Brainwaves of Sken

As soon as 7 people on my flist post, the 1700 wide penny arcade graphic will disappear from my LJ and I can read it like a normal human being instead of stretching it over my dual monitors like a total asshat.

C’mon, posters!

PS I’m tired this morning. boo. I need to get a new primary doc ’cause mine lives an hour away from me, and that is frustrating and annoying. I need a closer allergist so I can go back on the shots. I need the shop to give me back my frickin’ car. And that is all I need at this moment!

The end. :)

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DON’T RUN AWAY FROM THE TECHNICAL STUFF

You may not know it (depending on your e-geekitude), but if you have a home network, that network has to turn web names (http://www.google.com/) into IP numbers (192.168.1.1), and that requires a DNS.

By default, of course, your service provider bundles access to this. There is a free alternative that is seriously better called OpenDNS.

I use it. You should use it. If this is way beyond your skillz, ask a friend to set it up on your router, and that’s all you have to do – it’s transparent, just like your ISP, but more reliable. It’s easy.

Some of the reasons it is better:

BOTNET PROTECTION. Currently, OpenDNS blocks the Conficker virus, with plans to block additional botnet viruses. This is huge, to me.

Stats. At any time, you can look up what domains have been looked at from your home network. Good for people with kids, and good for seeing if anyone is riding your waves.

Parental Controls. Unlike most parental controls, this is highly granular (with more than 50 categories), is award winning, and is free.

Typo correction. Ever type in “Google.cmo” and get some weird spam site? OpenDNS automatically fixes obvious errors (if you so select in the admin tool).

Shortcuts. you can add shortcuts in the web-based admin tool so that any computer on your network can type “mail” into any browser, and it’ll go to http://mail.google.com. Or wherever.

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I just wanted to give a big “thank you” to all the democrats and republicans out there who passed the new stimulus bill and gave me a tax break.

The $13 a week that it provides me from June until about January will provide me with enough money to pay almost half my gasoline bill, which has certainly been weighing on me.

Of course, it does little to make my rent easier to swallow, or the ridiculous cost of heating my apartment any better, or make my job any more secure.

Working in Detroit, a ghost town before the layoffs, I feel a negligent corporation that has killed off hundreds of my family and friends is trying to appease me with a pittance.

As we try to put our lives back together, they step up and say, “I know times are hard, but this should help. Here’s a hundred bucks. No need to thank me.”

How about, instead of spending billions of dollars to give every single (WORKING) American 13 bucks a week, put those billions into hiring a few hundred thousand NON-WORKING Americans.

Seriously, I’ll find a way to pay for my own gas.

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I would be totally turned on by a girl wearing this shirt.

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Pretend you are a Futurist, or at least totally into watching for changes happening in the world.

Now pretend (okay, this is for real) that google makes it really easy to deliver customized news feeds to your email or feed browser.

For instance, my current alerts are for:
– My full name (comprehensive, web-wide)
– My internet ID (same)
– “solar cells OR energy OR panels OR power”. (news only)

The first two are sent as-it-happens, and the latter goes out once a week. I’ve discovered solar thing catches way too much and gets lots of dupes, so I’ve got to narrow my scope.

What would you keep an eye out for?

The fine art of using Googlecombing requires finesse – how do you cull information beneath your attention?

EDIT: I totally improved that last one:
– “solar announce OR advance OR compete OR efficiency OR print OR cheaper -system -eclipse”

… Which means “solar” is a required word; the others are would-be-nice, and the last two should be excluded. I made it web-wide as well, to catch blogs, videos and other non-traditional sources.

So anyway, what would you want to keep on the cusp of?

Some ideas:
location awareness
video glasses
greenhouse mitigation
space elevator, lunar colony, spaceship one and spaceship two
x-prize (and other prizes for the advancement of technology / civilization)
AI

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I spent the weekend with blue_lucy and Clover, her new super-adorable, super-affectionate piebald ween. On the one hand, sleep was not high on the menu, as we’re house-training a caged-for-two-years dog. On the other hand, cuddling a wriggling happy pup is pretty high on the awesome-o-meter.

Yesterday was a quality chill day at earthenwood‘s, where I made an awesome top hat that was perhaps slightly out of scale for my enormous noggin, noshed on sandwiches and double-stuff oreos, and met Metalsmith-Alex, who should be covered in a shiny aluminum coating like Mario sometimes is… and if I told him so, he probably would make it happen.

We’re trying to come up with a reasonable outfit for myself, for penguicon, and the furthest we got was “Shiny Gambler”. Yeah, I don’t know either, but M-A sketched a sweet augmentation to my glasses.

At work, we received the actual physical award we won the other month for our video work, so my intern took obligatorily cheesy photos of each of us holding aloft the Plastic Diamond of Doom.

I’m going to be spending the next few weekends in L-town, making sure my girl and her dog are treated proper-like. Now that she’s in her spacious new apartment, I’m sure she’d be happy to have a magnitude:lowkey amount of company.

Word, nerds.

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“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign

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http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/get-your-gmail-stickers.html

I’m pretty sure I won’t make the effort to do this, though I’d like some. Anyway, since at least half of you are Gmail users, I thought you’d like to know.

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A few people said they missed out on all the photos, so I thought I’d link to them one more time:

SkennCon 2009

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So I’m making my way through the superbowl ads with a mixture of professional and personal curiosity, and I come across this avatar-based coke ad (here, under Coca-Cola).

I think it’s particularly cute, and reminds me even more of the near-future sci-fi location-aware VR stuff that I really, really, really want to see blossom.

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