I’m trying out a Wordpress plugin that I previously did not know about. Bring it on spambots.
Archive for April, 2006
Comments Update
Friday, April 28th, 2006Best use of Lego Bricks
Friday, April 28th, 2006To think, all this time I’ve been hurling cd’s with my arms.
via [BoingBoing]
No more comments
Friday, April 28th, 2006I have disabled comments until I can figure out what to do with all the spam. I enjoy discussion on this site but I can no longer keep up with the spam bots. Way to go jerks, you’re ruining it for everyone.
Bigger Mac
Monday, April 24th, 2006That famous Scottish hamburger chain will be selling a limited-edition Bigger Big Mac in Europe to celebrate the World Cup. Why can’t they sell it here? I’ve always thought that Big Macs have been getting smaller. Are they afraid to sell the burger in the U.S. because people still remember the original Big Mac and will figure out that they’ve been getting ripped off for the past fifteen years?
via [Beyond Madison Avenue]
People getting sick of Digg?
Monday, April 24th, 2006About a month ago I wrote a post titled “Five reasons why Digg sucks.” I’m not sure what’s going on with Digg and the alienation of its users but my month-old posting has gotten four comments today. This leads me to believe that yes, indeed, Digg sucks and people want to talk about it. These days I visit Digg through bloglines. I don’t bother reading the comments because I’ve learned that I won’t find anything useful there. I still have to visit the actual site if there’s an interesting article that I want to read because the linked article is never in the feed but I’m okay with that, what’s an extra click eh?. My question – Why is everyone suddenly disenchanted with Digg today? What happened that is making people search for “digg sucks” in their favorite search engine?
Windows Vista
Monday, April 24th, 2006Nice post by Schneier on security in the upcoming version of Windows. Sounds ghastly. I wonder if they’ve fixed permissions. When I was doing desktop support for Windows machines the biggest waste of time was setting up permissions. You had to be signed in as the administrator for every task that you wanted to do and I often wondered why Microsoft had bothered with permissions at all. Why is Microsoft in the operating system business anyway? They make good software – Word and Excel are great for what they are supposed to do. Why not concentrate on making good software that runs on other OSes? I’m no business mogul so I’m sure there’s something that I’m missing but I think MS would have a better reputation and better products if they ditched the OS.
Pigeon Mambo
Monday, April 24th, 2006I have no love for pigeons. I hate them. They’re dirty, disgusting, disease-ridden, and any other negative words that begin with the Letter D. I’ve seen pigeons peck at vomit, used condoms, hypodermic needles, dog feces, and discarded Menudo (not the food, I saw a pigeon chowing down on a Menudo CD).
On the other hand, I’ve learned a lot about pigeons in the last few months because a young pigeon-couple built a nest right outside the kitchen window where my desk is. I watched these guys carry bits of string, electrical cord, paper towels, and barbershop hair (I’m guessing with this one…I don’t know where else they would pick up such a large pile of hair…) to a little space on the back stairs of the building right next to us. They built their nest and would hang out in it all day. They would become very happy around three in the morning, cooing and thrashing around, having what I imagine to be the best pigeon-sex possible. Basically, they were a couple of stupid pigeons that weren’t harming anybody. True that they were noisy but no more so then any other jerk around here.
Well, somebody must have made a call to somebody else because the pigeons have been kicked out. Not only kicked out but their nest was kicked apart and thrown away. A large chicken-wire sort of fence has been strung up along those stairs now, making it impossible for any more pigeons to build a home there. Funny, our building has what could be described as “interesting characters” living in it and some of those characters are loud and abusive and have the cops called on them all the time. Nobody seems to have made the call to get those guys kicked out yet the pigeons that were just trying to raise a family are gone with no hope of coming back.
The pigeon couple keeps flying around, wondering what happened to their home. They come around every twenty minutes or so and flap their wings against the wire and then they leave. I wonder where they disappear to when they’re not here, are they looking for tools? Perhaps more pigeons? It’s obvious that they’re upset but there’s not a thing they can do about it.
While I still have no love for pigeons I feel a bit of sadness when I look out the window. I’ll miss my little friends and I wish them the best of luck. Sheesh, even the pigeons have to fight for rental space in San Francisco.
Easter Egg
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006If you haven’t come across it yet…JetBlue has an easter egg on their site. Go to Travel Info: Route Map. Click on Buffalo and while still holding the click hold down the “shift” key and type “PBJ” (without the quotes). You’ll be treated to a stupid video. While the easter egg itself is nothing special I think it’s really cool that a corporate website can still be fun.
update 04/20/06 1:08PM (pst):
Looks like the site has been broken by the interwebs, the easter egg is now gone.
Dad was right
Saturday, April 15th, 2006When I was younger and lived in South Carolina we had a big, ugly satellite dish. Even though it was a technological marvel for us as a family the dish and its system were outdated even by 1987 standards. Eventually the thing quit working altogether and the dish just sat there collecting slugs. My dad always had the idea of turning it into a gazebo and I thought he was crazy. I believe I even said to him, "Dad, that’s crazy." Well burn my pants, some Maker has done what my dad always wanted to do. My dad is no longer with us but I know if he saw this he’d look at me and smile without saying a word because he always knew when he was right. Let this be a lesson to all of you, there’s no such thing as a crazy idea. The Satellite Dish Gazebo with all the gory details, looks awesome!
Space Disco
Friday, April 14th, 2006Lately I’ve been doing a lot of reading and writing (although I’ve probably been doing more reading than writing…) and I haven’t felt compelled to post anything because it seems to me that mostly I’ve just been boring and have nothing interesting to say. Since I don’t have anything interesting to say, I’ll talk a bit about some of the interesting things I’ve been reading.
First, I’ve been listening to SomaFM.com, specifically the "Secret Agent" station. I discovered this thanks to a post from Wil Wheaton and so far I haven’t gotten bored with the station. It makes for an excellent soundtrack when I’m writing and I feel like my neck muscles have become thick and muscular due largely in part to nodding my head for hours at a time while listening to groovy spy-ish music.
I’ve been developing an interest in the psychology of marketing so of course there are a couple of sites that I like. MarketingSyndrome has been a great resource for niche marketing on the web. I’ve also been keeping up with HorsePigCow, the blog of Miss Rogue the Pinko Marketer. Her approach to marketing is very different from what most people are used to, definitely a must-read if you’re into marketing and stuff like that. I’ve also been reading the blog of Will Pate, the new Community Ambassador of Flock, my favorite browser, which I’ve come to learn is actually still under a "developer preview" version and not even beta yet. Wow, if it works this well as a preview I can’t wait to see what’s in store for later. I wish I were a developer so that I could say more technical things about Flock other than just "It’s cool because it works and it does cool things." Seriously though, it’s cool because it works and it does cool things. BeyondMadisonAvenue is a pretty cool blog about advertising, it has everything from news to gossip to thoughts of the day.
In addition to web reading I’ve been doing some of the dead tree variety. I’m almost finished with "Pretties" by Scott Westerfeld and I can hardly wait to pick up the third (and final – oh no!) in the series. I started reading the George Saunders collection by the name of "Pastoralia" and he just had an article in the New Yorker, so yay, a new writer for me to explore. I can’t say much about his work since I’ve just started reading him but he seems pretty funny so far. Extremely funny actually.
I’ve been doing some writing as well. Mostly working on a web site that I started a little while ago. I just started a new fiction piece that I should be working on right now and I’m also working on another travel sort of article that is due soon (and that I should be working on right now) with another article due soon after that.
That’s what I’ve been up to. What’s going on in your life?