Thursday, March 31, 2011

Angry Monkey on scammers

Angry monkey rants about scammers; views are not necessarily the view of anyone but angry monkey.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Lady Gaga Celebrates Her Birthday

Jimmy Kimmel's version of how Lady Gaga parties on her birthday.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Angry Monkey on gas prices

Angry monkey rants about gas prices; views are not necessarily the view of anyone but angry monkey.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

How Not to Make Friends and Supporters

Them: "Could you mention my company on your blog?"
Me: "I don't think so...at least not yet"

They leave a spam comment, which never sees the light of day because comments are moderated.

Me: "Uh, why did you try to leave a spam comment?"
Them: "Oh, we hired an SEO firm and I didn't even know they did that. I'll tell them to stay away from your blog from now on."
Me: "..."

I'm not sure they "get it" that spam is not a good idea. Ever. I also am not sure their cash flow is positive. Not a coincidence. The invisible hand is about to slap them.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Lady Gaga at Google

The musician's@google with Lady Gaga (via TechCrunch).

Monday, March 21, 2011

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Ad: Land Ho (crash)

Sponsored post:
Let's say you are in a building and it collapses, because it was built incorrectly, or poorly maintained, or a super-villain knocked it over. You might need a Personal Injury Attorney Miami because people may not want to pay for your healing (especially super-villains who also stole the "in" from this sentence). Or even more perilous, what if you scrimped and saved and eventually went on the cruise of your dreams, only to have the captain try to impress someone on the coast and run the ship aground and then say he fell into a life boat leaving you and your fellow passages to fend for yourselves in a sinking ship on the high seas? While the odds of such a thing happening, again, may be slim, but if you die from it, or maybe just get hurt from it, I'm guessing that captain may not be quick to pay for the doctors and therapists to make you whole again, so you may need a Cruise Ship Accident Lawyer Miami because you never know when a super-villain may steal another "in" or something.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Harrison Ford Auditions For Star Wars

His comments, and part of his audition.

How to Secure Your Twitter

Twitter has added the option to encrypt your connection to their site, to always use https. Here's how:

  1. Go into twitter account settings
  2. scroll down
  3. near the bottom click the checkbox next to "Always use HTTPS."
  4. click save

screenshot of the 'always use https' checkbox in twitter account settings

If you ...often surf the Web in public places - such as a school campus, workplace or local coffee shop then this will help you stay a little more protected while you tweet (thanks to the LA Times for the heads up).

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Beardyman Aphex Twin Attacked by Bumble Bees

Beatboxer Beardyman does Aphex Twin's Windowlicker as they are attacked by bees.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Every Good Site

Websites differ, but every great website is:

  1. clear in its purpose,
  2. written well,
  3. always available and fast,
  4. well coded,
  5. timed well including going live early and announcing late,
  6. and avoids other unexpected pitfalls.

Web Site Purpose

A web site can allow people to:

  1. Learn information
  2. Buy something
  3. Be sent to another site
  4. Give you permission communicate with them
  5. Tell other people about something
  6. Do something offline
  7. Be entertained

If you are trying to do something else with a web site, you may not succeed.

More on YouTube Premium-Content

How do you get professional video if you don't want to do big money deals with Hollywood studios? You go straight to the creators.
In recent months YouTube has held talks with producers and agents in Hollywood... They'd provide the money - $2 million to $5 million, according to those briefed - to those willing to commit to producing content channels with a certain number of episodes or frequency of episodes over time.
While that sounds like a lot, one person who has heard the pitch says it works out to a production fee of about $4,000 per minute at the high end, big money by web standards but a pittance for TV.
YouTube execs cautioned that the talks have been exploratory; no deal has been completed

(from YouTube's Premium-Content Strategy Starts to Take Shape).

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

First Words

Sort of like babies, how we communicate has had its first words:

Telegraph, May 24, 1844
What hath God wrought? - Samuel Morse, from the King James version of Numbers 23:23, sent from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol in Washington, DC, to the B & O Railroad Depot in Baltimore, Maryland.
image of first telegraph message

Telephone, March 10, 1876
Mr. Watson - come here - I want to see you. - Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant. The first sound he sent was on June 2, 1875 of a twanging clock spring, and was when he sort of discovered sound could be sent electronically.
page from Alexander Graham Bell's journal with notes about the first phone message transmitted

Radio, December 23rd, 1900
one, two, three, four, is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiesen? If it is, would you telegraph back to me? - Reginald Aubrey Fessenden on Cobb island in the middle of the Potomac river.

Internet, October 29, 1969 10:30 PM
login - Leonard Kleinrock describes it:
The transmission itself was simply to "login" to SRI from UCLA. We succeeded in transmitting the "l" and the "o" and then the system crashed! Hence, the first message on the Internet was "Lo!". We were able to do the full login about an hour later.
image of page of notes taken about the first internet message

Email, late 1971
QWERTYUIOP - Ray Tomlinson, could have been ASDFGHJK or something else equally test-ish
The first message of any substance was a message announcing the availability of network email. The exact content is unknown, but it gave instructions about using the at sign to separate the user's name from his host computer name.

Text Message, December 1992
Merry Christmas - Neil Papworth, test engineer for Sema Group sent an SMS with a personal computer to the phone of Richard Jarvis via the Vodafone network
I was a young engineer working on new communications technologies. We thought SMS was a clever way for a company's staff to send simple messages to one another. I'd never have predicted that it would spread into the consumer world and become what it is today. At the time it didn't seem like a big deal.

Twitter, March 21, 2006 12:50 PM
just setting up my twttr - Jack Dorsey
screenshot of the first twitter message

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Ad: One Too Many

Sponsored post:
I've never been to Pittsburgh, even though I've had projects screened there. I hear its a nice town, or at least I get that impression from the people I've had contact with from there. Truthfully, I don't know, it might be nice, might make you want to go on a killing spree. If you opt for that option, you'll likely need Criminal Lawyers Pittsburgh or something like that to avoid jail or execution. Just a thought. In all cases it is probably better to leave a town than it is to go on a killing spree. Seriously. Don't kill people. Maybe have a drink instead. But don't drink and drive. That can lead to the whole killing people thing I told you not to do. If you did drink and drive, tsk tsk and maybe get a hold of a DUI Lawyer Pittsburgh whose ads may not make perfect grammatical sense, but likely knows more about Pennsylvania law than I do.
Farrell & Associates, Attorneys at Law, 100 Ross Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, (412) 201-5159

Thursday, March 10, 2011

MsKtay at the Oscars

MsKtay covers the Academy Awards so that she can impart advice to the masses on proper behaviour on the red carpet. This is her way of giving back to the Communi'tay.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Space Shuttle Launch From an Airplane

Discovery's final launch as it begins the flight of STS-133 (rated PG).

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Massive Solar Flare

NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory filmed images of a large solar flare on February 24 2011 (rated PG).