educating eric

Here's the official site for last June's "Oil Storm" movie on FX Networks . Their synopsis mentions a "Category 6" hurricane. Whatever. Category 4 was good enough to bring on the flood -- the inevitability of which should have been a foregone conclusion with a city that size below sea level sitting in Hurricane Alley. (Which is not to dismiss the scope of the disaster and the loss of life, which of course is going to most affect the least-advantaged of the city who didn't have the opportunity to drive themselves north ahead of the storm.) Should have pushed for more fuel cell and bio-diesel research before we got to this point, right?

Okay, it was FX rather than the Discovery Channel. FX Looks Left to Peak at Oil : " Here's just a sampling of the catastrophes packed into two hours: A Category 4 hurricane nearly wiped out the city of New Orleans, devastating the oil facilities at Port Fourchon, 70 miles to the southwest. Then, U.S. oil was routed to Houston, where fog prevented ships from moving. Once the fog lifted, the new Bush-appointed energy czar ordered accelerated processing, which resulted in two container ships colliding and exploding. Next, the United States had to rely on Saudi Arabia for oil and terrorists struck -- first killing oil workers and then destroying two key Saudi oil facilities." Let's hope that it stops at "Category 4 hurricane" and the similarities end there!

Okay, I need my readers with good memories and cable television to help me out on this one. A few months back, there was a fairly lame fictional "docudrama" on something like TLC or the Discovery Channel, about the closing of major oil port on the gulf -- probably New Orleans, but maybe somewhere in Texas. It talked about how there was a narrow river bend, and ship ran aground, and then gas prices went up, then additional tankers of fuel were sent, and one of them wrecked, and it threw the U.S. into a tizzy. Does anyone remember this? I'm surprised I haven't heard about it, considering how prophetic it was given our current circumstances.

Good thing these phishing crooks still can't write good: "Please Note: If your account informations are not updated within the next 24 hours, then we will assume this account is fraudulent and will be suspended. We apologize for this inconvenience, but the purpose of this verification is to ensure that your ______ account has not been fraudulently used and to combat fraud." Yeah. Right. Gotta drag me away from the mouse to keep me from clicking on your link, buddy!

Those of you who listen to my podcast know I use a service called Feedburner to clean up the RSS feed and make it podcast-ready. And I love them -- friendly, responsive, nice attitude, great service, all that good stuff. So it surprised the heck out of me when I came across Leo Laporte's blog entry that bashed them to pieces for revealing Leo's TWiT podcast stats, in apparent violation of their own privacy policy. Well, Leo was wrong. Here's his apology: It's Not Their Fault | this WEEK in TECH . Long story short, Leo had made his stats public by enabling the "publicize my stats" option in his Feedburner feed. And once they're public, they're public, so one of Feedburner's VPs had no problem commenting on a statistic that Leo already made available to the world. Sounds fine by me, but Feedburner has wisely decided to just not comment about anything anymore, pretty much. Sad, but I guess that's how you have to run a business that ...

Someone joked on Justin Taylor's blog that, if anyone should represent "evangelical thought", it's not Pat Robertson or Jim Dobson but Justin himself. Here's an example of his writing as published in World Magazine - Weekly News | Christian Views

Reading more in that Christianity Today article, you come across a quote about the 700 Club from Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals: "You know his program has one section of it that's a Christian exhortation, and then another section where he's a political pundit." Absolutely. And at leat Pat Robertson is somewhat transparent about that. Not nearly transparent enough, but he does a much better job than Jim Dobson. What do I have against Jim Dobson? For those of you who forget, do a quick Google search for Dobson's connection to the NRB and Wayne Pederson, who was elected the president of the National Religious Broadcasters before Dobson led a coup that ousted him in 2002. (Ooh! Robertson likes coups -- as long as he dislikes the leader being ousted, that is. Maybe he and Dobson can get together and talk about Chavez?) Anyway, what did Pederson do to earn the Wrath of Jim? He gave an interview to the Star Tribune i...

Still working to keep you up-to-date on Pat Robertson... I'm amazed by this one. Granted, I probably hold what some consider to be contradictory views, but a) I don't intend to do that, and b) I'm not blabbing them to millions of people. (Trust me, even though they're on the Internet, millions aren't reading them.) I'm sure the fact that Pat has major financial holdings in Liberia (wait -- $8 million is peanuts to Pat) has nothing to do with the fact that he denounced Bush for calling for their leader to step down. (Read CBS News | Pat Robertson Slams Bush On Liberia | July 11, 2003 ). Of course, there's "duly elected" of the people we like, and "duly elected" of the people we don't like. Yikes. Christianity Today gets credit for exposing that particular insight, and is keeping up with the latest...

I've been feeling a tiny bit guilty for not exposing Candela to more foreign-language experience (so she could be one of these child prodigies who knows eight languages)... but cool guy Garrick Van Buren comments on a Newsweek article in his blog ( Working Pathways, Inc ? The Work Better Weblog ? Archive ? An Emotion Connection Tells Us What Matters ) and notes that it doesn't matter. Why? Because neither Ruth nor I speak a foreign language (not well, at least) and Candela doesn't have an "emotional connection" to anyone who does.

On the topic of horrible customer service, you can read about my dad's latest encounter in his blog Moeville Musings: Piece of Glass in Kemps Ice Cream . When he called to complain about having bitten down on a chunk of glass, he talked to a customer service rep, and... "She said, 'There can't be glass in our ice cream because it is against our policy to have foreign matter in our ice cream.'"

News flash! Someone apparently got to Pat and said, "Ummm... Mr. Robertson, sir? You really did say what people say you said." Not many details, but US evangelist apologizes for Chavez remarks - Yahoo! News : "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson apologized on Wednesday for calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying he spoke in frustration earlier in the week. "'Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.'" Good to follow a weak apology with an immediate excuse, Pat.

I hate to be so antagonistic on my blog -- whatever happened to "Minnesota Nice"? -- but, man, how dumb can you get?!? If you say something in front of hundreds of millions of international viewers, it's really hard to then say, "Oh, I never said that." Duh! Read the latest in Pat Robertson Says He Was Misinterpreted - Yahoo! News : "'There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time.' But a video of Monday's telecast shows that Robertson's exact words were: 'You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it."

Here's an interesting article on AOL's customer service, which I never liked even back in the 1980s when they were QuantumLink (blast from the past!). As the article AOL agrees to customer service reform | Tech News on ZDNet points out, they had some... "interesting" standards for their customer service reps.: "Previously, AOL would distribute bonuses in the 'tens of thousands of dollars' if representatives were able to retain half the customers who called to cancel their service, according to the attorney general."

Okay, you just gotta love a site named: The Sneeze - Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions. Anyway, thanks to Rob , I came across this Interview with Adam Savage from Mythbusters. In it, Adam mentions something interesting that I can't relate to. Maybe I would be more private if I were that famous. I've known one or two coworkers who fell into this boat, but I'm just more open than his co-host, I guess: "Well, Jamie's personal life is very much his personal life. He's a very private guy. His relationship with his wife is something I know nothing about because they're very private. But she's a great lady. She's really awesome."

Beautifully written comments (to see Justin's comments, where this post title came from, be sure to read the full article!) quoted in Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds: Al Mohler on Pat Robertson's Comments : "...he brought shame to the cause of Christ. This is the kind of outrageous statement that makes evangelism all the more difficult. Missing from the entire context is the Christian understanding that violence can never be blessed as a good, but may only be employed under circumstances that would justify the limited use of lethal force in order to prevent even greater violence. Our witness to the Gospel is inevitably and deeply harmed when a recognized Christian leader casually recommends the assassination of a world leader."

You know, it was Pat Robertson who very nearly single-handedly (he had a little help, but just a little) kept me from becoming a Christian until I turned 21. Because it took that many years for me to realize that statements of people like Robertson don't represent Christ in any way, shape or form. Now dictators, assuming they're not benevolent ones, are bad. Sure. Freedom is good. But this?!? Evangelist Pat Robertson calls for assassination of Venezuelan president : "'You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,'' Robertson said. 'It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.''"

Those who introduced me to the racing game Flat-Out will know exactly what this picture means. It was pretty spectacular, frankly. Nice view!

Since I'm on the AdSense side of the equation, I never knew this about AdWords (the advertiser side), but here's an interesting quote from the article Google changes irk advertisers, please publishers | Tech News on ZDNet : "In the past, if a keyword being used by a particular advertiser didn't meet a set of performance criteria including the number of click-throughs, the word would be disabled, even if the advertiser still wanted to advertise with that keyword. The changes made last week lower that performance bar. "

For years, people have complained about Blogger's statistics page; my blog, which has been around since 2002, always displayed 0 posts. That changed, as evidenced by the page Blogger: User Profile: Eric Larson Here's what shows up: User Stats On Blogger Since September 2002 Profile Views 74 Slick, no? They just removed all the references to number of posts, frequency of posts, etc. If you can't fix it, feature it... and if you can't feature it, delete it! Frankly, it's better than inaccurate stats. But still kinda weird!

The full text of the book is online if you follow the link at Between Two Worlds: The Deliberate Church , and the first few pages are good enough that I might actually buy it! Coming from me (who buys nothing... and is trying to cut back on books right now as it is) that's a huge compliment!

A quote from a nice little blog, which belongs on Ruth's site more than mine: The Housing Bubble 2: Lack Of Affordability To Sink US Home Prices: ML : "'The price of an average starter home in the United States has climbed 14 percent over the past year, while the average income for the first-time buyer family has risen just 4 percent, Rosenberg said, calling that an 'unprecedented gap.''"

As Google Desktop indexes my hard drive, it's pulling up local copies of the old slides I posted online a few months back. And I just want to reiterate... I love the 60s! And the 70s! It was a time when furniture like that pictured was considered normal. :)

The Family Research Council has both guns blazing with their “anti-.XXX domain” campaign. Impressive. I wonder how many people will put blind faith in the FRC’s headline and will think that their work (for which they’re happy to take donations, BTW) will “Stop the XXX Porn Industry Dead In Its Tracks NOW”? I won’t even mention their bad math (because, of course, we know that creating a new domain is going to double the amount of porn on the ‘Net, right?) or their demand that people turn their e-mail into chain-letter SPAM on their behalf. Wow! Their plea is below, typos and all – though I wonder if the FRC made a Freudian slip in the hope they can “loose millions in profit” and make that money flow their direction? (Note that the lack of paragraph formatting is thanks to the new Blogger for Word plug-in, which doesn't seem to work exactly as intended... but it's close!) We Can Stop the XXX Porn Industry Dead In Its Tracks NOW August 18, 2005 The Bush Administration is listen...

If you read Rob's Blog you'd know about Hapland. And if you're like I am, you'll need the Hapland Walkthrough to give you a clue. Wow! Clever stuff!

My PVR failed to record the early portions of the Mythbusters shark special when it aired the first time, so I just got to see the clip where the gang decides to go out and buy some latex or silicone or whatever... fists. Kari found some -- described as "novelty items" by the narator, who also mentioned that it was possible to find anything in San Fransisco. Now, I know a little bit too much about some thing (not through personal experience, fortunately)... so I actually know what these "novelties" would be used for. And, even for the folks who are hunting for Kari Byron information on the internet... I gotta admit, not even they have something like that in mind when they think of Kari. I hope! But, man... that scene is... pretty... interesting. Never thought I'd see Kari working with something like that! Click for more Kari Byron posts UPDATE (June 2006): I've moved all my Kari Byron commentary over to a different site; you're welcome to browse arou...

So, here's my question: If you're a vegetarian, do you have a problem with "catch and release" in the name of science? Kari seems to be having a good time on the Mythbusters shark special, and I know that some vegetarians have no problem eating fish... and sharks aren't fish... so, really, this doesn't relate to anything, does it? Click for more Kari Byron posts UPDATE (June 2006): I've moved all my Kari Byron commentary over to a different site; you're welcome to browse around here... but for anything new, check out the Kari Byron category on att.ention.net .

It's been a full day, and my Jim Dobson post ( educating eric: James Dobson and Republican Politics ) still gets nothing but PSAs in the AdSense block -- from my computer, at least. Is he that bad that nobody wants their paid ads associated with his name? Wow!

One question: Why only 40 years? St. Paul Pioneer Press | 08/19/2005 | Police recount reckless spree : "The nearly two-mile chase lasted 90 seconds, ending when the Envoy crossed into the southbound lane and struck Sandra Baxter's 1994 Ford Taurus. The 36-year-old, who was a half-mile from the home she lived in with her mother and sister, was pinned against the steering wheel and killed instantly....The criminal charges could put Adams in jail for 40 years."

Okay, I've only played with it a little bit, but if you want to strip commercials out of your television recordings, check out Dragon Global - ShowAnalyzer . I'll write more about it later... but here's another interesting tidbit. It mentions a video player program called Zoomplayer, which is also free. ShowAnalyzer outputs data that doesn't remove, but "marks off" commercials in a way that Zoomplayer can read. So if you're watching Mythbusters, it just magically jumps over three minutes of commercials. And if you click the "next chapter" button, it jumps to the next commercial break. Very, very slick! I record everything in ATI's proprietary VCR format, because I want to capture the closed captioning and search on it. (That alone is a very nice function. Looking for your favorite Kari Byron quote? Just do a search in the closed caption text for "kari" and you'll jump right to it... usually.) So, that means I ha...

Ironically, I’ve got two commercial-related things going on in my mind right now. On the Ericast, I’ve been discussing how commercials are going to get more and more imbedded into content; I think we’re going to drift away from “spot radio” or “spot television”, and even drift away from traditional “product placement”, and move toward a picture-in-picture or screen crawl or other “embedded advertising”.  That way, you’ll be unable to avoid the advertisement… and you’ll want to see it, because skipping it would mean that you’d miss out on the content.  (Imagine, for example, a HGTV demo on sponge-painting that takes up the top 2/3rds of the screen, with the bottom 1/3rd showing things like “BEHR Paint on sale at Home Depot!  20% off!”.) I might hate living in a world filled with television that looks like that… but it probably would be effective. But, speaking of, I’ve found a program that removes commercials from MPG files!  And it really works!...

In my "James Dobson is a moron" post, Google AdSense served nothing but public service ads. I figured they might be engaging in a little good-natured censorship, protecting their advertisers from "endorsing" a page that had the word "moron" in the title. But the much less antagonistic title of educating eric: James Dobson and Republican Politics still serves nothing but public service ads. What gives? There's got to be something out there on the topic of "republican politics", don't ya' think? And what happened to Google's practice of filling up my pages with blog-related ads when it couldn't find anything topical? Maybe it'll change if I give it a little time.

For those of you who make DVDs or otherwise work with MPEG2 video, the program ReJig looks very promising... but unless you've read this, you're doomed! VideoHelp.com :: View topic - Shrink (transcode) MPEG-2 files using Rejig I have to play with it a bit more to see how well it works, but I'm hoping to use it to take the programs I've recorded with my ATI card, export them to a oversized MPEG2 file, then compile them down to something that will fit on a DVD. I'll let you know how it goes...

Okay, I needed a catchy title. There you go. Here's the issue, quoted in the story Bush administration objects to .xxx domains | CNET News.com : "The Family Research Council, for instance, warned that 'pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain.' " How dumb can you get? If pornographers want to "flood libraries and society" with porn, they can do it plenty-fine now. Don't need any more "opportunities". What a .XXX domain does is allow portions of society (libraries, schools, parents, whatever) to LIMIT the flood, by restricting access to the domain. Duh! Porn is on the internet. It's not going to go away as long as we have a bare minimum of freedoms in this country. So why not attach a modicum of regulation to it, so that we have a better chance of avoiding it? Yes, the article explains that this is the Bush Administration objecting to the ...

A colleague just passed along the article Schooled in security | CNET News.com . I remember what might now be look back on as the "height" of the "free computing", when servers for FTP and TELNET and Gopher and this thing called the "World Wide Web" were just out there, open, available to pass files around. When the fact that computers on campus could pass files to each other was considered really cool -- not a security risk. Don't get me wrong; we're better off now than we were four years ago, so-to-speak. But I do wonder what kind of Internet my daughter will grow up to use.

In his latest podcast ( Blogarithms IT Conversations News: August 14, 2005 ), Doug Kaye mentioned an interesting anecdotal tidbit: People seem less interested in panel discussions at conferences than they do in single speakers. The panel discussions get lower ratings at ITConversations.com, and... there was some other reason he mentioned it, too. (Okay, so I don't remember. Sorry!) As I was listening to one of their panel discussions this morning, I had a thought: It was really hard to follow. It takes a lot of mental energy to keep up with who's-saying-what. And I don't even particular care about the who's-who; it would be even worse if I really need to know which person was making a particular point. Could that be what people are reacting to when they rate panel discussions lower than single-speaker talks?

By popular demand -- Rob mentioned it -- I've brought back the text in the archive section. So now if you click on the archive months (available from the home page) you'll see more than just the titles (or, in the case of the early posts, just the times and dates!) of my posts; you'll see the entire post itself! See educating eric: September 2002 for an example. My AdSense revenue will suffer, because you need to go into the post itself (by clicking on the timestamp link) to see contextually-relevant ads... but, hey, at least it's easier to find my old writings!

Okay, I just have to say that robotic stuff is really cool. I came across a little project named " Hektor ". These guys figured out how to move a spray can against a wall and automate what it paints. Now, that doesn't sound too exciting. X-Y plotters have been around for years. But they figured out a way to hang the can from two points at the top of the wall and use gravity to provide the pull in the other direction. By changing the length of the two wires, you can position the can anywhere you want. Sure, it takes a ton of math to calculate how to get the can where you want it... but that's what computers are good at, right? It's one of those "That's so simple, why didn't anyone else think of that?!?" ideas. Don't know what kinds of other applications it has -- I can't quite see hanging a router from something like this and carving out a sheet of plywood with it -- but there must be something!

If you haven't yet checked out print.google.com , you should -- full-page images of books upon books upon books. It's like Amazon's "Look Inside" feature, except a billion times better... unless you're an author or publisher, in which case you won't be too happy with it. Which explains the recent development: Google Suspends Copying Protected Books; Publishers Unimpressed - Yahoo! News

When I said, "Set your VCRs", I meant it! As promised, this morning TBS featured one of two appearances of Kirsten Kemp (then "Kirsten Holmquist") as a guest-star on Saved by the Bell . Times have changed! And so has Kirsten! It's an interesting role -- Rhonda Robistelli -- and I guess I can't expect a sitcom from the 1980s (targeted at kids, no less) to epitomize exemplary acting. But, I have to be honest... the whole thing is pretty bad. On the other hand, any show that launched the careers of Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley (not to mention Kirsten Kemp!) can't be all bad, right?

Here's what I don't exactly get about the Kari Byron thing. Everything out there, like this featured site [LINK NOW DEAD], is a pile of screen grabs from Mythbusters. (As an aside, I'm sure Kari regrets posting for that plaster cast of her... um... anatomy. Becuase it seems that those screenshots are the ones that are the most popular. That, and pictures of her in a schoolgirl skirt holding a bunch of balloons... hmmm.) Anyway, there's one interview out there with Kari, but other than that, there's no content. What we know about her, we know from her web site and from Mythbusters. That's it. I suppose the reason I get so many Kari Byron hits is because folks -- okay, who are we kidding; they're not "folks" but "guys" -- are hoping that someone will do another interview or write-up, and that I'll be that person. But, hey, what are we looking for? Her favorite color of hamster? As a vegetarian, does she still hate brussel sp...

Property Ladder is in reruns (only so much real estate to go around, I guess), but one of Kirsten Kemp's appearances on Saved by the Bell (from her days as Kirsten Holmquist) is set to run on TBS tomorrow (Monday, August 15th) at 6:30 a.m. CDT. You can bet we'll be recording it on every recording device in the house -- I can't trust my computer's PVR software to work reliably anymore -- and as soon as we can get it processed, you'll see it here, first! I'm hoping some of her quotes from my earlier post will be in there!

UPDATE : Be sure to check out this post where you can find a screen capture of "Rhonda". So, folks, why are we interested in finding clips of Kirsten Kemp's early, early acting career on Saved by the Bell when she played "Rhonda Robistelli"? Because it would be a hoot (technical term) to see the following phrases coming out of her mouth, courtesy of the site Saved By The Bell Quote of the Day by Steve Carey : "The Rhonda Robistelli Compendium, Chapter 1 Rhonda: "Hey Zackee! Hey, what's da rush, button-nose?" Rhonda: 'Hey Zackee, we gotta talk, hunk o' mine. (To the gang) That boy has got one cute behind, oo! Rhonda: "Sure, take five. I'll go wash my face and floss (wink) for later." Rhonda: "Mom's visiting dad in the slammer, and we got the house all to ourselves." Zack: "I don't kiss on the first date." Rhonda: "Whoo-hoo, good thing for us - I DO." (You can find the DVD on Amazon )...

Now it makes so much more sense! After Ruth commented on her blog that Kirsten Kemp said she guest stared in some popular 80's sitcoms, I was confused that there was no sign of her out on the internet. But some dilligent sleuthing (by listing to Ruth and going to Kirsten's web site ... and reading the main page instead of her bio) turned up the fact that her name used to be Kirsten Holmquist . If you look for that , you find a lot more. Now we just need to find some video clips or screen captures... Any Saved By The Bell fans out there with Season 1 (their "ninth grade" episodes) on DVD? Episodes 4 and 10 from that one, guys! Looking for the "Rhonda Robistelli" character...

Hey, I know they're a scam (one of many recent articles on the topic can be found at Technology - canada.com ). But doesn't it give you a warm feeling to have someone address you as "Sir" -- that never happens to me! -- and say kind things, like... "I am contacting you believing you are a honest and trustworthy person.I believe you will not betray the confidence I am willing to repose in you, for me to have contacted you even though we've not met before." Awwwwww. That's sweet! I've never had so much confidence reposed in me before. Not even by my wife, who's pretty good at reposing.

The news this morning, topping the story about the shuttle that just can't seem to land, is that ABC News anchor Peter Jennings dies of cancer - Yahoo! News . I remember Peter Jennings reporting from the London bureau -- Dad would comment on his not-quite-British, but-not-really-Canadian accent -- and remember when he started anchoring the news in 1983. That's where that photo is from -- that's how I think of Peter Jennings. (I also remember when Dan Rather replaced Walter Cronkite as CBS anchor. Funny, but I don't remember much about Tom Brokaw until he was an established anchor; we must not have been an NBC family.)

I was thinking about some of the real estate shows (like Property Ladder) that we watch, and these fancy condos and townhomes in places like Miami, Florida or Southern California. And one of the things they always emphasize is doing fancy kitchens with granite countertop. I even came across a site that claims to have do-it-yourself granite, which seems like a heck of a project to me. (That's where the picture came from; if you click on their link you can see all the tools and things involved in the process.) So, my question is, what's the big deal about granite counters? Is it -- and stainless steel appliances, too -- going to seem outdated in 20 years? Or is it a good investment?

Ruth realized that there are no sites that refer to the likely misspellings of Kari's name -- Kerry Byron, Keri Byron, Carry Byron, Carrie Byron, or Cari Byron. So we're trying a quick experiment, since this site has become a hotbed of Kari Byron activity. There are probably more variations on the name "Kari" out there, but that's as creative as I can be at the moment. So, if you're reading this, you're either a regular reader of mine who's wondering why I've gone insane -- no Prozac or Zoloft or St. John's Wort or Levitra for me, though! -- or you're looking for information on Kari Byron from Mythbusters (a show on the Discovery Channel). I'm trying to keep all my Kari Byron links here , because some really unlucky folks -- especially those whose searches indicate they're desperate to know if Kari is married -- never get to see the bulk of my Kari Byron material. You might want to go to Kari's official site at www.karibyron.c...

Okay, if you've read this for any length of time, you know that I've got lots of search results for my miscellaneous Kari Byron comments, which just encourages me to talk about her more because that's what people are coming for. Well, looking at my search results, folks occasionally search for "Kari Byron married", which is why I put up this post: educating eric: Kari Byron has a ring! Engaged? Married? The problem? Some poor person from Reno, who did one of those searches, landed on one of my other Kari Byron pages and never clicked on the Home link here, which would have brought him (or her... nah, "him") out to the home page, where he would have seen last night's post that talks about the apparent wedding ring that Kari's wearing. So, here's the challenge: How do you design a site so that people who land deep within it can find their way out to get to where they really want to be? I suppose I could go back and update all my old posts wit...

UPDATE: Good news from the L.A. Times. Stone-Throwing Girl Granted Probation : "Maribel's father, Martin Cuevas, said the deal was good because his daughter was not required to plead guilty, and will not be in custody. 'I believe it's just,' Cuevas said. 'We've reached an agreement.'... Prosecutors had earlier offered Cuevas a deal in return for her guilty plea to a lesser, misdemeanor charge, but the girl steadfastly refused." Looks like the best possible result out of a horribly messy situation. For my original commentary from a couple days ago, click here .

You heard it here first! Engaged? Married? I don't know. But in tonight's episode of MythBusters, as Kari Byron is working on the arrow-splitting rig, you can clearly see a ring on the ring-finger of her left hand. As news of this leaks out, I'm thinking my "Kari Byron" blog hits might start dropping. Sorry, guys! Looks like she really is taken. Maybe a quickie wedding in Las Vegas? Who knows... but, given the popularity of Kari's dating life as a topic on the Internet, I'm surprised there isn't more talk about it! Based on this screen capture -- yes, that's Kari's hand; you can see the same ring in other shots clearly attached to her arm (which connects to her shoulder, then neck, then face, so there's no doubt that it's hers) -- it seems to be a wedding band. So, assuming we're right... Congratulations, Kari! UPDATE (June 2006): I've moved all my Kari Byron commentary over to a different site; you're welcome to browse ar...

Okay, there are bigger issues on our little blue marble of a globe for us to worry about, but sometimes something comes along that's so blatantly stupid that you just have to comment. The Maribel Cuevas story fits the bill perfectly. The poor girl goes on trial today and faces four years of incarceration. This story is floating around through various news sources , but the best and most accurate version so far is the one at SFGate.com . Here are the facts. Maribel Cuevas, an 11-year-old girl, was playing in a relative's yard with her six-year-old brother, his six-year-old friend, and that friend's four- and three-year old sisters. Eight-year-old Elijah Vang and SIX OTHER BOYS ride up on bikes. They throw water balloons AND ROCKS at Maribel and the small children around here. The water balloons hit Maribel in the head; the rocks "merely" hit her in the shoulder and side. Maribel picks up ONE OF THE VERY ROCKS THROWN AT HER to scare off the kids that are threat...

I just have to take less than five minutes to comment on a line from the latest PayPal phishing scam I got. The complete text of their passionately persuasive plea is: "We demand that you take 5 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records to avoid running into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in your account suspension. Once you have updated your account records your internet banking service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal." Oh, the comments I could make. Wow. But, anyway, the fact that they're "demanding" is a really interesting choice of words. Do you think phishers would get better results if they said, "Please"?

Okay, folks, I need your ethical opinion here. In the context I use it in this blog, what do you think of hotlinking? Here's a description, from the article Bandwidth theft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia : "Web pages may link to other web pages using hyperlinks. The hyperlink object allows a viewer to click on a link to reach another site. The owner supplies bandwidth as a gift, or to sell something, etc. "It is possible to use a HTML tag in a webpage to embed material from another site in it. Thus when the webpage is sent to someone to view, the bandwidth for the embedded material is supplied by the owner of the second site. Simply linking to a file is also considered to be bandwidth theft. "This may not be desirable for the owner of the second site: he or she may only be willing to supply the material, with the corresponding bandwidth, if that material is viewed embedded in his or her own webpages, e.g. because otherwise it does not help him earn mon...

I wish I had read sites like this one before agreeing to evaluate eHarmony's new "marriage enrichment" program. If I had, I'd have realized that we'd never get the $25 Amazon gift certificate they promised us. Their new program, "The Compatible Marriage," is basically a re-hash of all sorts of good books and programs that have been around for years. They wrap it in a "scientific" test and profile, but you don't need my background and degree in personality assessments and instructional design to question its construction. (Don't bother looking for any information on its reliability or validity, let alone anything about its development or norms or...) Long story short, it's a multiple-choice assessment with a horrible navigation structure. At the end, the claim that they'll e-mail you a series of exercises to take. No e-mails ever came. But we found one on the site and went through it. It was interesting. On July 25th, we...