Mooninites take over Boston

Is that Err flipping them off? I have been watching Aqua Teen for quite a while and seeing the picture of Err on CNN related to the bomb scare was hilarious. The mooninte finally caused the trouble they were looking for.

Geekcapital's many faces on Digg

After doing a little research something strikes me as odd. On the geekcapital[dot]com site (cough spam farm) you will see some links on the left side. I decided to search for all these links on Digg, and they all have quite a few things in common. The user yoursaynews has submitted content from the site yousaynews[dot]com, geekcapital has submitted content from geekcapital[dot]com, and finally noobinator89 submitted content from NoobsVille[dot]com. The part that strikes me as strange is that all of the user names are related to the sites, they were all registered with the same registrar, and they are all links on the geekcapital[com] new spam site.

Why am I telling you this you might ask. Well I believe these are all the same people trying to game digg for SEO purposes. They appear to be attempting to drive as much traffic as they can from Digg, and then throw adds up and improve their search engine results.

Digg should look at each of these accounts and see where they were registered, because if I had to bet I would say they are the same person.

Digg Remove "Get me out of this job!!!"

I was checking up on the article titled "Get me out of this job!!!" posted over 2 months ago now, and was not surprised to see what has been done to the site. I refuse to link the site from my blog so just go to the Digg article to see. The site is almost completely empty, but is using text to play Google. I never buried the article in the first place as I just thought it was stupid so I have now marked it as spam and encourage you to do the same.

I have emailed Digg abuse asking them to remove this post and I hope you will do the same.

Alabama Bumper Sticker

I was on my way to work this morning and was behind an older Chevrolet truck with a sticker in the back window that stated "The surgeon general never said anything about smoking a ford". The truck also had rebel flag seats from what I could see.

I would just like to say not everyone is like the stereotype redneck from Alabama, but there are some people that fit that stereotype very well.

Dell QA Worries Me

Just received a new laptop from Dell to configure for someone. When I first booted the laptop (Latitude D820) I booted it left for a second and came back. When I returned to my desk the wonderful XP first boot music was playing but nothing was on the screen. The first thing I thought was it somehow switched to CRT mode so I hit function F8 and nothing happened. So I then decided to hook it up to a monitor just to humor myself and display was fine.

So at this point I assumed someone did not hook up the LCD cable. Since this was brand new I contacted Dell technical support using the chat feature (first time I used this) tech was very nice and told me that sometimes the cable comes loose in shipping. Now that just doesn't sound correct to me that the cable under the keyboard could come loose in shipping. It sounds like the laptop was not tested to me, but I could be wrong just seems like the laptop or the box would have become damaged if it shook enough to loosen the LCD cable. So the tech sent me the manual for disassembling this model as it was the first laptop I have disassembled since the D600 models. After re-seating the cable everything was fine.

The tech was very friendly and my issue was resolved very quickly, but I'm just worried about Dell's QA at this point. I do not personally believe it could have come loose in shipping, and if it did what a piece of crap I would be scared to travel with it fearing I would constantly have to take it apart and re-seat the cable.

Senior Citizens Retake Drivers Exam

Should senior citizens be required at a certain age to retake a drivers test? I heard someone talking about this on a morning show in my area and I started thinking about this question. I know many of the seniors have no one to take care of them, but at the same time they are taking their life into their own hands and others too.

I just think it might be a good idea to require senior citizens to retake the drivers exam every 5 years starting when they reach 60. I know this will anger many people that read it, but oh well I take the safety of my family and the general public come first. Would love to hear if you agree or disagree with me. I know that many of the seniors that drive today are just fine I think it is more people with medical condition.

I will even take it a step further and say that anyone after their second accident in 5 years if they are at fault be required to retake the exam.

Cloud Picture

This is a pretty cool picture I saw at Wunderground little while ago. [picture]

My Service Pack 1 Rule

I have a personal rule when Microsoft comes out with a new operating system I typically wait for the first service pack before I make the switch. I used to be get excited when a new OS would come out and install it right away, but I no longer feel like troubleshooting my own equipment since I do it for so many other people. I have found that if you at least wait till the first service pack you deal with less problems.

Web Hall of Fame

I'm probably in a small percentage of the population being a huge geek and all (but I do think this group is growing.) I was thinking after I read an article from Forbes yesterday the The Web Celeb 25 how cool it would be to have a web hall of fame or geek hall of fame whatever you want to call it.

I think it would be really cool to go to a place that had the first drawing of Digg in a viewing case, and some of the first documents or items that were used or sold on Ebay. I would actually visit a place like this, and I'm curious if anyone else would be interested in something like this. It could have inductees just like the baseball and rock and roll hall of fame, and could date back to the early computing days (I know it kind of sounds like the Computer History Museum, but I mean something different that not only focuses on the technology but the people that came up with this as well) If anyone know of a place already like this let me know.

Digg NSFW Button Misunderstanding

The article I posted yesterday titled Digg NSFW Button was posted on Digg yesterday. I was surprised to read the comments on the article most people did not understand what I was trying to make a point of. It seems as though people believe because items that are NSFW are not supposed to be on Digg they will not be. This is like thinking schools that have metal detectors don't need them because kids are not supposed to have guns at school.

People are going to post NSFW material on Digg. I do not really see the reason in cutting it out all together only give users the opportunity to warn others, because face it people surf Digg while they are at work. If everyone surfing Digg during the day is unemployed then how are they paying for their internet access at home while they are not working and do not have a job.

Digg Wired Article from Nov 2005

I saw this article earlier thought I would share it. It is from Nov. of 2005 before Digg had passed Slashdot on the Alexa (yes I know broken system) charts.

It is pretty interesting to read the article and take a look at the Alexa charts comparison for the two in the past 3 years. You can see at one point right after the Wired article Slashdot rocketed in the ratings, and then near the middle 2006 is passed by Digg then starting a steady decline while Digg's traffic increased.

It also seems valid to point out that near that since the end of 2007 both sites have dropped, and rebounded at the same point.

Digg NSFW Button

Many of the articles on Digg have SFW or NSFW by them. I think it would be a good idea for Digg to add a report as NSFW button, and when you get enough votes like with the inaccurate button it puts by the article NSFW.

It would look like this.

Charter Communications Poor Customer Service

The only high speed access in the area I live in is provided by Charter Communications. I have had their service since they were beta testing in my area with a 1 way downstream connection (meaning I had to dial up for upstream.)

In the past few years they have outsourced much of the customer support and have put in an automated Internet troubleshooting system. The other day I had the pleasure of talking to one of their reps who read a script and spoke with such a thick accent I could barely understand him. Here is a rundown of how the conversation went (oh and I was on hold for 30 minutes just to get to this tech)

Tech: Thank you for calling Charter Communications how may I help you.
Me: Yes I'm having a problem with the internet connection in my sisters house.
Tech: Yes sir I understand you are having a problem and I will be happy to assist you.
Me: Ok well the ready light on the modem is not coming on.
Tech: Ok sir will you unplug the modem and leave it off for about 2 minutes.
Me: Ok no problem. (I had already done this but to make the tech happy I went ahead and did it again.
Tech: Ok sir plug it back in.
Me: Ok it is plugged back in all the lights have come on, but the ready light is still off.
Tech: Ok sir it appears you are having an outage in your area you will need to call back in 2 to 4 hours if you are still having the problem.
Me: I do not think that is the problem I just live down the street from here and I am not having any problems with my connection. Plus her connection has not been working for a week this is the first chance I have had to get over here.
Tech: Ok sir get on the computer (to sum it up he had me tell him the ip address then repair the connection then tell him the ip address again) Sir you would have received a new ip address if the connection was working this has to do with the outage in your area.
Me: I live just down the street and this has been going on for over a week. It is not a problem with the area.
Tech: Sir it is a problem in your state.
Me: Hangup because I could not put up with this crap anymore.

I have also had many problems with them on occasion such as the other day. My connection at my house was good but I was unable to get out past their network seemed like a bad route somewhere. I could access their DNS servers on their network, but could not get beyond their network. Did a tracert and everything was caught in a loop on one outbound router. So I called their wonderful support again only to notify them of the problem I was having (I didn't want tech support I just wanted them to know of the problem.) I was greeted by the wonderful robot voice that takes you 1 hour to get to a person by having you reset your modem and other basic steps very slowly.

In all I can say that I hate Charter Communications, and I will be very happy when I have another option.

CNN Money: 101 Dumbest Moents in Business

It makes me feel a little better to see that even some of the top business come up with some really dumb ideas. [101 Dumbest Moments in Business]

Jimmy Johnson's Spare Time

I was looking through wikipedia at different things and just noticed what Jimmy Johnson (former pro football coach) likes to do in his spare time. Quoting the wikipedia article "He spends most of his time picking his butt. He loves watching the porn" Busty Cops". Many consider him the most overrated coach in NFL history because of his talent he had throughout his career."

Oh how you have to love wikipedia.

Article [Jimmy Johnson wikipedia]

[Update]
Someone has already changed it back.

Humorous Careers Page

I thought this companies careers page was pretty funny. I like how they took a non-convential approach to hiring. Quoting from the site "Reconfiguring firewalls is likely boring to you at this point, but, figuring out what the local cisco rep couldn't , gives you more joy than a day off ." [Arxceo Careers page]

Dueling Sabans

I'm a big college football fan, and love SEC football (War Eagle.) I heard this on the radio the other day, and thought it was pretty funny so thought I would pass it along. [Dueling Sabans]

Sweet Tea

How many of you know what sweet tea is? I was in a restaurant last night, (I live in Alabama) and there were a couple of guys from Minnesota asking what sweet tea was. I have been drinking it all my life, and know that when I travel North of the Mason-Dixon line it is no longer available.

If you have never tried it come down and visit you will find it everywhere.

Welcome

Well I'm back on Blogger after bad mouthing it. I'm giving blogger another go since it is out of beta. I also registered a domain finally so I now have a $1.99 investment in the site. I hope you enjoy the site, and if you have any topic you would like to talk about drop me a line at chris[at]techspews.com