Sunday, February 27, 2011

New Stuff

Vocabulary Lesson From Someone Else: Today we salute coterminous, an adjective used to characterize things that share a common boundary -- in honor of the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the territory of Colorado. The territory was organized in the wake of the Pike's Peak gold rush, which brought considerable white settlement to the area. The territory existed for a bit over 15 years before becoming a state, with boundaries coterminous with the original territory.

Rage: In 2009 it paid no tax … but received a tax refund. And last year the federal government gave Bank of America $2.3 billion.

Self Defense/ Empowerment: You might want to think about what weapons you can legally carry with you in case of emergency:
  • stun guns
  • pepper spray – although I doubt the effectiveness of this as a deteriant
  • laser guided flamethrower
  • Attack dolphin
  • etc.
Create Your own set of arrow brushes from your hand sketched arrows. Do the same for:
  • Robots
  • Plants
  • Faces

Friday, February 25, 2011

Noam Chomsky's Wisdom

The man himself, Noam Chomsky honors the less intelligent by sharing with us the following wisdom:

It should be mentioned that there's another element to the military-industrial complex issue, which he didn't bring up. At that time, in the 1950s, as he certainly knew, the Pentagon was funding what became -- a lot of Pentagon funding was going into creating what became the next phase of the high-tech economy at that time: computers, micro-electronics, shortly after, the internet. Much of this developed through a Pentagon subsidy funding procurement, other mechanisms. So it was a kind of a cover for shifting -- for a basic theme of contemporary economic development. That is, the public pays the costs and takes the risks, and eventual profit is privatized, in the case of computers and the internet, after decades. So that's another aspect of the military-industrial complex which is worth keeping in mind.

Example/ Observation: Ross Perot – developing software for healthcare records in TX

Reporter Robert Fisk es bueno:
Boeing owns Narus, which is the digital technology that's involved with surveillance of the cell phone, of the internet system there, where they can find dissident voices for the Egyptian regime.

Internship Sites Reported in the Walls Street Journal Years Ago:
InternsOver40.blogspot.com
UrbanInterns.com
CollegeGrad.com
AfterCollege.com
Internships.com
CollegeRecruiter.com

Challenge yourself to learn to type faster: 65 WPM is a good goal for now

Try http://www.stockmusicsite.com/stockmusic/search/home_srchpost.cfm for text to speech

Terms that would make me click on a link from Google results
300 Stunning Handpicked...
73 Human Selected...

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Has USA Today Ever Asked You to be Part of a Survey?

Vocabulary Person Whose Writing I Came Across Informs Us That: febrile means "characterized by fever," or by extension, "characterized by a great deal of nervous excitement or energy," which is probably the sense intended in such common collocations as "febrile imagination" or "febrile atmosphere."

Food: Epicurus, allrecipies.com and now Google Recipies

Bands to Check Out: Ten Years After, Escape the Fate

Most Important Thought of My Month: When was the last time that you or anyone you know got a call from USA Today asking you to be part of a poll? Ask your friends and neighbors if they have ever gotten a call from USA Today asking them to give you their opinion. The color poll results on the cover of the USA Today "newspaper" are complete bullshit.

*UPDATE: Stephen Colbert's people must be reading this blog because after I had this thought he did a segment blasting USA Today for running the results of a poll on the front page of their paper that found that women preferred men who dressed well over men who had a lot of money, which was conducted by Men's Warehouse.  YouTube it.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

ScoreSense.com Should be Investigated by Government Oversight Groups for Theft

Find: white papers on topics that are of interest to you

FNO: Shirking official responsibilities for supposedly lofty goals shall forever be known as pulling a Wisconsin Democratic State Senator

FNO: Union busting shall forever be known as pulling a Wisconsin Governor

Goal: It is my goal to add more kinds of literary related materials to this site in the future including inspirational materials, newspaper and journal articles and information on contemporary and past authors worth knowing. Additionally, if I can summon the required effort, I plan to someday host an annual writing contest here.

Hassle of the Week: I had to call Citi to dispute a bullshit charge today from ScoreSense.com. These scammers charged my credit card without my authorization.  These pricks aren't even scam artists- that would imply that there is something artful about their methods- these people are thieves who prey on folks that don't check their credit card statements.  

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

New Life for Cliff's Notes???

When You Have Time, You Might Click On:



Try Odesk
Lightbox 2
sba.gov

Are Cliff's Notes Ever Going to be Relevant in the Age of Wikipedia:

WSJ article says AOL.com will distribute them - Coalition films and One Three, Inc are the producers and bought the rights from Wiley. Say they will be 'irreverent shorts that still manage to present the plot, characters and theme to the viewer." Going to do The Odyssey and Hamlet and more..............

Follow up on the above to find out.


Monday, February 21, 2011

These Things Happen I Suppose

Publicity:
  • Report that you received a serious death threat after publishing a “controversial” something or other with a link to the text
Someone else reported:
In several experiments, Mr Rucker and Mr Dubois planted rumours among undergraduates. They found that with each repetition, scepticism diminished. The rumours themselves did not change; only the likelihood that the students would believe them. These findings were published in a report called “The Failure to Transmit Certainty”.


Adbusters calls for:
Vow never to walk into a Starbucks ever again. Instead, search out the most interesting indie coffee shop around where you live and work … get to know the people who own and run the place and get your friends and co-workers to join you there. Individually this may feel like a drop in the bucket, but if all of us do it collectively, then we can begin to shift power from megacorporations to our friends and neighbors.
Tweet #NOSTARBUCKS, Facebook it, email it, whisper it to a friend or shout it from the rooftops. Spread the word and let’s start brewing the mood for a worldwide revolution.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Metal Stamping Kit

Note: For $15.75 you can buy a ¼ high metal stamping kit from HarborFreight.com. Perhaps you could keep an eye out for something less expensive and use it to transform old silverware into a metal label.


Update 3/31/11 - Customers have left some awful reviews about this product on the HarborFreight.com website.  According to people that have purchased this product the claims about the hardened steel used to make this product is bullshit.  


Amazon has this 1/4" metal stamping set for $8.50 + $6.74 shipping:



Music: Serial Killer Country (title?) is my new favorite genre of music. The tune from Full Throttle was my first taste of this music and it has stuck with me ever since. Lately, I've rediscovered the genre playing during the opening credits of HBO's True Blood. Jace Everett's Bad Things is baby-making music plain and simple.

Someone else's thoughts on small icons on ebay and Etsy:
Business Topics



Before anyone gets as far as your pictures, they have to first want to click on the thumbnail, because that's the first thing they see. There was a thread on this yesterday, and I wanted to do a show-and-tell.

The web is visual. Shopping on the web is extremely visual. Every day we read threads about low views or no views. It's not because the items are not good or attractive, but rather because nobody clicks them.
Your item's thumbnail is your one and only opportunity to get people into your shop. There's no grey area here. They click or they don't. Full stop.

That thumbnail has to make them want to click. It has to catch their eye, intrigue them, seduce them, make them open the door and walk into your shop. If you had a real store, it would be the display window. I say tag shmag. People mostly browse. Yes, they search too, but they mostly browse sections they're interested in. A page appears. 21 thumnails, 75x75 in list view or 155x125 in gallery view.

If you're like me, you flick your Magic Mouse or you spin your scroll wheel, and zip down the page, your eyes darting around looking for something to jump out.

So here's an example. A beaded necklace, and two thumbnails out of many possibilities. Both shot with the same really crappy camera, in the same light at the same time.

One view from above, the whole necklace, the photo straight out of the crappy camera.
One close up, just a small section, levels adjusted after the fact.

List view:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bomobob/4685254318

Gallery view:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bomobob/4684648679

Which would you click? Even though you can't really tell what the 2nd thumbnail is, it stands out.

Here are the two full size pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bomobob/4684620133
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bomobob/4685254410

Notice how the dark photo, though not great, isn't too too bad in full size. It's dark, but that's the only issue. But in a thumbnail, it's just totally unclickable.

So while it's important to have great photos, spend lots of time looking at the thumbnails because they look totally different than the full size pictures. Use high contrast views. Make the colours POP. Make them visually interesting. You have 5 slots for pictures, so the main one doesn't have to show the whole item. Don't just upload you images to Etsy and then see them. Change your images to 75x75 or 155x125 and view them in real size on your screen.
How do they look? Do they jump off the page, or do they just sit there, waiting to be passed by?


Posted at 9:57 am, June 9 2010 EST

Stock Photography Notes: This is the license I want for my stock images: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Mothers lock up your daughters, farmers put your livestock in the barn, I'm getting ready to go to NorCal this weekend!

Note: You have roughly 50 DVDs that you can write to, which is roughly 225 GB (4.5 GB per disc x 50 discs)

Web design poster:d


Lyrics:
Back in 9th grade I discovered my knuckles
Caught him clean on the chin, watched him buckle
Next day him and his minions rushed me
He wanna run it back he assumed I got lucky
I dropped my backpack pulled my pants up
Closed my hands up and beat that man up

Misc.: I think it's lame that the NBA allows alcohol advertising to be associated with their product: “Bacardi is an official marketing partner of the NBA” according to the ad I just heard during the NBA finals

TrueCrypt is for bosses

This makes me rage:


An incredible asshole of a judge is found guilty today of accepting $1,000,000 for imprisoning juvenile offenders in order to keep a juvenile detention facility in operation. In a blatant display of croynism the judge was allowed to go home after he was found guilty in court to await sentencing.

The mother of an 18 year old who killed himself because of the sentence he received from this judge gets her chance to yell at the judge outside of the coutroom in an incredibly powerful piece of video she screams at this asshole judge. I demand life imprisonment for this

Create: You should have a Photoshop setup guide to setup your preferences on your

Photoshop Customization: Setup your grid so that there is a gridline every 10 pixels with 10 subdivisions, the default setting is one gridline every one inch with four subdivions


To Do: Backup your PS brushes, patterns, fonts, actions, etc.


Mothers lock up your daughters, farmers put your livestock in the barn, I'm getting ready to go to NorCal this weekend!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Business Model

Business Model: Offer a preview of the content, you can make a donation here to be allowed access to the rest of the content, allow customers to choose the donation amount with a suggested donation amount of $xx.xx.

Web Design Stuff:
These sites are good graphic design inspiration: http://www.asthmastudio.com/

Always include a hhover state
Breadcrumb navigation – This is incredibly helpful for letting users jump between various sections of your website as well as knowing where they are within your site’s structure
  • Site map navigation – This is useful for search engines, but also for your users if they want an overview of all of your site structure.
  • Search options – Even with the best navigation in the world it’s helpful to include a search form. This is the key difference between searching and browsing, and it’s likely that your users will want to do both
Find: Recipes for potatoes, which are cheap, would be good to have

Managerial question to ask: What is the last book you read that relates to your job? Or ask without the job part and think about firing anyone who answers “a children's pop-up book” instead of a Cathie Black's Basic Black or something similar.

Epic Action:

So I'm told: A lapdance is so much better, when the stripper's crying!!

Tip for Better Living:

Check this shit before thinking about living in a new city for any significant amount of time:

Start a mobile business like a G:

Thursday, February 17, 2011

I'm very discreet... but I will haunt your dreams. (sniff)

INSTALL SOFTWARE TO CAPTURE AUDIO BEING PLAYED ON YOUR COMPUTER- BE ABLE TO SAVE ANY AUDIO ON YOUR COMPUTER AND LOAD IT INTO ITUNES!!!



Online photo service Artscow.com offers Three Custom 20" x 30" Canvas Printsfor $89.97. Apply coupon code "VDAYCNVS" to cut it to $20 and bag free shipping. That's a savings of $102 and the lowest total price we could find for three canvas prints of this size. (We saw just one of these prints for $25 two years ago.) It's made with fade-resistant UV archival inks. Deal ends February 28.

Frustrated with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, a Philadelphia homeowner took the bank to court under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and won a $1,000 default judgment because it wouldn't answer his formal questions about a dispute. The bank blew him off, so the man got the sheriff to schedule a sale of contents of a Wells Fargo Home Mortgage location to pay for the judgment and $200 in court and sheriff's fees.The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the man says he's foreclosed on Wells Fargo.The sales is scheduled to go down March 4, but likely won't happen because Wells Fargo is working to settle the matter, and believed it had already done so last month when it sent the man more than $1,000 to cover the judgment.
The way it currently works is that debt collectors buy five to six year old debts for pennies on the dollar from companies that have already written off ever collecting the debt. Then, the firms, frequently run by attorneys, employ a system of auto-dialers and call center teams to get the cash. They aim to get double what they paid for the debts. Anything after that is just gravy.In some states and counties, the collectors can seek court orders to get debtors to pay, which can result in a civil warrant for the debtor's arrest. Some precincts then apparently have the luxury and manpower to enforce them and a deputy sheriff shows up on the debtor's doorstep and arrests them. The debtor can spend 24-48 hours in jail until their court appearance.Debtors often don't even know that there is a warrant out for their arrest until they get the knock on their door and the bracelets on their wrists.
-Consumerist



Consider looking into doing all of these forms for yourself someday:


content farms who analyze popular search trends and then regurgitate content to match those queries. That's why there are stories out there about how to groom troll dolls or other crappy "articles" that may or may not be actually helpful to anyone. This all leads to search results on Google that are irrelevant and uninformative.

Rework your resume. Resumes should advertise your accomplishments rather than responsibilities. Employers value action and ambition over titles. 

Find and own a specialty. It tends to be more lucrative to hone a particular skill to perfection rather than being a generalist with no particular overpowering strength. The best at any profession can command the highest salaries.”



Photoshop – Put your head on famous works of art or paintings

I want a one button approach to turning a webpage into: a pdf document and a jpeg image- none of this push print, wait, type, wait some more= one button or one keyboard shortcut- FASTER

Lesson Learned: Grinding your teeth, bruxism, will eventually lead to a dulling down of your teeth and possibly chipped teeth. When engaging in your fat hatred avoid grinding your teeth. I suggest growling or swearing instead.

Bruxism isn't pretty.


If this is your first time at Casa de Awesome, you have to fight.


Play:
  • Psychonauts
  • Stacking

Setup an old box to run Unbutu Linux just for shits and giggles

If you're not careful you can be so distracted your entire life that your miss important opportunities.

I don't turn off my computer. I swtich from typing on my laptop to watching a how to podcast on my desktop computer, finish my train of thought and swtich over to writing code to update one of my websites, back to the desktop to check my RSS feed to see the latest news I setup to aggrigrate from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Nation, the Economist and other sources click on a few articles to open them in tabs saving the URLs to interesting articles and using FTP software to upload them to one of my internet sites, then back to my laptop where I download the URLs and add formatting and accompanying images to make everything that much more spicy





HaHa

As a monocular (one-eyed) person in the current world, I'm not very disabled. 3D media that depends on binocular vision makes me moreso. Soon I may have a disability created, or at least magnified from a nuisance to a disability, by a tech "breakthrough." Besides my personal stake, I think it's curious that there's a rush to technology that disenfranchises certain users. And very little reporting on that angle. Seems I'm not the only one with a blindside.


Learn to say no more effectively and more often. Time is your most precious commodity and you need to be careful to guard yours effectively.


Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece, “The Battle of Algiers”


What of the future? Mr McMahon recently observed two Barnes & Noble outlets close to each other in Maryland. The one in a strip mall did less well than the one with no dedicated parking, but near a cycle path and the train. It is surrounded by other shops and restaurants in a sort of town centre, or, as Brandon Palanker of Renaissance Downtowns, a developer, describes it, “a boutique city”. That may be the way ahead.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Better Living

Staying Organized:

Put it back after you use it
Keep it where you use it

Chuck the stuff you don't use

Have an outbox: I started using an outbox during my first Cure and I haven't looked back. Most of us have a problem detaching from our stuff even if it's stuff we don't use or want. Of course there's the junk. That's easy to get rid of but man do I feel guilty when I'm getting rid of something I paid good money for, that was gifted to me by a good friend or that I inherited. That's where the outbox comes in. I use a bag but you can use a box, a spot in the closet or a little-used corner of a room. I put stuff here while I live without it (and subconsciously work through the anxiety of getting rid of it). After about a month or so, it's easier to make a rational decision about what to do with it.

Quality over quantity: My life got a lot simpler when I started to cut down on how much of any one thing I bought. For example, I have two sets of sheets. One for the wash, one for the bed. It feels good knowing that I have less to store and I don't feel guilty about buying stuff that's a little better quality because I know I'm definitely going to using it.

Make one thing in every room a priority item: Concentrate on keeping that one thing clean and the rest of the room will feel clean and eventually the clean will spread to the surrounding areas.

Use a landing strip

Links



Although no download of the app is available, as with most Reza’s experiments expect this to appear soon.
More info on syedrezaali.com and also keep an eye on his flickr.

New Hawaii 5-0

Hawaii 5-0 is pretty well done

Monday, February 7, 2011

These Things Happen, I Suppose

illuminati backwards followed by .com

itanimulli.com

Brittany Spears Song:




Hosted by San Diego Miniature Crafters, everyone from beginner to the experienced miniaturist can enjoy exhibits, sales and classes for the crafter, artist and collector of doll-house-size miniatures in one-quarter-inch, one-half-inch and one-inch scale at the 37th annual Miniature Show & Sale.
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 5 and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6 at Al Bahr Shrine, 5440 Kearny Mesa Road, Kearny Mesa. $7 adults, $2 ages 8 to 11. Information: (619) 292-0092 or sdminiatures.com




Pepakura

http://papercraftparadise.blogspot.com/
http://nintendopapercraft.blogspot.com/
http://www.papercraftcentral.net/





Visit Time Square Without Having to Spring for Cab Fare


Note to Self: Next time I go to Manhattan screw the Subway, I'm taking taxis.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Links



Photos of the court of every college and university stadium around the country

Game rated 4/5 by ADS:

tineye.com – reverse image search

Nothing to be afraid of here, folks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6xGU2_g9s

Word of the day: amnesia

Get Rid of the Pro Bowl

Instead of the Pro Bowl there should be a skills competition that pits Qbs against each other in contests of throwing accuracy, escapability, etc,; the receivers could go for diving catches or catches near the sideline, long jump, obstacle course, no one gets hurt and people would actually watch


Friday, February 4, 2011

Aspiring Six Sigma

"Microsoft knows you're making throwaway e-mail accounts, and wants to make that process easier.  Today, Hotmail is getting a new feature aimed at "e-mail enthusiasts," which lets anyone create multiple e-mail accounts that can be read, replied to, and managed from their everyday e-mail inbox. These additional e-mail addresses can be had in the same manner as signing up for new accounts, but they require no extra log-ins or upkeep."

Create Your Own Trivia Show and Share It With Me!

Kai's Power Tips & Tricks for Adobe Photoshop:



Exif Data:


WTF happened?? i've seen boxxy..zunechan..the slaughter girl..tabby but i seem to have missed this shit.


The Legacy:
Let's have a good night gentleman

1. Get out your drink of choice.
2. open 3 tabs on your favorite browser.
3. On the first tab
RainyMood.com
4. The second
http://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=HMnrl0tmd3k
5. And lastly
http://endlessvideo.com/watch?v=DIx3aMRDUL4


Create your own Jeopardy show and air it on the cheap using people you find at college campuses or around the neighborhood

Game to Try:

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Politics

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, completed his 15th visit to Israel this week. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is set to leave on Saturday for a trip to Israel that is scheduled to include a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, made a similar visit last month, and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has led a trade delegation to Israel.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011


Keep an eye on: http://canv.as/

Photoshop Tip from Someone:

The Dodge and Burn tools got a big enhancement in Photoshop CS5. They actually work like we think they should now and you’ll get very good results with them. There is one trick though. When you select the Dodge or Burn tools, take a look in the top Options Bar and make sure you have Protect Tones turned on. This protects some of the key tones in your photos while dodging and burning (mainly the skin) and makes the tools work a lot better. If it’s turned off you’ll end up getting the not so great results those tools used to yield in previous versions of Photoshop.
A person wrote:
In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house in you can get yourself to. When you reach the front desk, ask to visit someone who calls himself "The Holder of the End". Should a look of child-like fear come over the workers face, you will then be taken to a cell in the building. It will be in a deep hidden section of the building. All you will hear is the sound of someone talking to themselves echo the halls. It is in a language that you will not understand, but your very soul will feel unspeakable fear.

Should the talking stop at any time, STOP and QUICKLY say aloud "I'm just passing through, I wish to talk." If you still hear silence, flee. Leave, do not stop for anything, do not go home, don't stay at an inn, just keep moving, sleep where your body drops. You will know in the morning if you've escaped succesfully.

If the voice in the hall comes back after you utter those words continue on. Upon reaching the cell all you will see is a windowless room with a person in the corner, speaking an unknown language, and cradling something. The person will only respond to one question...

I really enjoy Infographics: