I’ve entered the last year of my youth. Today I am 39. In October 2009, the Boy Scouts of America will make me fill out new forms to make sure I’m not dead before leaving for outings, I’ll get to check a new checkbox on everyone’s forms (35-39, 40-dead). And apparently all innovation happens between 20-29 or 30-39 so this is my last year to become famous (you know I was supposed to retire at 35 right?). Tim requested this post so that we could avoid talking about the Antichrist or that I’ve become an old fart. Al I can say is, "I’m not dead yet!" (And thanks to all for the birthday wishes in Twitter and in the comments on Reality Me. You all are great!)
I banish thee!
Knoxville Talks, once a hot property, has gone silent with no updates since September 8. When Katie left for Knoxnews, WBIR failed to keep the fire going for Knoxville Talks which goes to show how quickly an audience can vanish for an active site.
Knoxville Talks, I strike thee from my feed reader. Be gone!
Men Vindicated!
Opie, Andy, Richie and The Fonz say vote Obama
See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die
From the mouths of babes
Dad: "Sarah and her boyfriend are going to hang out at the park today."
Mom: "It’s too cold for anything. They’ll be fine."
Dad: "You’re funny."
Mom: "No. You’re funny!"
Oh yes! Lost Season 5 Official Promo #1
See also: LOST returns January 21.
Despotism vs Democracy
Despotism 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]
Another 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
I 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!
Lesson of the Day
When you are eating cereal at your desk and you have just raised the spoon to your lips, never cough!
Universal Health Care?
Everyone go to Daisy Cutter and chime in with your thoughts on Universal Health Care. See also countries with universal health care vs those without.
Code Buzz
Runners 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!
Kmart less confused
Kmart confused
From the mouths of babes
I’ve been ratted out regarding this tweet.
Not so close shave
I 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.
