Random Jack Bauer Fact: Top One Hundred FactsLoved this one: "Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas."
Try this on for size:
Premise 1: Scott Adams' favourite sci-fi series
de la jour is Battlestar Galactica
Premise 2: Scott Adams has good taste in sci-fi
Conclusion: Scott Adam's
all time sci-fi must also rock
Read it and weep boyz!:
The Dilbert Blog: My Opinions Part II
Love it! Just found out how to enable the web interface so that I can listen to it's music whilst sat at my PC.
"Why not just listen to your music on your PC via whatever MP3 software you have, Andrew?" I hear you ask, Dear Reader.
Well, foolishly, when I moved from my own place into The Good Lady's, I lost the power supply for my PC speakers. So I have two nice paperweights sat either side of my monitor.
But at least I don't have to keep leaping up to point the Xbox remote control (which also now works with the new version of media center) over the sofa and under The Boy's huge "sit in and play with things" beast of a toy, which sits conveniently just in front of the xbox, hiding it from visitors in The Good Lady's minimalist decor :-)
Of course, what would be better is to enable the XMBC web server automatically. Anyone know how to do this?
I bet you never thought you'd see it... but get this (news from Reuters):
"Kinderstart sues Google over lower page ranking Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:08 PM ET SAN FRANCISCO, March 18 (Reuters) - A parental advice Internet site has sued Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research), charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.The civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, on Friday by KinderStart.com seeks financial damages along with information on how Google ranks Internet sites when users conduct a Web-based search.Google could not immediately be reached for comment but the company aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system and asserts its right to adapt it to give customers what it determines to be the best results.KinderStart charges that Google without warning in March 2005 penalized the site in its search rankings, sparking a "cataclysmic" 70 percent fall in its audience -- and a resulting 80 percent decline in revenue.At its height, KinderStart counted 10 million page views per month, the lawsuit said. Web site page views are a basic way of measuring audience and are used to set advertising rates."Google does not generally inform Web sites that they have been penalized nor does it explain in detail why the Web site was penalized," the lawsuit said.While an entire sub-industry exists to help Web sites feature prominently in Google results, the company is known to punish those who try to trick the system into boosting their search rankings.The lawsuit notes that rival search systems from Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) MSN and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) feature Kinderstart.com at the top of their rankings when the name "Kinderstart" is typed in.The complaint accuses Google, as the dominant provider of Web searches, of violating KinderStart's constitutional right to free speech by blocking search engine results showing Web site content and other communications.KinderStart contends that once a company has been penalized, it is difficult to contact Google to regain good standing and impossible to get a report on whether or why the search leader took such action.The suit was filed the same day a federal judge denied a U.S. government request that Google be ordered to hand over a sample of keywords customers use to search the Internet while requiring the company to produce some Web addresses indexed in its system."
Let me just get this right, and put it into layman-speak.
A) KinderStart get traffic from Google's search engine
B) KinderStart don't pay for that traffic via Google's paid advertising inclusion, but simply by listed in Google's normal search results (that must be the case, otherwise the traffic loss wouldn't have happened).
C) Which means KinderStart were getting that traffic free.
And they want to sue Google???
Jesus wept.
Added a few minutes later:And it gets even better!!!
After visiting the site, I get an activex-type pop-up from my PC asking me if it wants to install some scumware, sorry, very useful software!
Words fail me.
TipMonkies » Blog Archive » Disable the “Send To” context menuI think this line says it all:
Since I have been using Windows computers I have never found a need to use this
option for anything.
Anyone ever used it?
Finally, the "eat ice cream too fast, get a headache" personal problem I have is solved.
See tip #13, page 3, in
18 Tricks to Teach Your BodyThere are some other cool ones here.
Get this from
Springwise Weekly:
Appealing to the IM-generation, Eccky (created by Media Republic) is a
multi-player concept that allows two people to create a virtual baby, add it
to their MSN buddy list, and guide it through its childhood and teens. (For
information in English, check out Eccky's weblog.)
You stay classy, Doritos!
I'm getting to like B*opton (name hidden to distract stalkers). Here's why…
Got on the bus this morning, tra-la-la, usual story, until the bus got underway. Then I noticed about 3 or 4 people waving to the bus driver as he drove past them. "Nice", I thought, and reminisced on the good old days (circa 1920) when everyone knew everyone and was polite, instead of spitting / barging into others / poking them in the eye with your "My dick's bigger than yours" golfing umbrella...
The last one to wave was an old guy walking his dog. "Nice life", I thought, fantasizing about doing similar things when I retire, rather than thinking about the reality of having to work till I die to support my one-step-forward, two-steps back pension fund...
Then as the bus hit the "road closed" sign and had to do a U-ey, the old guy stuck his thumb down (in true Roman Emporer vs the Christian Gladiator style) and grinned as the bus drove past. "Nice touch", I thought, thinking about how much could be said with one little gesture, rather than the torrent of abuse you face from today's youth if you dare to be wearing something that's so last month...
Then we drove back past the horde of teenage kids waiting for the school bus… 10 of which leapt out and bombarded the bus with snowballs. "Classic", I thought, future-pacing me and the little 'un doing similar in a couple of years time, avoiding the thought of a few years down the road when I'm having to do the "wear a condom / don't talk to strangers / just say no" conversations.
Then, eventually, we got to work and the real fun began….
Sigh.
Some excellent one-liners by both crew and passengers here. Love the one about the old lady as she left the plane...
WICKED THOUGHTS: 03/01/2006 - 03/31/2006
Dan Brown's been taken to court by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail recently, as they claimed he ripped off their more scholarly work. Dan Brown won the case, and apparently, "the presiding judge pointed out that in the Internet age, it was difficult for researchers to know the provenance of the material they were reading" (quote from
Sci Fi Wire).
Now, I have actually read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, maybe 15 years ago. Dan Brown copied the story, absolutely no doubt about it. And that's with my hazy memory over the 15 years.
Maybe he didn't know, but what sort of author has not heard (and read) one of the key books (if not THE key book) on the topic they're writing about. Did Dan just make up the whole story without any background reading?
I doubt it. Bad man, Dan, bad man.
I'm in the middle of reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and in it, there's a scene were the main characters go to a place called "The House On The Rock". This is described as a column of rock on which someone built a fantastic looking house in the 50's, I think it said. People started coming to see the house, so the guy started charging them. And thus began the history of a place that sounds like the most tackiest tourist attraction ever.
Indeed, the book describes a huge carousel (yes, spelled with a 'u', the correct British way), called The Biggest Carousel In The World, which was built ONLY to lay claim to the biggest carousel in the world.
As these things turn out - it's real!
Take a look at this pic, and weep at The Tackiest Thing In The World:
Carosel
