Surfing The Web So You Don't Have To
This just goes to show that anybody can get a credit card, if they really want one.
The dog, named Clifford, lives with his owner in Livermore, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area. Clifford’s owner, Steve Borba, said he was tired of getting spam e-mails, so he signed up for an e-mail account using the name Clifford J. Dog. Eventually, a pre-approved credit card application arrived addressed to Clifford J. Dog, and Borba sent it in as a joke.
We got a good chunk of snow here in Bend in the last 24 hours — a good six inches or more, depending on where you live. I know I had to dig my way to my car this morning, and my commute took a good hour this morning (usually 30 minutes). Story and pics over at Bend.com.
On the way to work, and when I got to work, I took a few pictures. The first two are me just pointing the camera blindly while driving, not even caring if they came out, and the last one is from my office.
The rumors are that it’s supposed to warm up a tad (though I doubt the 42-degrees that AccuWeather seems to say we’ll hit), and then snow again later tonight. So it’ll warm up, melt a bit, and then freeze. <sarcasm>Yahoo.</sarcasm>
I’m going straight to hell for this — thanks Joke A Day…
First the Lord made man in the Garden of Eden.
Then he said to himself, “There’s something he’s needing’ .”
After casting about for a suitable pearl,
He kept messing around and created a girl.
Two beautiful legs, so long and so slender,
Round, slim, and firm, and ever so tender.
Two lovely hips to increase his desire,
And rounded and firm to bring out the fire.
Two lovely breasts, so full and so proud,
Commanding his eyes, as he whispers aloud.
Two lovely arms, just aching to bless you,
And two loving hands, to soothe and caress you.
Soft, cascading hair hung down over her shoulder,
And two dreamy eyes, just to make him grow bolder.
‘Twas made for a man, just to make his heart sing.
Then he added a mouth. Ruined the whole fucking thing.
In Cambodia, WiFi-equipped motorcyclists pull up to schools, download all the email, drive to the next village, and dump off copies of locally-destined mail, picking up that community’s load and delivering it along to the next town.
It is a digital pony express: five Motomen ride their routes five days a week, downloading and uploading e-mail. The system, developed by a Boston company, First Mile Solutions, uses a receiver box powered by the motorcycle’s battery. The driver need only roll slowly past the school to download all the village’s outgoing e-mail and deliver incoming e-mail. The school’s computer system and antenna are powered by solar panels. Newly collected data is stored for the day in a computer strapped to the back of the motorcycle. At dusk, the motorcycles converge on the provincial capital, Ban Lung, where an advanced school is equipped with a satellite dish, allowing a bulk e-mail exchange with the outside world.
Full Story via BoingBoing.
From BoingBoing, David Hasselhoff has claimed partial responsibility for the fall of the Berlin Wall:
Speaking to German magazine TV Spielfilm, Hasselhoff said in 1989, the year the wall fell, he had helped reunite the country by singing his song ‘Looking for Freedom’ among millions of German fans at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin….”I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Check-Point Charlie.
What, you didn’t know he was a singer? Full story.
Celebrity-wannabe Jon Blake Cusack has named his son Jon Blake Cusack 2.0. Your 15 minutes are up now, pal.
Couple of interesting links that I came across today. It’s no secret that the folks at Real make it a pain in the ass to download their free player. Site owners are getting upset with it. The rumors are lately that Real is also putting spyware/adware-type of crap in their latest browser. So a couple of major sites have come out to speak against this.
One, according to Boing Boing, BBC made a deal with Real to distribute a spyware-free version of the player via their site. According to the BB post:
The BBC made a unique deal with Real Networks which disposes of their spyware tactics. Basically, if a user clicks on a link to download Real Player from a BBC website, the referrer script sends them to a page where they can download an expiry-free, spyware-free and nuisance-free version of the player. It’s because the BBC have such a stringent public service remit, that it was offensive to charge people a license fee for BBC content, then make them pay all over again for the facility to view/listen to it.
Another major audio provider, CarTalk.com, has decided to ditch Real’s player as well. And they say it the best:
Here’s the problem. In order to hear our audio, you have to go to Real.com and download their “free” RealPlayer. But when you get to the web site, the free player is harder to find than Osama Bin Laden at night. And the site seems to do everything it possibly can to get you to “buy” a player instead. You have to work very hard to get the free player. And we think that stinks. And get this. It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That’s something, huh?
I’m getting sick of RealPlayer issues, too. We use it on our work site (it was the chosen format long before I got here). I’m in the process of refilming all the videos so a) they can be better quality (as I don’t have the originals) and b) so I can encode them in Windows Media format, now that the player is available for Macs. 90% of the site’s traffic is Windows-based, so I’m not too worried about compatibility compared to the RealPlayer problems.
But I think I’m going to follow Neil’s advice and download Media Player Classic along with Real Alternative and just bulldoze the Real software on my system.
I know we’ve all had co-workers (nothing sexist, but they’re generally women) that have annoyed the hell out of us by their banshee-like singing. That being said, this video made me laugh.
BTW: Forgot to mention that the whiny bastard Gregg sent me this. 😉
But a royal-pain in the ass. I lasted a whole seven seconds. From b3ta.