"Murphy was an optimist!"
Oh yes! Lost Season 5 Official Promo #1 October 23, 2008 10:01 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Lost, Of Interest, TV / MoviesSee also: LOST returns January 21.
4commentsDespotism vs Democracy October 23, 2008 9:49 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Politics, Touchy Subjects, United StatesDespotism is a form of government by a single authority, either an individual or tightly knit group, which rules with absolute political power. This 1946 Encylclopedia Britannica newsreel made to educate classrooms about political science explains:
If a community’s economic distribution becomes slanted, its middle income groups grow smaller and despotism stands a better change to gain a foothold. [Source, Despotism (1946), 4:40-4:51]
add a commentAnother sign of a poorly balanced economy is a taxation system that presses heaviest on those least able to pay. A larger part of a small income is spent on necessities such as food. Sales taxes on such necessities hit the small income harder. In the days of the salt tax, feudal despotisms were partly sustained by this and other ?? [Source, Despotism (1946), 5:58-6:27]
Presidential Campaign as a D&D Game October 22, 2008 9:50 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Games/Puzzles, Politics, Touchy Subjects, United StatesI want to thank grog at the DailyKos for his interpretation of the presidential campaign as a Dungeons and Dragons game. It was funny until the gazebo reference..then it was hilarious!
add a commentLesson of the Day October 21, 2008 8:49 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily LifeWhen you are eating cereal at your desk and you have just raised the spoon to your lips, never cough!
2commentsUniversal Health Care? October 20, 2008 11:22 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Health, Politics, Touchy Subjects, United StatesEveryone go to Daisy Cutter and chime in with your thoughts on Universal Health Care. See also countries with universal health care vs those without.
3commentsCode Buzz October 20, 2008 10:36 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : AJAX, Daily Life, JavaScript, PHP, Programming, TechnologyRunners get a runner’s high. I’ve got a coder’s high. My head is buzzing as I’ve been hitting the keys hard. My current PHP application has dynamic content loaded via AJAX but when the user navigates with the browser’s forward or back buttons the state is lost, that is, all the dynamic content disappears. Also if the natural navigation of the application takes the user away from the dynamically generated content, when they return the content is lost and the user frustratingly has to drill down, dynamically loading more content, to get back to where they were. Using jQuery, some custom JavaScript, and some fandangled PHP, I have overcome this obstacle and created a state engine that remembers which content was loaded and re-presents it on the screen whenever the user navigates with the browser’s forward or back buttons or the applications natural navigation. I’ve just finished the behind the scenes mechanics of this code and now have to fix the presentation level (after a 10 minute break). Whew! This was fun!
add a commentKmart less confused October 18, 2008 3:27 pm
Posted by utterz in : Daily Life, Podcasting
Kmart confused October 18, 2008 3:26 pm
Posted by utterz in : Daily Life, Podcasting
From the mouths of babes October 18, 2008 2:39 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Evan, Family, From the mouths of babes, Of Being DadI’ve been ratted out regarding this tweet.
add a commentNot so close shave October 18, 2008 2:03 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, HealthI am starting to come to terms with the fact that an electric shaver needs new blades more than once every half a decade. For that matter, I probably should buy a new electric shaver more than once decade.
1 comment so farFrom the mouths of babes October 17, 2008 5:19 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Amy, Daily Life, Family, From the mouths of babes, Of Being DadRing, ring.
Dad: "Hello?"
Amy, 6 years old: "Mom won’t buy something for me!"
Dad: "Didn’t you just go to Young Chefs?"
Amy: "Well, yeah but I want her to buy something just for me."
Dad: "But Young Chefs was just for you."
Amy, whining: "But Daaad. I want her to buy me something."
Dad: "Amy, you’ve been temper tantruming and whining a lot lately and that makes it awfully hard to…"
Phone becomes quiet and a distance voice is heard, Amy: "Here, I don’t want to talk to him anymore."
Who quit following you on Twitter? October 17, 2008 4:31 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Communications, TechnologyQwitter and Twitterless are two new services which alert you when followers quit.
Do you use Twitter? Or do you still wonder why people Twitter? I use Twitter to follow the pulse for things that interest me, in particular, I follow:
- friends and family
- people in Knoxville
- some breaking news sources
- the movers and shakers in the technology world
- ColdFusion and PHP developers (yeah yeah…some of you .NET guys too)
You should be using Twitter to be in the global conversation. Twitter serves everyone differently depending on how you use the service which may be one or more of the following:
- Exhibitionists, Voyeurs, Gossips – These are the folks that will send/read a stream of messages about the minutia of daily life
- News feeds – These are the folks alerting the world about their experiences with the California fires, or the next big event. These are the newspapers getting the headlines out. These are people like myself alerting others that the Interstate is at a stand still.
- Topic Specific – These would be people sharing information about a particular subject. Unlike news feeds these will often include back and forth discussions about the topic.
- Spammers – People taking advantage of the tendency to follow those who follow you simply to draw attention to a product or website. The Twitter staff and others are trying to minimize the ability for people to spam through Twitter.
- Utility – such as how The RedCross has used Twitter to make accessing the Safe and Well database easier.
Twitter is quick to alert you when you have new followers. If someone decides they want to see your messages, you get an email giving you the opportunity to follow them back. However, when someone decides that you send too many messages, your messages are not interesting, or they are tired of hearing that you had a tuna fish sandwich for lunch again, they quit following you and you never know. Perhaps you notice your numbers have changed and all you can do is wonder if you offended someone. Until now! Two services now tell you when someone quits following your Twitter stream. Qwitter will send you an email whenever someone quits following and simply needs your Twitter username and email address. Twitterless is in beta and requires an invite code. By entering your Twitter username and password, Twitterless will notify you when followers quit. Get an invite code by following @tless. Twitterless has a blog and is developed by Mark Nutter who you can follow on Twitter @marknutter.
Be sure to follow my ramblings on Twitter @djuggler. My Tweets are very stream of consciousness and vary from Knoxville traffic/gas reports, to family happenings, to interesting sightings, some audio or pictorial commentary linked from Utterli in a Tweet, to politics, to tech, and just plain nonsensical babble.
See also: Put @RedCross in your Twitter and Did Chris Brogan just steal my PULSE?!
Update 9Aug2009: @followermonitor has joined the ranks of @tless and Qwitter. Twitterless is working great for me. I have not had a message from Qwitter since like December.
Update 24-Nov-2010: A list of seven such services.
add a commentMcCain’s Fallback Career – Comedian October 17, 2008 3:52 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Philanthropy, Politics, Publishing, Touchy Subjects, United States, VideoMcCain also got some good laughs at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner:
I haven’t found McCain’s closing yet although ABC has a 13 minute version of John’s performance but they don’t provide the ability to embed and the quality on my machine is painful to watch like ABC had their mics too hot. Be sure to watch Obama’s Fallback Career – Comedian.
add a commentTwo words application developers love to hear October 17, 2008 12:18 pm
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Programming, Technology"Looking good!"
2commentsObama’s Fallback Career – Comedian October 17, 2008 7:41 am
Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Humor, Philanthropy, Politics, Touchy Subjects, United StatesObama roasts McCain at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner:
Obama’s closing remarks:
add a comment
