I decided to put up a Wordpress while I worked on my next project. I love LJ and all, but WP is just so much more customizable. Wordpress wins.

Check it out: http://blog.savagevenus.net/
Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EclecticMusings

I'm still playing around with the layout, but it looks pretty nice so far. I'll probably be posting over there more often, so feel free to bookmark it. ^_^;

Feeling: content

From KARE 11:

A candidate for governor of Minnesota whose platform includes public impalement of terrorists found himself behind bars Tuesday on a pair of outstanding arrest warrants.

Jonathon Sharkey, 41, of Princeton, Minnesota was arrested Monday night on two felony counts from Indiana, said Mike Smith, the Mille Lacs County jail administrator. One warrant was for escape, another for stalking.

Feeling: hungry

..and I wholeheartedly agree!

Feeling: quixotic

I stumbled across an interesting user article on replacing the old theory of bookmarking in favour of implementing a social bookmarking/tagging system in Firefox 2.0.

I love the idea of combining the live bookmarks option in to regular bookmarks, to allow each bookmarked page to be automatically updated, rated, and synchronized; however, any implementation of tagging would have to provide each user with a complete list of tags already used when creating a new bookmark (similar to del.icio.us). I have used Flock, and the system they have in place is so unusable, it's not worth the effort since they don't provide you with bookmarks you've already tagged other items with it pretty much defeats the purpose of tagging.

I know this idea would be potentially low on the list, but create a my.firefox.com service allowing Firefox users to anonymously upload their browsing statistics/bookmarks ("tags") to a central server and create a social bookmarking type of service that would allow users to share their favourite places with other users (this would also solve the problem of sharing your bookmarks between two separate computers).

It would be quite the radical change, yes, but I think that it could revolutionize how modern browsers are used (or, perhaps, that is just my addiction to tags and social bookmarking talking).

Feeling: working

I haven't posted in so long; did you miss me?!

*** New Clerks 2 Teaser Up. Yes, yes, yes!
** Feds want Google search results.
* Sex.com domain sells for millions. Hmm, wish I thought of it first.
** iTunes credited with boosting prime time ratings. Viewers prove they would rather pay for a show and then see it for free afterwords.
***** Arrested Development offered deals by Showtime and ABC. I squeal with delight.

Feeling: hungry

Well, it only took about five days of frustration, but I got the bulk of my new website design up.. yay.

It still looks a little bad in IE, thanks to their non-existent support for PNG images, but it looks great none-the-less.

I'm still adding a bunch of functionality to it, but check it out if you have a moment. :)

Feeling: cheerful

From TBO.com

Massachusetts' attorney general is launching an investigation into several supermarkets that opened on Thanksgiving in defiance of the state's Puritan-era Blue Laws.

The laws were passed in the 1600s to keep colonists at home or in church on Sundays. Parts of the laws, such as the ban on Sunday liquor sales, have been repealed, but a prohibition on most stores doing business on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day, has not.

"If these stores want to open, there's a way to do it: Change the law," David Guarino, a spokesman for Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, told The Boston Globe. The office didn't say what sort of penalty the stores could face.

Feeling: cynical

I *finally* got to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was pretty impressed overall, but, like always, I was disappointed that it seemed so rushed so a lot of the major points of the Triwizard Tournament were never given enough chances to build up an importance.

Spoilers abound!
( Read more... )

Feeling: excited

From CNN:

But despite the robust start for retailers on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, at least one industry analyst is betting that the early momentum will run of out gas before the weekend's over.
[...]
"Everybody is coming with a road map. They have their circulars, downloaded coupons. This shows that consumers are very prepared and focused," Cohen said. "At some stores, the staff got there after consumers."

First reports indicated some big crowds at discounters, including No. 1 retailer Wal-Mart, with a brawl seen at one of its Florida stores.

Feeling: cynical

From Basement.org:

As interface and graphic designers, we border on obsessed with rounded corners. Web developers have gone to great lengths, through the creative use of CSS (and sometimes Javascript) to make the creation of rounded corners as painless as possible. The proposed CSS3 specification even includes properties for rounded corners (Firefox already supports it).

So why is there such a fascination with rounded corners? I would venture that our attraction to rounded corners goes beyond the aesthetic and speaks to something more.

Feeling: amused

*** Jones Soda Holiday Pack (Mm, Green Bean Casserole flavoured soda pop!)
** The Unturkey provides a healthy alternative to turkey on Thanksgiving (or any dinner, for that matter).
* Tofurky. Not as good as the above listed Unturkey, but tasty non-the-less.
**** For those who prefer to forgo the usual Thanksgiving dinner in favor of sandwiches in front of the television, try out the Tofurky Deli Slices.
** And, finally, Peta has the top ten reasons not to eat turkeys.

Feeling: okay

From In-Forum:

A 17-year-old boy who was one of the first in this city to buy one of the much-anticipated new Xbox 360 video games was assaulted and robbed as he left the store, police say.

The boy was attacked by two males around 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, when stores nationwide began selling the new Xbox system. The attackers took the game valued at about $450 and fled on foot.

Feeling: numb

Randomness, Part I:

*** LuMriX has created a really nice interface to the Wiki search engine using AJAX in a Google suggest type of manner.
* New commandN posted yesterday with a look at what's new in Excel 12.
** Microsoft wants to make the file formats for Office 12 a standard.
**** I still haven't seen Goblet of Fire yet, grr.
*** TiVo planning a RFID-Aware PVR?
* IE7 to include better website identification and validation of secure websites.

I'll post more later tonight, enjoy these in the mean time (unless you're one of the herd that managed a copy of the new X Box).

From Macworld:

The MIT Media Laboratory expects to launch a prototype of its US$100 laptop in November, according to Nicholas Negroponte, the lab’s chairman and co-founder. The facility has been working with industry partners to develop a notebook computer for use by children in primary and secondary education around the world, particularly in developing countries. The laptops should start appearing in volume in late 2006.
[...]
The laptop can be powered either with an AC adapter or via a wind-up crank, which is stored in the housing of the laptop where the hinge is located. The laptops will have a 10 to 1 crank rate, so that a child will crank the handle for one minute to get 10 minutes of power and use. When closed, the hinge forms a handle and the AC cord can function as a carrying strap, according to Negroponte. The laptops will be ruggedized and probably made of rubber, he said. They will have four USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports, be Wi-Fi- and cell phone enabled and come with 1GB of memory.

From New York Times:

Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will let fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year.

The move will give Warner a way to reap new advertising revenue from a huge trove of old programming that is not widely syndicated.

Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.

Bug Me Not Login: "slashdotusers" / "newsfornerds"

From BBC:

Cult comedy Arrested Development has been pulled from the schedules of US TV network Fox after low ratings.
[...]
The show's third series has been cut from 22 to 13 episodes. A Fox spokesman said its future had not been decided.

He added the show would return in December. It has been replaced by repeats of popular drama Prison Break.

Feeling: depressed

From Internet News via Slashdot:

In one embodiment of the patent, the system sends consumers a message inviting them to write a review in a predetermined amount of time after the purchase. It's a method widely used by on line retailers, including Yahoo Shopping. The patent also covers the method of tracking who returns to rate products by asking them to click on a unique link in an e-mail.

But the patent even covers collecting reviews by letting visitors to a Web site fill out a form.

From Slashdot:

Someone, who has no regard for my free time, has created a RISK clone using the Google Maps API. It's pretty cool too, if no addicting. It sounds like he is attempting a multi-player version as well.

God, now I'll never get anything accomplished! :)

From MS-NBC:

Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The 6-4 vote was a victory for “intelligent design” advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

Per ARS Technica:

While the debate over the $1.99 price point for TV shows on the iTunes Music Store rages on, NBC Universal has inked a deal with DirecTV that will make its content available for half as much. NBC and DirecTV have agreed on a deal that will bring NBC Universal shows to on demand services, commercial-free, within hours of prime-time airing, for 99 cents. The deal includes NBC's top shows, along with offerings from networks such as Sci Fi, USA, and Bravo (among others).