June 26, 2009

Friday Ark #249

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 board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Invertebrates

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

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

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
  • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on June 26, 2009 | Comments (2)

June 25, 2009

Birds at the Ball Game

I and the Bird #103 is up at Birdfreak's place.

Fly on in and take a swing with your feathered friends.

Posted by Steve on June 25, 2009

June 19, 2009

Friday Ark #248

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 board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Invertebrates

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn't Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

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

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
  • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on June 19, 2009 | Comments (5)

June 17, 2009

So Your Mother Might Start Blogging

If you are a techie type and your mother is thinking about blogging what would you do?

If you are Matt Mullenweg you will create a few nifty programs to help her out.

For instance, a spam catcher like Akismet:

I'm also the primary person on Akismet, Automattic's anti-spam software for websites, which we created from scratch. We just added the first engineer six months ago, but for the past four years, it's been just me. I decided to do it because I was worried about my mom. She hadn't started a blog yet, but I had this crazy fear that when she did, she'd be bombarded by spam for Viagra and think that had something to do with what I did all day.

Second, if you want to make it easy for her, why heck, just create Wordpress or, for the ultimate in ease of use, get a free blog on WordPress.com :

My mom started a blog a couple of weeks ago. Six years into this, and we finally made it easy enough for my mom to use.

Yea, I know this site runs on Movabletype. If time permits and all the migration issues can be resolved I'll move it over to Wordpress some day down the road.

Posted by Steve on June 17, 2009 | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 12, 2009

Friday Ark #247

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 board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

Dogs

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

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

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
  • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on June 12, 2009 | Comments (3)

June 11, 2009

It's A World Wide Adventure

A novel presentation of I and the Bird, the 102nd edition, is up at the Birder's Lounge.

Hook your geography books under your wing when you fly in to join the party.

Posted by Steve on June 11, 2009

June 10, 2009

One Point for pelosi

She finally gets something right:

Big win for liberals: In an interview set to air on Ed Schultz’s show tonight, Nancy Pelosi will make it official: She’s opposed to allowing the measure banning the release of detainee photos to remain in the final war spending bill.

“I don’t think Congress should make an exception to FOIA,” Pelosi will say, her spokesperson, Brendan Daly, confirms to me.

...

The stripping of the measure is a big victory for liberals and civil libertarians, and puts the House Dem leadership at odds with the White House on a highly sensitive national security and civil liberties issue.

Please: transparency, transparency, transparency.

Only scoundrels hide behind the veil of national security.

Via Glenn Greenwald.

Posted by Steve on June 10, 2009

June 9, 2009

Broken Verizon Marketing

You have all, at least in the US, probably received many offers of combined phone, internet and TV service. The carriers call it a triple play if they are able to sign you up for all three services. It is to their benefit; not necessarily to yours.

Here in Modulatorville dial up internet service is something we kind of remember. Most folks around here moved on to cable or DSL many years ago.

We have been very happy with our Comcast internet service; a bit expensive but they keep making it faster and pretty much have held the line on pricing.

So today the USPS delivers yet another plea from Verizon to sign up for their triple play package. The price, $79.99/month for a year with lots of stipulations. Hmmm, quite a bit less then I pay now.

Lets see what we get:

For TV service it is not even their own. It is a DirectTV one room basic package. Not a match for what I currently have.

Well, phone service? It is Verizon phone service. But, they include nothing that let's make even a basic comparison to my current Verizon phone service.

How about internet:

Boost your online experience to the max.

With Verizon High Speed internet, with speeds up to 1 Mbps (for qualifying customers) you can enjoy the internet the way it should be...

(Ed: Emphasis in original)

Let me repeat: "with speeds up to 1 Mbps--34 times faster than 28.8 Kbps dial-up"

With apologies to those of you still stuck on dial-up this is a farce.

1 Mbps today is kind of like dial up 10 years ago. If you are trying to do anything interesting with large files, high quality streaming, etc., you are, well, pretty much hosed if you are limited to 1 Mbps. Never mind if you are a multi-computer household...it just is not going to work.

Dear Verizon, go green. Quit sending this schlock! Come back in you have an offering, you know, maybe when your FIOS service is available here in Modulatorville.

Posted by Steve on June 9, 2009

June 6, 2009

Saturday Night Rider Twofer

Well, we do not quite have the cachet of skippy's now occasional nite music club but just for your enjoyment here are two fine versions of I Know You Rider.

First, from Joan Baez, a 1960 version:

Next, from the good ol' Grateful Dead in 1972:

Thanks to Scott who was tweetin' up a rider storm on Friday and if you go look you'll find a Hot Tuna and a Joplin version as well.

Posted by Steve on June 6, 2009

June 5, 2009

What a torture it must be...

"An incredible panorama of horse flesh..." for our favorite customer:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Looking for Comity in the Muslim World
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorEconomic Crisis

Via WTF Is It Now?!?

Posted by Steve on June 5, 2009

Friday Ark #246

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 board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

Dogs

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn't Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

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

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe last year is on hiatus an looking for a new sponsor
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey's Musings
  • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Posted by Steve on June 5, 2009 | Comments (5)

June 3, 2009

Under Water Photo Contest

What a series of cool pictures!

These scarlet-striped cleaning shrimp (Lysmata grabhami) were spotted in the Florida Keys by Evan D'Alessandro, who took second place among the University of Miami student submissions.
LismatagrabhamiEvanDAlessandro_540x705.jpg

Via haha.nu

Posted by Steve on June 3, 2009