Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Funny, and maybe a bit sad, if true

A long time ago, for reasons I no longer remember, I signed up for Aish.com online newsletter.  It usually has some interesting things in it, even if (maybe even especially if) you are not Jewish.

Anyway, a year or so ago, Aish produced a short video on the Dreidel, which is some sort of gambling toy top.  (I've never seen one in person in my life, so the description is a bit vague.  Sorry.)  Eventually, that video found its way to YouTube, where it apparently was at least a minor success.

Indeed, so much of a success the World Poker Tour complained, and YouTube showed their courage by yanking the World Dreidel Tour video, apparently based upon the fact that YouTube'rs can't tell the difference between a card game and a spinning top.

More information and a Petition are available here.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Tour de France

The Tour de France is starting today.

TV coverage (at least in the US) is on something called Versus. My guess is Versus is a descendant/spin-off of Outdoor Life Network that covered the Tour in the past.



Word of warning -- For some reason the Tour web sites are very graphics intensive. Following the Tour on a dial-up line can be painful.

Monday, June 16, 2008

A bizarre, slightly addictive video

I keep watching this, and I really couldn't tell you why.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

A Day of Mourning

Firefox is planning a world wide Download Day June 17, trying to set a Guinness World Record for downloads in 24 hours.

I have used Firefox V3 off and on in various beta's and Release Candidates for some time. Unless things change dramatically, I intend to stay with Firefox 2.0.0.14 as long as I can, and then likely will go to Opera or even Internet Explorer.

Firefox V.3 is faster, and perhaps more secure than version 2.x. But the user interface is somewhere between annoying and appalling. Indeed, there are so many hiccups I assumed the problems were bugs the developers had not yet gotten around to fixing. Then I tried the first Release Candidate, and realized things I thought were glitches were in fact deliberate 'features'.


Some of the more memorable changes I've encountered:
  • Do you keep a list of bookmarks in the Bookmark menu bar pulldown? Under V.3, you no longer have a list of links you can scroll through. You'll have a menu entry labeled 'Bookmarks', under Bookmarks. Hit that, you'll get a page with your ENTIRE bookmark file, expanded, with any comments you or the site supplied. (A hint: Use Find to search for a word or two out of the link. Much easier than scrolling through what is likely several hundred links.)
  • Did you use the History in the sidebar? I finally found it, under View. Why they moved it someone else will have to explain.
  • The bookmarks can be displayed in the sidebar as well. If you don't mind having the entire file displayed, fully expanded, with comments. Try it. Who knows, you might like it.
  • The Organize Bookmarks entry is still around, but it displays all your history, any recent bookmarks you've used, and does not display the contents of your bookmark file. The point of that is not as yet clear to me.
I really hope some of these things can be changed by the user, but so far I haven't found any way to do that.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Amelia Makes Art


She does pretty good work, too. She mostly makes dogs, but she does some pretty impressive cats, as well.

She has an Etsy store
, and a blog, both with lots of examples.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Missed It

Dang! π Day was yesterday.

I missed it again!

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

One heck of a singer you probably never heard of

Jan Werner Danielsen was his name, though he didn't use the "Danielsen" when performing. I came across him on someone's blog, somewhere. (one of the side effects of reading comments on blogs -- you tend to bounce from blog to blog, and half the time you can never find that interesting post when you want to check something)

Jan Werner was one of the highest selling recording artists in Norway when he died in 2006.

RememberJan is trying to keep Werner's name and work alive. This is just a fun piece I enjoyed, and I thought anyone else who wanders by might, too.