If mice freak you out, this is not the video to watch, but I promise you’ve never seen anything like it!

Read More »

“Senator Mary Landrieu’s outrageous outburst this morning in which she remarked that we ‘would have been better off if the terrorists had blown up our levees’ is the latest episode in a stream of recent Democratic blame-shifting and accusations. Landrieu appears to be joining with Governor Blanco among the ungrateful Louisiana Democrats that seem to have forgotten the federal government has already appropriated billions and billions of dollars of aid to the state and its citizens, only to have Blanco’s Road Home Program set a new standard in bureaucratic inefficiency. The notion that Louisiana would be better off if terrorists attacked our state should be unthinkable to an elected Senator. Did she forget the terrorist attacks on our country a few years ago and the suffering that the people of New York and the country as a whole felt?” stated Republican Party of Louisiana Chairman, Roger Villere, Jr.

That’s almost so stupid that I have a hard time believing she actually said it. Anyone have some kind of actual record on this?

Technorati Tags: landrieu, louisiana

Wow…

flickr really pissed off a lot of people in one quick shot.

In one post on flickr news they:

1. Announced that by March 15th you either switch to the new authentication scheme or you can’t use flickr anymore.

2. Announced that contacts will be limited to 3,000 (previously, there was only a theoretical limit of around 10,000 if I remember correctly).

3. Announced that tags on photos are now limited to 75.

At first blush, those aren’t really a big deal. In reality, for many of us, they represent flickr moving in a direction that just sucks.

Thomas Hawk, CEO of Zooomr and avid flickr user (not to mention a friend of mine), is none too pleased either.

More telling than his reaction, though, is the reaction of others on the forums to the news. In fact, the most telling one comes from my other friend, Vidiot who wrote:

“I guess what I find jarring is the shift in tone, even if it is but an infinitesimal one. Today marks the first time that to me, Flickr has ever felt like something less than that community I bought into (literally), and more like a service I pay for. And that’s a sad realization.”

*sigh*

Oh yeah… One more…

hodgepodge: “I’m sure that the Flickr staff love their creation. But they love the big fat check that Yahoo gave to them much more. They didn’t make Flickr as a labor of love, they made it hit the startup lottery (which they did, admirably I might add). That doesn’t mean that they don’t care about their creation, but don’t kid yourselves into thinking that because you helped build it by being early adopters and advocates that they really care about you. This is clearly about money; saving money on maintenance, and making money off of advertising.”

It got me thinking, actually.

I’m wondering if the announcement at the end of last year about the upload limit being removed for pro accounts was simply to soften the blow of what they knew was coming?

Or, as some of the forum folks seem to be thinking, did Yahoo! not even care whether or not they pissed people off?

Who knows… All I know is I’m looking elsewhere for online photo storage.

Technorati Tags: flickr, photos, photography, mess, disaster, yahoo!

There seems to be a backlash against the plugin that’s been making the rounds on every single blog I can think of. It’s called Snap Preview, and it puts a live preview of the link you’re about to go to on every link when you hover over it.

It’s neat, but it’s can also be annoying at times. Nick Wilson from Performancing has an interesting list of 3 reasons why Snap Preview is ruining your blog.

1. Accidental triggers: When scrolling, or just moving from one element (maybe a link, maybe a photo etc) to another, the unintentional triggering of the SPA popup is distracting, at best. It draws the eye away from the task at hand, and causes annoyance, and loss of concentration — if you’re actually selling anything, pay close attention to this point!

2. Click stalling: Quite often, when trying to click a link that features the Snap abomination, I have to click several times to get the damn thing to work. This is too much effort. If your site is that hard to use, you can bet I wont be back, and neither will others.

3. I trust you: No, really I do! Im at your blog, despite like everyone else being really busy, im at your blog! I just want to follow the f***ing link ok? Dont crowd me like some over-eager second hand car salesman trying to sell me a dodgy link, just let me see that its a link, read the anchor text and decide if I want to click it. I dont care what the bloody site looks like, if you’re linking to it, that’s good enough for me — really, get out of my face.

In two days, Slobokan and another blog I read regularly but can’t remember Robert Scoble have removed it from their sites. Let the backlash begin
Update: Thomas Hawk joins the club. I’m glad I never installed it, to be honest.

Technorati Tags: performancing, snap preview

This is the kind of story you expect to find in Mad Magazine…

Dixson Sr. was 90 when he died on January 30, 2004. He’s best known for co-writing hits like “Lollipop,” recorded by the Chordettes, and “Begging, Begging,” recorded by James Brown.

On January 16, 2004, the elderly Dixson had surgery at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital at 58th Street and 10th Avenue to repair a broken femur near the hip.

Family members say before the surgery, a hospital staffer removed the elderly man’s dentures, but after the surgery the dentures couldn’t be found.

According to Dixson Jr., over the next 13 days his father was fed some solid food, some soft food, all of which he had trouble eating. “It hurt him to mesh the food with his gums. He said he needed his teeth,” Dixson Jr. said.

The son said his father’s health deteriorated, and he didn’t go on a feeding tube until January 29, 2004 — the day before he died. The younger Dixson said his father, nine days after the surgery, told him, “If I die in here, you go after them.”

via CBS

Technorati Tags: julius dixson

Find out more here.

via Make.

Technorati Tags: kitt, knight rider

Today I had every intention of pointing out how cool Spanning Sync was, and I was going to tell you Mac users to run out and check it out. Well, don’t rush out just yet. It seems that there were so many people grabbing the public beta and trying it out, the servers were crumbling under the load.

And you thought no one used the Mac
Anyway, if you’re already in, it still works and I’m happy to say it works extremely well.

If you’re not, you’ll have to wait until they add some new servers to handle the capacity, so within the next few days you should be able to get in if you aren’t already there. I’ve been waiting for this to come out of private beta forever and it was worth every single second.

For the uninformed, Spanning Sync synchronizes your Google Calendar with iCal on the Mac.

Technorati Tags: spanning sync, beta, cool

• Jean Ichbiah dies…
  I was a big time Fitaly user in my Pocket PC days, and Jean once helped me personally with a problem. This is really sad news for the PPC geek set.
  (tags: pocketpc windowsmobile fitaly sad)
• OpenDNS Blog > OpenDNS buttons? Sweet!
  Gonna add these into the new layout when it’s done. I love me some OpenDNS.
  (tags: opendns)
• globeandmail.com: Climate Change
  I believe that global warming is a problem, and I believe humans are playing a part. That being said, this article makes a point. Climate Change has become a religion and its priests are looking more and more like wackjobs each day.
  (tags: science climate climatechange globalwarming)
• The Inegalitarian Web - Forbes.com
  Someone who grossly misunderstands Net Neutrality and why it’s necessary.
  (tags: netneutrality internet web technology)
• What will Hermione say, Harry? | Showbiz | This is London
  Harry Potter to show hairy peter…
  (tags: movies play radcliffe weird)
• Digital Cowboy intros webcam with telephoto lens - Engadget
  For those really far away late night porno cam chats.
  (tags: webcam usb telephoto gadget geeky)
• Zune Marketplace vs. iTunes Hands-On: iTunes Search Comes Up Lame - Gizmodo
  Zune Marketplace search is better than iTunes. I guess the illiterate among us care. Me? I rarely search for anything. If I’m in iTunes, I already know what I want. I know that’s not most people, but I’m sure I’m not the only one either.
  (tags: design music search)
• Forgiato Radurra Glass Wheels - The latest rage - Newlaunches.com
  I’ll admit, I thought they looked stupid on the car. That being said, I think they look awesome on the bike, but then again I’m biased toward bikes anyway.
  (tags: wheels glass cool flashy showy bling)
• Newsgasm - American Idol: IDOL SHOCKER! Paula Abdul to be replaced?
  I call bravo sierra… Anyone else?
  (tags: american idol americanidol fox television tv)
• McDonald’s Tops Starbucks in Coffee Taste Test
  From an avid coffee fanboy, this is total bravo sierra. I’ve never read anything more ridiculous. Dunkin Donuts is awful, Mickey Dee’s is bland, Burger King’s tastes like dishwater, and Starbucks is the best of all. Nice lead tongues.
  (tags: starbucks mcdonald’s burgerking dunkindonuts)

From the article:

“If you choose to purchase an upgrade version of Windows Vista to upgrade XP, you will no longer be able to use that version of XP. Either on another system, or as a dual-boot option. The key will be invalidated, preventing activation.”

Isn’t that just lovely? Microsoft: Where do you want to go today that we’ll let you go?

Seriously… How does a company that treats its customers so poorly stay in business?

read more | digg story

LOS ANGELES - Sidney Sheldon who won awards in three careers_ Broadway theater, movies, television_ then at age 50 turned to writing best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men, has died. He was 89.

Sheldon died Tuesday afternoon of complications from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, said Warren Cowan, his publicist of more than 25 years. His wife Alexandra and his daughter, author Mary Sheldon, were by his side.

Rest in peace Mr. Sheldon…

He was one of my favorite authors. As my mom called him her “favorite dirty old man.”

Technorati Tags: sidney sheldon

Richard: having cancer is important to THAT ONE PERSON. Intel chips change the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Glad to see you understand news value. But, now, I understand why so many people buy those grocery store gossip magazines. Next you’ll try to tell me that what Paris Hilton isn’t wearing matters to me more than what Google is doing in its labs. Sigh.

Wow… Robert… Really… I’ll defend you forever, but maybe you need to settle down and get some perspective?

Wow…

Just…

Wow…

Technorati Tags: robert scoble

IT is being rennovated. The new layout will be completely done tonight.

In the meantime, enjoy…

Oh man…

“In a world without walls and fences, why do we need Windows and Gates?”

The above videos really do say it all, don’t they?

Technorati Tags: vista, osx

I guess we can drop the whole “we support the troops, not the war” bullshit.

In Washington, counterprotesters also converged on the mall in smaller numbers, but the antiwar demonstration was largely peaceful.

There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.

Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.

Capitol police made the antiwar protestors walk farther away from the counterprotesters.

“These are not Americans as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Sparling said.

Look, I’m no happier with the war than anyone else. Frankly, I think it’s become a mismanaged mess combined with a stubbornness contest run by a man who once thought staying the course meant never changing and who later came on and said the plan was never to stay the course.

A mess. A disaster. A mismanaged clusterf**k.

That being said, I still don’t think anyone mislead the country and I certainly don’t think anyone was “fooled, tricked, or lied to.” I think we were wrong. Plain and simple. I also think that because the President has tried so hard to fight a soft mushy nicey nice war (shock and awe my ass), he didn’t get the job done when it could’ve been months ago. He didn’t go in strong enough to the areas where people like Muqtada al Sadar were running the show and take people like him out.

Bad move.

He also didn’t pressure his generals or the Iraqi government to get their people to take control quicker. It almost seems that if we leave at any point, that country will fall into even worse chaos than it’s in now.

All that taken as a package, I still don’t blame our troops for it. Spitting at our troops and calling them babykillers, etc., does nothing to solve the problem that exists in Iraq or the question of how we can, at some point somewhere, make a strategic exit (you have to leave at some point unless you plan on making Iraq the 51st state, folks; be realistic).

Frankly, spitting on the troops is more of a gesture of F*** You and disrespect than anything else.

You wanna debate policy? Let’s! Please! Let’s have this discussion you guys are so anxious to have. I’d love to have people come up with real solutions to the problem we face in Iraq. I’d welcome a dose of thought rather than a cup of rhetoric from both sides.

Spitting is not a discussion, and the people doing it to our returning troops (particularly those who lost a limb) are not worth talking to to begin with because, quite frankly, I don’t think a debate is what they want.

Stop chanting “Bring our troops home!” if this is what you’re going to do to them when they get here.

Story quoted from Wizbang and my favorite conservative writer, Kim Priestap

Technorati Tags: iraq, army, soldier, protest, moonbats, idiots

Via Clipaday, we have this brilliance:

Oh man, I just can’t get enough of people doing stupid shit…

Technorati Tags: fireworks, cabinet, hilarity

Uh oh.

I really like Robert Scoble. He’s the most prototypical geek nice guy you could ever want to meet. Over the weekend, he savaged my friends over at Engadget, and, in the shot heard round the blogosphere, a real live Blog War opened up with people quickly choosing sides and numerous important bloggers commenting on it. I’m not rehashing it here, but it was ugly.

The gist of Robert’s argument was that there are no ethics in the blogosphere from A-list blogs when it comes to linking lower blogs. I find that assertion highly questionable, considering I regularly get linked from A-listers (regularly meaning lots of different ones over a period of time, not the same ones linking me over and over again) and mainstream media sites (I was linked by the Washington Post, CBS, and C-Net last year and it had nothing to do with the AOL story), but nonetheless, he believed he was being slighted. I have no reason to call his feelings invalid.

Anyway, amidst the ethics discussion, Robert made the following admission, and this is where it gets strange:

Valleywag breathlessly reports that I was paid for doing my videos.

The problem is it isn’t true.

But, that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear either.

PodTech WAS paid for doing a video, and other work, for Intel. We should have clearly marked that as sponsored content. It was not. So, eggs and tomatoes should be flying in my direction. “Incoming!”

Now, for MY videos I was not paid. I only have one sponsor: Seagate.

I really want to give Robert the benefit of the doubt, but I have to be honest… This really is a problem (to say the least) ethically. As bloggers, we constantly have to defend our hobby/trade/job/site from doubters who doubt the legitimacy of the medium. In the end, a lapse like this on the part of an obvious “A-lister” is seriously damaging not just to him, but to everyone, because whenever anyone claims they want legitimacy, this is going to be held up as a “You guys are no better” type story.

Robert may not have done anything wrong here (and I still believe he didn’t), but what he did do was create the appearance of impropriety which is just as bad, unfortunately, but in the end, the appearance is just as bad as the actual problem.

I’m sorry, Robert, but I’m really disappointed. I still think he’s a great blogger, and I’ll still read his blog regularly, but I just hope that he’ll be able to come through this. Losing credibility is hard as hell to recover from, which is why during the AOL incident I never took a single penny for the story, never placed an ad here (ads came long after the AOL story, and even then they aren’t pay-per-impression, they’re monthly ad buys), and never shilled for a product or show. I knew that the only thing I had was my credibility and if I lost it, there’s no getting it back.

I don’t think Robert lost his, but I do think he’s seriously damaged his, and I hope he can recover, easily, from it.

Webomatica also has an interesting take on it.

Technorati Tags: scoble, credibility, ethics

I wasn’t that impressed when I saw Joost either… Looked like Democracy on steroids. Democracy, of course, is good, and John C. Dvorak ain’t impressed with Joost…

Oh the technology looks cool enough, but so what? The only content is infomercials for last-gen rock bands with emphasis on Green Day and it’s Hitler Youth-style concerts. There is also some snide punk doing a talk show for kids “who don’t like adults telling them what to watch.” He emphasizes that point incessantly between glances at someone off camera who I assume to be his Dad. And the rest of the programming, if you can call it that, is worse.

Well, so far the content involves Much Music (sucks on TV, must suck just as much on Joost as it does on TV) and the World Series of Poker (I love it, but I wouldn’t watch it on my computer). Who knows, maybe they’ll knock it out of the park when they start signing content deals, but from what I understand they’re looking for major commercial content which doesn’t bode well for independent broadcasters (read: podcasters). We shall see.

Right now, I reckon the hype (akin to that of the snorezone that is Second Life) is far outweighing the project itself.

And why is it that the people who read his review went off on him? I notice that no one has criticized the fawning and overblown reviews so far. If Dvorak can’t criticize it because it’s a beta and in development, why can people fawn over that same “in development” product? That strikes me as somewhat hypocritical.

Technorati Tags: joost, democracy, dvorak

Steve Ballmer believes that the iPhone won’t succeed with businesses because it’s expensive and doesn’t have a keyboard.

That’s his reasoning in its entirety. Video next…

Pretty damning… Except…

That picture is the O2 XDA flame (via PocketPC Thoughts).

$1100 without any carrier subsidy (which means with a carrier subsidy it would be a minimum of $700 and that’s a very generous offer from any carrier to be honest) and no keyboard.

Oh and it runs Windows Mobile.

I wonder if he sent them a memo informing them of their impending failure? Somehow I doubt he did.

Technorati Tags: o2 xda flame, ballmer, hypocrite

TVgasm had an interesting tidbit yesterday…

ut it turns out Reba ranks as the CW’s most-watched, #1 comedy–just as it was on the WB! The Sunday night Reba, which stars Reba as a wise-cracking white single mom out of Houston, manages to pull in 3.67 million viewers on the mini-network, ahead of all four of The CW’s Monday night comedies: Everybody Hates Chris (2.92 million), All of Us (2.67 million), Girlfriends (2.71 million) and The Game (2.45 million), all of which feature predominantly African American casts.

Yep… Clear as glass…

Technorati Tags: reba, cw