Leno Interviews Bush

A friend at work brought this Tonight Show piece to my attention - Jay interviewing Bush post his election win.

Faces of the Fallen

The Washington Post did a nice job developing an on-line memorial called Faces of the Fallen for the service men and women that lost their lives in Iraq. Every American should surf over to this site from time to time to honor and remember the fallen.

Who Goes 1st?

Funny stuff. President Clinton and President Bush trying to figure out who should get to go through a door 1st at the opening of Clinton's Presidential Library the other day.

AirBag: Simba

I can't remember what this writing style is called ... basically, fictional IM conversations in the form of a short story. I thought this one was great - Powell IMing about leaving his position as Secretary of State.

Oops

Came across this post on Joi It's BLOG. Funny stuff - never use a little crane to do a big crane's job. Hopefully the link will last, I imagine this is going to be a popular one - bandwidth costs could get expensive.

Wikipedia

I recently (maybe a little later than most) discovered Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a new kind of encyclopedia - it's produced collaboratively. It's a kind of collaborative software. The word Wikipedia is a portmanteau (a word formed by combining two words) of "wikiwiki" and "encyclopedia".

I think the concept is beautiful - it's a great example of what people can accomplish with a little teamwork.

Google Scholar

Wow, Google just keeps picking up their pace. The new Google Scholar search is one of their latest releases - in BETA and launched yesterday. The audience - scholars and the scientific community. I just love this company.

Movable Type Update 2.51 to 3.121

Over the weekend I upgraded my Movable Type installation from 2.51 to 3.121. I had been putting the upgrade off but I'm happy to say it was a painless process that took less than an hour to complete. So if you're like me and you've been putting the upgrade off - just go for it, it isn't that hard. Why did I upgrade? I wanted better comment management and support for the new TypeKey service. Damn comment spammers.

TIVO Commercials

I came across a post today on PVRblog regarding my TIVO service that has me concerned.

People get TiVos for different reasons, mostly it's for the time shifting nature, but the close second most loved feature has to be the ability to fast forward through ads. The advertising TiVo has added so far has been minimal impact. The commercial showcases that show up on your main menu aren't that bad and often have good ad shorts and information, but pushing that into the main TV watching interface seems like a spectacularly bad move. No longer are the ads an optional thing you can dig for more, they're soon going to be pushed in front of you when you use a key feature of the product.

The ability to fast forward through commercials is perhaps the feature I like best about my TIVO. I think TIVO customers need to stand up and fight this concept while it can still be fought. Sure, it doesn't sound like the Stage 1 implementation will be all that bad but before we know it they'll be limiting the speed of the fast forward feature to give advertisers more time to make an impression. This could be the end of a really good service. I hope this is just a bad rummor but apparently they're testing the UI.

FireFox 1.0

There's a lot of buzz on the Web about yesterday's release of FireFox 1.0. I haven't actually used the new browser yet but it's good to see competitive forces at work in this area. I read about spreadfirefox.com, a site focused on promoting the new browser, in a BLOG and I decided to take a quick look in an honest effort to learn about this new browser. I was surprised to see that an estimated "0" copies had been downloaded. Now I know that there have actually been millions of copies downloaded but I found this oversight to be quite humorous - better get that fixed quick.

Revenge of the Sith

Revenge of the Sith, Episode III in the Star Wars series, will hit theaters next year on May 19th. Check-out the teaser trailer.

Geek Meets Orange County Chopper

Found this old Mod link in my "blog this " list. Geek meets Orange County Chopper.

iPod Bible?

I enjoyed the humor in this Gizmodo
write-up of the BiblePlayer for the iPod. Funny stuff. I'm guessing the deomography of the iPod user-base will hurt this products chances of success.

4 More Years

Well, I was wrong; apparently President Bush has enough supporters to keep the office for 4 more years. It isn't final yet but it looks like Kerry's chances of winning this race have all but vanished. I voted for you Senator Kerry - I wish things had gone the other way. Congratulations Mr. President - please don't get us into anymore trouble than you already have between now and 2008. At least you'll have the opportunity to clean up the mess you've made in Iraq.

I head to bead now hoping to wake up to news of a re-count in Ohio or some kind of miracle that changes the outcome of this race. Hope - I still have some of it.

Bush Wired

There's been a lot of talk about whether or not President Bush was wired during the debates. I doubt he was - if anything, I think the "bulge" was probably related to a bullet-proof vest or other security device. The chances of getting caught in the act would just be too great to justify the advantage. Lawrence Lessig talks about it a little in this post. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see proof, but that's never going to happen.

Election Day Prediction

It's Election Day here in the United States and I predict that John Kerry will be 44th President of the United States. I think that voter turn-out (especially young voters) will result in a bigger margin of victory for Kerry than expected. I know the polls are (for the most part) split but I don't believe they accurately reflect the views of the population. The world will hold its breath today as we wait for the results of this election.