and Google's new map of the UK. I heard the UK is a very lonely place.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?spn=66.750000,116.151043&hl=en
Reuters: 724 stock tumbled as much as 20.5 percent on Thursday. [cut] Shares were down 19 percent on Nasdaq at $9.94. [cut] Adjusted for a one-for-10 reverse stock split in 2003, the shares at one point surged to C$3,450 on Toronto.
Randy: The stock is down another 20% today.
MediaDailyNews: A WEST NYACK, N.Y. MAN was found dead at his computer apparently the victim of trying to keep up with too many professional forums.
Randy: Wow, not only did the title catch my attention, but my own obsession with online forums and the blogosphere, make me think the author is talking directly to me. Psycho!
ZDNet: Microsoft is migrating many of its internal servers to the new 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003, but concedes its 64-bit desktop product remains a work in progress.
Randy: The road from 16-bit to 32-bit was long. The road to 64-bit seems even longer. I suspect it'll be 2010 before I own a 64-bit desktop or laptop.
About: Paris Hilton's new commercial for Carl's Jr. may never make it to the airwaves. In the spot, Paris is washing a car with lots of water and soap to promote the BBQ Six Dollar Burger.
Randy: Is there a video online? I gotta see this. For both amusement and excitement value ;)
B2Day: I understand it [BoingBoing] makes $40k a month and is growing ...
Randy: Wow! Congrats to Cory and gang.
UK-Flava: Britney Spears has come last in poll of kids in the US to find the Coolest Celebrity Mum.
Randy: I wonder where she'd rank if they rephrased as step-mom?
American Cities That Best Fit You: |
| 55% Austin |
| 55% Denver |
| 55% Las Vegas |
| 55% Miami |
| 50% Atlanta |
Eliot 'The Blitzer' Spitzer is my hero.
Bored? Click here. And keep clicking.
The Register: The 1980 Star Wars outing The Empire Strikes Back has been voted best of the series in a poll of 40,000 UK film buffs carried out by magazine Empire.
Randy: Anybody else notice a big uptake in Star Wars related material in the blogosphere? It's all about marketing.
PR: The net loss for the first quarter of 2005, computed using United States generally accepted accounting principles ("GAAP"), was $466,000, or $0.08 per share.
Randy: You have to wonder if they'll ever post a gain.
Chris Pirillo: Try this: write something (ANYTHING) about Microsoft. Half of your readers will slap you around for being too supportive of the company, and the other half will slap you around for being too critical of the company... BASED ON THE SAME POST! It's not so much what I write, it's how you project yourself onto what I write.
Randy: As we all know, Chris is in bed with Microsoft. I just wish he'd stop criticizing them.
AP: In an e-mail to employees, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shot down suggestions that pressure from a local pastor triggered the company's decision to not publicly support a gay rights bill before the state legislature this year.
Randy: Does anybody else find it strange that Microsoft, a company often hated for its ethics, has to issue a memo on gay rights?
ZDNet: Here’s a wrinkle that many devotees of open source either don’t know about or don’t talk about: Open source projects can get acquired by commercial software companies.
Randy: Another author who doesn't seem to understand open source. He seems to suggest that open source implies free implies non-commercial. Open source does not imply free, nor does it preclude commercial involvement. If Microsoft wanted, they could open source Windows, in fact, they did open source their .NET engine, the CLI.
at Ontario Place.
http://ontarioplace.com/en/events/images/05-000%20Mothers%20Day%20E-Coupon.pdf
And while u r @ it, get a movie or two from BlockBuster.
SeattlePI: Microsoft Corp. is paying social conservative Ralph Reed $20,000 a month as a consultant, triggering complaints that the well-connected Republican with close ties to the White House and to evangelist Pat Robertson may have persuaded the company to oppose gay rights legislation.
Randy: This is a very interesting debate. I'm a liberal Roman Catholic. That said, I don't really care, but it's interesting none-the-less.
Yahoo!: Alex Rodriguez hit three home runs in his first three at-bats and had a career-high 10 RBIs Tuesday night in the New York Yankees' 12-4 win over the Los Angeles Angels.
Randy: Anybody for WOW! Watching the replays, I feel sorry for Bartolo Colon, the losing pitcher. He could have thrown the ball two feet off the plate and A-Rod would still have knocked the cover off.
News.com: The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created.
Randy: Sounds like my porn surfing days are over Big Brother.
Suddenly, Weblogs are Everywhere.
Bookmarked for later viewing pleasure.
Adrian: There was a tunnel labeled "WARNING: ASBESTOS" my rule of thumb with asbestos and other hazardous materials is "if it doesn't kill me instantly then it only makes me stronger", so we followed it until it came to a dead end. And I mean dead cause that f---ing tunnel went straight to hell and I won't be convinced otherwise. I felt like the ghosts of a thousand janitors were watching me.
F-Secure: F-Secure staff has found a malicious website that utilizes a spelling error when typing the name of the popular search engine - 'Google.com'. [cut] PLEASE DO NOT GO TO THIS WEBSITE!
Randy: Yet another reason to get rid of the address bar. I was thinking... assuming I worked exclusively on a computer and I wanted the rest of the day off.
IDI: More and more non-profit and corporate organizations are realizing that they ignore the blogosphere at their own peril. [cut] IDI continues its history of innovative use of new media in public affairs campaigns with a new service offering— Blogger Relations.
Randy: a.k.a. how to kiss blogosphere ass 101.
- IE 42%
- Netscape 21% (includes Firefox)
- Liferea 1.5%
- Sauce Reader 1.4%
- Feedreader 1.4%
- Sharpreader 1.0%
- NewsGator 0.8%
- gooRSSreader 0.7%
- FeedDemon 0.5%
- RssReader 0.5%
- iPodder 0.4%
I removed bots from the list, but the percentages still include the bots. I was actually looking for the RSS readers, so ignore #1 and #2, which isn't gonna change anytime soon. Liferea is the big surprise. FeedBurner has never reported this agent before. Thoughts?
Requires a PayPal account. After completing the survery, it told me I did not qualify for the demographics of the survey and I assume I'm not getting the $4. If any others take the survey, then please tell me of the results. First glance, it's a SCAM.
Google: With site-targeted advertising, advertisers will simply set a max CPM.
The Image Guessing Game. What Google search term would have returned these images?
BostonGlobe: The new owners of the Boston Red Sox have greatly expanded alcohol sales at Fenway Park, adding at least 16 new stands where beer is sold since taking over in 2001, according to the city licensing board. The team has also increased by a third the size of beer cups, from 12 ounces to 16 ounces.
Randy: Maybe I should buy a house in Boston.
My 7-yr-old daughter sent me her first iM today.
hi daddy i cant wate to go to the noo hose mommys hose is the besthose in the hol y world
We bought a house today.
NationalPost: He's an oldtimer by definition, not by admission. And that won't go unnoticed at the Bell Centre tonight when 38-year-old Shayne Corson, pictured, skates with a bunch of retired pros in a charity hockey game sponsored by Viagra.
Randy: Man, I'm desparate for hockey news and this is just funny. Note the pick up in baseball postings. Definately related to the hockey lock-out. And it's Saturday night and I'm watch NASCAR.
MLB: Mulder was rarely even threatened as he picked apart Houston's lineup over the full 10 frames. He permitted four hits, all singles, and didn't issue a walk. The only Astros player to get so far as second base was Adam Everett, who reached on an error and advanced to scoring position on a broken-bat grounder.
Randy: More impressive than a cycle. Even more impressive than a no-hitter. A ten-inning complete game 1-0 shutout. And to think, somebody once did this in game seven.
WeeklyWorldNews: Ladies, before you date that hunky guy you met last night, read the 10 vital signs that will reveal if he's a STUD or a DUD in bed.
Randy: For the ladies. I've always wondered, of the 100-200 subscribers to this blog, how many are female (stats via Feedburner and Bloglines). By the way, Bernadette, my wife can rest assured that I qualified as a DUD :(
PersonalHealth: Coffee was once bad for us, but now it may prevent diabetes....A study last year in Finland found that the risk of developing adult onset Type II diabetes fell 27 percent for men and 29 percent for women when they drank 3 to 4 cups of coffee each day.
Randy: Since I drink 6 to 8 cups each day, I assume my risk drops 50%.
AP: E-mail provider Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) has pledged to give the Michigan family of a Marine killed in Iraq full access to their son's e-mail account, ending a legal tangle that began after his parents sought messages he wrote before his death.
TechNewsWorld: Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) will make it easier for businesses to use its management tools for a wide variety of hardware, up to and including Linux systems, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told delegates at the company's Management Summit in Las Vegas.
VOX: The manager of SiliconValleyWatcher noticed (via SearchEngineLowdown) the appearance of a Google-branded browser in its server log files.
John O'Malia: You could say we are the Kazaa of online gambling.
Reuters: Google had net income of $369.2 million, or $1.29 a share, in the first quarter, compared with $64.0 million, or 24 cents a share, a year earlier. Total revenue was $1.26 billion, up from $651.6 million last year.
Randy: Wow! I'm gonna start a search company too!
Of late, I've been playing a lot of online Texas Holdem. I have a need to get better.
AmericaBlog: Microsoft secretly pulls support for gay rights bill in Washington State to curry favor with religious right.
Randy: I wonder what the new pope would say about this? I just used my tell-a-friend function and sent the blog entry to the pope.
The Register: The e-Pope's addy can be found here by clicking on the "Greetings to the Holy Father" link.
Four Tuesday games where you can get a ticket for only $2!
- April 26 vs Tampa Bay
- May 10 vs Kansas City
- May 24 vs Boston
- June 14 vs St. Louis
USA Today: Even before Tiger Woods' slow-motion marketing coup resonated throughout Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., another Masters victory of sorts was celebrated. For the first time in the company's brief history of making clubs, more players had used Nike irons than any other brand in a PGA Tour event - and at a major, to boot.
Randy: Nike!
Google: My Search History lets you easily view and manage your search history from any computer.
Randy: Very cool! Helps answer some stupid questions.
iBt4iM reader: Why not play battleships? This site is really rather pointless. I'll print it out and use it to wipe my arse!
Randy: Good idea!
Bloomberg: Betbug is preparing to list its shares on London's Alternative Investment Market in an initial public offering that may value the online betting company at 25 million pounds ($47.7 million), Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported Feb. 20.
Randy: 120kdiv10mx25mlb.
Kuro5hin: Preparing now for zombiedom is a good idea. Remember what the TV preacher said, "When hell is full, the dead will walk the earth." So it's bound to happen sooner or later. Since it would look wierd if you started bricking up your windows and stockpiling rifles, you have to be smart about this.
Randy: I would print this on paper, just in case the zombie attack takes out the Internet.
Email from Flickr HQ: Hi RVDad!
You may have heard on the grapevine that we planned to
reward our dear Flickr members who bought a Pro Account in
the early days. Well, it's true! And since you're one of
those lovely people, here's a little something to say YOU
ROCK!
- Double what you paid for! - Your original 1 year pro account has been doubled to 2 years, and your new expiry date is Apr 1, 2007.
- More capacity! - Now you can upload 2 GB per month.
- 2 free Pro Accounts to give away to your friends! - This won't be activated for a day or two, but when it is, you'll see a note on your home page telling you what to do.
Randy: Thanks Yahoo! Flickr. YOU ROCK!
One of my 100+ search bots discovered this excellent Web page. Opencola is alive and selling luxury bedding. Who is opencola.com?
Camera phone pics of Sheffield in action.
iBt4iM reader via email: Thanks! Hey man... there is no point to this email other than to say thanks for the articles you write. I find them very useful and I realize that sometimes educating the faceless internet is a thankless job. So here is one face giving some praise! Keep on doin' your thing... that is all. Take care, xxx, RCM #1 groupie
Randy: I love getting these.
iBLOGthere4iM comments: this web site is so fricken gay and it should be taken off the internet.
Randy: He's referring to my Website. I'm considering his request to take myself off the Web. I gotta agree, I write fricken crap ;)
Click2Houston: A fan at Boston's Fenway Park was ejected after taking a swipe at Sheffield as he was trying to field a ball down the right field line. [cut] Sheffield said he "almost snapped" -- but then "thought about the consequences."
Randy: You have to be impressed with Sheffield.
Update: It seems the blogosphere has decided that Sheffield was at fault. Amazing how we like to knock people off the pedestal we created for them. Anybody pointing the finger at Sheffield is an idiot.
Tris Hussey: Well the character blog saga continues. This time it isn’t a gourmand but a ungulate, a moose. Moosetopia is a blog “written” by the moose mascot of Moose track ice cream.
Randy: Most blogs are junk (like this one for instance). But like all junk, it's all in the eye of the beholder. I'm certain 99% of the planet thinks the Moose Ice Cream blog sucks. But, I'm also certain there's 1000 people who love that ice cream and will read the blog everyday. That's the point of blogs. The Long Tail. The complaining about character (not fake) blogs is revealing those that simply don't get it!
RedFlagDeals.com: Interested in checking out the Jays? Then head down to Scotia Plaza in Toronto before the end of the day. The Blue Jays have a display with batting cages and FREE popcorn. They are also selling level 100 and 200 seats for 50% off with no service charge. Includes all home games.
http://www.redflagdeals.com/deals/main.php/instore/tbp_apr_13_blue_jays/
This pretty much explains it. It's a forward to a Subversion book. Basically, the author of the forward explains how the authors of the book were haunting the Subversion mailing list noting real-life user problems.
- Tie these balloons to your vehicle
- Drive VERY FAST
- Watch people freak out.
- Tell the nice officer you thought they were real.
ING: There are no fees, no service charges, no minimum balance, and your money is never locked in (it is your money, after all). AND we'll automatically put $13 into your new savings account. [cut] with a minimum initial deposit of $100.
Everytime I post to this blog, I get the following email...
Delivery to the following recipients failed. sudip_p@hotmail.com
Seems this persons hotmail account is dormant and full. But for the strangest reason, MSN Alerts puts "Return-Path: randy@kbcafe.com" in message headers for alerts on my blog. I just hope somebody will read this and forward it to the correct MSN bug fixer who can save me some Gmail megabytes and a couple clicks of the mouse.
WeeklyWorldNews: YOU can enjoy sizzling sex with anyone you like on the astral plane.
Randy: Hotter links from HotLinks.
SI: Yes, the Toronto Blue Jays have the best record in baseball. They're in first place in the AL East and have won all three of their series so far.
Randy: Who won the Stanley Cup this year? Did I miss it?
Slashdot: Wordpress, an incredibly popular Open Source Blogging system was found to be spamming google by inserting hidden links to junk content on high paying Adsense keywords such as mesothelioma and debt consolidation.
Randy: Wow, how did I miss this. I knew what Wordpress was doing, but I had no idea they got banned.
- Unlicensed individuals selling securities.
- Unregistered investment products.
- Promissory notes.
- Offshore investments.
- Ponzi schemes.
- High-yield investment schemes.
- Affinity fraud.
- Variable annuity sales practices.
- Oil and gas scams.
- Internet fraud.
Randy: And I've fallen for all 10 of them at some point in history ;)
Chris Nolan: So you're a blogger and thinking of ways to get more traffic to your site? You could do what Sports By Brooks does and hold real-world events where you have busty, attractive women to show up wearing tight fitting closes with your logo on it. Then post photos of said events.
Randy: Too funny!
The Herald: A man has told how he owes his life to Viagra, the drug normally used for impotence. Grant Crow, 52, takes the drug three times a day to combat pulmonary hypertension, which is incurable and, without treatment, offers a life expectancy of less than three years.
Randy: What can't Viagra do?
Mark told me a week or two ago that he was stepping down. I don't know how I held back from blogging it ahead of the announcement. But I did. The new CEO of Tribe.net is Jan Gullet.
http://markpincus.blogspot.com/2005/04/two-big-announcements-tribe-hires-new.html
Last night and this morning, I was trying to upload pics via Flickr's native Windows uploader. It failed predictably, over and over. Very frustrating.
For those that don't know, Tiger Woods announced he was back with what may go down in history as the greatest golf shot EVAR! As a side note, Tiger won the Masters tournament. Again.
Via Yahoo! Flickr, of course, in my right sidebar. Does anybody know how to do this with a given tag? It would be very interesting to syndicate images tagged juice on the Juice blog.
Wikipedia: Chris [Anderson] observed that products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail
Randy: The long tail of the blogosphere is even larger than one might think. There's 20+ million blogs out there that have less than 100 readers. Many have adsense. The winner? Google.
Fun shooting game.
Reuters: Toronto transit workers will strike on Monday, bringing subway and bus traffic to a halt in Canada's biggest city.
http://www.reuters.ca/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp?type=topNews&storyID=8130034
Randy: My drive to work is not going to fun next week. Without subway and bus traffic, everybody will be driving to work. The highways will be jammed.
Update: They settled and will not strike.
Jason Calacanis: The older I get the more I realize that business is about three very basic things:
- Hustle
- Passion
- Resiliency
Randy: Jason's entire blog post describes exactly what I'm learned over the last five years. You wanna succeed at anything, then read this blog post, know this blog post, be this blog post.
Bookmarked for later viewing pleasure.
http://www.martinandalex.com/images/Apple%20_Once%20You%20Go%20Mac_.mov
Very cool technique for using Gmail as a SPAM filter and email backup.
Tim Bray: I for one am unconvinced they’d govern better.
Randy: What? Give me a break. Is Harper gonna launder millions into his party fund? Harper is PM in 2006. Unfortunately, he sucks a bit. Wish we had somebody else.
The Red Couch team interviewed (by email) Mark Cuban.
Shel Israel: Do you have any anecdotes that will help my co-author and me win a Pulitzer Prize with this book?
Mark Cuban: Nope
http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2005/04/mark_cuban_inte.html
Cinematical: [Sophia] Stewart brought a lawsuit against the Wachowski Brothers in 2003, alleging their Matrix films borrowed crucial elements from a screenplay titled The Third Eye, which she wrote (and had copyrighted) in 1981, and later submitted to their production company in response to an advertisement.
Randy: I don't see how this is a copyright violation. You can't copyright ideas, like story plots, or can you?
Update: I found excerpts. At second glance, it looks like they copied a lot more than just a story plot. If anybody has a pointer to The Third Eye manuscript, then I'd love to read it.
Economist.com: It is too early to say whether the flush environment heralds another tech investment bubble, but there are echoes of the dotcom boom.
Randy: We've crossed the chasm.
Ryan McReynolds: I'm getting really tired of all the glitches and hiccups of Blogger. You may have noticed double posts at times on this blog. That's because you never know whether clicking something on Blogger will actually accomplish what is intended. Lately it seems like clicking does nothing but bring up a 'document contains no data.' Maddening.
Susan Mernit: Blogger has managed to completely screw up my blog for the past 24 hours, so I will be posting here till I get it fixed -- or make that long-threatened move to another platform. This may be the longest I've gone without blogging -- involuntarily -- and it sucks.... I miss my fix.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67138,00.html
Randy: This last week, I've resolved not to leave comments on blogspot.com blogs anymore. My recent attempts have been futile. I also noticed that Blogger's RSD and BloggerApi are both broken. It's been downhill for Blogger since evhead moved on.
Satellite image of the line to see the pope.
Google Blogoscoped: Using the Yahoo API, I created the Auto-Linker tool. Enter any text – like a blog post – to have it be auto-linked. The phrases are selected by Yahoo to be significant, and the link URLs are chosen by Yahoo as well (or Google, as alternate option).
Randy: Very cool use of the Yahoo API.
One of these fellow students was Paul Allen. In 1972, Gates and Allen purchased an Intel 8008 chip for building an automated car-counting machine. They formed a company that Gates would call Traf-O-Data. Its headquarters was Allen’s dorm room at Washington State University.
News.com: The venture, formerly called INdTV, will be called Current.tv, it was announced on Monday. The 24-hour network will target an 18- to 34-year-old audience and offer short-form content--15-second to five-minute segments--to be contributed by viewers. Viewers will also be able to vote for their favorite videos and get tutorials via the Internet on how to produce their own segments, according to network officials.
Randy: These guys are pushing all the right buttons. But can they deliver on the hype?
Last month, while I was on vacation, kbcafe.com averaged 5256 visitors per day, up nearly 400% year-over-year and up 13% month-over-month. Je like. Now, if I can only figure out a way to pay the bills (bandwidth cost is breaking $100 CDN/month) :(
Want to be an sponsor? $100 CDN/month to start. Need help!
MSU State news: Thousands of MSU students and fans charged East Lansing streets late Saturday night after MSU's loss to North Carolina in the Final Four round of the NCAA Tournament in St. Louis, Mo. "It's been termed a riot by police," McGlothian-Taylor said.
Randy: Another Michigan riot? Is Michigan is the new LA?
Today, I paid for Flickr Pro account. I'm gonna start uploading my Disney pics tonight.
Gmail's Compose Mail now comes in rich text WYSIWYG.
Footnote: May not be fully deployed yet.
Inc: Inc. magazine goes behind the scenes with 26 entrepreneurs who best exemplify the extraordinary drive, creativity, and passion of American business.
Yet another Google Maps service. These guys don't stop producing.
Fred von Lohmann: Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), we are writing to provide you notice of your illegal activities and copyright infringement. [cut] Your organization's conduct constitutes willful copyright infringement and unfair competition and is damaging Mr. Doctorow, BoingBoing, our customers and our advertisers.
Randy: Cory also sent a DMCA notice to Drew Carey ;)
Yahoo! 360° has ended. It was too good; the Internet wasn't ready for such goodness. Please join Yahoo! 180, our new mediocre network that will make you depressed and lonely.
http://www.bradhill.com/yahoo-180.htm
also SixFoo! 660.
RFC: The current representation formats for Unicode (UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-16) are not storage and computation efficient on platforms that utilize the 9 bit nonet as a natural storage unit instead of the 8 bit octet.
Randy: The new iThong mini uses 9-bit nonets.
Google has announced their own line of smart drinks.
Microsoft: MSN Search celebrates April Fool's Day by introducing Spoof, a tool to let you create funny search results about a friend, family member, or co-worker.
Randy: Too funny!
Jason Calacanis: CNN just signed an agreement to aquire Weblogs, Inc. [cut] Starting March 1st—a month from today—I’ll be taking over as director of programming for CNN.
Randy: Very good. Almost fell for it.
Register: IKEA's flatpack days may soon be a distant memory, as Apple and Pixar founder Steve Jobs turns to his latest challenge. Inter IKEA Systems BV will employ Jobs as "acting CEO", from next month.
Randy: The first good April fools joke today. More to come.
Update: Mr. Jobs is very busy today. He also joined Mozilla Foundation as President.
Google: On the eve of Gmail's one-year birthday, our engineers were toiling away furiously. Notes scribbled all over the walls. Complex calculations on napkins and empty pizza boxes. Millions of M&Ms. The result?... starting today, we're beginning the roll-out of our new and top secret Infinity+1 storage plan.
Randy: I'm currently at 1/4 of my first Gigabyte. Most of that is SPAM. But I'll take more Gmail storage.
http://news.com.com/Google+plans+to+double+Gmail+capacity/2100-1032_3-5649571.html