That's right, we're finally there. Today is Interntional Talk Like a Pirate Day. We've waited all year for this, and finally the glorious appearing is upon us. Don't forget - this is the only chance you'll have for a year. Okay, you can talk like a pirate anytime. But this is the only day where it's official that you ought to talk like a pirate. Arr!
Perusing the paper today, I came across an article about a newly discovered rodent fossil. Nothing particularly special in finding a rodent fossil, I thought at first. Until I read the article. Seems that researchers in Venezuela have discovered the remains of a rodent that may have weighed 1500 pounds or more. Holy cow. Find that as roadkill and your family eats for months.
It seems that everything was bigger and meaner back then. Six to eight million years ago, not only was there the giant guinea pig, but crocodiles grew to more than 33 feet long. There was apparently a large carnivore called a marsupial cat. If that's not enough, there were also allegedly giant flesh-eating birds called phorracoids. Good thing Raquel didn't come along until a few million years later. She would've been toast.
I also can now understand why cats are so determined to get the mouse. If the rodents used to be hundreds of times your size, it only makes sense to get after them once they've shrunk down to the size we see today. I'd make the most of that opportunity too. No telling when mother nature might turn her back on you again.
Anyway, apparently this herbivore singlehandedly turned what was once a forested and swampy area into a semidesert. Okay, I made up that last part. But a rodent that big is going to eat a lot of vegetation. It could have happened that way.
Why do pirates like Charles Dickens? Marrley's ghost, of course!
Why do pirates like opera? The Arrias!
Why do pirates like opera singers? The singers can really handle the high seas!
Why couldn't the young boy get into the movie? It was rated Arr!
I've got another incremental update to MT-SomeDays.
This version takes full advantage of the current date context if used within a date-based archive. For instance, if the <MTSomeDays> container is placed on a weekly archive, then that week is, by default, the one that is returned. You can override this behavior by use of the date-setting and selecting attributes.
I have got to stop reading the Movable Type support forums. Too many enhancement ideas!
MT-SomeDays 3.0.0 introduces multiple blog support. Now you can include the contents of another blog, or the contents of multiple blogs, in your <MTSomeDays> container by using a new attribute.
Often times when we take pictures, we'll see the dreaded redeye. Even the most innocent of pictures can seem downright devlish when infected with this disease. Luckily, Apple has put together a tutorial on how to use Photoshop for reducing redeye. Naturally, it's geared towards the Mac. But the techniques ought to be something that can be used on most any platform, even if you don't use Photoshop.
A while back, the Weakly covered the Cantenna, an engineering marvel designed to replace those potato chip and coffee cans that you use as antennas for your wireless networks. As you surely know by now, you can never keep a good geek down. That's right, now you can use your old digital satellite dish as an antenna. No more wimpy range from your network. This baby can send the signal up to 10 miles!
And if you're going to be sending a wireless networking signal ten miles (or even ten feet), isn't it a good idea to make sure your data is secured? Nod your head here. But keep in mind that even the best steps may not be enough. Tony brings us a great link on cracking WEP (which is no longer active). Even if you don't think your data is worth protecting, it's a good read to see just how an inquisitive mind can solve a puzzle.
Sticking with the wireless theme for a minute, you may have noticed recently that the increased use of SMS, specifically by teenagers and young adults, apparently has Hollywood trembling. The argument here is that if one of these wired patrons doesn't like a movie, shortly thereafter everyone in their circle of influence will know about it. And then everyone in their circle will know about it. And so on.
One thing strikes me as odd. If the studios are worried about losing box office by bad word-of-mouth, why don't they just make a decent movie?
Starting Thursday, we'll be in Cancun, so it's a pretty good bet that there won't be any posts from Thursday until Monday. This unfortunately includes next Saturday's edition of the Weakly. The Weakly will return the following Saturday, the 4th of October.
If you live in Charlotte, don't forget to vote on Tuesday. What's that? You didn't know that it was time to vote? Sure enough - the primaries are upon us. It's time to decide who we want to run for various positions in the city government. Yes, we're going to decide, and then in November, we'll get to really decide. I guess you just can't give people too many choices on one ballot. Unless you live in California.
By a show of hands, who in the audience thinks it is a good idea to find someone on the Internet to castrate you in your own home? You, over there near Pittsburgh - what were you thinking?!? Were you thinking at all?
As bizarre as this story is, it's not unique. A similar thing happened in Saskatchewan two years ago. In fact, 2001 was a big year for do-it-yourself castrations, with at least one other story listed on the front page of Google!
Come on people - Hiring someone off of the Internet is a good idea? To perform the operation in your own home and toss the pieces in the garbage? It amazes me how people that are this stupid can continue to reproduce. Then again, maybe they're trying to stop themselves, and this is the solution that seems to have the best chances for success.
I'm not sure what happened today. My host hasn't been particularly responsive. It seems that many of my CGI scripts decided to change permissions, from 755 to 644, meaning they wouldn't run. Until just a moment ago, I had also been locked out of FTP access to the site. Very strange indeed.
It seems that most static pages (ie, HTML) were fine. However, if you tried to access something that was dynamic (ie, a CGI script), then you may have received an error. This could have been while leaving a comment or sending a trackback.
If you did receive an error while accessing the site, please try again. Everything seems to be working at the moment. Thanks for your patience.
How do the French indulge in such guilty pleasures as thick, creamy sauces and rich, buttery desserts, yet stay so slim? While only 7 percent of the French are considered obese, a whopping 30 percent of Americans are considered over the limit. This mystery has confounded overeating Americans for years. How do they do it?
According to one article, the French just don't eat as much. Sure, they eat a lot of fat. But they eat a whole lot less food overall. Consider these findings: The average portion size in Philadelphia is 25 percent larger than it is in Paris. Individual examples include Chinese restaurants with meals 72 percent larger, candy bars that are 41 percent larger and soft drinks that are 52 percent larger. Is it any wonder that we're packing on the pounds?
Rather than trying to moderate our carbs, or buy and eat more foods that are considered low in fat, maybe we ought to just stop eating so damn much.
(Via Bill Maher)
In the race for those who would be mayor, Pat McCrory held on to get the Republican nomination by a pretty significant margin. For the Democrats, Craig Madans soundly thumped Leonard "Preacher Man" Harris. This means Madans will meet McCrory in November to see who will lead Charlotte for the next two years.
During some conversations today, I found out that neither my experimental site nor my regular site was rendering in Mozilla. The culprit is not a new one. I had added some formatting to the page and forgot to close my tags.
