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8 October, 2004

Typos From The White House

Even the White House makes typographical errors.

I think they meant violent regime. Or, maybe Iraq is more colorful than I thought.

This will probably be corrected soon.

(Thanks Steve K.)

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Excel Podcasts

Yes folks, I've climbed aboard the podcasting bandwagon. I've decided to do a series of 542 podcasts about Excel.

Jim Kloss is currently hosting my podcasts, because I still have no clue what it's all about. The first one is here.

John, or J-Walk as his daily blog readers know him, has produced what is unquestionably the finest podcast to date both in terms of educational content and professional audio processing wizardry.

Jim is prone to exaggeration. You be the judge.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Free Ride For A Deer

From BBC News: Deer's 25-mile bumper road trip.

A deer survived a 25-mile ride in the bumper of a car after it was hit by a motorist travelling to work.

The muntjac deer remained unnoticed by the driver who thought he had hit a stone and continued on his way.

Only when he reached Sainsbury's distribution centre in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, did his colleagues point out the animal was stuck in his Rover.

Vets examined the deer but found no injuries apart from cuts and bruises and released it back into the wild.

(Thanks Tim Spellman)

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Protests

A Photoshop contest From Worth 1000: Stupid Protests.

The rules of this game are thus: You are to show a silly or meaningless protest.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Cleaning Out Some Questions

Here's another installment of Ask J-Walk.

H.G. Lamy: Some time ago I found a short article of yours about "Blogging with Frontpage". In there, you said you use some VBA-code to build and maintain your blog, but you would not necessarily publicize your code because it not being good enough.

I've tried to build a simple blog with Frontpage and VBA for some time now, but I don't get anywhere. Some code snipplets of yours - even if not of highest professional standards - might get me started, however.

I remain firmly convinced that FrontPage is not a reasonable option if you want to write a blog. So much good blogging software is available (much of it is free), that it makes no sense to try to reinvent the wheel by using software that wasn't written for that purpose. Even if I did release my old code, I don't think it would be of much help. Really. It was so customized for my own use that no one else would even understand how it works.

That said, I continue to use FrontPage to compose and post all of my blog entries for pMachine. Here's how I do it.how I do it

Curtis: Do you and Pamn argue much? Is it easier having a relationship when the kids are gone?

We've been together for about three years. We've never had a serious argument. In fact, I don't even remember us having any argument that lasted more than five minutes. We get along very well.

My daughter lived with us for less than a year before she went off to college. Now that she's gone, there's not much difference, really. Except we don't have to worry about preparing vegetarian meals anymore.

Shallow: Up till now what was the best/more advanced/more complex Excel thingy (routines isn't it?) you've created?

My PUP v5 add-in. It consists of about 60 separate components and it's surprisingly bug-free. My Guitar Scales and Modes workbook is also pretty spiffy -- especially since it's all done with formulas (no macros).

jaf: Do you edit the comments, or are you just blessed with a reasonably intelligent and funny user base?

I never edit any comments. I delete about 3-5 per day, on average (not including normal comment spam). They get deleted when they are too off-color, if they are off-topic, of if they are posted for the sole reason of providing a link to their own site.

And you are absolutely correct. This blog is blessed with a great group of regular commenters.

Thom: You recently added "ads" but I have added Firefox adblocking. The question is, do you add revenue for "blocked" ads, or only "viewed" ads? Am I stealing from you (or WWR), however inadvertently?

Not at all. The money flows only when an ad is clicked. I fully realize that most people have no interest in the ads that appear here. However, this blog has a lot of "drive by" visitors -- those who get here as a result of a Google search. I don't know for sure, but I think this group accounts for most of the ad-clicking.

Rg: Did you play the original classic coin-op video games in the early 80's? What were/are your favorites?

Nope. I think I may have played a few games of Pacman, but that's it. I was in grad school in the early '80s, and I preferred to spend my money on beer and pool.

Rg: Now that you've answered the origin of the name "Pamn", how about a pronunciation guide?

It rhymes with damn. But sometimes I call her "Pammin."

Rg: What 3 people have had the most influence on your life?

Tough question. I guess my dad is one of them -- that's where I got my sense of humor. My ex-wife She definitely had an influence, but it was very negative in nature. And I guess the Beatles. They are responsible for getting me interested in playing music. Oh wait, that's six people...

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Dare To Sing

Record yourself singing, and submit it to Dare To Sing. Then the entire world can ridicule you.

I downloaded three songs, two were pretty good, and one sounded like a drunk tone-deaf karaoke singer.�

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Paper Plate Education

Kids learn stuff, and you don't even have to wash the dishes. It's Paper Plate Education.

Welcome to a unique genre of education materials. Paper Plate Education is an initiative to reduce complex notions to simple paper plate explanations. This website promotes innovative hands-on Activities that you can experience across a range of interests, at varying degrees of complexity, and at a low price-all with common paper plates.

Shown here is a project to depict the phases of the moon. It uses nothing more than a paper plate and some Oreo cookies.

After twisting apart bite-size Oreo cookies, students scrape off the cream to simulate the four primary moon phases. The rewards of studying science prove tasty.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Rearranging Faces

From BBC News: Arty cosmetic surgery alternatives.

Ever wondered what you would look like with bigger cheek bones or pouty lips?

Visitors to the Rearranging Faces event at London Science Museum's Dana Centre will be able to find out. Audiences can try on face corsets, made by artist Paddy Hartley, to temporarily simulate the effects of cosmetic surgery.

Yeah, that's an improvement!

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Ladies United

A worthy cause: Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails.

This site is dedicated to the Gin Fizz, the Widow's Kiss, and the Singapore Sling - the drinks our mothers and grandmothers drank, the drinks we strive to save from extinction as a small measure of remembering those great women and their great cocktail parties.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Nine By Lennon

From the Guardian: John Lennon's Art.

October 8 2004: Tomorrow would have been John Lennon's 64th birthday - and to mark the day, an exhibition of his drawings and sketches opened yesterday in New York. Here is a sample.

This one's called A Monkey Chattering. I've seen lots of his line drawings, but I didn't know he did stuff like this.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Physics Phavorites

From BBC News: The physics hit parade.

You could almost call it Equation Idol - readers of Physics World have voted for their favourite equations of all time. But what do they mean?

Deputy editor of Physics World, Dr Matin Durrani, offers an idiot's guide to the top five equations of all time.

I've always been a fan of F = ma.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

No Copy Protection

An indie music label that gets it: !K7 Records launches "NO copy protection" logo.

You can do all sorts of things with music. You can listen to it once, twice, or as many times as you like. You can do it by yourself or with friends. You can give your favorite music as a present. Perhaps you'll be given music as a present yourself. Music you've never heard of and wouldn't otherwise have come across. You can talk about music during the day in the record shop and at home or at clubs in the evenings. Music is culture. And culture is life.

That's why, from now on, !K7 releases will carry a new logo: "NO copy protection - respect the music".

More at The Register.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Bushes For Kerry

From The Saltwater Pizza Blog: 64% of people named "George Bush" plan on voting for Kerry.

Last night, I conducted the first ever SaltwaterPizza Presidential Phone Poll. Using an amazing piece of technology known as the "internet," I found phone numbers for lots and lots of people named George Bush or John Kerry. I also found one phone number for Britney Spears, but more about that later.

The sample size was only 23, but I'm convinced that this research is valid and extremely important.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

NBC Chimes

I haven't thought about the NBC Chimes in many years -- until I read Bing...bong...bing at Pop Culture Junk Mail. She also linked to an article titled History of the NBC Chimes.

Starting in 1932 the, chimes were electronically generated by means of finely tuned metal reeds that were plucked by fingers on a revolving drum, much like a music box.

NBC discontinued the use of the chimes in 1971, however in November of 1976 the network began using the chimes once again following all broadcast in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the network.

Nowadays, TV networks are content to put an annoying logo in the bottom corner -- much to the dismay of those with plasma and LCD screens.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Bush-Bashing Musicians

22-year old Adam Smeltz writes: Musical youth fault today's political music as long on Bush-bashing.

As big-name bands storm the country with an anti-Bush, pro-voting vigor this fall, young adults in this musical hot spot have a message for the lefty crooners:

Cool it on the hatin' - and serve up some hopeful vision instead of just knocking Republicans.

Gee, I wonder where they learned that bashing thing? Isn't negativity what political campaigning is all about?

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Podcasting, The Buzzword

There's a new buzzword going around: Podcasting. This article from Wired provides a good overview: Podcasts: New Twist on Net Audio.

For anyone who loves listening to the wide variety of internet audio programming, but can't always listen to their favorite shows when they're scheduled or take the time to download them manually, help has arrived.

Known as podcasting, the technology is a new take on syndicated content feeds like RSS and Atom. But instead of pushing text from blogs and news sites to various content aggregators like FeedDemon and Bloglines, podcasting sends audio content directly to an iPod or other MP3 player.

How fast is this taking off?

According to the popular blogger, Doc Searls, the number of results for a Google search on the term "podcasting" is growing almost exponentially. On Monday, for example, Searls noted 5,950 such results. As of Tuesday afternoon, that number had reached 8,900, even though Google still thinks the word "podcasting" should be "broadcasting."

Anyone who listens to Whole Wheat Radio knows that Jim Kloss has been bitten by the podcasting bug. The good news is that it's motivated him to resurrect the Whole Wheat Radio Blog, which now houses a growing number of excellent WWR podcasts, as well as some tips for podcaster wannabes.

By the way, you don't really need an iPod to listen to podcasts. You can just download the MP3 files and listen to them at your leisure.

I've listened to quite a few podcasts. As you might expect, the quality covers the full spectrum -- from incredibly lame to stellar. Jim's podcasts fall toward the stellar end of that spectrum. After all, he's been doing this kind of stuff for years. And he's very good at it.

Enjoy it while you can...

Indeed, [Adam] Curry thinks traditional radio advertising models could be applied to podcasting and that the most popular radio show content would be an ideal fit.

Coming soon: Software that strips out the advertising.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

His Favoreeto

Cliff, at his Figmento blog, wrote some very kind words about this blog: My Favoreeto.

The J-Walk Blog has won my heart as the most amazing, thrillingly eclectic parade of findings and great describings that I've so far encountered...anywhere. I know that's high praise, and I'm not the most educated man, but John Walkenbach - a successful and, I assume, humorously effective author of many books about using Excel - pulls together the odd and enlightening from all over, then composes pithy titles and commentary to accompany the strangely stimulating brew.

Sometimes you find a voice - a writer, a speaker, a blogger - and by that voice only, you know that it's someone you'd probably have a good time, oh, backpacking with for a few days.

Thank you Cliff. It's always nice to start the day by reading something good.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Georgesoros.com

You probably heard how Dick Cheney screwed up and mentioned factcheck.com (instead of factcheck.org). And how factcheck.com redirects to georgesoros.com.

The chart below, from Alexa, shows the impact this had on visitors to the site.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Post-It Prank

It happened in Iceland: The Amazing Post-It Prank. The concept is simple: Decorate a room using Post-It notes.

I did this all by myself, no one helped me. I used exactly 5,000 Post-Its. It took the total of three joyful evening.

Here's a TV.

Posted on 8 October, 2004

Interview Questions

If you're looking for a job, you may find this helpful: The 25 most difficult questions you'll be asked on a job interview.

This article has been excerpted from "PARTING COMPANY: How to Survive the Loss of a Job and Find Another Successfully" by William J. Morin and James C. Cabrera. Copyright by Drake Beam Morin, inc. Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

I always hated this question: What is your management style? I usually just reply something like, "Whoah dude! Laid back, man!"

Posted on 8 October, 2004

The Return Of The Zombies

Music news: Zombies rise out of the mist of the '60s.

In 1967, everyone was talking about the Zombies and their unexpected hit "Time of the Season" - even though they already had broken up.

Now the long-dead Zombies have been reanimated by the juju of baby-boomer radio. They're coming to town Monday night with another retro act, Arthur Lee and Love. This amazing bill is a time warp to the late '60s with one of rock's West Coast wonder bands and one of London's hippest mid- '60s pop bands.

Here's The Zombies Fan Page. It seems that they made six albums. I didn't know they were that prolific.

Posted on 8 October, 2004