Welcome to HiddenPassageway.com - There is no fantasy.
How to install a bat-cave in your home.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Top Gear Winter Olympics 2006 - Google Video
Top Gear Winter Olympics 2006 - Google Video: "Car ice hockey, car ice skating and a ski-jumping Stig in a snowmobile are some of the highlights of Top Gear’s version of the Winter Olympics."
It gets really good about 41 mins into it, with the Suzuki Sprint hockey teams.
It gets really good about 41 mins into it, with the Suzuki Sprint hockey teams.
China Blog - All things Chinese
China Blog - All things Chinese: "Water Supplies to 28,000 Chinese Suspended - Yahoo! News: 'An employee with a local water supply company noticed the river water had turned yellow last Tuesday, the China Daily said. Tests showed it was polluted with high levels of fluoride, nitrogen and phenol, also known as carbolic acid, it said.'"
Flouride, eh? Does this prove that the conspiracy theory is correct?
And why is it that all conspiracy web sites have red and green bold letters with space backgrounds and gradient lines? Don't forget the New World Order picture!
There is a CONSPIRACY around CONSPIRACY web sites to DISCREDIT them by using REALLY BAD GRAPHICS and CAPITALS and GREEN AND RED text. TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
...I really gotta lay off the blogging now...
Flouride, eh? Does this prove that the conspiracy theory is correct?
And why is it that all conspiracy web sites have red and green bold letters with space backgrounds and gradient lines? Don't forget the New World Order picture!
There is a CONSPIRACY around CONSPIRACY web sites to DISCREDIT them by using REALLY BAD GRAPHICS and CAPITALS and GREEN AND RED text. TELL YOUR FRIENDS.
...I really gotta lay off the blogging now...
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Howstuffworks "How Electronic Ink Will Work"
Howstuffworks "How Electronic Ink Will Work": "The Holy Grail of electronic ink technology is a digital book that can typeset itself and that readers could leaf through just as if it were made of regular paper. "
Turkey Defrosting/Thawing
"Frozen turkeys should not be thawed on the back porch, in the car trunk, in the basement or on the kitchen counter."
However, frozen turkeys next to a tailpipe will stay red and fresh for up to five days...
However, frozen turkeys next to a tailpipe will stay red and fresh for up to five days...
Groups Protest Carbon Monoxide Use in Meat - Yahoo! News
From the Groups Protest Carbon Monoxide Use in Meat - Yahoo! News: "Berdahl said Tuesday that carbon monoxide-treated meat could be left on the kitchen counter for five days and would still look bright red and fresh. Carbon monoxide 'also suppresses bad odors and the presence of slime, other telltale signs that meat is spoiled,' Kalsec's petition said."
They tried to kill my cousin, what would you do?
Gosh.. Idiot!
Forest Service Eager to Study Wolverine - Yahoo! News: "Biologists caught their first one just over a week ago in a subalpine forest northwest of north-central Washington. It was a 19-pound female, who measured nearly 3 feet from her nose to the tip of her 7-inch tail. She looked much like a small bear cub, only with long ivory-colored claws."
Forest Service Eager to Study Wolverine - Yahoo! News: "Biologists caught their first one just over a week ago in a subalpine forest northwest of north-central Washington. It was a 19-pound female, who measured nearly 3 feet from her nose to the tip of her 7-inch tail. She looked much like a small bear cub, only with long ivory-colored claws."
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Nobodyware - 99% of all software?
Eric Sink on alternatives to shareware.
MeWare: The developer creates software. The developer uses it. Nobody else does.
ThemWare: The developer creates software. Other people use it. The developer does not.
UsWare: The developer creates software. Other people use it. The developer uses it too.
For completeness, I suppose I should probably mention the obvious fourth category:
NobodyWare: The developer creates software. Nobody uses it.
MeWare: The developer creates software. The developer uses it. Nobody else does.
ThemWare: The developer creates software. Other people use it. The developer does not.
UsWare: The developer creates software. Other people use it. The developer uses it too.
For completeness, I suppose I should probably mention the obvious fourth category:
NobodyWare: The developer creates software. Nobody uses it.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Blogs to Riches - The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom -- New York Magazine
"“You gotta have something posted before people get to work,” he explains, “because my audience is people who hate their jobs.”"
David Hauslaib has a celeb gossip site called Jossip. His secret (other than good writing) is to publish in the early hours of the morning, so everyone has something to read when they come into work.
I really like the comment that his audience is people who hate their jobs. That could be an overall company metric - how many people are happy in their jobs based on the amount of web sites visited per day.
As Ben Franklin said, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."
David is trying to match Gawker's $1-2 million in ad revenue.
I'll have to check on my D-list status on Blogebrity.com.
David Hauslaib has a celeb gossip site called Jossip. His secret (other than good writing) is to publish in the early hours of the morning, so everyone has something to read when they come into work.
I really like the comment that his audience is people who hate their jobs. That could be an overall company metric - how many people are happy in their jobs based on the amount of web sites visited per day.
As Ben Franklin said, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."
David is trying to match Gawker's $1-2 million in ad revenue.
I'll have to check on my D-list status on Blogebrity.com.
ACM Queue - A Conversation with Jarod Jenson - Tales from the trenches with a former Enron performance guru
ACM Queue - A Conversation with Jarod Jenson - Tales from the trenches with a former Enron performance guru: "That was probably the best decision we made overall, because we forced ourselves to start with a clean slate. This avoided dealing with historical code where people would say, 'Hey, I don't want to touch that.' We just took the use cases that we had defined, but did them in whatever manner we thought would be best based on the information we learned. If we had gone live and then just tried to go back and fix what is known bad code, then it wouldn't have worked. Starting from scratch was by far the best decision. "
A Java developer talks about his Enron past and ways to improve performance in applications.
A Java developer talks about his Enron past and ways to improve performance in applications.
ACM Queue - A Conversation with Jarod Jenson - Tales from the trenches with a former Enron performance guru
href="http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=363&page=2">ACM Queue - A Conversation with Jarod Jenson - Tales from the trenches with a former Enron performance guru: "That was probably the best decision we made overall, because we forced ourselves to start with a clean slate. This avoided dealing with historical code where people would say, 'Hey, I don't want to touch that.' We just took the use cases that we had defined, but did them in whatever manner we thought would be best based on the information we learned. If we had gone live and then just tried to go back and fix what is known bad code, then it wouldn't have worked. Starting from scratch was by far the best decision. "
A Java developer talks about his Enron past and ways to improve performance in applications.
A Java developer talks about his Enron past and ways to improve performance in applications.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
McDonald's fries are bad, m'kay?
McDonald's: Fries Have Potential Allergens - Yahoo! News: "'They should have disclosed that all along,' she said. 'They should never have been calling them gluten-free.'"
Hmm, how could McDonald's fries be bad for you? Let me count the ways...
1. They're gluten-free (not)
2. They're salt-free (not)
3. They taste good (well, better than Burger King and those paper fries at Wendys). Anything that tastes good is usually bad for you, except for FroYo.
4. They're cooked in beef-flavoured oil, or beef tallow, which is defined as solid fat extracted from the tissues and fatty deposits of animals, especially from suet (the fat of cattle and sheep). Pure tallow is white, odorless and tasteless; it consists chiefly of triglycerides of stearic, palmitic, and oleic acids. It is usually obtained commercially by heating suet under pressure in closed vessels. Tallow is used to make soap and candles. It was formerly in common use as a lubricant. Mmm mmm good!
5. They contain partially hydrogenated goodness.
6. They have a Health aspects title under Wikipedia.
Should have, would have, why are you complaining about McDonald's when you know that every year they need to find ways to cut costs. How do you cut costs? Replace whole foods with synthetic foods.
Stop complaining with your mouth and start complaining with your wallet. Spend what you would on fries on McDonald's charities. Or Roadkill candies. (they're a collector's item now!)
McDonald's Canada is 40 years old next year.
Hmm, how could McDonald's fries be bad for you? Let me count the ways...
1. They're gluten-free (not)
2. They're salt-free (not)
3. They taste good (well, better than Burger King and those paper fries at Wendys). Anything that tastes good is usually bad for you, except for FroYo.
4. They're cooked in beef-flavoured oil, or beef tallow, which is defined as solid fat extracted from the tissues and fatty deposits of animals, especially from suet (the fat of cattle and sheep). Pure tallow is white, odorless and tasteless; it consists chiefly of triglycerides of stearic, palmitic, and oleic acids. It is usually obtained commercially by heating suet under pressure in closed vessels. Tallow is used to make soap and candles. It was formerly in common use as a lubricant. Mmm mmm good!
5. They contain partially hydrogenated goodness.
6. They have a Health aspects title under Wikipedia.
Should have, would have, why are you complaining about McDonald's when you know that every year they need to find ways to cut costs. How do you cut costs? Replace whole foods with synthetic foods.
Stop complaining with your mouth and start complaining with your wallet. Spend what you would on fries on McDonald's charities. Or Roadkill candies. (they're a collector's item now!)
McDonald's Canada is 40 years old next year.
Sponsorship Scandal flies South for the Winter
The Canadian Sponsorship Scandal cost taxpayers over $100 million dollars. That was over a course of years, and it might have even helped to keep Quebec around for awhile longer.
This is the cost of only two and a half years worth of US propaganda:
= $1,863,000,000 CDN! That's nuts!
George takes the cake for manipulating the media - and there wasn't even any good propaganda art produced like the Chinese, Russian, North Korean, or Germans put out.
Bush administration spent 1.6 billion on public relations: report - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush's administration spent 1.62 billion dollars on advertising and public relations contracts over two and a half years, an independent agency said. "
Gerard Donnelly Smith has an interesting essay on the use of propaganda to affect the outcomes of the war.
The BBC had a story on this on December 1, 2005.
$1.6 billion could build Katrina victims 6400 $250k houses, or keep them on cruise ships for the rest of their natural lives, if they weren't being charged $15k/month to stay there.
$1.6 billion could buy over 946 million McDonalds fries @ $1.69. That's enough to feed almost all of the population of India in 2001.
$1.6 billion minus $1.5 billion would keep me happy for quite awhile....
This is the cost of only two and a half years worth of US propaganda:
$1.62 billion USD
= $1,863,000,000 CDN! That's nuts!
George takes the cake for manipulating the media - and there wasn't even any good propaganda art produced like the Chinese, Russian, North Korean, or Germans put out.
Bush administration spent 1.6 billion on public relations: report - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush's administration spent 1.62 billion dollars on advertising and public relations contracts over two and a half years, an independent agency said. "
Gerard Donnelly Smith has an interesting essay on the use of propaganda to affect the outcomes of the war.
The BBC had a story on this on December 1, 2005.
$1.6 billion could build Katrina victims 6400 $250k houses, or keep them on cruise ships for the rest of their natural lives, if they weren't being charged $15k/month to stay there.
$1.6 billion could buy over 946 million McDonalds fries @ $1.69. That's enough to feed almost all of the population of India in 2001.
$1.6 billion minus $1.5 billion would keep me happy for quite awhile....
Sunday, February 12, 2006
5 Steps to Success
Achieve-IT!: What A Drug Addict Can Teach Us About Goal Setting: "act on the plan until they are successful."
1. Picturing what they want (an idea)
2. Attach emotional significance to the outcome. (emotion)
3. Decide specifically what they need to do (planning)
4. brainstorm and think through specifics. (prototyping)
5. act on the plan until they are successful. (iteration, reiteration)
And the last step that seems to be missing, is the reward. Or is just getting to #5 the reward?
I like this comment:
drug addicts dont visualise their goal,
they are driven by a neurochemical receptor
screaming for its chemical mate...the non addicts equivelant of having they're butt
set on fire...just a tiny motivator...
no amount of visualisation will give you
that core biochemical motivation
good metaphor for non addicts though,
thanks for the article..
What is the core biochemical motivation?
1. Picturing what they want (an idea)
2. Attach emotional significance to the outcome. (emotion)
3. Decide specifically what they need to do (planning)
4. brainstorm and think through specifics. (prototyping)
5. act on the plan until they are successful. (iteration, reiteration)
And the last step that seems to be missing, is the reward. Or is just getting to #5 the reward?
I like this comment:
drug addicts dont visualise their goal,
they are driven by a neurochemical receptor
screaming for its chemical mate...the non addicts equivelant of having they're butt
set on fire...just a tiny motivator...
no amount of visualisation will give you
that core biochemical motivation
good metaphor for non addicts though,
thanks for the article..
What is the core biochemical motivation?
DehTrader.com Real Trades, Real Life - Trading Journal
DehTrader.com Real Trades, Real Life - Trading Journal
All I knew was buy and hold for the long term and all I knew was stocks gaining 1000% and $20 a day
Fascinating story about a guy in Canada who traded during the .COM era and lost everything.
All I knew was buy and hold for the long term and all I knew was stocks gaining 1000% and $20 a day
Fascinating story about a guy in Canada who traded during the .COM era and lost everything.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Email Recall in Film - Films considered the worst ever
Well pilgrim, how come yer glowin' green?
The Conqueror (1956)
A Howard Hughes-funded box-office disaster featuring John Wayne as Genghis Khan and the redheaded Susan Hayward as a Tatar princess. The movie was filmed in Utah downwind from an atomic testing range in Nevada and is often blamed for the cancer deaths of many of the cast and crew, including both Hayward and Wayne (although according to an A&E Network Biography episode, Wayne typically smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day). Appears in Michael Sauter's book The Worst Movies of All Time and made the ten-worst list in The Book of Lists. Hughes thought the movie was so bad that he bought up every copy (which cost him about $12 million) and he refused to distribute the film until 1974, when Paramount reached a deal with him. This would be the last film that Hughes would produce.
The Conqueror (1956)
A Howard Hughes-funded box-office disaster featuring John Wayne as Genghis Khan and the redheaded Susan Hayward as a Tatar princess. The movie was filmed in Utah downwind from an atomic testing range in Nevada and is often blamed for the cancer deaths of many of the cast and crew, including both Hayward and Wayne (although according to an A&E Network Biography episode, Wayne typically smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day). Appears in Michael Sauter's book The Worst Movies of All Time and made the ten-worst list in The Book of Lists. Hughes thought the movie was so bad that he bought up every copy (which cost him about $12 million) and he refused to distribute the film until 1974, when Paramount reached a deal with him. This would be the last film that Hughes would produce.
Friday, February 10, 2006
freestudios.tv - Robert Scoble
freestudios.tv
Seth Godin recommends you show your boss Robert Scoble's newest video.
LIFT is about teaming talented observers, explorers, and builders with people whose work depends on understanding current challenges and creative solutions presented by emerging technologies. Attendees will face cutting edge business models, bold predictions, radical thinking -- ideas to inject into their own part of the planet.
LIFT has a simple goal: connect people who are passionate about new applications of technology and propel their conversations into the broader world to improve life and work
Scoble on:
What's a good blog?
Passionate and authoritative.
What does a good business blog contain?
What both me AND my competition does.
Why do you share key knowledge about your business?
Because other people don't have the time or desire to do what you do, they would rather hire you instead.
He used to shop prices and know his marketplace, and created a spreadsheet about both his prices and the competition (ala the grocery store milk/bread/potato price comparison board)
Change is not death
Fear of change is death
Conversations on Channel9 are not edited. It's true reality TV.
Everytime he talks at companies, he smells the fear in the room. (Fear of losing job, worry about talking outside the box, worry about politics, worry about the new world of blogging)
How fast do ideas spread?
The night before Vista's name was released, the leak of the name was on 1200 blogs.
Channel9 had 100k visitors on the first day without any formal PR. Someone figured out the server was live and started emailing their friends. (MEME Effect)
The word-of-mouth network is all powerful.
Back in history, word-of-mouth was physical. (Newspaper, Water Cooler Protocol) Now it's the inter-web.
Mentions the Mac & Engadget & Rocketboom & John Furrier.
Obscurity to front-page of NY Times when Tsunami hit.
If I write Microsoft here... it goes into Robert's aggregator at Pubsub. (I don't believe you Robert... please email me at robertscoble @ wavesmash.com with a coupon for your new book, and post a video on Channel9 with some ideas on what project managers at MS look at when monitoring their projects & project plans. :)
Watches keywords Xbox, Web 2.0, Microsoft.
Trains people on how to use RSS to watch who is talking about your product.
3 Trends leading to blogs
Unemployment and layoffs spark new tools. (Six Apart)
Disgust around corporate scandals and .COM bust. A situation where we didn't know what was going on in the world. Wanted to see and join transparent companies that do no evil. (?)
Sick of the marketing. Perfect advertising. Committee-driven. Wanted to compare notes with people around the world.
Blogs were Robert's way of getting things into Google.
The effect of Superbowl marketing messages that come down on you. Blogs are a pushback.
Question: Is alot of your cultural resistance to blogs coming from execs who are spending big on ad campaigns and polished videos?
The answer as a question from Bill Gates (through the mouth of Robert) Why do I want to talk to 300 people on a blog, when I can afford to print a 20-page spread in the NY Times?
Robert pisses off PR by showing his (and MS's) faults.
....
I just thought of a good idea. Why doesn't MS get rid of the Blue Screen of Death (or the new .NET framework exception) and replace it with a picture of Robert and a link to his blog? Maybe with the 'thumbs-up' sign and a cartoon bubble that says "We're trying harder!"
I've been a fan of Robert ever since he added me to his MSN (before he reached the friends limit.)
more to come...
Seth Godin recommends you show your boss Robert Scoble's newest video.
LIFT is about teaming talented observers, explorers, and builders with people whose work depends on understanding current challenges and creative solutions presented by emerging technologies. Attendees will face cutting edge business models, bold predictions, radical thinking -- ideas to inject into their own part of the planet.
LIFT has a simple goal: connect people who are passionate about new applications of technology and propel their conversations into the broader world to improve life and work
Scoble on:
What's a good blog?
Passionate and authoritative.
What does a good business blog contain?
What both me AND my competition does.
Why do you share key knowledge about your business?
Because other people don't have the time or desire to do what you do, they would rather hire you instead.
He used to shop prices and know his marketplace, and created a spreadsheet about both his prices and the competition (ala the grocery store milk/bread/potato price comparison board)
Change is not death
Fear of change is death
Conversations on Channel9 are not edited. It's true reality TV.
Everytime he talks at companies, he smells the fear in the room. (Fear of losing job, worry about talking outside the box, worry about politics, worry about the new world of blogging)
How fast do ideas spread?
The night before Vista's name was released, the leak of the name was on 1200 blogs.
Channel9 had 100k visitors on the first day without any formal PR. Someone figured out the server was live and started emailing their friends. (MEME Effect)
The word-of-mouth network is all powerful.
Back in history, word-of-mouth was physical. (Newspaper, Water Cooler Protocol) Now it's the inter-web.
Mentions the Mac & Engadget & Rocketboom & John Furrier.
Obscurity to front-page of NY Times when Tsunami hit.
If I write Microsoft here... it goes into Robert's aggregator at Pubsub. (I don't believe you Robert... please email me at robertscoble @ wavesmash.com with a coupon for your new book, and post a video on Channel9 with some ideas on what project managers at MS look at when monitoring their projects & project plans. :)
Watches keywords Xbox, Web 2.0, Microsoft.
Trains people on how to use RSS to watch who is talking about your product.
3 Trends leading to blogs
Unemployment and layoffs spark new tools. (Six Apart)
Disgust around corporate scandals and .COM bust. A situation where we didn't know what was going on in the world. Wanted to see and join transparent companies that do no evil. (?)
Sick of the marketing. Perfect advertising. Committee-driven. Wanted to compare notes with people around the world.
Blogs were Robert's way of getting things into Google.
The effect of Superbowl marketing messages that come down on you. Blogs are a pushback.
Question: Is alot of your cultural resistance to blogs coming from execs who are spending big on ad campaigns and polished videos?
The answer as a question from Bill Gates (through the mouth of Robert) Why do I want to talk to 300 people on a blog, when I can afford to print a 20-page spread in the NY Times?
Robert pisses off PR by showing his (and MS's) faults.
....
I just thought of a good idea. Why doesn't MS get rid of the Blue Screen of Death (or the new .NET framework exception) and replace it with a picture of Robert and a link to his blog? Maybe with the 'thumbs-up' sign and a cartoon bubble that says "We're trying harder!"
I've been a fan of Robert ever since he added me to his MSN (before he reached the friends limit.)
more to come...
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