Posts from — January 2008

From the blogs-i-should-have-subscribed-to-long-ago department: John Hodgeman. His writing style amuses me, even when he’s writing about serious (and real) things.

Subscribed!

If you still haven’t read The Areas Of My Expertise, you should.

More posts coming later, as I catch up on things… Google Reader has > 500 unread items currently…

These videos are pretty funny…

The guy is doing a photoshop tutorial, but there’s a recurring theme of problems with his wife…

.. and her cat…

Some dialog NSFW, depending on where you work.

Well, Pat Robertson’s Jan 2 2007 prediction of a 2007 major terrorist attack on the US didn’t quite pan out. Actually, it wasn’t Robertson’s prediction, according to him, it was directly from God. Robertson claims he has “a relatively good track record”.

As pumishment for fearmongering, I sentence Mr. Robertson to re-read Mark 10:25 and leg press 3000 pounds.

Well, after working off and on for several nights this week, I’m finally up and running on my new blog here. For more information about the design and stuff, see the about page.

Hmm, I don’t actually have anything to say in this post, but there’s a bunch of things to discuss later this weekend. If you notice any problems with the new site, let me know!

TV Guide asked presidential candidates about their favorite TV shows.

Barack Obama’s all-time favorite is The Wire (alongside M*A*S*H), which I find impressive. Now that I think of it, it’s the only show that would impress me to hear a candidate talk about. I think that should be required watching for anyone in public office.

He also likes SpongeBob, but that’s ok.

Where are you reading this?

Example responses:
“On my livejournal friends page”
“In Google Reader”
“In Mozilla Thunderbird”
“On your journal directly” (e.g. http://mattcasey.livejournal.com/)
“I print out the internet each morning”

I’m wondering because I’m considering a few other blogging options, and I want to estimate how it could fit in with people who already read. Thanks in advance!

For the Nth time in my life, I’m considering leaving livejournal to blog elsewhere. I’m not sure where.. I could use Blogger or I could use wordpress on magicspatula.

This new desire comes from setting up FriendFeed tonight, as well as starting to update my Google Reader Shared Items. I’m using this journal as a manual aggregator for things I find notable: “here’s an article I found interesting”, “here are some pictures I took”, etc. Reader’s shared items has some javascript you can embed on your page to make them show up with your blog, but I can’t put that into livejournal, because they strip out javascript. I want more control, and I want to be able to integrate all of my stuff into one place.

Anyway, FriendFeed is worth a look… it’s sorta like the news feed in Facebook, but for actual sites, so I can see someone’s photos, blog posts, gtalk status messages, etc, in one stream. It’s a lot like beacon, except it’s completely opt-in for everyone and you get a feed you can read (instead of being forced to visit the site all the time). It’ll be interesting to see where they go with it.

Facebook mega-rant coming within one week, get ready.

My favorite blog post headline so far this year: Scientists to make cows fart like kangaroos.

It’s not as absurd as it seems, though… cow digestion produces methane, which is a significant greenhouse gas (mostly through burps, though). Methane is more detrimental to the environment than CO2, but it’s also less common (and perhaps more difficult to reduce).

According to a Slate article:

About 60 percent of global methane emissions stem from human activity—aside from landfills, the chief anthropogenic culprits are natural gas production and use, coal mines, and “enteric fermentation” (the polite term for the burps of livestock).

How long until carbon-neutral burgers are in the supermarket?

New York Times 2007 Year in Photos is worth a look. They made short montages of the best photos organized vaguely by subject. Additionally, there’s an audio track with a photographer discussing what it was like to be there.

I’m doing a google swag order and bringing a bunch of stuff to Lehigh on the 18th. If you read my journal, you’re welcome to pick something out for yourself and I’ll order it for you. I get them at significant discount. Pick something out at the google store and let me know within 24 hrs (preferably via email).