Blog

These are some of the coolest pictures you’ll see today. God, I miss the lake.

Link

I am SO glad I didn’t take a job in Detroit. Kilpatrick, no stranger to the dumber side of politics, has decided to ask voters to approve a 2% tax on “fast food”. You might say, “Good! And about time. Detroit is too fat” and you’d be right… if the money was going to help solve that problem. But it’s not. It’s going straight into the city coffers in an effort to prop up the free-falling budget.

Yep, Kwame’s big plan is to tax, well, he doesn’t know where to draw the line.

But what about American Coney Island, a downtown establishment that has table service despite its simple and speedy fare? What about Starbucks or the corner deli? The administration says it is still working on a definition.

Oh good.. So that will depend entirely on how greedy the city decides to be. Because it’s way to hard for someone to drive outside the city limits for McDonald’s.

This idea is so idiotic, it boggles the mind. Not only are there no criteria defined for the tax, but it targets a tax base that is so swamped already, even an insignificant charge on lunch is going to provoke a reaction. And considering the way Kwame Arch… er.. Kilpatrick is enjoying the perks, the average Detroiter won’t be willing to give another nickel, figuratively or literally.

Posting has been light, for that I apologize. Between work and the house thing, it’s been crazy.

Apparently people are starting to figure out that Google is a company and not some benevolent lord of the manor/Web. (Read this article for a brilliant flame.) Their Web Accelerator (a term scoffed at when offered by the likes of AOL) is set to wreak havoc with webapps and shared machines, “clicking” all links on a page and leaving previous users logged in.

The FCC got bitch-slapped by a US Appeals Court, striking down the Broadcast Flag requirement for digital broadcasts. Next up, Congressionally-mandated, Constitution-ignoring powers for the FCC.

And, while not really technology news, can someone suggest a Windows alternative to the Automator program in OS X? A co-worker just got a new G4 (I think) and, while bubbly and new, the only thing I envy is this little app.

Sadly, HowStuffWorks was probably deluged by nerds correcting their article on how lightsabers work.

Have you ever wondered how these remarkable weapons work? Where does the energy come from, and how are they able to contain that energy in a rod-like column of glowing power?

In this edition of HowStuffWorks, you will have a chance to look inside a lightsaber and discover the source of its incredible characteristics. Let’s get started!

Funny stuff.

By using the Force, the wielder can anticipate the path of the blaster bolt and align the blade with that path prior to the bolt’s arrival. Using normal visual tracking to accomplish the same effect can be far more difficult.

Howstuffworks “How Lightsabers Work”

Redudant link storage… if only del.icio.us could integrate with my news reader…

Just some link storage – nothing ground breaking here… A list of stock photo sites:

GettyImages.com
Picturequest.com
Superstock.com
Masterfile.com
Punchstock.com
Stockbyte.com
Iconica.com / Photonica.com
Veer.com
AgePhotostock.com
LuckyPix.com
estockphoto.com
istockphoto.com

[Via scriptygoddess]

Found on the Yahoo HATT group, the AP (Assistance Platform) team is blogging.

So, writers (and those teaching writers of the future), where’s your blog?

Quick note: Pink Floyd’s “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” is still one of the best rock albums ever made.

Link

I always knew, growing up, that something about West Michigan wasn’t right. Now I know just what it was.

A newly discovered fragment of the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament indicates that, as far as the Antichrist goes, theologians, scholars, heavy metal groups, and television evangelists have got the wrong number. Instead of 666, it’s actually the far less ominous 616.

616 is the area code for much of West Michigan. If, in fact, the biblacal text should read 616 instead of 666, it would be irony at the loftiest of levels.

Link

Much digital ink will be spilled about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie this weekend. I saw it this evening with more than a little trepidation. I’m a huge fan of the books. In fact, I make it a point to re-read them at least every two years.

With that in mind, the movie isn’t that bad. It’s not the book, but then, what movie is? It is, however, in the spirit of the book. The opening 45 minutes bear a striking resemblance to the book. After that, it’s hard to tell where the bits made up to fill in the bits written by Douglas Adams start and end. The movie works, despite Mos Def’s flat effort as Ford.

In short, I give it a 7/10. It’s nowhere near as bad as Adams’ biographer made it out to be. If you like the books, hang your critic out for the evening and go see the movie with an open mind. It really isn’t that bad.

MAKE, a occasionally interesting “hacking” blog, came out with a whopper of an article Monday detailing how to turn an old PC into a DIY TiVo/music server/gaming console. If you have an old PC and the console gaming stuff, it’s a pretty cheap solution. Aw heck, it looks like fun to build, too. It even using Cygwin, so it has a hint of Linux without all the command-line odor.

Link