File under "silly”
August 22, 2006 – 8:15 pm
Ok, I am a fan of exercises that create tangible examples of how far “we” have come (eg, distance in nanometers between circuits in a chip might be a little hard for most people to conceptualize), but this strikes me as plain silly. Not only the exercise, but the option of purchsing this micromachined marvel for $870! No word yet on fuzzy ones for your matchbox car rearview.
God does not play dice with the universe. Or maybe he does. Maybe he
uses really small dice that we have difficulty noticing. If so, they
might look something like these tiny dice manufactured by Iriso Seimetsu Co., Ltd.
Blogged with Flock
A lesson in communication…
August 15, 2006 – 5:40 pm
So, let me start by saying sorry to the 3 or 4 folks that ever actually read my blog. I rarely have time, and when I do, it seems like so many other folks have soooo much more to say. Anyhow, I have been waiting for something interesting or funny to help me get back into the swing of things and finally found something that appealed to my strict standard of “bloggable“. I just love this image and explanation. Here I am, about to upload a very cute video of my son, and I get the following text and image from our friends at YouTube. Under most circumstances, I would have been annoyed, but this just tickled me pink:
We’re currently putting out some new features, sweeping out the cobwebs and zapping a few gremlins.We’ll be back later. In the meantime, please enjoy a layman’s explanation of our website…
YouTube - Your Digital Video Repository
Blogged with Flock
Photbucket Video…
April 4, 2006 – 5:43 am
…enough to make me break my silence and blog again. Been quiet of late working on the next gen of Flock (I know Bart has a post queued up on that topic). However, I wanted to break the silence by calling attention to my latest favorite thing on the web, Photobucket’s Video Service. The service works very much like their photo service, but instead allows you to upload up to 3 minutes of video at a time. The videos are transcoded to Flash 8 on the server side and you are given handy links that you can then use to add video (a la Google Video) to your blog post. Here is a screenshot of the service, which is already getting hammered by users and performing like a champ:
Empathy for the Devil
January 19, 2006 – 6:17 am
One of our core team of Flockstars, TrueSatan (aka “David), not only has one of the coolest Flockstar names (Lou Cypher is of course a close second), but has also undertaken the Herculean task of creating a Flock enthusiast/extensions site. The site, AdminId, is a work in progress and rife with opportunity for contributors. TrueSatan sent out the following note rallying anyone interested in contributing:
There are, doubtless, still some rough edges here and there but the main systems have all been tested and are working perfectly so it’s time to open it to the public. Please make known to your friends and contacts what is available and help us to make the site thrive…feel free to post or blog about it where you will.
Anyone interested should feel free to check it out. Since Flock will only become considerably more extensible over time, I think this site (as well as flock.com!) will be a great place for Flockers to learn about various developments and projects from the Flock community.
Cussing and marginalizing people for social change
January 12, 2006 – 2:56 am
I am blogging this because Bart called this “my best idea of the week�, which I personally found offensive. Speaking of being offensive, Bart tasked me to devise a way of dealing with verbal transgressions at work (e.g. talk in our predominantly male working environment can at times be offensive). Our peccadilloes are not exceedingly hostile, but can create bad culture if we are not aware. So, I proposed that we create a PayPal “tip jar� and fine people $20 per offensive (as deemed by a jury of our not-so-diverse but punitive peers) comment. The idea is that we then channel that money into charities or organizations specifically targeting whatever group might have been marginalized. So, make a fat joke and you just made a $20 donation to http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/. Make a joke that marginalizes women, well you just donated $20 to www.NOW.org. Naturally, this is not a substitute for creating a comfortable, non-hostile and diverse workplace. However, it does help to create a culture of accountability (financial and social) and channels some of the bad karma created into a small economic vehicle for social change.
Please don’t leave, or I will make your life difficult…
January 3, 2006 – 7:04 pm
Ever try to break up with someone and they got all passive aggressive and made it even more difficult? You know the tricks: “sorry, I left my math book at your place, can I come over”, “oh, I am expecting a package that I had them ship to your place before we broke up”, and my personal favorite, “can I just come over and stare at you while you work?”
Well, now that I am happily married, I thought that I had left this kind of behavior behind me at least until I had toddlers and had to deal with a whole new flavor of passive aggression. I did NOT expect that I would encounter such desperate tactics from Microsoft first. I was wrong. After trying out the latest version of MSN Messenger, I was shocked to find that I was not allowed to exit the application! I kept getting the following error message that was telling me that a bunch of applications I either did not use, or had previously used without MSN Messenger, now had dependencies on Messenger:
I know Microsoft is getting desperate given the onslaught of competitors (too many to link) that are using innovation as “lock in”, but this is ridiculous. I hope I have an easier time uninstalling this crap. I intend to “change the locks” so to speak when the new PowerBooks come out.
Yahoo! Open shortcuts…
December 28, 2005 – 6:53 am
I just came across this on Yahoo! next. Basically, Yahoo is allowing users to create custom query shortcuts. I know others have done mashups and the like elsewhere, but am happy to see that Yahoo! has taken the initiative. Check it out: Yahoo! shortcuts.
A new way to convert your Flock extensions
December 18, 2005 – 7:33 am
David Dunn, of Flockstar fame writes:
Hi there, I know that I don’t post much into Flockstars (the only time I really did was when we were discussing PocketFlock), but I just wanted to make two announcements.
1) I’ve been working on a new project called Flock’d which is essentially an online equivalent to the Flocker program written in php with a few unix shell commands where needed.
Check it out if you are looking to convert your favorite extensions.
I DIGG it!
December 16, 2005 – 6:05 am
Just came across this. The toolbar is great. I would love to see someone hack it into a topbar. 
download it here:
