Posts from — November 2003

Top 10 Spam Myths is an informative article. I believe the pending anti-spam laws will be ineffective. The new laws will only target spammers inside the U.S. and it will be an easy matter for the spammer deviants to move their operations outside the U.S. It will be interesting to see how all of this evolves. This article helps to explain things a little better.

In the meantime, STOP BUYING STUFF FROM THESE SCUMS. If they don’t make any money off of their bulk emailings, then they’ll stop doing it, right?

“Here it is, the big list of when and where Hitchcock makes his appearances in his films.” This is from a great site you can’t miss if you’re a Hitchcock fan like me.

Say Yes. If you want to know the name of a song that is playing on the radio right now, visit this site. If you like the music, there’s a link to buy the CD. The few tests I made of their database showed it to be right on. This site is very cool.

Too bad I’m not on this list.

The Money Maps from Fundrace.com are interesting. See which Americans are supporting each candidate by state, county and zip code.

This is my kind of crafting. (not kid friendly)

Christmas has come early this year. I thought the rule is no decorations or music or anything Christmas related until AFTER Thanksgiving. Well if it isn’t a rule, it should be. You don’t get any award for being the first on the block to have your Christmas lights up. Well you can get one award, the one for stupidity.

Pam and I make up our own Christmas decoration awards each year. The first to hang their lights, the last to take them down and the most gaudy are among our favorites. This year we have a winner with the house that hung their lights 2 days after Halloween. They’re tied with last year’s winner - the last to take their lights down. They never took them down all year and just turned them back on this year. In a way they’re the first ones to go up this year. Sensible but lazy.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see the neighborhood with these beautiful lights, just wait a little longer. After Thanksgiving should be the rule.

Did you know that Google’s toolbar has a popup blocker built in? I’ve started to use it at work and I’ll let you know how it works.

What is it with the people who configure their desks with the computer facing out into the aisle? What are they hiding? They’re up to no good, I tell you.

Our 25″ Magnavox television went out last week. It served us well for over 10 years but it was time to get a new one. After a bunch of research and shopping around, we settled on this one. It arrived yesterday and it’s awesome.

Actually that’s the TV I want. A 32″ Sony Wega is what we got.

Mark wanted to know:

“Why is it called Ovaltine when the jar is round?”

“Why are they called apartments when they are right next to each other?”

I dunno, Mark.

From Seth:

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered
that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion
developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, on almost any
surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below
freezing to over 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Enjoy paying your taxes.

The police are on patrol today looking for people that are not using their seat belts. I say why bother. If the idiot drivers don’t want to wear them and they get maimed and killed in accidents, there will be fewer of them on the road.

Just make a law that if people get into a serious accident and they are not wearing their seat belts, they won’t be covered under their insurance. Then the rest of us won’t have to pay for their stupidity.

A better use of time for the police today would be to pull over all the people that don’t use their blinkers. Like the shithead in front of me that failed to signal when he turned right to a side street. Or maybe the moron that stopped all the sudden in the road. He was turning left into a gas station. There was no way I knew this, he didn’t have his blinker on. The police should stop these people, take away their licenses, impound their cars and see to it these freaks never drive again. No exceptions, no mercy.

And how about the punk teenagers on their way to school tailgating me? They are developing their bad driving habits very early. Force these brats to take the bus and stay off the roads. Or learn how to drive.

Yes, I had a bad drive into work this morning. How could you tell?

Setting up a home network? Making it wireless? This chart may help.

Then you’ll have start worrying about more of this kind of thing.

WPA (WiFi Protected Access) should be able to help.

Guidelines for focusing on learning

1. Release the need to be right.
2. Welcome one another’s thoughts and opinions.
3. Suspend judgement.
4. Listen for understanding, not rebuttal.
5. Make personal statements by using “I” rather than “you.”
6. Clarify first what was said before you challenge someone.
7. Take time to reflect.
8. Lean into discomfort.
9. Respond first to what was said before making your point.
10. Have fun.

(thanks to kottke.org for this list)

I wish the people I work with would heed this advice. Often the conversations I have seem to be the other person just waiting for their turn to talk. Meetings are more like lectures where there is no interaction, the chair has no interest in hearing and learning from you.

One of my favorite quotes (after my fractured quotes) is “you can’t learn anything if you’re talking.”

Got some time to kill? A lot of time? Nationmaster.com will keep you busy for hours. You can graphically view and compare various statistics of different countries all over the world. It’s fascinating. I love a site where you learn something while still having fun.

Photologs are becoming more popular. With camera phones, it’s easy to snap a shot and send it up to your web site. Here’s a good one with some weird pictures.

I think MSN Maps are better than the Mapquest ones. They are clearer, print better and you can transfer them to your Pocket PC. I don’t have a Pocket PC any longer but if I did, I’d be transferring maps to it using MSN Maps.

Excess, Story, Project, PIA… How are you doing? Nevermind, who cares?

The Matrix Revolutions tomorrow, yee ha! Critics are saying that it’s old and familiar. It lacks the wonder and amazment of the first movie, they say. We’ll see.

You are Neo, from “The Matrix.” You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.

What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

“It’s a retinal implant that has sleek curves, smells of flowers and expands at the touch of a button.” I was thinking about developing one of these but apparently this site thought of it first. You can get a bunch of randomly-generated product ideas here.