Anthropomorphic Personifications

a place for thoughts or a lack thereof

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Site statistics

Been messing around looking at my site/visitor statistics..

and I really am the only one who visits here often...

which means I can say anything I want and no one will be the wiser....

now what have I always wanted to shoult from the rooftops?

This will take some thinking... Any suggestions?

Oh and I finally fixed the stange thins that were going on with the background images which is nice. I still don't know what the problem was.

Global Giving

So I figured I'd move this to a post since it was just taking up space at the bottom of the page.

This global giving outfit is basicall a clearing house for small scale development projects. Generally they're grass roots, community based things but generally there seem to be quite a few good ones.

I don't remember if this was the one that was UN project or not... I should check or you can :)

ah appears to be a couple of guys formerly of the World Bank

Hmmmm there are some other neat thing that are being done with this too such as trend tracking etc













GlobalGiving Matching Fund


GlobalGiving's matching fund

allows donors to contribute to a general pool that will allow projects that are almost fully funded, reach their

budget target.




Theme: Economic Development | Location: United States | Need: $100,000


Give Now

Thursday, October 26, 2006

late night dinner

damn you 59cent cheeseburgers at 9:45!!!

silly me for thinking McD's would be a good idea... it filled me up sure... which was actually real important that late but....
there's just something so slimy about those burgers.

Anthropomorphic Personifications

heh recursive blog posting. awesome.

was working late tonight writing a trade press article about an industry that I'm largely unfamiliar with. I'm even less familiar with the style they wanted. Sort of a quasi-journalistic blend with personal anecdotes about doing the research.... which of course I couldn't really do because I wasn't the one who did the research.

anyway it's done now and I think it's a pretty good article :) and I might have even enjoyed writing it :P

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The Ultimate Blog Post

This one does get a blog post for itself. Aren't Vanity blogs awesome :) One day I may actually have to tell someone about this besides you so that I feel vaguely more justified in wasteing time on it!

has a story about blogs that is funny.Wired news has a story about blogs that is funny.

Yup.
Really can't wait for Dec 15.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Bully "Controversy"

So i've seen a bit about this the last few days... "Bully from Rockstar now with more hot Gay boy-boy loving with your youth violence."

What follows was my over research when my SO (yes I'm being pointlessly gender neutral about her. deal with it.) pointed it out over in
Tycho's
posting:
  • A:the last tag in Tycho's rant is actually quite interesting... should kick up a storm anyway! (the comments beneath the vid are kinda scary though)
  • S:the one about EA buying Ubisoft?
  • or wait.... that's gabe...

    Ummmmm there's a vid? wait a sec I didn't see that... I'm to go look again
  • Oh the gay kissing in Bully? I missed that the first time through.

    I dunno the gaming press has been trying to make something out of it at least since the weekend but... so far it's mostly people saying "this is going to be so controversial! OMG LOLZ!!!!111" or "Don't get all worked up about this people, it's not a big deal! <nudge nudge, wink wink>" al-be-it in a more professional journaliztic tone (until the comments of course)

    so far it doesn't seem like any one actually cares... they just want to see somethign exciting happen. of course Jack will probably sound off on it eventually (probably on Fox News) and then gamers will bash him for a week then no one will care again....




    hmmm that was more time than I'd planned to spend on that! Oops!
  • Ars Technica: If two boys kiss in a game, how big of a deal is it, really?
    best of the bunch dealing specifically with the kissing... also the only one that I could find not on a gay or gaming site... still the gaming section of a hardware site but... :)
  • A:that was far more detail than I wanted... was just pointing it out!
  • S:sorry hon! I sometimes get caught up in the researcher mode of following something back to see if there is anything to it or if it's just fluff...
  • A:lol
  • S:I didn't actually intend for you to read it :)
  • A:I haven't :)
  • S:maybe I should post it to my blog or something


and that's where all my time goes

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Zap bookmarklet

This is probably the most useful bookmarklet ever.
I don't think it works in IE but...

in firefox for sure it's great.

K so to explain: You may or may not have noticed (I have because I use outdated hardware) that when multiple windows are open firefox uses a significant amount of procerssor power that it really shouldn't when it's not doing anything. This seems to be all those damn ads cycling weather or not you're looking at them.

Go here. follow the instructions.

Now whenever you need to get rid of all the javascript-y nastiness on a web page click that bookmark and it will all go away.

Awsome.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

300002040th-ish

So, given that the 300 million-th American resident appeared in the country of the USA at 6:45 AM (in my time zone).....
And given that another person becomes an american residnet every 11
seconds (on average)...

That would have made me number 300,002,040 or so if they were counting citizens (there were 142 of us, so there
might be a bit of a brawl if anyone else wants to make something of
it.)


Of course since they aren't counting just citizens, I'm actually number 274 million-th or so (back in 2000) for residency and probably near 260 millionth citizen or so.

Arrg.

--

Monday, October 16, 2006

BIG day tomorrow

... at noon I get sworn in as a Citizen of the USA.... fukin strange if you ask me smile so I'll no longer be a Canadian Kiwi living in the US, I'll be an American Canuck Kiwi (or something)

It's funny I never had any desire to be a US citizen, generally I always disliked the collective face the US showed the world. Now don't get me wrong I've always known Americans who are/were good people but the whole package together was always a bit of a problem for me.... Now that I've lived here for 4 or 5 years or whatever it's been, I'm pretty excited actually... and I don't know why. I still probably wouldn't do it if they were going to make me give up my other ones but since they're not I think it's pretty damn cool actually.

So now it's bed time! (soon)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I hate this time of day

I keep fading out.. droopy eyelids, nodding head the whole bit...

When it's going on all I can think about it how excited I'll be to get
home where I can just crash and get a good sleep for a change... of
course by the time I get home I've woken up enough that I spend the
whole night messing about on the computer and end up late to bed once
again.

it just occured to me that I should/could go find some caffeine... not
that that will help me get to be tonight but as a short term fix it'll
do I guess

--
All mortals tend to turn into the things they are pretending to be.
- C.S. Lewis

Too bad it has MSG & Red #40


I'm about as excited as a displaced Canadian can get.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The Meissner Effect


Super conducting magnet neutalizes an externaly imposed magnetic field
- The Meissner
Effect

teh awsome

A map of the music that I listen to
http://newton.waglo.com/~millette/musicmap/musicmap?user=syrrys
or at least what I've submitted to last.fm

Monday, October 09, 2006

Damn coffee!!!

Well it was a good weekend even if a bit too short. but then that always are.
Picked up Ian on Saturday morning then Quznos, swapped cars, put on
some laundry and went out to the track for a few hours. (Stopped for
Starbucks on the way of course) I didn't drive 'cause it's been a
crazy long time since I did and the last time I did was when I met the
fence. But Ian did drive and I went out with him a couple of times
which was fun, as always! He's really quite good considering he's only
been out 4 times or so... then straight up to the Rock Bottom for
beers & Little Miss Sunshine which was good. Then home & bed.

Woke up much earlier than would have been good to go get Claire,
(Caribou coffee on the way) then back to the apartment (which was a
pig-sty & very embarassing) they helped me pick stuff up off the floor
which was nice of them, then we headed out for breakfast at Stella's
diner on the corner there, & walked around a bit. Ian wanted to go
back to the Hollywood place again so we did that... it was
interesting, I'd not been there before. Once we got back (with some
good teas from Argo) we crossed off a few other plans (Outlet mall,
Museum, Zoo, Blue man group, etc) and went on a hike to go see if we
could find a particular pair of Simple shoes for Ian. We did
eventually, but neither of the places had his size :( (I'll leave out
the part about my ass cheeks chaffing each other somehow... It's not
actually possible that I'm getting fat... I was pretty sure you had to
eat to do that :P)

So then Picked up some beer, cider & vodka, chilled out for a bit &
then dinner @ Duck Walk (MMMMmmm Thai for Thanksgiving excelent!) &
then home for some Scrubs before bed.

Then this morning, Corner Bakery for breakfast (with coffee of course)
I, C, M&D will do lunch for thanksgiving again (assuming that the
flight from Sao Palo hasn't destroyed Mum/Mom & Dad too much!)
Apparently I won't see Ian again until Feb or Easter or next summer :(

Then tonight I'll be heading back out to get my hair cut 'cause it's
silly long right now, then I'll probably drive back downtown
tonight... I really should make those calls to get my car fixed...
stupid dents.
Suppose that I should get back to work <sigh>

Oh PS yay! Pledge of allegience next tuesday (17th) at noon I think...
kick ass. I was a bit worried that it was going to be tight getting my
passport before december... but as long as I get that started on
wednesday it should be fine!

--
All mortals tend to turn into the things they are pretending to be.
- C.S. Lewis

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

China vs Richard Branson

China to invest 18 trln yuan in energy sector from 2006 to 2020 - Forbes.com

I find it so funny, when Richard Branson decides to spend $3b on renewable energy it's all over the news and people are talking about it. But when China did the same thing but nearly 70 times more money, there is barely a ripple in western media, Quatar picked up the Reuters story, of course. Despite it having gone out on the newswire it doesn't look like any western news agency reported on it at all. except for one quick mention in forbes.

<sigh> at least progress is being made.. or is planned....
<sigh>

Yeah I know I'm not helping Shhhhhhh....

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

I have no sense of humour

But this is some funny stuff.

Originally at http://www.opendonor.org/kwotes.pl?action=show&id=88085
Egger: Heres the history of our medicine.
"I have a sore throat."
2000 BC : "eat this root"
1200 AD : "That root is heathen, say this prayer."
1500 AD : "That prayer is superstition, drink this elixir."
1800 AD : "That elixir is snake oil, Take this pill."
1900 AD : "That pill is ineffective, Take this antibiotic."
2000 AD : "That antibiotic is artificial, Here why dont you eat this root."


Originally at http://www.opendonor.org/kwotes.pl?action=show&id=86096

<Fulgore> whats the complement to a 43 degree angle?
<sparks> My you're looking "acute" today
<Fulgore> fuck you


Edit Oct 9, 2006: Fixed links (I hope! Thanks hon!) & improved formatting. If the links end up not working just follow the title link which just goes to random results, since you've already read these ones, that might be more interesting anyway.

Stem Cell Wrinkle Cream? Probably not

Bodyhack was where I saw this originally.

So I was intrigued by reading the source press release... so I followed the link to the amatokin (name still makes me giggle... hrm. anyway) site... then I became more intrigued by the link to Sephora on that home page. Of course a couple of quick searches of Sephora turned up no instances of the name. It could still have been a clever marketing campaign but I would have been surprised that such a major company would have risked that kind of controversy.

So I did some Whois lookups on amatokin.com which is apparently owned by a company called Western Holdings, LLC and registed with an email address at basicresearch.org (which is also registed to this Western Holdings, LLC).

A couple of quick searches later I couldn't find anything except allegations of fraud, breach of trust, or just about anyother shady/scam-y dealing you could name. These seem to be the same guys behind most of the dodgier late night weightloss supplement infomercials.

Playing detective is fun!

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