bitbol

I just saw this cartoon in TIME magazine. I think it's kind of funny, yet sadly true.

Labels: Cartoon, Gay

I got all of it downloaded last night, and I don't even think that it used all of that time, it was probably done after a couple of hours. I don't think I'm going to burn them just yet, as I don't want to have them get scratched and then have to do it again.

In other unrelated news, I have unsuccessfully found any way to transfer my blog to Wordpress. I've pretty much had it with blogger, and there are a few things that it won't let me do. All these issues stem from the fact that I migrated to blogger beta, and now none of the importers will work. It also seems to be that anyone capable of creating an importer is refusing as they say blogger will break it with every update. I'm going to keep looking; I really need it. I could copy-paste, but that's a last ditch effort.

Labels: Blogger, Fedora Core, Rambling, Wordpress

Slashdot has an article about how W3C has realised the failure of XHTML and that HTML will be 'incrementally evolved'. Of course, there are many good points made by readers:

"Because we all know God created HTML in 6 days, and evolution is impossible. ;-)"

^ Always some humor.

"XHTML for all practical purposes, is HTML but with more errors. With XHTML, you get the power of being told that you have to put an end tag on all tags. And, umm, not a lot else. The benefits of switching to XHTML are mostly theoretical."

^ I agree with this quite a lot. I still use the old markup, primarily because nothing good comes from switching.

"If there were some truly compelling reason to upgrade to something else most already would have. When image tags were introduced, people abandoned lynx rather quickly, the same goes for transparent gif support, CSS, etc."

^ All they need is something that nothing else will do, which to be honest, I don't think exists.

"I'm not going to change all the code on my webpage just because they say, 'Oh, using <b> is so 1997, we're all using CSS now.' [...] In short, they can pry my <s> tag out of my cold dead hands."

^ I'm not changing until I can benefit from doing so. The only difference I see is the requirement for closing tags, which was never an issue with the old HTML.

Labels: Internet, Rambling

Week four of "The Reader series." This week has had quite a few wacky headlines.

• Boy Scouts shill for MPAA with copyright merit badge - If anything, I think that they should teach of the evils of the said companies.
• JetBlue Tests Pilot Fatigue Limits, With Passengers Aboard - I would think they are up to their eyes in lawsuits over this.
• FBI teams up with website violating online child protection law - I never understood how it is possible, but they always seem to mess themselves up.
• Pot grown in a PC - It would be the last place someone would look, unless a relative was opening the box for some hardware trouble.
• Long-Distance RFID Snagging Possible, Already Done - The worst is that the cards are already being used. All I have to think is: "Was it that hard to slid the card through the device in the first place?"
• A man is raising money to buy a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl to propose to his girlfriend - I don't know if that kind of devotion would be considered too much.
• Nintendo Profits Up 72%, Sony's Down 94% - I have to say that I can't believe that Sony is even in business. The consoles are overpriced, they have installed rootkits in people's computers, and they have a little trouble with batteries; they have nothing good to stand by.

Email me if you have a feed that I should add to my watch list.

Labels: The Reader

FireFox 2.0 is now public. There weren't a whole lot of changes made, other than to the look and feel. The one great change that I like is the scrolling through tabs, but I really hate the per-tab closing. I hope that there is some extension that becomes available to 'fix' some of these changes. If you click on the image, I labeled some of the changes that are most evident.

Labels: FireFox, Internet

I am very mad now. Just minutes after posting about an error with Google Groups and ads which came after problems with Google reader, I get this. This is becoming too common of a problem. Google needs to fix this.

Labels: Google, Internet, Rants

After the incident with Reader, I am very annoyed at Google. Here is another error I just got while in Google Groups. This one is an error where the ads are supposed to show. I think that this works better than the ads.

Labels: Google, Internet

One would expect that for the billions of dollars that Google makes, they would be able to invest enough in each part of their site so that they could actually get something done. I have noticed that in the past few months, the quality of service that Google provides has been consistantly declining.

I have run in to multiple errors while working with Google Reader alone, not to mention problems with Blogger and Gmail. It seems that they have lost the focus that they once had. Right now, I am looking into alternatives to each of the things that I use Google for. I am looking for a different feed reader, a different blogging platform, and eventually my own email.

Labels: Google, Internet, Rants

This is the third week of The Reader series.

• Turn Google into your own personal (free) Napster - I've heard about this one, but I have never actually seen the input for getting it.
• MySpace Predator Caught By Code - Not all good news for MySpace. It shows how little effort was needed to take action.
• Man claims new fasting record, nobody cared - A stunt just for publicity gets nowhere.
• School bans tag, other chase games - They might as well just eliminate recess. They eliminating ever possible way to have fun because of legal reasons.
• US internet addicts 'as ill as alcoholics' - I would like to say that I'm not addicted, but just don't have many other alternatives to constructively use my time.
• Scrabble-tile benches - They don't look very comfortable, but the would be a good conversation starter.

Email me if you have any feeds that you think are interesting.

Labels: The Reader

I noticed a couple of days ago while typing an entry, that I overuse the word "really" and to be honest, I typed it out here before I realised what I did. It has been so ingrained in my writing that it will take quite a bit of time to work it out. I never even gave it a thought before, but I am surprised at how often it sneaks in.

Labels: Blogging, Rambling

This is a video of a kid who sings about having two fathers. It isn't in english, but it is subtitled so you can read the words. It is interesting to see how much more acceptable same-sex marriages are in Europe. It would take some real guts to sing this song in America:

Labels: Gay, Video, YouTube

It seems that Blogger has upgraded their control panel. Now it is fairly similar to GMail's, in that all the labels are listed on the side, and you can mass-select to label. I suppose this is in preparation to launch their beta as the new system, and to make life easier for those who just switch and find it near impossible to label so many posts.

I personally see this a slightly handy for seeing which labels I have used in the past, and even accounts for the couple of drafts that I am working on. Of course all is not without bugs. I have already seen this new system miscount the posts on a few labels. It is also convenient to be able to see from the control panel which labels were used on the post.

Labels: Blogger

Over at BoingBoing, there is post about Houston police tasering people at a music venue. Obviously the cop was way out of line. If you go over to BoingBoing, there are links to a few videos at YouTube that show the action. The worst is this:

"...at which time the cop tried to grab one of the musicians' guitar, and then slammed the musician to the ground... of course from that point on melee ensued, with at least three people being tasered by this cop, and several people being arrested. One of the kids tasered was a 14 year old kid who was there with his parents! One account states that the boy's father was also tasered."

What the hell was the cop thinking. There is no reason that a fourteen year old should be tasered, and then taser the parents, too. I have to say that I am surprised that someone didn't strike the cop over the head with something. Of course, with video and the internet, Houston would be foolish not to fire the cop.

Labels: Legal, News, Oddities, People

I have been so busy today. It started with setting up for the homecoming dance, which I was required to do for my NHS membership. Setting up was a waste of time- nobody did anything, and it was so unorganised that nothing got done. Everyone was let go early because they didn't have half the things they needed to continue.

Just last night, I tried to download Fedora Core 5, which is a distro of Linux. I have been looking at different distros for a while, but I at least wanted to get this downloaded so that perhaps some day when things are slow, I can install it on an old box and test it out.

Unfortunately, the download was unbearably slow- about 7KB/s which by my calculations would have taken about 24 hours to download. I can't give up my internet connection long enough for this to download. Right now I am looking to try and find a physical copy of it so I don't have to download.

I choose to download Fedora Core over many of the other distros for a reason. I had been to MIT where all of their computers seem to run on Fedora Core, or on occasion, Apple's OS X. I figure that if a respectable university like MIT runs a particular operating system, it is probably a good choice.

Labels: Computer, Life, Linux, Microsoft

This is the second in my weekly output of the weeks interesting postings, limited to that in my feed reader. This week, and likely following weeks, I am adding my own comments to each of the links.

• Open Petition: Google Data Privacy manager - This is something that Google is really starting to need now that they do so much.
• YouTube surfers overwhelm Toledo tube company's 'utube' Web site, forcing shutdown - They often put the name down when they talk about in the news, you would be a dunce to spell it otherwise.
• Vista & Longhorn Server’s "Improved" Security - No password required, just take the machine.
• Scrubbing to the bone - For parents of young kids, this is actually a good idea.
• Cat parasite leads to more boy babies - Just read the article.
• Jell-O causes toxic waste scare - I bet they feel stupid.
• Microsoft give MVP Award to Adware Pusher - The perfect way for Microsoft to improve their less than perfect reputation.
• Harsh tune for teens - I couldn't agree with this one more, and it's not limited to music either.

Again, remember this only covers things that come to me through feeds, so if you have a great souorce, email me.

Labels: The Reader

In the news there has been a recent article about a woman who sued, and won, $11.3 million after someone wrote on the internet calling her a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud." In another article written a short time before, was sued for libel and ordered to pay.

This creates a tricky situation. On one hand, I agree that bloggers and website owners should be protected, but on the other, I believe that there are still limits to this. I think it is perfectly acceptable to post degrading article, but only if they have a defendable reason to. For example, it should be perfectly fine to post all sorts of things that went wrong when you delt with a business, or had a faulty product. On the other hand, I never think that it is acceptable to post anything degrading if there is no evidence of anything to back it up. You can't outright lie in order to make them look bad.

This all comes to: if you tell the truth, you can know them down, but if you lie, you can go have a seat in the courtroom.

Labels: Blogging, Legal, News

I was set in my thinking that there is no way that Google could possibly want to buyout YouTube, but I was apparently wrong. The news says the deal was made at $1.65 billion.

What the hell was Google thinking. Sure, it will give them the advantage over others in terms of online video, but you know it is possible to not be the top in something. After this particular decision, I am starting to feel that Google is trying to do way too much, and that they may actually become their own demise. They have now just opened themselves to a slew of lawsuits. The only way they can get anywhere with YouTube is if the do a complete redo of the site, removing copyright infringement, which could quite possibly kill the popularity. This seems like a stupid decision.

Labels: Google, Google Video, News, YouTube

Recently, as in the past few days, there have been rumors all over the internet that say that Google is in talks to buy out YouTube. While it has been confirmed that they are in talks, I doubt that it is for a buyout.

I personally believe that there is no reason for Google to buy them out, and they are crazy if they do. Google has more engineers to work on products, so they have no intentions of aquiring technology, and Google is doing decently with its own service. Also, they would just be setting themselves up for lawsuit madness if they were in charge. I see these talks going in a different direction. I think that Google is likely planning an advertising deal like they did with MySpace.

The only reason people are assuming buyout is because YouTube wants to be bought out. Besides Google always seems to like snatching things up before they get big and expensive, like they did with Writely. I can't wait to see what is really going on.

Labels: Google, Google Video, News, YouTube

I use Google Reader to keep track of updates to a number of sites that I visit often. The reader is really nice because it will bring all the information that I haven't read right to my fingertips. This week I am going to start something that I plan on doing weekly for quite a while. Sorry that this week is primarily BoingBoing, but I will get others.

Lightning launches photographer into the air
Store made from old shipping containers
Teacher sports full face tattoo
Funny family planning advice sign
Keep the beach clean
Google Buys Their Old Garage
Eight foot, 400 pound NES replica FTW

So that will be it for week one. Remember that this only goes through things that come in through feeds. If you know of a blog's feed that will make interesting articles, email them to me and someday a few posts may make it.

Labels: The Reader