Technorati setup a page for tracking New Years Resolutions. What the heck! Let me give it a shot. Maybe, I'll win another iPOD :)

My New Years Resolutions is to buy a bigger house for my wife, w/ a two car garage, 4+ bedrooms, finished basement, an office for me, in an area that is DSL capable, a nice big deck in the backyard.

By the way, 2005 was a good year for me. I limited myself to two jobs, lost 20-25 lbs., watched my younger daughter learn to swim in the toilet, watched my older daughter and son acquire several Tae Kwon Do belts each, spent an entire month in Disneyworld, cut my drinking in half and more, learnt to enjoy a cigar and hate cigarettes.

Tomorrow night we'll be eating with friends at Tucker's Marketplace in Pickering. Map. I'll be home before midnight to catch the apple falling on TV. 2005, here we come!

Update: Change of plans. We're meeting now at the Tucker's by the airport (YYZ).

Cory Doctorow: Chris takes a "middle ground" position that I've heard described as "radical centrism" -- his position is that the EFF's opposition to DRM is "idealistic" and that there is therefore a practical "reality" that is better suited to the world. I think it's a false dichotomy, and I'd like to have a little go at Chris's post here and see if I can show why.

Randy: Chris sounds like smart guy. Extremes just don't work in a world of compromises.

Cory: There has never been a DRM-covered file that was kept off the Internet. Ever. DRM has never once in the history of the field kept a file from appearing online, or from being booted by organized crime pirates.

Randy: This is where Cory continues to fail in convincing me. Locking your car or house door doesn't stop people from robbing you. Locking your car or house door discourages people from robbing you. DRM doesn't stop anybody from copyring the material. DRM discourages you from copying the material. That's it! 

As Cory says, "DRM isn't protection from piracy." There's no point arguing this further. We agree on this point. DRM does not stop piracy. DRM discourages it. End of argument. Nobody is fooling themselves into thinking DRM will stop piracy. No matter how much Cory might think otherwise.

I gotta say, iM impressed by people like David Sifry and Scott Johnson and Scott Rafer and Robert Scoble. These guys take it hard from the blogosphere everyday. They take criticism that would annoy me beyond. They take this criticism and turn it into gold. Turn it into users. Turn it into friends.

On the other hand, there are certain bloggers who go out of their way to embarrass their employers and themselves. They take criticism and respond with threats, flames and ... well ... you know the trolls iM talking about.

Rose Hagan of Google: We visited your site at gdeskbar.co.nr and note that you are using a logo which is very similar to the Google logo.  We are concerned that this use of the logo will lead users to be confused into thinking that your site is authorized or endorsed by Google, and that the use will also dilute the value of our trademark. In addition, your site includes the notice "(C) 2004 Google Corporation.  All rights reserved. Google, Gmail and Google Local are all trademarks of Google Corporation.  This is a false statement and further leads to a likelihood of confusion.

Chris Langsdale: I decided to see if I can be given permission from Google Inc. to use the domain Gdeskbar.com (stupid me). I wasn't expecting to get slapped with misuse of their trademarks. As of now I've made the changes they asked for, with the exception of the logo. I'm hoping the disclaimer beneath it will suffice.

Randy: I'm gonna have to side with Google on this one. Putting "(C) 2004 Google Corporation. All rights reserved." was a big mistake, bound to catch their attention. It's not easy having a fan Website.

...my first co-authored book was published by Sams; DCOM Primer Plus. The book was later translated into other languages. I've seen copies in both Japanese and Korean. Two years ago yesterday, I found out that Opencola was out of money. The same day, I had to lay off most all of my team. There are good days and there are bad. Mostly good.

I think I just realized that I need a new laptop. My current laptop is 4 yrs old, which doesn't make much sense for somebody who makes his money from computers. A dead battery didn't stop me (about a yr ago). A dead keyboard didn't stop me either (I use an external now). But last week, my CD burner died. My wife loves to burn photos on CDs and bring them to Walmart for printing. And backups are a problem w/out a burner.

I'm thinking about a Dell Inspiron 1150 P4 2.8Ghz 15-inch XGA XP-Home 512MB 60GB NIC modem CD-burner wireless-11bg 3yr-warranty $1329 (includes shipping, does not incl. GST/PST of 15%).

Bladam: Google is going to buy community photo service Flickr or perhaps Fotki early next year and integrate it tightly with the upcoming Picasa 2.0.

Randy: 2004 was the year of the blogosphere. 2005 will be the year of the photosphere.

Here are the eleven reasons...

• Arrogance— you think that you're right, and everyone else is wrong.
• Melodrama— you need to be the center of attention.
• Volatility— you're subject to mood swings.
• Excessive Caution— you're afraid to make decisions.
• Habitual Distrust— you focus on the negatives.
• Aloofness — you're disengaged and disconnected.
• Mischievousness— you believe that rules are made to be broken.
• Eccentricity— you try to be different just for the sake of it.
• Passive Resistance— what you say is not what you really believe.
• Perfectionism— you get the little things right and the big things wrong.
• Eagerness to Please— you try to win the popularity contest.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Google User Support: And in the interim of time which elapsed since we began this response, our attitude toward you, dear correspondent, has segued from righteous indignation at your illogical attack on our graphic designer to warm-hearted gratitude that you cared enough to write to us in the first place.

Randy: A funny blog entry on how the Google User Support team handled a troubled user situation.

Ron Avitzur: We finished in January 1994. Graphing Calculator has been part of the Macintosh ever since. Teachers around the world use it as an animated blackboard to illustrate abstract concepts visually. It shipped on more than twenty million machines. It never officially existed. Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? [cut] We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security.

Nearly two years ago, I compiled a list of the 10 most impressive people I've worked w/ and for. The list has changed, but Greg is still on top of the list.

1. Greg Wolfond, 724 Solutions
2. Kerry McLellan, 724 Solutions
3. Patrick Engel, 724 Solutions
4. Lucian Feier, 724 Solutions & Opence
5. Ken Nickerson, Opencola
6. Steve Gamble, 724 Solutions
7. Bob Stasyzyn, 724 Solutions
8. Lucius Nedelcu, Opencola
9. John Henson, Opencola & Dude Research
10. Grad Conn, Dude Research (also worked at Opencola, but not at the same time as myself)

It's no wonder 724 Solutions grew into a $10 billion company. Opencola also had some great people. Unfortunately, both 724 and Opencola had too many bad apples making work difficult for the sweet apples.

uXuf: I know most of the guys are big time Google fans, but still, it sucks real bad when it comes to things other than search engines. For example, take Orkut. [cut] Its expanding without any regards for minimizing the response times, user frustration and site management. How many times have you encountered the "Bad, bad server" error? Countless times, right. Most of the times the systems signs me out when I try to add someone. Now what. And the most frustrating of it, I try to paste a scrap, and "The page not found" error smacks right into my face. And just when I refresh it, the scrap is pasted then. Now there is this Blogger. [cut] But it has the most of the problems in logging in. [cut] If you just close your browser without signing out, and for some reason you want to go back to your account, what do u do? Dont point your browser to blogger.com, no, restart your system. Because if you try to signin again, you will get bounced back and back again to the login prompt. Reason: your browser does not retain your login information correctly.

Randy: And uXuf missed the biggest mess at Google; Google Groups . But Google does do one thing beyond search really well and that's Gmail. By the way, I have 9 Gmail invites if there is anybody still looking for one. I didn't get any more invites for a few months and in last week I got one batch of 4 and one batch of 6. Sent one invite to my sister. They must have brought a few more racks of servers online.

I can't figure what Google is thinking w/ Orkut, Blogger and Google Groups. How can companies like Tribe and SixApart, w/ a fraction of the R&D budget, produce much better products?

Mike Akers: If you've been outside at all lately, you've noticed that it's suddenly really fucking cold outside. Even here in Florida it was down to 32°F last night. Why id it so cold? I think it's because of this: This "Wind Turbine" is 30 stories tall, and it's conveniently situated on in Toronto pointing directly at the United States! Do I need to connect the dots for you people! I think it's obvious that this "Wind Turbine" is really part of a Canadian plot to freeze the United States for some evil Canadian purpose. Maybe they're pissed that we tried to take their supply of flu vaccine, or that so many americans are trying to flee to their country. Maybe we'll never know their reasons, who can understand the mind of a Canadian.

Randy: Paul, shut it down, they're onto us.

CP: A lawyer acting on Danson's behalf had earlier asked the judge to delay sentencing until January so that Moore could deliver his victim impact statement in person. That request was denied. "Steve is extremely disappointed," said Danson. "The victim in this case was denied the right to be present in court."

TheStar: For Moore, it is a travesty. In a victim impact statement he filed with the Vancouver court, Moore said he may never be able to play again. In truth, hockey insiders say Moore, who was not offered a contract this season by Colorado, has been blacklisted by every NHL team and, surprisingly, by the NHL players' association, which is supposed to act on behalf of all players. Moore still has severe headaches, possible brain damage, and has been unable to do anything more strenuous than a light workout. He has not been on skates since the attack.

EdmontonSun: Yesterday's plea bargain angered Moore's lawyers, who said it came as a surprise and gave Moore no chance to travel to Vancouver to deliver his victim-impact statement to the court in person.

Randy: I'm very concerned that a CDNian court did not give Moore reasonable chance to deliver a personal victim-impact statement. I'm not defending Moore, who wasn't an innocent victim, but denying any victim his rights, is reason to reconsider this judge's job security.

Jonathan Schwartz: You've no doubt seen Sprint's bid to combine with Nextel - in a transaction purported to exceed $36 billion. Nextel, if I'm not mistaken, has about 15M subscribers. So doing some basic math, Sprint would be paying ~$2,400 per sub.

Randy: The CEO of Sun discovers that business decisions are often stupid.

Guardian: We have listed the most popular Guardian sites, and some Online readers' suggestions.

Randy: This list is pretty funny. Under Blogs, they list Technorati and Blogdex, two link tracking systems that are broken. Then under Community, they list Orkut, a broken social networking site. You have to wonder how they picked these Websites or if they actually use them.

P.A. Roberge: We can also see an interesting paradigm shift happening from the 'killer application' to the 'killer combination'.

I just got this months MSDN Canada Flash newsletter. Some highlights.

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>MSDN Flash</title>
<!--

If you were expecting the plain text version of MSDN Flash,
you can switch your subscription by replying to this e-mail
and putting "text" in the subject line.

-->
...

Anybody wanna guess how this will get displayed in Gmail? Not very readable. I wish I had a few billions $$$ to piss down a toilet.

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if  you see carrots, leave immediately.  Go next door, where they're serving rum balls.
2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. Like fine single-malt scotch, it's rare.  In fact, it's even rarer than single-malt scotch.  You can't find it any other time of year but now.  So drink up!  Who cares that it has 10,000 calories in every sip?  It's not as if you're going to turn into an eggnog-alcoholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's later than you think. It's Christmas!
3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the volcano. Repeat. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they're made with skim milk or whole milk.  If it's skim, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission.
4. Do not have a snack before going to a party in an effort to control your eating. The whole point of going to a Christmas party is to eat other people's  food for free. Lots of it. Hello?
5. Under no circumstances should you exercise between now and New Year's. You can do that in January when you have nothing else to do. This is the time for long naps, which you'll need after circling the buffet table while carrying a 10-pound plate of food and that vat of eggnog.
6. If you come across something really good at a buffet table, like frosted Christmas cookies in the shape and size of Santa, position yourself near them and don't budge. Have as many as you can before becoming the centre of attention. They're like a beautiful pair of shoes. If you leave them behind, you're never going to see them again.
7. Same for pies. Apple. Pumpkin. Mincemeat. Have a slice of each. Or, if you don't like mincemeat, have two apples and one pumpkin. Always have three. When  else do you get to have more than one dessert? Labour Day?
8. Did someone mention fruitcake? Granted, it's loaded with the mandatory celebratory calories, but avoid it at all cost. I mean, have some standards.
9. One final tip: If you don't feel terrible when you leave the party or get up from the table, you haven't been paying attention. Reread tips; start over, but hurry, January is just around the corner.

Remember this motto to live by:

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

Have an great holiday season!

...Marc Canter wrote about Randy Morin day.

Marc Canter: Dave Winer likes randy Morin. I do too.  Anybody who can help connect things together - I say right on. 

Dave Winer: If there were an award for being a peacemaker, Randy Charles Morin would surely be up for it. This guy has been standing in the middle of the Syndication developer community, squarely, and doing what's right. Note that I didn't say Atom or RSS, I said Syndication. Because if you pop up a level, in some sense, it doesn't matter what the format is, what matters is that there's agreement on the format, and that technologists don't try to divide the world based on compatibility, as they so often do.

Randy: It was a nice day! Thanks Marc and Dave!

Unfortunately, nothing I've done has enabled the RSSers and Atomites to come together :(

Following is an email I received from my ISP when I sent them an email about false positives results from their SMTP service. I'm certainly glad that I'm no longer using Yahoo! Mail.

ISP: The message was denied because at the time, the server which was used to send the message ( 66.163.169.223 / smtp104.mail.sc5.yahoo.com ) was on the Spamhaus X-Blacklist. The likely reason for this was that the server was found to be exploitable to spam-type attacks. The server was then removed at approx. 15:15GMT, which was slightly after the message was sent. The server does sit on several other blacklists however.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the 15th is a big day. It's our monthly Geek Dinner/Blogger Meetup and first annual Christmas Dinner. This month, the get together is at Vinnie's, 22 Duncan St (Adelaide intersection), Toronto, 7PM. First pitcher of beer is on me. MAP.

CP: NHL labour talks were derailed Tuesday after each side rejected the other's proposal. The talks lasted about 3½ hours. The league dismissed the union offer and then made a one-hour presentation on its counter-proposal, which included a salary cap.

Randy: Yawn!

2004 Weblog Awards: Based on 366,187 votes cast in all categories over 10 days in early December 2004, here are the winners of the of The 2004 Weblog Awards.

• Best Overall Blog - Powerline
• Best Tech Blog - Engadget
• Best Canadian Blog - small dead animals

Paul Ford: I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower to find another one sitting near the drain.

“Hi! I'm from Google. I'm a Googlebot! I will not kill you.”

Health India: People under pressure to meet deadlines are six times more likely to suffer from a heart attack, a new research reveals.

Randy: Sorry boss, but I have to cancel all my deadlines or charge you w/ attempted murder. Your choice.

Dave Winer: I used to be the target of virtually incessant flames. There weren't many people leading them, and in the end it apparently depended on one person to keep them going, and now that he has sworn off the Internet, thankfully, isolated flames still happen occasionally, but the they don't seem to take root any longer.

Randy: Amen!

You can download it from http://beta.toolbar.msn.com/. I haven't tried it yet. I guess Jeremy Zawodny won the "What is Microsoft announcing tomorrow" contest. I'm downloading it as I type this blog entry.

Downloaded, installed and reviewed...

• Seems it wants to index my harddrive. I really hope I can search for .cs files. Otherwise, I can chalk this up as a waste of my time.
• Awesome, I can search my Outlook email. Too bad I use Gmail :(
• I can search other things I never wanted to search before (and never will).

Not much here. I feel an uninstall coming.

Hoping no one's seen this one yet. It's worth a chuckle or two.

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary." Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed." There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience  who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Knat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline," as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

(16.) Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

Jason Schultz: The idea behind patents is that inventors and manufacturers of new products should have some protection against free riders in the marketplace that would otherwise copy their innovations.

Randy: Let me disagree. The reason for patents is that before patents were invented, companies hoarded ideas, because there was no way of sharing ideas w/out compromising them. Patents were invented in order to increase the sharing of ideas. Think of it as a means of communicating your ideas to others. The protection is simply an incentive to convince people to file the patents. The introduction of the patent is what caused the last 2-3 centuries of innovation. Without patents most of us would be potatoe farmers.

The anti-patent leaders often have this misconception. It's the basis of their opinion, because you can't believe otherwise and remain against patents.

Alec Saunders: Yesterday I wrote a letter to my MP about the same sex marriange debate.  Today, Randy has turned it into a form that you can use to send a letter to your MP.  Awesome stuff!  I'm getting a domain setup -- htttp://vote4equality.ca -- to host this. If you feel like Randy and I do, go mail your MP.

Randy: Thanks Alec! I had great inspiration.

These lists are meant to identify possible problems in the Bible.

• GE 1:31 God was pleased with his creation.
• GE 6:5-6 God was not pleased with his creation.

Randy: It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The weather is inconsistent, but inconsistent does not imply incorrect.

Robert Scoble: Remember last Sunday when I said I had seen something that left me speechless? Well, in the videos I filmed (and I filmed more than 1.5 hours worth with nearly the entire team working on the thing that's being shipped into beta on Monday) I am heard saying "that's wicked." The really wicked thing, though, is that this team (the one shipping a beta on Monday) did not exist before last April (and, most of the team didn't join until June or July, which is when they really started their work). On Monday you'll hear how this team -- in less than seven months -- designed, built, tested, and delivered a pretty darn cool new product.

Jeremy Zawodny: Scoble uses winfs to pre-hype microsoft desktop search - scoble uses winfs to pre-hype microsoft desktop search: it comes out monday, ya know?

Randy: Jeremy says Microsoft Desktop Search. I think he's right.

Tom Warren: Along with the MOOL announcement, Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi is due to announce the availability of the MSN Toolbar Suite beta tomorrow.

Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft to Launch MOOL Beta on Monday.

Dare Obasanjo: I was just completely freaked out a few minutes ago. All of a sudden in the middle of editing some XSLT stylesheets I started to get a resonating hum similar to electronic interference in the base of my skull at regular intervals. I was about to call 911 when I realized it only happened when I was near my monitor or television and stopped when I turned them off. I called a friend and she mentioned that she'd heard that this sometimes happened to people with silver fillings in their teeth. Since I'd just got some dental work done about a week and a half ago I guessed this might have been some static electricity buildup. So I brushed my teeth and now I don't have the weird hum in my head while using the computer anymore.

Unfortunately I couldn't find anything on Google about this.

I've been playing w/ Clicksor's context links. They do a lot of processing during body.onload(), which causes the browser to hang-up while it creates the context links. I won't leave it enabled on the front page, as the user experience is less than desirable; it hangs-up for 10 seconds. I'll leave it on the permalinked pages.

Update: The context links are enabled on the permalinked pages, but I can't actually find one. Not even my Paris Hilton fan club page ;)

PayPal: PayPal's Standard Rate pricing is remaining at 2.9% + $0.30 USD.

Randy: I did a little analysis of the PayPal fee structure. I came up w/ the following chart. The third column is the percent of the transaction heading to PayPal's bank account. I wasn't concerned w/ anything above $20 as the percent simply converges to 2.9% as you approach infinity. What is important, is that PayPal gets one third of $1 donations. Save your money! If you're going to donate to a blog via PayPal, then donate $2 half as often, rather than $1. In fact, donate $6 one sixth as often, rather than $1. Six dollars seems to be a good pricing point.

I've always said, lead by example. So, here's the challenge. Gotta a PayPal donation button? Post me a link in the comments of this entry. I'll pick a few and donate $6. I'll announce which ones I pick, so don't post your link if you don't want people to know.

Motivation: Encourage people to donate to their favorite bloggers.

Goiaba: during Brazil's working hours, the site is virtually (really!) inaccessible; this especially happens when you write a post and try to send your message. Be prepared to lose all your text. many times.

Randy: Gotta hate Orkut, which I believe is short form for Borked Social Software. Today, when I post in certain communities, the server responds that I have to join the community, even though I'm already joined. I can click join as many times as I want, I'm not going to be able to post. But, at least the community shows up in my community list.

Michael Pusateri: Recent events on the internet, like the trouble Jason Kottke has had with Sony, point to the need for a way for webloggers in the cross-hairs of well financed companies to defend themselves in the courtroom. [cut] As a result I registered wldf.org (Weblogger Legal Defense Fund) and set up the hosting for it as well. Pease go take a look at wldf.org.

Jason Kottke: Here's a two-minute audio clip of Final Jeopardy from Ken Jennings' Jeopardy loss (due to air Nov 30). [cut] I've been contacted by a lawyer representing Sony and they have asked me to remove the audio clip. Sorry.

Anil Dash: I don't care much about Jeopardy, but I've been entertained by Jason's scoops on the Ken Jennings saga. Then Jason posted an audio clip of Ken's loss. And Sony TV asked him to take it down. Now, clearly, you can excerpt a work if you're doing news reporting on a subject, and Jason's been breaking news on this story since September and reporting on it since July. KenJen is J.Ko's beat!

Randy: The blogosphere is empowering. Bloggers must realize this, stand up and use that power effectively.

TheNewPr: It's a list of weblogs authored by people who are in a leadership position in various organizations (corporations, non-profit, etc.).

Randy: Noted inclusions...

• Stewart Butterfield, Flickr 
• Marc Cuban, Mavericks
• Ray Ozzie, Groove
• Jonathan Schwartz, Sun

The entire list is also available in OPML. There's also a spliced RSS feed.

Alec Saunders: I wrote to Pierre Poilievre, MP for Nepean-Carleton today on the topic of same sex marriage.  Here is the email I sent him.

Randy: Hmmm! I have this interesting thought. What if there was this combobox where you picked your riding and this text box where you put your name and this other text box where you put your email address and finally this submit button?

Update: Thanks to Joel Johannesen, we now have a list of email addresses.

Update: Step #2 of our (Alec and I) plan to control CDNian public policy is now complete. Introducing MP-XML.

Update: Step #3. Done.

This morning, I sent my first invoice via PayPal. It was very simple. I love PayPal. I mean, how could you not like software that allows you to easily invoice people over the Web.

Update: Payment received. Hmmm! A business model?

Yesterday, I received an offer for five free songs, if I sign up w/ iTunes using PayPal. During the sign-up process, the option to select PayPal as your payment method was absent. Anyhow, I was also looking for the iTunes experience, which seems to be very popular. Continue signing up. Never got my five free songs.

After five minutes looking for christmas songs, I realized this is stupid and decided to close my account. Looking.... Hmmm, there doesn't seem to be a close account option anywhere. Ah, but there is an edit account. Click and Oops!!!

Your request  could not be complete.

It says I have to enable cookies to use iTunes. A little paranoia double checking and yes, cookies are definately enabled. Hmmm! Well, the enable cookies is a hyperlink, so maybe I'll click on that and it'll tell me more. Click! Now I'm at a sign-in /sign-up screen. Feedback? Click! Ah, a nice feedback form. Fill, fill, fill, submit! I must enabled cookies.

Anybody wanna guess why iTunes sales are way done?

Adam Stiles: At its simplest, Google Suggest is javascript code that looks at what you are typing in the Google search box. When you press a key, GS phones home and passes the current contents of the search box.

A request to the suggestion server looks like this:

http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&js=true&qu=keyword

In return, the suggestion server returns some results as javascript. Here are the results that get returned when I have typed "netcaptor" in the box:

sendRPCDone(frameElement, "netcaptor", new Array("netcaptor", "netcaptor 7.5.3 crack", "netcaptor download", "netcaptor 7.5.3", "netcaptor crack", "netcaptor pro", "netcaptor 7.5.2", "netcaptor 7.5.3 serial", "netcaptor v7.5.3", "netcaptor review"), new Array("141,000 results", "169 results", "68,300 results", "2,890 results", "8,360 results", "56,500 results", "2,390 results", "213 results", "281 results", "15,900 results"), new Array(""));

Today, I listened to

• The Fat Man Sings - ending session at BloggerCon III.
• Overload - Robert Scoble's session at BloggerCon III.

I'm listening partial for the Bob Wyman incident. Reviewing the incident on audio, I can't really form an opinion. I wasn't there and there isn't enough audio to make a real judgement, but I think Dave overreacted and I think Bob Wyman was looking for trouble.

This is a tale of the times, via our friends at Yahoo! Photos.

Financial Times: Yahoo is preparing to stake its claim to a key part of the burgeoning search engine business with a desktop search tool that makes it easier to find information on the hard drives of personal computers.

Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo!: here we come...

SearchEngineLowdown: AOL is not very good at keeping secrets. News is out that AOL's desktop search solution will be powered by Copernic, which pretty much assures that an agreement is in place between the two companies.

Scoble: Desktop search continues to heat up.

Randy: Where's Opencola? The best desktop search company EVAR! You can thank Battery Ventures for killing them.

Andy Baio: real-time autocompletion of search keywords as you type.

Randy: Wow!

Source: WongDude and Gizmodo.

Gandalfe over on Dude has a great blog w/ some amazing images, like this one. This image is courtesy Brian Fairrington and Slate.

iBt4iM reader da-Noodleman: HOLY S_IT! See if you can get past level 2. Move the Mouse  to move the blue dot along the white area with out Touching the Black Part...

Randy: Awesome game.

Today I went back to IT Conversations to find something to blow the work hours away. There wasn't much beyond the BloggerCon III recordings, so I decided to listen to a few more sessions. I've already listened to a couple of the recordings, why not the rest. Here we go...

• National Anthem
• Mobile Blogging

SocialTwister: Last night we completed Episode 5 of The ReRe & Chaj Beercast, using a new format that really seems to be more favorable for everyone involved. Instead of doing one really large Beercast file (usually close to 30MB), I am now doing smaller files that cover specific topics with our discussion and commentary all smushed together.

Randy: Gotta like the name Beercast.

Joey deVilla: Chanukah started last night at sundown, so happy Chanukah to all my Jewish homies.

Randy: Happy Chanukah!

Nigel Blogsworth: I recently was rejected for a job, because I don't have a blog. Er, at least I think that was why I was rejected.  The job involved producing blog-making software at a startup, so the company had a right to be concerned about my "lack of internet presence." Through the grape vine I have learned that the company hired someone who has a massive vanity blog. So massive, you wonder where he finds time to squeeze in software development.

Source: Scobleizer.

CNN: For $24.95, T-shirtKing.com offers the "Go Canadian" package, full of just the kind of things an American traveler needs to leave their country and its politics behind.

Jason Kottke: Disguise yourself as a Canadian when traveling abroad to avoid answering questions about US politics.

Scoop: The new data confirms what was already widely known about the swing in favour of George Bush, but amplifies the extent of that swing. [cut] Last week in an analysis of a similar, but incomplete set of data, Dr Stephen F. Freeman from the University of Pennsylvania calculated that the odds of just three of the major swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania all swinging as far as they did against their respective exit polls were 250 milllion to 1. Dr Freeman's academic paper contains a thorough description of why and how exit polls are conducted (in some countries they use them to prevent against vote fraud).

Source: Electoral-Vote.com.

Dave Winer: It makes me even sicker than I am to think about the lying President we re-elected. In his speech to Marines today at Camp Pendleton he restates the lie that the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror.

Randy: Correction Dave. Lying and cheating.

BBC: In Japan, the internet has been blamed for a spate of group suicides which appear to have been arranged in online chat rooms.

Source: Jason Kottke.

Randy: Web-based social networks are also cleaning up the gene pool.

RawStory: In a sworn affidavit (pdf file) Monday, a former programmer for a NASA contractor said that he developed a vote-rigging prototype at the request of a then-Florida state representative who is now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Source: iBt4iM reader WongDude.

When:
Wednesday, December 15, 2004 at 7:00 PM

Where:
Vinnie's Social Hall
22 Duncan St, Toronto, ON M5H 3G8, Map

Dave Winer: Seven years ago today: On Canada Appreciation Day we look to the north, and thank the better half of North America for putting up with our self-centered approach for so long. We ask them how we could do better. And we listen! We try to imagine what life would be like without Canada, and be glad that we don't have to find out.

Randy: Thanks Dave!

Dave Pentecost: Lawyers representing voters upset about problems at the polls plan to contest the results with the Ohio Supreme Court, citing documented cases of long lines, a shortage of machines and a pattern of problems in predominantly black neighborhoods.

Randy: BoingBoing also linked to some video and such. I couldn't be bothered to watch them. I mean, what am I gonna learn? That the elections were fixed? That the American democracy is not. That Bush actually lost. Ok, I already know Bush lost Ohio.

iBt4iM reader WongDude: Too Cool, this is sic!

Source: Gizmodo.

Textalive.com: Randy Charles Morin, VP – Client/Server Technologies. BSc Honours, Computer Science (Windsor) Randy is a co-author of several programming books, an actual "doer" and a start-up road warrior. Randy has been in the lead of technical development teams of a handful of Canadian companies, some of which have reached the IPO stage.

Randy: Sounds like a cool guy! 

Steven M. Cohen: It looks like Incsub is running yet another "Best Blog" poll.

Randy: My votes...

• Best designed & most beautiful blog - Stephen Downes.
• Best Librarian Blog - Library Stuff.

Truth? Those were the only two blogs that I've read out of all the the blogs nominated.

Pakistan President Musharraf: Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is alive but the trail is 'completely cold'.

Steve: Isn't this the guy about whom Dubya said "You can run but you can't hide?"

Randy: Four more years of incompetence ahead.

Here's my votes for the 2004 Weblog Awards...

• Best Liberal Blog - Talk Left (but I also like Oliver Willis)
• Best Election Coverage - Electoral Vote Predictor
• Best Media/Journalist Blog - Dan Gilmour
• Best Tech Blog - Scobleizer
• Best Online Community - Fark

My votes are really limited to the blogs that I'm familiar w/. In fact, most categories don't have one blog that I've ever come across before. Kind of a reflection of the low quality of the blogs picked for nomination.

Update: They added BoingBoing to Best Overall Blog.

NOAA: This photo is of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station taken every 15 minutes (if a relay satellite is available for transmission) from the roof of the Atmospheric Research Observatory which houses NOAA/CMDL's Clean Air Facility.

Source: Gandalfe.

MSN: The MSN network of Internet services today introduced updates to its free communication services to make e-mail, instant messaging and online sharing easier and more personal for consumers. [cut] MSN Spaces enable consumers to easily display their pictures via a photo album slide show.

Souce: iBt4iM reader Robert Scoble.

Randy: My space is Geek Space. Looks like a small step up from Blogger and Typepad. More updates on The RSS Blog.

click to enlarge

The Onion: The Iraqi Department of Homeland Security recently released a 10-level, color-coded homeland security advisory system that will alert citizens to the risk of a terrorist attack within Iraq's borders.

Source: serendipity.

I just switch my banners from Bidvertiser.com to Clicksor.com. I switch this blog only yesterday to Bidvertiser, mostly because people were bidding upto 30 CPC on my site. I have multiple bidders above 20 CPC. In the past day, the high bid has dropped to 4 CPC, but I've only been awarded one click. Maybe their cheating again, maybe it's just bad luck, either way, I've switched to Clicksor. Clicksor is very aggressive, so I've setup some really tame settings; no pop-unders, no pop-overs, just plain old small banners. If my readers see anything suspicious, then please do report it ASAP.

Update: Clicksor interferes w/ my javascript :( I disabled it until I figure out what's up.

Update: Clicksor uses document.body.onload. Lessons learned. Never use document.body.onload.

My doctor and I have always joked that my strep throat is like clockwork. I usually get it on Halloween night. This year, the wife took the kids out and I was spared that misery. But then, this last weekend, I chanced it and went to Holiday Dreams. Guess what I got? Strep Throat. Not fun.

The new math: lots of kids + cold weather = strep throat