What’s up with twitter.com? One day it’s “having difficulties”, another day it’s “down for maintenance”, today it’s “over capacity.” I guess they’re just waiting for someone to buy them out, meanwhile making only the minimum amount of upgrades to keep up with interweb traffic. Kinda crummy - then again, they are apparently fixing it as it breaks, and that’s better than nothing. Anyway, keep up twitter. Keep up.
Just received two new Moleskine notebooks in the mail. Under normal conditions, this delivery would tend to incite an atmosphere of inspiration and literary proliferation within me. But, alas, I am but only halfway through my current notebook and not quite finished with my previous Moleskine. So, with a notable degree of disappointment, I place them safely in the old file cabinet along side the handful of readily available sci-fi novels I’ve yet to get to. Someday, little friends. Someday.
In hopes of expanding this blog’s functionality and cool-factor, I’ve added a new commenting plugin called Disqus (that’s pronounced “discuss” not “discus”). This is a third-party website/service that keeps track of all comments you make from any website that uses the Disqus plugin. So, yeah, it’s a little chicken-before-the-egg kinda thing, but it looks slick and will be implemented on many more blogs soon.
The downside is, while I do still have access to all the previous comments on this blog as administrator, the slate has been wiped clean of all comments from your point of view. So . . . start commenting. The first time you comment, go ahead and register (you can enter your user information, website, email, facebook id, twitter account, upload an avatar, etc….).
We will see how it goes. And if you want me to dig up your comment from a previous post, just ask me and you can re-comment if you wish. Oh, and here’s the link for the Disqus website: disqus.com
Hehe. This is just an interesting short-list I ran across on the Mental Floss Magazine Blog. Here’s the link: The 10 Longest Novels Ever.
I noticed a comment on the post asking how long Ulysses was, and after briefly consulting my handy hardcover copy, the answer is 768 pages. (Your welcome) I only got halfway through that one, by the way. Maybe someday I’ll finish it.
By the way, the longest novel I’ve personally completed would probably be The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (who wrote it as a single novel, originally, before his publisher split it into three books). Go ahead and leave a comment - what’s the longest novel you’ve read?
photo credit: smellyknee
For those of you who use the Gimp [the GNU Image Manipulation Program] - and I recommend it for anyone who doesn’t have Photoshop, takes a bit of playing with it to get the hang of it, but it works great - I stumbled across this collection of script-fu macros that simulates the look of different [old school] film types and processes (namely, Portra, Velvia, Provia, and Cross Processing). Here’s the link: Silicosaur PhotoFX. Instructions for use and installation are on the site (it’s easy), and in my brief test of them, they are great for quickly turning raw snapshots into punchy, colorful finished photographs. Enjoy!
The results of our Best Superhero poll are in. I should first point out that this was not a scientific poll - in fact, only one or two of the voters were actual scientists, and that’s hardly a quorum - but legality aside, the results were startling, and we have a clear winner:
Batman, Captain America, Spiderman - these very pillars of superhero-dom - were all three disregarded by most voters. Spiderman received zero votes, in fact. (I warned you the results were startling) Superman came in third place with two votes (I’m pretty sure one of those was a scientist, so that vote is 50% scientific). Super Grover, hardly a traditional contender in this space, reached the amazing second place position (but everyone knows he’s not even real . . . he’s a Muppet, for crying out loud!). And first place for best superhero: Wolverine, garnering twice as many votes as the second place and winning over the hearts and minds of at least six of those who voted . . . er, something like that.
Give me a couple of days and I’ll have another poll ready. On a related matter, I’m taking suggestions for silly or interesting poll questions (nothing scientific, however) - just leave a comment, thanks!
“Apple dramatically increases Satan users.”
That’s what I read when I saw this link on my Google Homepage this morning. Maybe it’s the size of website text, maybe it’s my mid-30-something eyesight - something has me seeing things these days. Over-sized headings and icons, combined with microscopic text - that seems to be the very definition of web 2.0, isn’t that the case? Anyway, I just thought it was funny - nothing against Apple, mind you.
Later.