This is my shirt of choice today. I bought it over the weekend at a Life is Good shop. The double meaning that it comes with is direct, yet subtle and expressive.
Happy Halloween!
Last year it was a Hershey Kiss. This year, these are my pumpkin carvings: Lebron James (Cleveland Cavaliers NBA player) and a Spider. Took me 4 hours to carve Lebron, my favorite basketball player.
wordless wednesday“A person’s pursuit of goodness leads to greatness, but the pursuit of greatness leads to ruin. Pursue goodness and you will achieve great things.”
– John E. Kramer
Vice president of communications, Institute of Justice.
You’ve got to be a cat person to appreciate this one. I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I saw it on Janet’s site.
What makes it so funny is how accurately the animator has portrayed a cat. Miles does exactly this down to the scratching, pawing on the face and nudging. If he could wake me up with a baseball bat, he would probably try it too. THIS is what I go through every morning in addition to him trying to knock something off the bedside table to wake me up. It’s a lucky thing he is so lovable.
5 stars for the person that made this video and starting off my week with a laugh.
On my Starbucks cup, The Way I See It #273:
“All children need a laptop. Not a computer, but a human laptop. Moms, Dads, Grannies and Grandpas, Aunts, Uncles – someone to hold them, read to them, teach them. Loved ones who will embrace them and pass on the experience, rituals and knowledge of a hundred previous generations. Loved ones who will pass to the next generation their expectations of them, their hopes, and their dreams.”
- General Colin L. Powell
Founder, America’s Promise – the Alliance for Youth.
Those liking the Sims will like this one — 3D Mailbox. It’s a software that brings your email system to life by converting it into an interactive environment. You can interact and explore the surroundings while reading and writing emails. It even has an integrated IM chat system that lets you talk with your friends while reading/ writing emails.
There are two different environments to choose from, the initial Miami Beach environment and LAX Airport. The free software version includes the Miami Beach environment but it’ll cost you a one time fee of $29.95 to access LAX Airport.
Everything in the environment has a function related to either the email or chat system. For example, within the Miami Beach environment, your emails are represented by people on a beach, every email (person) that comes into your inbox (represented by a pool) will be checked by a spam filter (represented by a bouncer). When you are ready to check your inbox, just dive into the pool and interact with the people in there (i.e. your emails). When you swim in the pool, you’re basically browsing the emails (or people) you have available. They’ll remain in the pool until you move them into folders (represented by Cabanas) or delete them (by sending them to the alley). To get rid of the unwanted spam that might have come into your pool (or inbox), just feed them to the sharks (spam killers).
3D Mailbox is a pretty innovative and creative concept that’s the first of its kind. However, this is probably one of those apps that you’ll use once and then not use it anymore. It’s meant to be more game like and cool than functional and convenient. When I was testing it to see what it was all about, it started getting annoying real fast when I wanted to access a feature quickly. It was also pretty repetitive and the novelty of the Sims like interaction started wearing off the more I used it. They do promise to keep you interested by introducing new environments in the future.
Seeing the scantily clad women also makes this an R-rated software that’s definitely not suitable for young kids. I’m not surprise if Second Life introduces something like that within their virtual environment soon.
Here are two trailers for the different environments. A little cheezy but it gets the point across.
3D Mailbox is created by Robert Savage. He is the founder and President of World Market Watch, Inc., best known for VisitorVille®, the popular 3-dimensional website tracking software.
Sad but true
Posting my Lifestream, confirms what I already know but didn’t want to hear - that I spend WAY too much time on the web and my computer (even though it’s part of my daily work routine). Sad but true.
Facebook buzz
The buzz yesterday was Microsoft buying a piece of Facebook - a $240 million stake and the rights to have exclusive third party advertisement rights possibly paving the way for a Microsoft Live Facebook search engine too. There are also reports that they may have secured another $500 million from two New York investors.
Although being only 3 years old, the company is already valued at $15 billion and is currently the 5th most valuable US internet company (via Techcrunch) behind the likes of Google, Ebay, Amazon and Yahoo. Facebook currently has about 47 million users/ members, records 15 billion page views a month and registers about 150,000 new users a day.
Mark Zuckerberg has really done well for himself, especially for a 23 year old that initially started Facebook in his Harvard dorm to keep in touch with his old friends. Mark has since held off selling off the company, apparently turning down a $750 million buyout offer. Good for him to keep his baby close to his heart, taking the extra risk and having business savvy.
No one really knows for sure what the revenue of Facebook is but Techcrunch reports that it may bring in an estimated revenue of about $1.5 million a week. I personally think it’s a good move to hold out on a sale as Facebook has not even matured as a company yet and its potential is tremendous.
I just love to hear about success stories like Mark Zuckerburg and Kevin Rose (of the Digg fame). It gives us hope and the proof that if you put your mind to something, dreams can be achieved.
Cryptology is not for kids
Came across a site called Cryptokids. It’s designed by the governmental branch NSA (National Security Agency) and tailored to teaching kids Cryptology in a fun and amusing way. While I love Cryptology, I do think introducing it to young kids isn’t entirely appropriate. Teaching and encouraging the use of Cryptology at that young an age opens up the possibilities of kids using it negatively and illegally for their own amusement e.g hacking. The majority of kids out there just aren’t mature enough to appreciate it.
Last.fm rocks!
Recently joined the free music site Last.fm after hearing rave reviews about it. I’ve not regretted my decision! It is a great site to find and listen to the music you like, listen to music recommendations and network with those who have the same taste in the music.
Using a unique music recommendation system known as “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user’s computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (”Scrobbled”) via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page.
Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm’s music library, but are not able to listen to individual tracks on demand, or to download tracks unless the rightsholder has previously authorized it. Registration is required to acquire a profile but is not necessary to view any part of the site or to listen to radio stations.
(Via Wikipedia)
Since I’ve downloaded their software, I’ve used it as an internet radio. All I have to do is put a singer or type of music of my choice into the software, and it will then stream music indefinitely until you stop it (advertisement free). You can see the songs I’ve listen to so far in my Lifestream or going to my Last.fm profile. I happen to like Indie, India Pop and Alternative music and my song list reflects that.
On the Home Front
On the home front, Miles (my cat) keeps following me around the house. Doesn’t he know he is a cat? Only dogs follow.
I keep killing fruitflies but they just keep coming back. At first we thought it may come from the pumpkins and apples we had but the apples are now gone and the pumpkin is outside. There are also no food lying about or in the trash. Weird and annoying! J has a home remedy of soap, vinegar and water which seems to attract and kill them — know any other ways?
I have decided to create a Lifestream for myself as I think it’s a great idea and lifehack.
This post may help explain what exactly it is and what purpose it serves. Many thanks to Emily Chang for telling me about it and the Lifestream blog for providing great info.
What is a Lifestream?
It’s a single place where I can see what I am (or have been) bookmarking, blogging about, listening to, going to, and thinking about. It combines all my feeds, comments I’ve made on other blogs and social networking apps (like Jaiku, Twitter, Pownce etc.) in one place organized by time and date.
Why do I have one?
Mainly to
… get myself organized!
… track and discover my daily blogging/ web patterns
… create a one stop place to interactively search and look at my previous web activities
and last but not least, to share my daily web activities with you (if you are ever interested in it).
I am currently using one I made from Profilactic. This will probably be temporary while I look for the ideal lifestream app and test out the various scripts available. I prefer an app hosted on my own server where I have more control and flexibility over my data.
Click on the links below to see my lifestream:
My daily Lifestream page (accessible through my sidebar)
My complete Lifestream by date and time (with search functionality)
You can smell a scam with this one. It just cracks me up how badly written and unprofessional most of the email scams are. The stupidity of these scammers are just unbelievable. Not condoning it in anyway but if you want to scam, do it cleverly. I guess you are so busy wanting to scam and sending those 1000s of emails out that you forget the whole reason why you want to scam in the first place. It’s bad enough with spammers and scammers existing in this world but brainless ones are worse yet.
Lets breakdown the areas that jumped out at me when I was reading it:
1) If you say you are from Oxford (United Kingdom), why is your email from a gmu.edu address? That domain points to George Mason University here in Washington, DC. I know it’s a mask and a fake, but why choose a .edu address? How dumb can you be?
2) If you are Tina Howard, how come the email sender says Katie A. Walnetski?
3) Why don’t you have a website for TN fabrics and Textiles?
4) Your email reply is tnfabrics07@yahoo.de which points to Yahoo Germany. Wait a minute, didn’t you say you were from Oxford, United Kingdom?
So let me get this straight, you are Tina Howard but actually Katie A. Walnetski, you live in Oxford, have a German email address but somehow you are emailing me from a student or staff member’s account at George Mason University here in the United States.
Wow! TN fabrics and Textiles must send you all of the world. Another thing Ms. Tina Howard, Manager of TN fabrics and Textiles — have you heard of something called the spell checker? I would love to deal with your sopplies in the United Kindgom and am sure that your payments will be recieved promptly.
Hope you like my Delete Items box as that’s where you are now.
—–Original Message—–
From: Katie A Walnetski [mailto:kwalnets@gmu.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 12:50 PM
Subject: ***EMPLOYMENT OFFER***
TN Fabrics
89 Newport ave, Scoffford Area,
Oxford, L349HA
Phone #:+(44) 704-011-3837
Fax:+442075043690
I am Tina Howard the Manager of TN fabrics and Textiles and i live and work here in United Kindgom, Would you like to work online from home and get paid without affecting your present job?
Actually i need a representative who can be working for our company as online book-keeper.
We make lots of sopplies to some of our clients in the USA/CANADA for which i do come down to recieve payment and have it cashed after i supply them raw materials. Its always too expensive and stressful for me to come down and recieve such payment twice in a month, so i therefore decided to contact you. I am willing to pay you 10% for every payment recieved by you from our clients who makes payment through you.
Reply by filling the form below if interested,
NAME………………….
FULL ADDRESS(not p.o. box)……………
ZIP CODE…..
PHONE NUMBER (S)………………..
AGE…..
OCCUPATION………………
REPLY ASAP : tnfabrics07@yahoo.de
Tina Howard
TN FABRICS AND TEXTILES
I’ve always been fascinated by the 4th dimension and beyond, especially being a big fan of Michio Kaku and his books. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across Rob Bryanton’s book called Imagining the Tenth Dimension: A New Way of Thinking About Time and Space.
This video (from Rob’s website) simplifies the multi dimensional theory in an almost cartoonic way. Just a note, it’s 11 minutes long. It’s a feat in itself to concise what has baffled scientists for generations in 11 minutes and getting the point across (without being too technical). Great stuff!
