Next Archive - March 2005

Where Am I?

Woohoo! GeoURL is back up again! This free service lets you find blogs by their location, and add your blog to its database (provided you have specified your latitude and longitude in your blog header according to their specifications).

I've had their meta tag in my blog template for quite a while now, in hopes that GeoURL would come back, or that some other service would arise and use the same tags. For privacy (who me?) the coordinates I specify are near my home, but not exactly. Pretty much everything I do is not exactly. Like that last sentence. But I can find my bed at night.


Blog Tag: Links

The Bank is your Enemy

First there was ChoicePoint exposing personal information, and now Bank of America has lost computer tapes with the personal information of up to 1.2 million people.

When will our government finally step up and start protecting our individual rights? I mean, isn't that one of its primary purposes? Companies that collect our personal information should not be allowed to share it, unless we expressly allow them to do so in writing. It should be an opt-in system, not opt-out. How would they like it if we were allowed to steal from them unless they told us they wanted to opt-out of our steal-their-stuff policy?

To be honest, I don't have any hope that our government will step in. The fact is, there are safeguards that make it difficult for the government to collect information on its citizens, but by allowing corporations in the private sector to do so, the government can then purchase the information it wants from those companies who are trading our privacy like baseball cards.


Blog Tag: Opinion

What Everyone Needs

"Self acceptance so you can live with yourself; self criticism so others can live with you."


Blog Tag: Chatter

Hitting Close to Home

Funny link #1: A house that looks like a desktop. Don't know what that means? Well, why bother asking... just click it!

Fun link #2: A cool Flash dart game that tests your knowledge of European cities. Aim to hit the city listed at the top right. Click weiter to try again with another city.

eMusings time-wasters courtesy of Google Blogoscoped.


Blog Tag: Links

Do You Feel Lucky?

Google has a new feature, described here, that improves the ability to search for information about movies by adding movie: to the search. You can search for movies in your area by searching for movie: and adding your zip code or town. You can search for movies with a certain phrase or actor.

Now how much will you pay? Ain't Google wunnerful?


Blog Tag: Links

The Connie Clone

I had a strange dream the other night. An evil genius had cloned my wife, and I couldn't tell which was which. They were both beautiful and shapely, both laughed at my jokes, both could dance like nobody's business. I knew I had to choose, the future of the free world was at stake. But which was the evil spy?

One Connie cooked a pot of soup. She threw in some vegetables from the pantry, added a few dashes of cayenne pepper, even tossed in some leftovers. It turned out great. As always. Then the other Connie added butter to a frying pan, cracked some eggs into a bowl and scrambled them, then measured out a quarter cup of chopped onions and tipped them in. And I shot her.

My Connie doesn't measure when she cooks. It's a dash of this, a handful of that. Drives me crazy. When I cook, I follow directions. If I change the recipe, I mark down the amounts so I can prepare it the same way the next time, or make further adjustments. I'm a scientist at heart. And I love my wife. (And I may watch too much Alias.)


Blog Tag: Chatter

Romance

Tonight one of my daughter's friends came over wearing a Ralph Lauren perfume called Romance. Woof! It's soft, it's sensual, it's seductive. I wonder how long until they release a perfume titled simply Take Me Now!


Blog Tag: Chatter

Color Design Rules

I'm really bad at choosing colors for a design. I know when I see a color scheme I like, but I have trouble devising one. For people like me (at least in that sense), there's a web page that can help: Color Design Rules. Hope it helps.


Blog Tag: Links

Me Want Coffee

From the eMusings mailbag:

ME WANT COFFEE

An Indian walks into a saloon with a shotgun in one hand and a male buffalo dragged in the other. He says to the waiter, "Me want coffee."

The waiter says, "Sure Chief, coming right up." He gets the Indian a tall mug of coffee. The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of animal to splatter everywhere, then just walks out.

The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one hand and another male buffalo with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter, "Me want coffee."

The waiter says, "Whoa, Tonto! We're still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What the heck was that all about, anyway?"

The Indian smiles and says, "Me training for upper management position: Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of day."

:)


(my apologies to Native Americans)


Blog Tag: Humor

Database Giant Gives Criminals Access to Your Data!

See, now, this is just what I'm talking about!


Blog Tag: Links

Incredible Interactive Kaleidoscope

Great Flash animation of a Kaleidoscope via In4mador!


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

When is a Cat not in Heat?

Our cat, Dingus, is a religious fanatic. She waits by the heater vent, praying to the great Goddess of Heat, waiting for Her to bestow warmth. Day after day, her prayers would be answered. Until yesterday.

Late Wednesday night, a fire truck parked itself in front of our house, and men with masks and air tanks began marching down the street, illuminated by the ruddy glow of the engine's red lights. Their objective, to locate the source of a gas leak that was spewing natural gas up from the sidewalks at such a rate that it could be detected from miles away. Jackhammers punctuated the frigid night air until early yesterday morning, and the gas was cut off.

All day yesterday we went without heat. Poor Dingus sat by the vent with an inscrutable look, waiting in vain for the heat that had always been there for her. Piteous thoughts of rejection must have been crept like glaciers through her feline brain. O Goddess, why hast thou forsaken me?

Last night, finally, about 11 pm, one of Her minions appeared and restored gas service to our home, and the cats rejoiced.


Blog Tag: Chatter

RFID Warning Ring

Engadget has a post about a WiFi Detector Ring that will light up to let you know when you're in range of a WiFi hotspot. This would be a cool idea, if it would let you know that the hotspot is unlocked and connects to the internet.

What I would dearly love to see, though, would be a ring that lights up whenever I'm being scanned for RFID chips. These are the tiny tracking devices that may soon be commonly embedded in your clothes and other purchases from WalMart and other stores, so they can be tracked automatically, without passing over a laser scanner. Just walk past the detector and it knows all the RFID chips you're carrying. The chips won't necessarily be deactivated, which means anyone with the right equipment could scan you at any time and see what tagged items you have with you. Just another incredible invasion of privacy that nobody seems to be doing much to stop.


Blog Tag: Opinion

Organic HTML Flowers

I found a cool Flash animation via Geek Love that grows flowers based on the features it finds at a web page. I gave Organic HTML FLowers the url of my blog, and it grew an odd plant with the pumpkin and grey colors of this blog. I gave it the White House web site and got red, white and blue colors. What a surprise! Give it a try.


Blog Tag: Links   Blog Tag: Amusements

Republished!!!

Between the klunkiness of Blogger, and the klunkiness of my ISP, I've been unable to republish my blog for months and months. I can, most of the time, publish a new page, and perhaps republish a few other pages, but the process would blog down (blog down, get it?) before republishing even half the total blog.

But tonight, the blog gods were smiling, and I was finally able to bring my entire blog up to date, bringing all the pages into a consistent whole, all of them now sporting the same template. Whee!


Blog Tag: Announcements

Typer Shark Flash Game

I just tried a fun new Flash game: Typer Shark, a game that tests your typing skills by using them to attack sharks who are about to eat your diver. My score at the first game? 86 words per minute, 100% accuracy.

(Don't be upset. I was the project manager on one version of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and I used the product so much that it really increased my speed and accuracy, which comes in handy when you're a programmer or novelist.)

Via Chasing Daisy


Blog Tag: Links   Amusements

Non calor sed umor

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.

Huh? Wha?

Okay, for the Latin-challenged amongst you, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

The weather today was in the 70's here in marvelous Marin County. It's Spring! Well, not, but it's starting to feel that way.

Now, I know you're musing over the fact that I opened this post with a Latin phrase you've never heard before. That's thanks to the knowledge gleaned from Handy Latin Phrases, a fun web page with silly phrases rendered in Latin. Should I lay one more phrase on you? Tuis pugis pignore!


Blog Tag: Links

You're Smoked!

A company in Michigan has fired employees for smoking on their own time. You can read one story about it here. Now, I don't smoke, I've never smoked (except some "experimentation" in college), I hate smoking, nobody in my family smokes. However, I believe firmly in everyone's right to privacy, and that workers need protection from employers who wish to exercise too much control over the lives of their employees.

What an employee does on their own time, in their own homes, is no business of the business they work for. What's next? No red meat? No Twinkies? No soft drinks? Companies should not be allowed to require blood tests, breath tests or any other intrusion into the private lives of their workers. grrrrr


Blog Tag: News   Blog Tag: Opinion

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