Monthly Archives: May 2007


Friday Ark #140

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can find out how to board the Friday Ark at the Arkive page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings. Also, there are more doggies at Weekend Dog Blogging hosted this weekend by Sweetnicks.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 165th edition , 5/20, is up at The Cat Blogosphere. The 166th edition will be hosted on 5/27 by ..??… There are more weekly cats at Weekend Cat Blogging #103 hosted on 5/26-27 at House of (Mostly) Black Cats . Do go shout out at The Catbloggers Frappr Map.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. The 49th edition is up and hosted by Via Negativa. The 50th edition will be hosted on 5/31 by A Blog Around the Clock.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The 19th edition is up and hosted by Burning Silo . The 20th edition will be hosted by milkriverblog.

For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page, The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Note for Haloscan Users:

Over the past month or so Haloscan started (the end of July) handling of trackbacks has improved though it is still pretty broken for carnival type posts. Now, instead of rejecting every attempt to ping it accepts single pings for a while and then will start rejecting them. I will keep trying to track back to Haloscan boarders but can make no guarantees for any particular week.

Note for Typepad Users:

Typepad continues to behave similar to Haloscan for trackbacks. I been able to get trackbacks to most, if not all, Typepad based boarders. I have to do it one at a time and wait a while in between pings but Typepad does not go into semi-permanent rejection mode like Haloscan.


Microsoft Update Alleviates But Does Not Fix Responsiveness Problem

Microsoft swears that the two patches they have released fix an ongoing problem caused by Windows Update:

Microsoft Corp. said that patches for a Windows Update lockup problem do fix the flaw, even though users still see their computers’ CPUs maxed out at 100%.

They are wrong. At least from where I am sitting.
I installed the fixes manually two days ago. Things do seem to have improved however programs still become unresponsive from time to time. This does not seem to happen as frequently and the program does not seem to stay unresponsive for as long but the problem still occurs.
Microsoft clearly fixed part of the problem but they need to do some more followup.

On a related note…only a few more weeks until the MacBook Pro family is upgraded.


Keith, It’s a Feature Not a Bug

Olberman provides a shorter Olberman:

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

Unfortunately, Keith, it is not just at this hour.
These are for the most part the same pathetic folks who have been supporting the Iraq invasion from the beginning.
Betrayal, Keith. Nope, they are doing what governments, in particular the US government, do and seem to have always done: wage war. If not on others then on their own people.

It will never be too soon to say no to war; to say no to the thugs who would wage war.
Around the world, toss’m out!


Are Voyeurs and Predators Rushing to Apply For Jobs

On the left is an image of Susan Halloway that we first reported on in 2003. It uses a high energy x-ray techologoy.
On the right is an image created using millimeter wave technology that has been implemented at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Both types of scanner are still under evaluation by the US based TSA.
capt.1056584283.see_through_security_bbp108.jpgsecurity-theater.jpg
How useful will these screening devices be? This will partly depend on just how big a problem they are targeting. Does anyone have a pointer to documentation on how many folks have been prevented from hijacking or downing a commercial plane in the past 1, 2 or 3 years? As noted at Happening Here:

It’s still just theater — anyone seeking to harm an aircraft will figure out ways around the system. But every time we fly, we’ll be reminded we should be very afraid and need protection.

And, if Americans, should only vote for a tough on security republican…
Maybe, just maybe, all this security money should be focused on something that takes many lives on a daily basis. Something like auto related fatalities.

On another aspect, if screeners are not archiving these images already they will as soon as the first perpetrator gets through with some problem device. If for no other reason than to prove that they did due diligence. Of course, when governments archive something it usually does not ever get thrown away and it is eventually shared with other government agencies and their private subcontractors.


Google Searches I’m Not Interested In Today

Any of the current1 top 100 searches on Google’s new Hot Trends page. These aren’t the most popular searches. Rather:

Google analyzes search queries and presents searches that are deviating the most in relationship to the past traffic. So, if a search term paddles along with a few hundred queries a day and suddenly jumps to a million queries a day, it’s deviated significantly from its past search pattern and might pop up on Google Hot Trends.

Sticklers amongst you might say that by default I’m interested in #93: google trends.
Apparently I am out of touch with important things.

15/22 7:34 PM GMT