i got a new battery for the camera, but not a new charger. the man at the store told me the new battery would not have a charge, but i tried it anyway, and so far it has taken hundreds of pictures, so…  either i have a magic battery that never dies, or i will be out of luck soon, but either way i am enjoying it for the moment.  :)

you can see some of the shots of edinburgh here: http://flickr.com/photos/kynthia/sets/72157594240539072/

enjoy!

did you know that if you type something into the firefox address bar and just hit return, it will take you to the top google link for whatever you type?

so it’s basically a shortcut to i’m feeling lucky.

i discovered this when i was starting to type in snowedin.net/planetinfo, of which i usually just type the first few letters, and then pick from the dropdown menu.

i guess this time i didn’t get into the dropdown menu, though, and just hit enter after typing “sn”

i was directed to this lovely informational site about the mineral tin, for which sn is the two-letter periodic table abbreviation.

i thought that i had potentially discovered some weird element lookup easter egg, so i typed in “ag” (which is silver), and got The Assemblies of God, and “au” (which is gold), and got the African Union.

those are not minerals.

acting on a hunch, i did the same searches in google, and sure enough, those are the top hits for those searches (after the stock information that it pops up automatically now).

i think that this disagrees slightly with something david told me a couple of weeks ago that i had kind of forgotten, which is that firefox does a google search for you if you type in the address bar, making the separate google search bar somewhat moot.

but maybe i misheard him.

in which case, i apologize. :)

it reminds me, though, of the rest of what i learned in that conversation with david, which is that you can type “wp ____” into the address bar and it will search wikipedia for you, or “az ____” and it will search amazon.

these both do indeed seem to work as well.

a quick old-fashioned google search on “firefox address bar shortcuts” brings us this informative lifehacker article explaining that this is the manifestation of the “quick searches” feature, accessible via your bookmarks menu, and you can make your own by right-clicking in any search box anywhere and entering in a shortcut phrase. they give a list of suggested ones, and even let you download a little bookmarks file of their favorites if you don’t want to do all that typing.

neat

i must say, however, that in some ways this discovery just put a bit more of the fear of google in me (like the fear of god – it’s kind of fear, but it’s also just… awe), because there is a point at which putting in other quicksearches is silly, because the google quicksearch encompasses them all.

just as i currently search wikipedia by googling “wikipedia ____” (because it’s faster than the wikipedia search and involves fewer steps), you could mimic other searches simply by naming them in the google search, which may or may not be easier than going through the trouble of making and remembering a separate quicksearch.

as further evidence to support this claim, i offer this: after learning where the quick searches were stored, i went and looked at them, and it turns out that the amazon quicksearch isn’t actually installed by default. but the “az ____” shortcut that david mentioned, that i gave you above? it still usually works. because if you google “az _____” amazon is often the first hit.

glory be.

paleoconservatism

it is meant to distinguish from neoconservatism, and making that distinction is a good idea, but the word makes me think of dinosaurs, which is unfortunate, because the paleocons are far from extinct, and that’s a damn good thing to remember.

this morning tiffanie and i were chatting, and it went like this:

2:07 PM
me: i am pissed at itunes because it’s going to make me want an ipod just because it’s easier than dealing with my current mp3 player
2:08 PM
Tiffanie: bacon!
me: and i don’t like feeling forced like that
Tiffanie: that is annoying

we were also talking about what we want to make for brunch this evening, so that bacon comment wasn’t actually as random as it seems.
but it sure is funny as hell out of context, ain’t it?
:)

anyway, then i go to work and google tells me to read this article about how how norway is squabbling with apple about this very issue, and other european countries may follow suit (no pun intended, but that interpretaion is true, too)

this makes me feel somewhat redeemed, and yet it also compels me to ponder on what i really think about the matter.
my kneejerk reaction to itunes has so far been that it is annoying in some ways and brilliant in others, which makes it pretty much balance out and i don’t think about it much.
i don’t really use it, but that’s just my choice. i don’t mind other people using and loving it, and i never really thought of their preferential treatment of the ipod as something on par with bundling IE into Windows… i really just thought of the proprietary format business as a hassle, and a hassle born of the larger IP debate more than anything else. itunes has done a lot to bring a lot of music to people at a good price and in a way that kicks back to artists, so if they feel like they have to make their own file format to keep that going right now?
shrug
pick your battles.

but then i think about the deathgrip that ipods have on the mp3 player (or m4p player, as the case may be?) market, and i wonder…

when i say that they shouldn’t be bitches about their proprietary format, is that a “you shouldn’t tease your sister about her haircut” kind of shouldn’t, or a “you shouldn’t stab people in the eye with forks” kind of shouldn’t?

really, of course, it’s neither.
it’s a “you shouldn’t cramp information’s style” kind of shouldn’t, and the problem is that people disagree about where on the shouldn’t spectrum that particular transgression lies.

i, for one, think it’s pretty damn bad.
so should that change my relationship with apple?

we’ll have to wait until next time for the dramatic conclusion to this moral quandary, because i need to go make a quiche. but i thought i’d drop in and post the thought nonetheless.
i’ve been away for too long, and josh is encouraging me to blog about my switch, which is a grand idea, and thoughts on itunes at least get me into the general vicinity of that goal.

and yes, in case you were going to say something snide, i do realize that i said that tif and i were chatting “this morning” despite the fact that the timestamp on the chat itself suggests otherwise.
but i am also having brunch at 7 PM, you see?

welcome to my summer.
:)

so when i went to make the leta reference in the last post, i also, of course, caught up on the last few days of dooce, and this post struck me.
apart from the fact that it must be kind of weird to find yourself dreaming about blogging panels, it struck me as a really interesting example of a kind of personal expression that really has no clear parallel at any other point in history – the ability to share experiences of the type: “embarrassing but still emotionally intense experience that i don’t really want to make a big deal about but it still involved person x and now i think about it when i see them so it feels funny for them to not know about it” in a semi-public forum, where person x doesn’t have to directly respond.

this is something that really fascinates me about blogs, because they open up this space of private stuff that everyone goes through, and that we can all really resonate with, but that we don’t really talk about much because it’s kind of awkward to actually talk about such things, because a lot of what they trigger is hard to put into words. i mean, a lot of us have probably had dreams involving other people that are kind of weird and we want to tell them, but then when you go to tell them, and they’re absorbing the weirdness of it while looking you in the face as you sit there, expectant and kind of embarassed despite your efforts to the contrary, there’s often this air of “ok… that’s sweet, but… what else am i supposed to say?” on one side, and an impulse to dismiss the whole thing and move on to safer territory on the other.
so neither person really gets to enjoy the story much, which is a shame.

now though, i imagine cases where one person writes a blog entry about something they thought or felt or dreamed or sang to themselves in the shower, and the person they thought or felt or dreamed or sang about trips over it while drinking coffee at work, or checking ticket prices, or looking up the name of that guy in that one movie with that other chick from that music video. and then there is this glorious moment where the person can just sit there, with no need to wonder whether a funny expression crosses their face or a funny noise escapes their lips, and give a few seconds of full attention to the reality of this person in their life, and all of the craziness and gorgeousness and scariness and excitement that goes with the package.
and those kinds of moments are awesome gifts.

i imagine the unsolicited hugs, the knowing smiles, and the jokes at the end of the day.
and also all the days where nothing is said and life just trods along as usual, but the air is richer between all of us than it has ever been before.
and it makes me happy, and excited.

but maybe it’s just springtime and i’m a sappy ball of hormone juice.

you can decide on your own time.

so, small partly because he has been so kind in praising my own blogging (i mean, let’s be honest about our motivations, right? :), and large partly because he just kicks ass on his own, i’ve been enjoying kevin’s recent additions to planet info, and today i distracted myself a bit by poking around on his blog site, which is much richer than just the planet info feed.
he and amy both blog there, about all kindsa stuff, and seem to have been doing so for a fair while.
neat.
the snippet that compelled me to blog about the discovery was this one, which is really freaking hilarious.

the other thing, though, is a bigger issue i think about sometimes: can you imagine what it will be like when kids today grow up and have access to such potentially rich archives of so many of the random moments that made their parents laugh and cry? i mean, we tend to remember a Few of these moments no matter what, and they become the stories that we use to fill in gaps at family gatherings and meet-the-parents events for the rest of time. that will probably never stop happening, but now there is potentially going to be all this other stuff, too, this record of moments that we otherwise probably would have forgotten because it was either “that one time the baby accidentally spoke in bulgarian” or “how to drive the car” and, well, sometimes we have to make tough choices…
now, though, there is this lurking monster of jotted down moments, searchable and indexable, just waiting to inspire both mortification and gratitude in turn.
it might be a little messy, but i think it’s pretty awesome, and perhaps revolutionary in terms of what it will do to the way we relate to our personal histories.

ya think?

i voiced a thought like this the other day when erik, josh, and i were talking about leta (and wishing her all the luck and happiness in the world), so when it came up again a bit closer to home it reminded me to write about it.

and so i did.

the end.
now go read kevin’s blog!

i installed a new wordpress plugin yesterday.
it’s called “better feed” and i am using it to do things that really should be easier to do on my own, but whatever.
the principal reason that i sought it out was because it allows me to do this:
(more…)

i posted a reference to the HCI list a few days ago about a blog entry i read at “Creating Passionate Users” the blog for the authors (and primarily, the head author) behind the new Head First book series from O’Reilly that is apparently getting quite a bit of buzz (and not just because they won the “Jolt Cola/Software Development Award for Best Computer Book” <- is that not the funniest thing ever?!). i said that one of the posts was interesting as a general user-centered pep talk, and that the blog itself had grabbed my attention because of the effective interweaving of homemade illustrations and incisive commentary. it has not disappointed me since. it's wordy, but i can deal with that. ;) and see? there are pictures, too! i put this one here because it cracked me up, and because you might not have believed me before. so now it's warring with the daily mumps, for the “how did i not know this shit was out there before [incredibly recent date]?!” award.

more on that front later, though.
i just thought i’d post something lucid while i had the chance, because erik asked if i was drunk after he read my last entry.
:)
this while i was chatting in gmail at the office while gallantly trying to salvage some productivity for the day.

here’s my dramatic reenactment:
erik: “are you flagrantly spurning responsible behavior during the work day, kynthia?”
me: “no!” *[she types frantically into the instant messenger client, causing important papers to fly across the room and lose themselves behind a bookcase full of calculus textbooks from the 1700’s.]*

it was awesome.

hey planet info, wanna have a little party?

i think it would be a blast, and early may sounds just about right for some free wine…

tiffanie referred to this somewhat offhandedly yesterday, but i just found out that google video has all of the super bowl commercials nicely lumped together in one place.

in case you didn’t catch them.
or were watching Football.

my general impression after the game was that they weren’t as good, on the whole, as they’ve been in the past, but it’s kind of fun to have them all in one place, and a few are pretty funny.
i liked:

• emerald nuts (i have no idea what they do, but i thought it was damn funny, and stand by that even after tripping over some stats and this quote from medialife magazine: *And Emerald Nuts, which made several top 10 lists last year, scored very low this year with an odd ad that combined machete enthusiasts and a druid.*
  sounds like comic gold to me… ;)
• fed ex: stick
• dove: campaign for real beauty (jacki mentions this campaign in a recent comment thread on erik’s blog, and i have been intending to add my own two cents (but alas, i am a pitiful slacker))
• sprint: locker room (this was the only one i could recall from memory after the super bowl, which is somewhat pathetic since i am listing 425 of them now that i have the links to jog my memory. i think it just says something about the lasting impression of physical comedy… or the fact that lucy brought it up as her favorite… yeah, that might have made it stick.)
• sprint: couch
• mastercard: macgyver

and budweiser: the wave was also pretty fun, though it would get higher props somehow if someone really took the time to figure it out for real. but they didn’t.

and finally, in a lovely display of the potential next wave of internet-driven commercial fandom, google led me to discover these, which i didn’t see on sunday because i must have been snacking or going to the bathroom, but which nevertheless amuse me:

• sierra mist
• bud light: secret fridge
• united: dragon

enough rampant commercialism.
yaargh.