Interesting question

link

Slashfood

In reassembling my bookmarks, I completely forgot about my beloved slashfood. In honor of remembering it, I'm doing a glance at what I found interesting there today:

Apparently you can die from eating expired foods. Sure, everyone knew that, but expired pancake mix? I don't know about you, but I almost never pay attention to expiration dates; I always go by smell. I'm starting to rethink the sniffer test.

A blogger in Spokane, WA, did some buffalo wing blogging, touring the nearby buffalo wing eateries and rating them. Now that is my idea of some fun blogging.

And good for you, too, since spicy foods offer so many health benefits. The two main things in my diet are hot tea and anything that makes me sweat, so I think I'm set.

And lastly, tipping is always a big issue for me, and apparently I'm not alone. Although I hate having to tip the wings delivery guy, I do. Apparently not everyone feels that way.

My new laptop

I am DIGGING my new laptop.

I paid very little for it (about a fourth of what I paid for my first laptop back in '98), it weighs next to nothing, and it's extremely portable, but the widescreen makes it seem big when you're using it.

It's too soon to say whether it really was a good purchase, but right now I am living in a world of no regrets (except regretting that last glass of wine last night - whew).

ok, so I lost my entire bookmark system when I lost my hard drive (I thought I did some backups, but apparently I didn't backup my bookmarks - losing a decade worth of bookmarks).

I've recaptured probably a third of my rss feeds. What am I forgetting?

Laptops

I looked around in class today and noticed that I held the only non-Dell laptop. I'm not exactly sure what that means.

I bought a cheap POS Gateway from Circuit City.

Either I'm a rebel or I'm a fool.

Perhaps both.

Blogging

I've been meaning to say this all week but am just getting around to it:

Michael Silence blogged on Tuesday about some of the best blog writing around, and his point is a good one: there is too much information out there not to write clearly and precisely - which easier said than done, but that's another point altogether.

But here's my beef: one of the five has a wretched feed system (feeds, if you don't know, are a way to read many blogs quickly instead of having to visit every single site). Luckily, most feeds aren't snippets, but there are still too many blogs that only give a few lines in their feeds. To me, that's arrogance. I suppose the blogger gets more statistics (or perhaps more page views) from making readers actually visit their sites.

Of all of the blogs I read, only three or four have teasers, and I actually don't even read them that often, because it's too much hassle.

For those that think this is a good idea, it's not. Please let us read the web the way we want to. Quit trying to mandate that I come to your site if I want to read your thoughts, or (gasp!) I might stop trying.

I mentioned yesterday that I finally got my air conditioner replaced. The old A/C unit started forecasting its demise sometime last fall, and by spring this year it was only effective when it didn't get above 80 outside (either that or the building's insulation was effective below 80). By the beginning of June, I was keeping all of the shades drawn to block whatever heat I could.

My apartment manager said he was looking for a new A/C unit, but I think he was trying to find one to fill the old space so he wouldn't have to rip out the window - which he eventually had to do. And once he found a unit, he had to wait in line for the company people to do the work (he does small jobs but this was no small job). The company people have their priorities in the wrong order, but that's another story.

So today was the first hot day I came home to a working air conditioner in a room where the blinds are up, so I no longer have the feel of coming home to a hot cave, and let me tell you ...

it was everything I thought it would be.

Malware

Wow. Microsoft claims to have ridden the world of 16 million instances of malicious software from 5.7 million unique Windows computers over the past 15 months using its malicious software removal tool (that installs automatically each week with the new patches that most computers automatically install).

I usually have very little positive to say about M$, but this is a good thing. If you let your computer be overrun by viruses (not relevant here) and other malware, you are hurting everyone by letting your computer be turned into a spam or virus bot, not to mention how much poorer your computer runs if you don't take the time to make sure you know what's running.

The amazing thing about the statistic, of course, isn't just the number but the fact that those 16 million instances are coming from only 5.7 million computers. Some people are repeatedly allowing their machines to get infested, so we can't just rely on M$ to get this crap off of computers but must get people to stop letting their computers get infested in the first place.

link

I've got air conditioning!

and it came with a remote!

heh.

So I've been busy over the last day helping reassemble the Rockytop Brigade after it (and knoxblogs) disappeared when the server went the way of the dodo.

I've been going to various (about 40) websites, trying to find contact info and location. It's been an experience. For one thing, it's amazing how many dead blogs are out there. At least half of the blogs I visit haven't been posted to in two months or more, but it's hard to call them "dead" when you look over their posts and see they hadn't posted more than once a month in the last year.

Also, it's amazing how difficult it is to get in contact with people. I understand not putting your email address out there for all the world to see if you have a blog that you post to only once a month (or gets a dozen hits a week or whatever), but a lot of these blogs also have their comments disabled. And one or two of the blogs are business related! On one blog, I couldn't figure out how to contact the guy, despite the fact that his blog was an advertisement for his business - which is web design.

I wonder why he's not getting a lot of customers.

Zach Braff ...

apparently has a blog.

Interesting.

Defining yourself

I think it's interesting how people define themselves.

In myspace, for instance, there is a field for "status." For some people it's single or in a relationship. For others it's married or divorced. I can't imagine putting "divorced." It's just not how I would define myself.

Look at my blog description. How much more vague can you get? "Just a guy." It's not that I think little of myself, it's just that I define myself as "Jon." Sure I care about things - Knoxville, for example - but wouldn't want to be defined that way.

How many ways can you be defined that don't actually tell you anything?

If you were to give out free t-shirts and could only give out one size, what would it be?

I got a Knoxville520 t-shirt last week during their pub crawl. I'm not sure what it says that they were only giving out XL.

I think this discussion is very interesting.

I hate school

I hate school.

What you might not know is that it hasn't always been this way. In undergrad, I loved school. I was good at it. I had good professors. I loved to learn. I wanted to learn everything and major in everything.

Then came UT.

Did I mention I hate school?

My roommate

Living by yourself while you're in grad school is both a blessing and a curse.

It's a blessing because no one is there to distract you, but it's a curse because no one is there to distract you.

Possible good news on the death penalty.

I'm often surprised by the attitude of many Americans toward this brutal and embarrassing practice.

A picture says a thousand words