But check it: there I was, enjoying the adorable baby otter chewing its owner’s car keys (thanks MK!) and thinking about googling more baby animal videos. Because watching a cat play the piano is one of the top 4things we use the Internet for, after all.
Plus, while I’d become aware that the latest celeb trend in the UK is to purchase teacuppigs, the size of a kitteh!1!! I had not yet rolled around in piles of adorable teacup pig videos like a pig in sh…slop. Here’s the story in a nutshell: “Micro-pigs: The size of a kitten, the taste of bacon.” MEAN Brits!
Happy Halloween, Internet-lovers. I’ve been remiss posting since Blog Action Day, but it’s the damn H1N1 that’s been getting me down. There’s a reason they don’t call it HFunNFun, you dig?
Anyways, I was dismayed to come across a couple of Halloween-themed not necessarily WS (but hey, it’s the weekend) items this week I thought I would share. One for RPat fans and the other for…vamp fans with certain appendages.
Yikes.
I do want to applaud the folks at Fleshlight for the wordsmithery of this web copy:
Take a walk on the dark side and get familiar with this pale brew. But be careful! Though this may feel like love at first bite, make sure you have wood poised to penetrate before you get completely drained!
GOD my head almost exploded from the entendreing. To palate cleanse, here’s something vampy from the crafticenter that is Etsy; a much more innocent accessory.
Speaking of the blood of innocents, I was wondering if the Halloween candy-poison/razor blade warnings from my childhood still exist in this era of snopes.com debunkery. <googling> By all accounts I could (quickly) find, witches pray over candy giving it pagan cooties. Which is the most awesome, silly thing I’ve heard in a while. But apparently poison candy is STILL a myth. Huzzah!
Tilti has been on vacation and what better way to come back swinging than to post for Blog Action Day (under the wire though it may be). I’m here to tell you the Good News: the Internet is going to save the planet! Sure, author Karl Burkhart blogged this in the form of a question last year but I’m hopeful. Read to decide for yourself if ‘perception tech’ is the next wave.
Perhaps the more timely question for some of us in the tech realm, since the economy tanked after Burkhart’s Dec 2008 post, is the question of whether there is money to be made leveraging the Internet to address climate change? According to this CNN article, technology to measure and address greenhouse gas emissions is an emerging market. The Microsofties are working to help cities measure GHG with the launch of Project Two Degrees, a collaboration with the Clinton Climate Initiative. The Clinton Climate Initiative is a prong of Bill’s William J. Clinton Foundation.
Here’s another article that outlines in broad strokes why the Internet has already begun to help fight climate change and many of Mr. Singh’s points come back to something I’ve been ranting about for years now: the Internet makes it possbile for people to WORK REMOTELY. So let us, Employers! Especially with H1N1 underway and regular flu season approaching, we should use the tools we have to contain disease and let people work at home in their jammies if possible (and for many knowledge workers, this is a doable arrangement).
What about the Internet as environmental enemy? What about server farms requiring AC and the watts we waste twittering ourselves into oblivion? I found that this not-new list of green computing best practices from Verdant Computing is still very useful. Particularly the prohibition against Keeping Up With the Joneses, never a green activity, unless your next door neigbors are obsessed with having no carbon footprint.
While asking the Internet to Save the Planet may be dramatic, I do think there are many ways the Internet can help us to help ourselves. But we will still have to change some of our perceptions and habits. I will be practicing turning my computer off by going unwired at least once a week. What will you do?
not only am I up, conveniently, news-breakingly late-night, to discuss the now late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s passing, but also? Not as a liberal bleeding heart but as nothing more than a human, a simple human being? I’d like to share my sorrow at his passing.
(right now i hate the internet. For making it soooooo hard just to post the above. And for so being the not-there-when-you-need-it-internet. Curses!!)
A moment of silence for this lion of a man; whether you agreed with him or not, he was down there in the trenches of health and education, fighting for you. Either way.
Oh Facebook. You took me back. But I fear our relationship has been irrevocably damaged. O Rly? The explanation (emphasis mine):
Thank you for providing this information. Facebook has limits in place to prevent users from running programs that automatically scan the site for certain content. Although this was not the case in your situation, viewing or refreshing pages at a rapid rate may cause your account to be disabled. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide more information about this system.
However, after reviewing your situation, your account has been reactivated. Please significantly slow down the rate at which you browse Facebook and refrain from violating any of Facebook’s Terms of Use.* You should also avoid using systems or products that automatically refresh Facebook pages. Further misuse of the site may result in your account being disabled again. We appreciate your cooperation going forward.
By all my friends’ accounts, I am the most casual of FB users. Or perhaps lazy is a better word? Either way, I’m hardly page-refreshing to beat the band.
People have come out of the woodwork telling me of others who have suffered the mysterious disconnect from the sky. I’ll now be on the lookout.
*which I already …..have? Right? Didn’t you just say….oh forget it.