreters. I repeat, if you are a Klingon interpreter do not seek employment in Oregon. It is strange to be having to say this.

Looks like a How-To Do-it-yourself guide to destroying the Earth is in the works. So many people out there who want to figure out how to build the button. But never press it. Heavens no.

Sam Hughes gives a careful, methodical analysis of how to destroy the Earth for real. Here’s the preamble:

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You’ve seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You’ve heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you’ve had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I (Sam Hughes) can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

(read more)