Entries from January 2008The Posts You Asked For

From Bush’s State of the Union address:
Our nation’s health care system, like our economy, is also in a time of change. Amazing medical technologies are improving and saving lives. This dramatic progress has brought its own challenge, in the rising costs of medical care and health insurance. Members of Congress, we must work together to [...]

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You know those stories people tell about how they caused a big blackout? "I hit the light switch in my room and the whole Northeast went out!"
Anyway, I just crashed Twitter. I haven’t logged in in months, but today I did. (I’m thinking about adding a ‘microblog’ to my blog, and I wanted to see [...]

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Many of you know that I wrote a… thing a while ago called “Legal Rights of Photographers” that outlines when it’s OK to take a photo and when it isn’t. There are a lot of people who have the wrong idea –e.g., they think you can’t take a photo of a minor, or when on [...]

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So, with that little CSS thing fixed, suddenly the site looks fine in Internet Explorer. (Better in Firefox for the most part, but still good in both.)
It has me wondering, though. That error must have been there a long time — weeks or months. Considering that most visitors are using IE, that means most people [...]

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[Update: Resolved. See comments.]
Something’s gone wrong. In fact, it may have been wrong for a while. Some of this site’s CSS isn’t working properly in Internet Explorer.
Here’s what I see in Firefox (click to enlarge if you like):

But here’s what it looks like in Internet Explorer:

 
For some reason the boxes on the home [...]

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Today was fiddle-with-the-car day. Specifically, to clean out my engine (and my wife’s) using Sea Foam.
Every now and again I get to reading various car-enthusiast boards, especially if a Check Engine light comes on and I need to find out what to do to fix it.
One product that kept coming up was Sea Foam.
It’s [...]

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Check out Woonz, which bills itself as "the audio search engine." Enter a song title or artist, and it provides you a list of matching MP3 files (and, I believe, other audio files) on the Net.
You’re presented with a list of files. For example, I got this when I searched on "Hootie":
 

(Click to enlarge.)
 
You [...]

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Can you imagine the discussion?
"We can’t put it in quotes if someone didn’t say it."
"So what do we do?"
"Find someone to say it. How about Willie?"
"But he’s just the mailboy!"
"Doesn’t matter, as long as someone says these exact words. Otherwise we have to reprint all the boxes."

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I was curious, so I went looking. Found this 20-or-so-second clip that’s a slightly longer version of what was on New York magazine’s site. No audio, though.

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I wondered — still wonder, actually — why the folks at Swiss Army Brands haven’t started to offer a carry-on-friendly "knife." I’m thinking of one without a blade, but with other useful tools that would get past those frakking TSA jerks security.
Oddly, it was Florsheim, the shoe maker, who ran with the idea. The company [...]

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I’ve touched on this before, but I need to grab it and shake it this time.
I am sick of people who whine about things with their mouths, while simultaneously causing the very thing they’re whining about.
In other words, the idiots out there need to get a fast, hard lesson in consequences and dominos. Cause and [...]

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Go, Giants! (Rather… Going, Giants!)

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…for every car and truck on the road.
 

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I’ve been getting a lot of "legit" spam lately. By that I mean junk e-mail from companies I have never done business with, offering products I don’t care about, but that are real companies. We’re talking about seminars, audio courses, and the like.
These people give an 800 (or 877) number to call, and an 800 [...]

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I had a short but interesting conversation on Friday about piracy with someone who believes that downloading pirated music, movies, and whatnot is wrong. "We’re in the content business," he said, referring to his company, and therefore has a great respect for content rights.
That’s certainly a common point of view — the RIAA and MPAA [...]

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