I opened my RSS reader this evening to make an attempt to try to catch up on all the feeds I’ve missed over the last few weeks in the chaos I call my life, saw well over 3,000 unread posts. Forget it — I just marked them all as read and started over. I’m taking the Lazy Web approach, so if I’ve missed something over importance over the last few weeks in those various blogs, just comment below. Or not.
Category: Sad
The Demise Of The View-master
I read with a bit of sadness to see that the View-master is pretty much going away as I loved those little disks. My grandparents (and now my parents) have quite a collection of old View-master disks from when they were younger, even some from a long while ago when Petersen Rock Gardens didn’t look so dilapidated (don’t get me wrong, it still looks decent, but nothing like it does on those little disks). I used to love going to grandmas and pouring through the box of disks they had, seeing far off locales and stories that I’d never seen before (all in psuedo-3D).
I’m going to have to dig those old things out and look through them again — they’ll probably be collectors items soon.
You Thought You Had It Bad?
You have nothing on some of the stories at F*** My Life. Observe:
Today, my girlfriend dumped me proclaiming she wanted someone more like her “Edward”. I asked her who Edward was. She held up a copy her “Twilight” book. She was talking about a fictional vampire.
…
Today, I received my passport in the mail. They got my birthdate wrong. Then I picked up my birth certificate that I had sent in with the application. Turns out my parents have been celebrating my birthday on the wrong day for 16 years.
But sometimes, the folks had it coming…
Today, I was a TA for a history class and the class was taking a test. About halfway through, I noticed one kid had a small piece of paper in his hand. I ran up the row, grabbed his test, and ripped it into four pieces. Then I took the note from him. It said “I believe in you, -Mom.”
All in all, a great site to kill off an evening of reading.
Thanks Shale for the link.
That’s A Lot Of Glass
While I don’t have a clue why anybody would do this (it almost brought a tear to my eye looking at it), seeing a Nikon D3 with a 14-24 lens cut in half was a very educational experience.
Something To Put On The Resume
How many CIS students can say they spent a couple months building a scene from Super Mario Bros. 3 entirely out of pushpins?
I’m sure that’ll look good to future employers. Link via Geekologie.
You Won’t See This In America
While American CEOs fly around the country in private jets to go beg their government for money, CEOs in other countries are doing the right thing in hard economic times: taking a pay cut. Like this Japanese CEO of Japan Airlines, who now gets paid less than his pilots, or the CEO of the Swedish postal service who is now working for free.
Update on 11/25: I stand corrected, even though AIG has gotten a ton of flack for using that bailout money they got for a lavish party, a hunting trip and to pester a blog.
Ziff Davis To Close PC Magazine Print Edition
One of the oldest computer magazines is shutting down its print edition. The magazine arguably created the concept of comparative reivews and benchmarks, and its columnists and Editor’s Choice awards were always great. I’m sad to see it go, but the reality is that tech print publications are slowly dying, and most of the writers are doing more of their writing online. I knew PC Mag would be going away from print soon, as their magazine had just gotten smaller and smaller. I bought a copy a couple years back when I went to Colorado, expecting to have plenty of reading material for the plane ride (as PC Mag was usually full of articles and content), and there was little content — mostly short blurbs that said to read more at their Web site.
It saddens me, too, because back in the day, long before I got married and had kids, I went to college to become a journalist, specifically a technology journalist, and would’ve loved to have written for one of these types of publications. When I got married and had a family to feed (which was before I got out of school), I gave up being a reporter and decided that tech was going to pay my bills and feed my family while being a geek writer probably wouldn’t. I always had a place in my heart for tech magazines, and even did several reports and assignments on a few of them (was the only guy in my classes that did, with most of them focusing on music/culture magazines). I still have a WinMag coffee mug from when I got published on the back page of the magazine back in the day.* But I saw this day coming, like I’m sure most folks did.
* That coffee mug, a couple Intel bunny people dolls, my “Cloned by Ghost” ghost doll (before Symantec bought the program), and my “I’m Feeling Lucky” Google boxers that I won during Google’s original beta period (long before they were re-released) are probably my geekiest historical things that aren’t computer parts. What do you guys have?
Why Presidential Debates Are Worthless
It’s all the same crap…
Why The Bailout Should’ve Never Happened
Because these companies we’re saving are just blowing the money on lavish parties. I would’ve preferred low-interest loans, not freebies.
Sad News For The Day
ORblogs.com is closing down. I’m sure Paul has no time to maintain it since having a kid, but that still sucks. Trying to maintain BendBlogs in my free time is hard enough — and I didn’t custom code everything, nor do I index nearly as many blogs as ORblogs. It will be missed. Best wishes to Paul and his family.