Mark M's WebLog

What about Invisible Friends?

A warning for my newly expecting wife:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/11/D8F2LSD84.html

Cool Trick, but How Does Staring at a Screen Help me Get Things Done?

Productivity guru, David Allen posted this link on his blog... VERY COOL, even if it is a complete waste of time!

It Could Be ALOT Worse

Click here the next time you forget to put a cover sheet on your TPS report

Cereal Trivia

During dinner with two other couples this weekend, the subject of conversation (as dinner conversation is wont to do) turned to breakfast cereals. Someone made the comment that they always loved Frankenberry cereal. I asked if anyone could name all four of the General Mills monster cereals. The first three came easily, but surprisingly no one at the table knew the fourth.

And it turns out, after a little research, there are actually five. Can you name them?

Check here for the answer.

If Microsoft Never Existed...

The world some of my friends dream of:

http://www.extremerfid.com/article/If+Microsoft+Never+Existed/162101_1.aspx

Elijah Wood as Master Commander?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051004/tc_nm/media_microsoft_halo_dc

The Singularity is Near (and so is a useable projector)

While waiting for a meeting to start today, several of the attendees started discussing Ray Kurzweil's book 'The Singularity is Near'. If you're unfamilar, the book is Kurzweil's bold prediction of how, within the next 25 years, Moore's law will usher in a utopian like age of technology-driven health and wealth, the likes of which we can not presently fathom.

The conversation lasted for 10 minutes while the meeting presenter attempted, with increasing levels of frustration, to display his Powerpoint slides using the room's projector.

Soggy Toast?

Technology has finally Jumped the Shark:

A quote from this BBC article (via Jason Kottke):

A design student at Brunel University, UK, has developed a toaster that takes a meteorological information from the internet and then browns your bread with an image of what weather to expect on the way to work.

The article has a picture of what Seattle toast looks like most of the time.

LifeHacker

Insignificant given the hardships being endured in the south, but I've added Lifehacker to my RSSBandit feed list. Not sure if I agree with their tagline though: "Don't live to geek; geek to live."

Creepy Spam

One of the great things about working at Microsoft is that you get very little spam. Every now and then one slips through, but I don't think I've ever seen email as disturbing as the body of the message I just received:

If they're trying to frighten me into buying diet pills, it might have worked.

Microsoft Presence Present

If you're already bored of the Google-skinned version of Jabber, try downloading the new Office Communicator Presence Controls. The controls allow you to easily add presence to your applications.

iPod S_CKS! (No... not that vowel)

If you ever doubted iPod is the 21 century version of leg warmers:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9720G/A

Feline Recursion

Kevin Shofield recently posted a link to The Infinite Cat Project.

Add your cat now!

Missed the Mark

One of the benefits of being raised in Kentucky is that most people assume you're dumber than you actually are. With expectations mis-set, their gradual realization that you know a little bit about something usually goes a long way.

Another perk is that if you live here long enough, you usually learn to appreciate Bourbon... A few facts:

• A Kentucky minister named Elijah Crowe accidentally invented Bourbon by shipping moonshine to New Orleans in barrels he unintentionally burnt while making the alcohol. By the time the shipment made its way down the Mississippi, the alcohol had acquired an amber color and a smooth taste.
• 95% of all Bourbon is made in Kentucky (Contrary to popular belief, Bourbon does not have to be made in Kentucky but Kentucky Straight Bourbon does).
• With it's distinctive red wax dipped bottle and clever advertising, Maker's Mark is the most popular Kentucky Straight Bourbon sold in the world.

So, with a little background, you might appreciate why I clicked on Paul Graham's essay titled Taste for Makers. To my surprise, instead of a post opining the virtues of an alcoholic beverage, I ended up imbibing a brilliant essay on design.

Please consume in moderation.

T Shirt Napster (or Why I Love Bees)

Robert Scoble recently blogged about 'I Love Bees'.

I ran across I Love Bees accidentally on my first visit to Cafe Press; a site just as fascinating and equally as addictive.

A friend sent me a link to buy a t-shirt he had created. I pride myself on the uniqueness of my t-shirt inventory and they're not those Abercrombie t-shirts that look like they came from some real cool, out the way, hole in the wall but every 3rd teenager at the mall has one on. Nope, mine have to be legitimately obscure.

My favorite is from this dive in Fargo ND called 'Smoky's'. It has a picture of Smokey the Bear (sic) with the caption: "I Ate a 52oz Steak at Smoky's". I told the waiter I'd order the steak if he'd give me a t-shirt whether I finished it or not (there's no way I could have). He told me to just order whatever I wanted, slip him 10 bucks and he'd get a shirt for me. So its not completely legitimate, but at least I was there.

So back to the website... I click on my friend's link, and 30 minutes later I'm still shopping. The site is a t-shirt lover's nirvana and an interesting e-commerce concept. Anybody that can upload a graphic file can start a shop selling t-shirts and lunch boxes. Needless to say, there are ALOT of t-shirts, and due to the Law of Large Numbers, some of them are actually worth 17 bucks.

Which brings me back to loving bees... I saw the shirt and had no idea why the hell someone would want an 'I Love Bees' shirt but thought it would definitely be unique enough for my collection.

Later on I started wondering if there was an 'I Love Bees' website and another 45 minutes later I was sufficiently confused enough to be very glad I bought the shirt.