It seems that my Snakes on a Plane category is the number one search result on google.co.uk for the phrase “snakes on a plane sex bit.” Rather odd, since this person had Firefox’s safe search feature active.
While I was marvelling at my search ranking I checked out the next result, a movie review on a site called, “Kids in Mind.” It was pretty funny. This creepy web site’s review of Snakes on a Plane consisted of a list of the profanity, violence and sex in the movie, followed by descriptions of the movie scene where the profanity, violence or sex occurred.
PROFANITY 6 – 18 F-words and its derivatives, 13 sexual references, 17 scatological terms, 11 anatomical terms, 15 mild obscenities, name-calling (punk), 5 religious profanities, 12 religious exclamations.
Hmmm, I only counted 15 F-words. I’ll have to watch the DVD again.
I can just imagine some sex-obsessed freak watching Snakes on a Plane over and over to count the snake bites AND, incidentally, to see a woman’s actual naked breast in the uhhhh sex bit. Horrors! Anything to promote Family Values, eh? I find it rather sick to post a list like that on a site called “Kids in Mind.” Anyone looking for kids’ movies with their kids might stumble upon it. Sheesh.
The newly-released “[tag]Snakes on a Plane[/tag]” DVD finally arrived yesterday. In case you didn’t see the movie in theaters, it is just exactly what you would expect: snakes, snakes, Samuel L. Jackson, and more snakes. There’s a hint of plot, some hot simulated sex, and a bit of dialog, but mostly it’s about the snakes.
The extra features alone were worth the price of the DVD. There’s a short feature on the snake stars of the movie called “Meet the Reptiles.” Jules Sylvester, the snake-handler for the movie, worked on the “Born Free” TV show in the ’60s. The snakes are named in the script – the 17-foot Burmese Python called “Kong” in the movie script is named “Kitty” in real life. You are what you eat, I suppose.
If you’re a hard-core “Snakes” fan, there’s even a puzzle book, “Snakes on a Sudoku.” If you’re a sudoku fan, you have to try these. Instead of squares, the puzzles have snake-shaped areas. You’ll love it.
They’ve done merchandizing out the wazoo. A music CD, a 2007 calendar. Hmmm, I haven’t bought a calendar yet. And don’t miss the official Snakes on a Plane Treo with the genuine snakeskin case.
I just finished reading the Medifocus Guide to Bipolar Disorder.
The Medifocus Guide to Bipolar Disorder has articles on current and relevant research organized into categories for easy reading. Free updates are provided for one year. It also provides an international physician finder.
I believe this book will be a very useful resource for bipolars and their families, especially if recently diagnosed.
So you’ve decided to start a blog. Blog, of course, is the nickname for a Weblog. Blogging has been described as “grassroots journalism”, in that it is closer to the events described and has more immediacy than a magazine or even a newspaper.
The Blogosphere is the world of weblogs, the cycling and recycling of news and commentary that occurs as bloggers analyze and spin information found on mainstream news media and on other blogs.
A Blogger, then is one who blogs. Bloggers have been described with syllogisms such as blogger : journalist :: tick : sheep
and bloggers : journalists :: dung beetles : elephants
Here are a few hints to get you started.
Define your purpose
This is simple enough. You want to attract readers who have the same interests as you do, and you want to keep them coming back. Your blog can be anything from an online “Dear Diary” to a political editorial column. Decide in advance what you want it to be.
Know your intended audience.
Are you blogging for teens or for customers? Spelling, capitalization and punctuation really matter if you are trying to create a professional web presence. If you’re writing for hackers or then it’s quite ok to use smileys and l337-speak.
Choose a look and feel that matches your purpose.
Themes are available for many blog programs. A theme is what creates the color scheme, type font, and layout.
If you’re sharing photos with friends and family, by all means make the site friendly and laden with cute graphics. But if you are sharing technical information with engineers, keep the layout clean and the wording concise.
Decide where to put your blog.
Whether you use a blogging service or maintain your own page depends on your technical level and how much mojo you’ll get from hosting it on your own domain.
Hosted blogging accounts can be set up quickly and require no maintenance. The data can be hosted on their site or it can be published on yours via File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This is a quick-and-easy way to find out whether you get what you want out of blogging. Blogger is a popular general-purpose blogging site, now owned by Google. It gives you the option of exporting your blog to your own web page if you have one. LiveJournal is probably the most popular host. It is centered around personal diaries, and is used to create a community. TypePad is another popular hosted weblogging service.
If you are technically inclined, you may decide to use blogging software. This usually requires that your web host provide MySQL and PHP capabilities. It also allows you greater control over the look-and-feel of your blog, and gives you the ability to add custom functionality. WordPress is a free, state-of-the-art personal blogging tool that you maintain on your own site. It is easy-to-use and very customizable. Moveable Type is another popular weblog platform for businesses and organizations.
Use categories and tags to organize information
Blogs are presented sequentially, latest first, and older articles are no longer visible on the front page. To help visitors locate information about a specific topic, create a category and tag your posts. Robotics enthusiasts might tag articles with categories “software,” “hardware,” “man-machine interface,” and/or “kick-butt end-effectors.”
Get your blog noticed.
Your first thought might be to get listed with the search engines. By all means, list your site at dmoz.org. Most of the other search engines get their data from the dmoz database. However, search engines take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to crawl your page. This is too slow if you are publishing time-critical information.
Fortunately, there are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. By sending a ping to each service you let them know you’ve updated. I have WordPress set up to do this automatically every time I write a blog entry. Technorati is a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the Blogosphere. Search for your interests on Technorati, subscribe to blogs that interest you. Technorati will let you know whenever they’ve been updated. Feed Burner allows your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed, and formats into html. Feed Burner now offers a mobile feedreader for Pocket PC. Ping-O-Matic. Ping-O-Matic automatically pings multiple services including those listed here so that the services can notify your subscribers that you’ve updated. gada.be is a new blog metasearch engine that searches several popular search engines all at once. You can set up an RSS feed with your search results. Its most interesting feature is that it’s set up so that you can put the search term in the subdomain, i.e., http://blogosphere.gada.be/. Remember to tag your posts!
Read other blogs that interest you, and follow up on them. Feel free to leave thought-provoking, relevent comments on their site, then blog your reply, including a pingback.
List the blogs you read on BlogRolling. This service will let your readers know when you have added a new entry to your blog.
Get your fine self noticed.
This is where social networking sites come in. The idea is to create a virtual community where folks who share your interests can meet you.
Post your books on Bookcrossing. Check for books you might want to read. I got into this because I have far too many books, and a good portion of them aren’t likely to be re-read. I can’t just throw them away!
Share your bookmarks on Netvouz and tag them so that folks who share your interests will read them and look you up.
Create a list on 43 Things.
Share your photos on Flickr. It helps you integrate them into your blog, so do it to save server bandwidth. It allows you to email pictures from your phone right to the web for an immediacy that wasn’t possible just a couple of years ago. A similar service in the UK posted photos from the London tube bombings as they were happening. ning looks interesting. Apparently users get to write playgrounds, apps for interacting with others.
Will you be advertising on your blog?
If yes, by all means read The Edelman Blogger Study. This article contains quite a bit about how how the lines are becoming blurred in advertising on the web. It’s an exploration of people’s motivation and presentation, and how readers react. Definitely read this if you’re starting a corporate blog.
Even if your blog is a personal diary, you can still advertise. It is easy to earn enough to pay hosting fees, but don’t expect to get rich quick. There are a number of companies that will manage your advertising for you.
Do you buy books from Amazon.com? Well, they have an associate program that is easy to join and easy to use. When you review or recommend a book, simply add your associate id to the link you provide. Google AdSense places that familiar block of targeted ads on your site. Commission Junction enables you to host advertising campaigns from many popular companies. CJ keeps track of number of clicks, it keeps track of your visitors’ purchases, and it sends you a single check for all your commissions.
There you have it. You have something to say, you’ve defined your audience and chosen an appealing theme. By all means start that blog.
“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
– Hermann Goering
For four thousand years he had fallen into the pit.
He was never again able to soar to the heights,
Nor even once to raise his foul visage.
He was surrounded by the twilight and the mist,
frightened, alone in the eternal nights,
and behind him the feathers dropped slowly from his wings.
http://koko.org/world/
Koko has a tested IQ of between 70 and 95 on a human scale, where 100 is considered “normal.”
One wag has suggested that we use gorillas as sky marshals.
I would like to point out that the wording on Koko’s site was that a 100 IQ is “normal.” What it really is, is average. 78% of the human population is in the range of 80 to 120 points.
But how does IQ work? Another way to look at it is that with a 70 IQ Koko might get through the 6th grade and hold a job doing simple tasks in a supervised environment. In reality, of course, her language limitations might make this difficult.
With an IQ of 80, she might be able to complete the 7th grade and work unsupervised in an unskilled job – washing dishes, say.
With an IQ of 90 she might graduate high school and be capable of working a semi-skilled job.
I used the bottom of the ability ranges here. With a 95 IQ, Koko might be able to earn a college degree if she were motivated. I hope this puts it into perspective.
“Fine Animal Person Gorilla have Liberal Arts degree. Welcome to Wal-Mart.”
Purchases through the ad above benefit The Gorilla Foundation. I am not in any way affiliated with The Gorilla Foundation.
I graphed my salary from the Social Security Statement this morning. After diagnosis and meds, my salary increase faltered and I began to have steep drops in salary, usually corresponding to a period of unemployment, every three years.
Just for giggles I’ve uploaded a gif of the graph.
I let Excel do a logarithmic extrapolation based on the pre-diagnosis data and it predicted the same salary as the salary reports in the tech journals say I should be making. A quick guesstimate by counting blocks in the graph shows that my lifetime earnings have been about half of what they would have been if I wasn’t mentally ill. I like to play with numbers when I’m bored. Can you tell?
There is no doubt in my mind that I benefited from being bipolar. I could think quickly, I had a great visual memory, and when I was hypomanic I could work long hours on very little sleep.
There are times when I miss what the meds have taken away.
In a Russian tragedy, everybody dies. In a Russian comedy, everybody dies too. But they die happy. - Barry Farber, in the Journal of Petroleum Technology
Snakes on a Plane
Family Values
F-word
recycled canvas
