crazyskillsbloginitiative

Bling!

“Made of solid 18-carat yellow gold, white gold, and rose gold. A fabulous combination. The white gold line is encrusted with a total of 138 brilliant cut diamonds of the best quality.” and including “a ‘home button’ that carries a rare 6.6-carat diamond.”

Price: $2.5M

More info [aloisson.com]

Facebook, today, announced a really interesting and cool adjustment to its path of management:  From today forward, policy changes (such as the TOS changes from a couple weeks ago [crazyskills.com]) will now be reviewed by a board of users, of which any facebook user can now be a part, in what is now to be called the “Notice and Comment forum.”  I think this is a great idea and more companies out there could use a piece of this wisdom shown by the Facebook staff.  To quote Facebook’s creater, Mark Zuckerberg: “Openness and transparency isn’t an end state. It’s a process to get there.”

Cheers, Facebook!

Seems the folks over at Microsoft are listening to users’ comments and requests regarding the upcoming (early 2010?) Windows 7.  Here is a good writeup of a number of recent changes to 7RC1 [blogs.msdn.com].  Other notable changes in recent times to the 7 experience include the removal of DirectX 11, which I was looking forward to.  Now, these changes to the RC all seem like “good things;” however, is it just me or does it seem that this ought to all be released as a service pack for Vista?

Sony is now using the same blue laser technology to author CD masters as are used to author Blu-Ray masters.  Does this mean higher-quality audio from these CDs?  No.  The CD spec is still 44,100Hz 16-bit audio.  Does this mean more than 2 discreet audio channels from audio CDs?  No.  Still 2-channel.  So what’s the big deal?  It appears [cnet.co.uk] that all this is really going to do is improve “final sound reproduction, due to the reduction of reading errors when the disc is spinning in typical CD players.” In other words, improved error reduction on pressed discs.  Though the article [cnet.co.uk] is quick to point out that “[t]he vast majority of noticeable read errors result from scratching CDs over time, not because the CDs were botched during the authoring process.”

This might be the mmofps we’ve been waiting for. Set in a post-apocalyptic 2156, Fallen Earth boasts a classless character development system, approximately 70 towns, and a crafting system that produces 95% of in-game items!

More info here: http://www.fallenearth.com/index.php [fallenearth.com]

Positive happenings on the business front.  I’ll be sure to share more as it comes to be.

Hit my head about an hour ago - made quite a noise.  About 10-15 minutes later I wanted to go to sleep.  Between that and the fact that it never really “hurt,” I believe I may have had a mild concussion, but (obviously) I did not sleep.. and now my thoughts are much clearer than they were in the immediate aftermath.  Tant mieux.

So yeah - business!  Looks like some work with php, mysql and css!  (yay! - love this stuff!)  ..among other things.  Feeling really good about this opportunity.  I’m going to give it 100 44/100%.

Please join me in my celebratory beverage.  Here’s to it! 

Took them long enough..  There is a good article about this on zdnet.com [zdnet.com] which lists 2400 sites which are “broken” and need to use Microsoft’s new “compatibility mode” in order to display properly.  Surprisingly enough (or maybe not so much), google.com and even microsoft.com both made the list…  Good for them for finally trying to adhere to web standards [w3c.org], though not after many years of forcing developers to break code to display, operate properly under the previous versions of the Internet Explorer browser.

Look
Look at me
I’m not just what you want to see
Look at me
I’m so young and i’m so old
And god gave me a heart
And god gave me a mind
And god gave me my life, twice
And i…..i feel deeper than any ocean
You could ever swim in
I love bigger than any sky that you’ve ever seen
With your two blind eyes baby you’re so blind
I’m a child
I will remain so
The spirit is the same its the same
In the same place i have my temple
Nothing can take it away
And i tried to be like the sun
I’m of the sun
I tried to shine through my life time
And i…..i feel deeper than any ocean
You could ever swim in
I love bigger than any sky that you’ve ever seen
With your two blind eyes baby you’re so blind
And i tried to be like the sun
I’m of the sun
I tried to shine through my life time
And i…..i feel deeper than any ocean
You could ever swim in
I love bigger than any sky that you’ve ever seen
With your two blind eyes baby you’re so blind
I…..i feel deeper than any ocean
You could ever swim in
I love bigger than any sky that you’ve ever seen
With your two blind eyes baby you’re so blind
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
Shine like the sun
I…..i feel deeper than any ocean
(Shine like the sun shine like the sun)
You could ever swim in
(Shine like the sun shine like the sun)
I love bigger than any sky that you’ve ever seen
(Shine like the sun shine like the sun)
With your two blind eyes baby you’re so blind
(Shine like the sun shine like the sun)

Blind, Stella Katsoudas, “Sister Soleil”

Hardly.

This headline [cnet.com] read, “Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL search up; Google down.”  Which is true; however, in January 2009, Google claimed 63% (down half a percent from December 2008) of internet searches.

So what makes Google so strong?

I personally use Google foremost because of the lack of advertisements, fast page loads, followed closely by the lack of graphical elements getting in the way of finding what I’m looking for.  After that would be relevance, though all 4 of the major competitors in this arena offer relevant results to an example query (crazyskills.)

What would it take to beat Google? [cnet.com]

I think simply more of the same of what Google already offers.  Google’s got it all for the time being.  There are few examples out there of where I think what Google is doing has been done better than them - one of which being the Cooliris plugin for firefox which I mentioned before.

“Anne Loucks built a device which, when her cat steps on it, can click the ‘I Agree’ button of a EULA [ohesso.com] Who knows what the lawyers will make of this sort of madness. Can a cat make a legal agreement? Does it need to be of legal age? She lures the cat onto the device, and the cat steps on it of its own free will. Anyway, folks who hate EULAs now have another tool to make the lawyers freak out.” [slashdot.org]

EULAs are ridiculous anyway..  Have you ever actually taken the time to read through one?  I have - not to say that I understood them - IANAL.  I think having your cat agree to them is a brilliant idea.  You bought the software, you don’t see the EULA until you open the package and install the software (at which time, you can’t return the software) so you’re screwed.

“Of course, I have created a wonderful solution to this problem. My cat, Simba, agrees instead of me. As he is not a legal entity, I don’t really know how kitty’s agreements would stand up in court, but I like to think he would be responsible for any breaches of contract, assuming the agreement is even enforceable. After all, he is not even of legal age, at least in human years.” [ohesso.com]

Stumbled upon a site today, googling for an answer for some question — I don’t remember now.  Anyway, this site is pretty cool!  They could use a little more.. something.. in the approach - the appearance, but good nonetheless!  There are a good number of questions (and answers) here, and you can submit questions as well.  Most answers have references to their sources.  We all have enough to do, but it’s good to take a break.  Check it out!  http://www.funtrivia.com/ [funtrivia.com] is the central site but is mostly quizzes.  If you’re not into that sort of thing, check out http://www.funtrivia.com/search.cfm? [funtrivia.com] and search for anything you like.  Guaranteed to come up with interesting results!  Kind of a generic name, not the best asthetics, but entertaining information just the same.

Today, Facebook announced they are going back to their previous TOS, where all rights to user-generated content are terminated when the user closes their account.  Good news indeed!