24. November, 2003 - snow - holidays - spam
- No Snow Emergency this time, at least in Minneapolis. It’s pretty out, though. Today’s a nice clear day, with a fresh blanket of white on everything, and in a single weekend, I went from thinking of Thanksgiving as being too far in the future to worry about to suddenly realizing I need to get the Christmas cards in the mail soon. I really should get out today and take some pictures of the snow before I move and have to start shoveling the stuff.
- The PiPress asks What makes a good holiday letter? I’m thinking about that a bit, too. Thanksgiving weekend is when I usually bash out the one-page missive to the relatives and try and get the Christmas Card List put together. It’s going to be rougher than expected this year, since I’m busy trying to move. I also shut off the service to my Hiptop, which had a bunch of addresses in it that there was no way to get out, and now that the service is off, I can’t even read them out of the phone. I’m hoping I’ll be able to mine the posts from this year for a little material for the holiday letter at least, so I won’t have to think too hard about that part of the task. [press-patch]
- Unwanted Penis Web Ads Prompt Calif. Spam Rage. The man should be given a medal. And maybe one of those jackets where you get to give yourself all-day hugs, but with a medal pinned on it. [jr]
- Senate Bill Sticks It to Spammers just like the do-not-call list is sticking it to telemarketers (i.e. not much at all).
- The Gravity and Chaos Club at Western Washington University dropped over four-thousand superballs and shot videos of it. You may or may not be able to get through, as they’ve been slashdotted pretty hard.
- Here’s a geographical map of the internet. It ain’t perfect, but you can tell it where you’re surfing from and help make it more accurate.
- Imagine that! A couple games of hockey played outside! Erm. I’m not sure whether I’m happy or sad that this was such a big deal, but it would’ve been awfully cool to see Gretzky playing again. [colby cosh]
- Hear about the iPod’s Dirty Secret? (That’s a 6.9Mb Quicktime movie, by the way.) The non-replacable battery only lasts about 18 months, after which you either have to pay $250 to get it refurbished, or more likely, just throw it away and buy a new one. So one geek’s made a movie to publicize that fact. Update: According to this iPod Repair Service page, Apple will put a new battery in your iPod for $99, but that hasn’t always been their policy, and from what I’ve been able to gather, the $250 charge for a new battery applied for at least a while. Update 2: See also Neistat’s Dirty Secret. [boing boing]
- I’ve also been trying to spend some time lately cataloging and packing up my Book Collection so I’ll have a chance of finding things when I move. I’m 14 boxes (314 books) into it so far, and it seems to be going pretty well, if more than a little slow. But I’ve actually managed to box all the books that were in piles on the floor, rather than sitting on one of my bookshelves, which meant I spend a fair amount of time just picking up the books, knocking the dust off them, and getting them somewhat sorted so I could pack them efficiently into the boxes. I’ve also been dealing with a lot of big books that pack awkwardly. I’m hoping the pace will pick up when I start pulling books off the shelves, otherwise I’m not going to have them all packed this year.
Copyright 2008, Dave Polaschek.
Last updated on Mon, 01 Dec 2003 07:42:18.