Tag: Uncategorized

Years have passed and the winds still blow
Memories of a sky choked with smoke will not fade
I can hear Art singing about troubled waters
Firemen still race up skyscraper stairs.

Tears still run down my cheeks
As families gather to hear their loved ones
Names read aloud–Ruth we miss your
Smile and wit, your always welcoming door.

Many more of us, humans of all kind, have
Gone from our companionship, gone from our
Company, but never gone from our hearts, their
Memories etched into our hearts.

Missions have been launched, lessons
Have been learned, but what has truly been
Accomplished? Six years gone and the dead are
Still dead, and terror still haunts the world.

Huzzah! The Simpsons Movie is my 500th post to the movie blog! You may now join in the public celebrations.

60 years have passed from the end of REVELATION SPACE as the second novel in Alastair Reynolds’ sequence about a humanity threatened with extinction by a galactic army of intelligence suppression machines called the Inhibitors begins. Reynolds actually published another novel that I’m reading now, called Chasm City, but it’s a standalone story set in this same future history but not involved in the story line.

Ana Khouri, Ilia Volyova, the tragically ill captain of their lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity and the planet Resurgam are the main characters carried over to Redemption Ark, though Sylveste and the neutron star/quantum computer Hades are present only in the conversation of others. Khouri, under an alias, has become a high level government official charged with tracking down Volyova, who is considered a mass murderer. The two are actually working together, with the decades-long hunt a cover, to develop a plan to save the planet’s people from the Inhibitors.

The machines are hard at work in the Delta Pavonis system and their efforts are soon vast enough to be seen with the naked eye from Resurgam’s surface, so the two woman find the rebel leader Thorn in order to convert him to their cause. This they do, not without barely avoided risks.

Back in the central world of Yellowstone, the long war between the Demarchist and Conjoiner factions is nearly over. The latter’s vastly superior technology is overcoming the former’s larger numbers but the winners are no longer that interested in pressing home the victory. You see, they’ve become aware of the wolves too and are sending their most advanced ships to Resurgam to reclaim the immense weapons held on the lighthugger.

Stirring the drink is a 400+ year old Conjoiner called Neil Claivin. Originally a military leader of an Earth faction at war with them, he defected after the creator of the Conjoined technology saved his life by flooding him with the microscopic machines. Claivin never completely made the jump, though, and when he learns of the extinction machines and what Conjoiner leadership plans to do about them, instead of leading the squad tasked with recovering the weapons he defects yet again and finds allies who go with him to try and grab the weapons for use on behalf of all Humanity.

Getting to the Delta Pavonis system is no simple thing, nor is the set task once there. And the Inhibitors have been busy in the meanwhile–even with the advanced star drives the transit time is still several years–reshaping several planets in order to build a weapon even deadlier than one might imagine.

Reynolds does a better job this time out, his writing is still compelling and colorful but there seemed like far fewer wasted (i.e., unnecessary) paragraphs, pages and chapters. Claivin and Khouri are impressively drawn characters and Skade, the Conjoiner leading the anti-Inhibitor effort, is one twisted little bitch. There’s a definitely a bit of middle book syndrome, you can’t read this without having read REVELATION SPACE first and the ending is, of course, not much of an ending. Fortunately I found Absolution Gap, which is next, at the used bookstore.

recommended

I came across a new project this week called reCAPTCHA that promises to deliver some social good while helping block spambots from harvesting email addresses. This project from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University has two pieces: on-demand generation of those odd images containing letters and number one must correctly type before, say, creating an account or posting to many websites and a similar feature that blocks access to an email address by requiring the same thing be done before it’s revealed.

CAPTCHA is the geek made up acronym for those images, which are generally random strings. The reCAPTCHA project puts a community twist by getting the string from images of book image scans from the Internet Archive, so not only are our resources protected but the effort in deciphering the image also helps get more books digitized. To decrease the probability of spammer-controlled machines beating the image–real words are considered simpler to recognize by software, which is why random sets are used–users must type in two words. For accessibility support, an audio test is available as well.

On billsaysthis.com I’ve used it to link my name, towards the bottom of the right sidebar, to my email. Please give it a try and let me know if it works for you. I expect to use it in a new Ruby on Rails project that will be out soon and wherever I put an email or create resource link.

After nearly overcoming the one goal down from last Wednesday in regular time the Reds battened down the hatches through 30 minutes of extra time to defeat Chelsea on penalty kicks 4-1. For the third straight year the team has gone all the way to the end and won by being better at the spot, and for the third straight year has beaten the Blues in the semi-final round of a major cup competition.

Their opponent will be decided tomorrow at the San Siro in Milan. Manchester United bring a 3-2 advantage from the first leg but with two away goals and back line injury issues for the Red Devils AC Milan has a decent chance to meet up with Liverpool in a rematch of the 2005 final (which was one of those three PK winners). Or else an all-English final, on distant, neutral ground.

Today was a nailbiter but Chelsea honestly barely got into any honest attacking until deep into the second half. The winning goal was from the foot of center back Daniel Agger in the 22nd minute off a sly free kick by Captain Stevie, Agger getting just a tiny bit of curl from a left footer with a couple of blue shirts screening Peter Cech from having view of the ball. Dirk Kuyt almost got a second goal twice, once hitting the crossbar and the other ruled offside as the Dutchman was leaning across the last defender.

Pepe Reina was the hero at the end as the Reds pulled into a defensive shell for pretty much the entire extra 30 minutes and then stopping Arjen Robben and Geremi while Cech made no stops at all to Bolo Zenden, Xavi Alonso, Gerrard and Kuyt. Sweet, so sweet!

The last three days have seen the end of Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho’s quadruple dream, no Champions League and Kevin Davis’s last second equalizer for Bolton Saturday meaning the defending Premiership champs will need to beat Man United next Wednesday and pray for help from lowly West Ham and Manchester City to have a chance at a threepeat. They also need a win over the Red Devils to bring back the FA Cup, and at this point Sir Alex Ferguson seems more likely to be holding three trophies at the end of the month than the Special One.

Except Rafa Benitez is going to have the win in Athens, Liverpool’s sixth time as European kings, so SAF will need to settle for two 😉

Bill Bryson is known primarily for high quality travel writing but a few years ago he decided to put his skills at extremely accessible writing into making a general science survey, resulting in this bestselling, award-winning book published in 2003.

A Short History of Nearly Everything aims to put the history of scientific discovery in the context of the lives and times of the scientists involved so that readers understand the progression and not just dry facts. As he writes in the introduction, as a schoolboy he simply couldn’t understand how a scientist “could work out what spaces thousands of miles below us, that no eye had ever seen and no x-ray could penetrate, could look like and be made of.” To his utter disappointment, no textbook he ever got attempted to explain this aspect of explorations.

I found the approach fascinating. As you might expect from previous posting I’m reasonably familiar with the broad strokes of modern science but Bryson’s presentation makes for page-chomping reading even so. His style is the key, consistently using simple everyday comparisons to convey some of the huge (and tiny) numbers involved and illustrating the very human relationships, good and bad, between contemporaries.

The book covers half dozen disciplines over nerly 500 pages: geology, paleontology, biology and evolution, chemistry, and physics. In each he follows the trail lain down by researchers right up until today (or the most recent relevant work), ending at a place that makes for a comfortable, natural transition to the next topic.

* (A Short History of Nearly Everything) is a great gift for the teenager doing well in science or gifted with computers to cover a serious gap in standard curricula or for the intelligent but not ‘book smart’ middle-aged friend or relative.

recommended

What did you know and
When did you know it?

I was born in a clump of mud huts
On the back side of an unruly river
That rampaged over its banks often
Enough to wash our meager homes away
Enough to keep my clan ever hungry

What did you know and
When did you know it?

My father was taken by the flood
In the summer I turned nine
Out of respect my mother and I
Joined my older uncle’s family
Joined, used loosely, used for anything

What did you know and
When did you know it?

I made sure my uncle was taken by the river
My ma’s new babe was smothered days
Before in the night time; I couldn’t sleep
After hearing her breath gurgle, softer
After seeing the blood seep from his throat

What did you know and
When did you know it?

Feet wandered me away, barely remembered
Down the river, down down away
Up to one morning when I came up to the
Emperor’s train, gaudy colors flooding me, the
Emperor’s brilliance lifting me up

What did you know and
When did you know it?

His train carried me to the capital city
Overwhelming all my senses while
Underneath the surface I felt my soul
Restored, slowly, to a semblance of life
Restored despite the ugliness at my core

What did you know and
When did you know it?

15 winters passed me by, the old dreams
Never far from mind, fireworks exploding
After weeks or months of peaceful sleep
Eyes drill through my dampened aura
Eyes that can’t see the cage’s stone bars

What did you know and
When did you know it?

I grew rich as a court favorite will
Learning the tools and the talk, never
Forgetting the cruel truth of my past
Hiding pain with fair talk, silks and liquors
Hiding in plain sight from my ghosts

What did you know and
When did you know it?

Until there were no more tricks nor places
Left to conceal me and I turned to the
Right and drove a jeweled dagger
Deep into my beloved emperor’s chest
Deep into my mother’s faded dream.

Hey, I’m still hep! LOL, sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, especially when I hear recent music that’s popular with “the kids” and my reaction is along the lines of “You’ve got to be kidding.” Bear that in mind as I tell you that U2, who have been challenging The Boss as producing my favorite music of the last 10 years or so, have just released an awesome video (actually two) for Window in the Skies, one of the two previously unreleased tracks on their U218 Singles hits package.

Direct from YouTube is an incredible job of editing together a few seconds each from 137 clips of other performers on stage, either naturally or via software magic with singing, guitar or drum playing or dancing fit precisely to what’s happening in the song as you see it on screen.

There are far too many performers for me to list them all but you’ll see The Beatles, The Stones, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello, Bob Marley, Nirvana, Lou Reed, Smokey Robinson, The Clash, Beyonce and Ray Charles. No Bruce, though, apparently the rights couldn’t be cleared in time, and have no doubt that clearing all the rights was perhaps even more work than the editing.

The second video “offers a dizzying kaleidoscope of imagery from the story of U2 themselves – everything from family photos to iconic album sleeves.” Dizzying indeed! You can see it on the band’s website.

Enjoy!

Because an author continues an admittedly popular series over many years and novels, readers may forgive the occasional below par effort and I’ll give Tony Hillerman the mulligan on Skeleton Man. Certainly he has many fans in Mountain View given the wear on this 2004 hardcover.

Joe Leaphorn is long-retired and only a minor player, which focuses on Navajo Tribal Police Sergeant Jim Chee in the last weeks preceeding his marriage to Officer Bernie Manuelito. Billy Tuve, whose brain was damaged in a rodeo accident when he was a boy, has been arrested in the robbery/murder of a jewelry store and Tuve is a close cousin of Chee and Longhorn’s old friend Navaho County Sheriff Deputy Cowboy Dashee; the deputy asks both for help since he doesn’t believe his cousin is capable of such nastiness.

The key reason Tuve is a suspect is he tried to pawn a fake diamond for $20 but since it wasn’t fake the pawnshop manager called in the cops, who assumed the diamond came out of that robbery. In truth, the diamond most likely came from the most infamous pre-hijacking era plane crash, a 1956 collision over the Grand Canyon between United Arlines and TWA jets (which actually occured, killing 172 people, though Hillerman simply uses it as a jumping off), from the carry case handcuffed to the arm of a jeweler.

Neither John Clarke’s body nor his case were ever officially found. Since Clarke was the only child and his father died in the immediate aftermath of the crash the family estate flowed into a charitable foundation, the terms of the father’s will saying that only direct offspring could inherit. Even in the ’50s the estate was huge and the young lawyer who captured control of it had no intention of letting go. Even though John was engaged and his fiance was pregnant, the lawyer used all tricks and tools to prevent the daughter born a few months later from recognition as the heir.

As you probably guessed, Tuve’s diamond came from Clarke’s case and the daughter, now nearly 50, comes to town hoping to recover some part of dad’s body for DNA testing. The lawyer, fat and happy on decades of less than legitimately earned foundation monies, sends a fallen scion of another rich family who’s more than willing to do what’s necessary to stop her. Dashee, Manuelito and Chee get in the middle trying to save Tuve from the murder charge.

The story has possibilities and Hillerman has his usual charm with describing New Mexico and Arizona but honestly I really feel that the story lacks sufficient tension and some characters are introduced with promise (like the thieving lawyer) and barely seen again, spreading focus a bit too wide.

not recommended, except for Hillerman fanatics

While the Reds have performed strongly in Europe this season, smacking PSV Eindhoven 2-0 two weeks ago to claim the top spot in their Champions League group with one match remaining, their Premiership form hasn’t been nearly as good. Fortunately, with the exception of Manchester United and Chelsea, neither have the rest of the squads and so after yesterday’s Wigan smackdown Liverpool sit fifth in the table, level on 25 points (out of a possible 48) with Arsenal, Portsmouth and Reading.

(Manchester United and Chelsea are running away from everyone else but keeping things interesting by staying within a win of each other.)

The away win over the Latics was comprehensive, with StevieG driving the offense and Craig Bellamy scoring twice to make his case for more playing time while RoboCrouch clears up back trouble. Having seen several Bolton games on FSC lately, and with our injury troubles in midfield, I’d be very interested to see Rafa run out a 4-3-3 formation with Bellamy, Crouch and Kuyt up top, Gerrard and Alonso as playmakers and Carragher or Hyypia in the holding spot (Sissoko would be first choice, of course, but he’s out until February). Highly doubtful that our headman will even consider such a lineup but one can dream.

The Reds have a busy December, especially given the size of the injury list. They travel to Istanbul Tuesday for the final CL group match against Galatasaray at the scene of their May, 2005, Champions league glory, which will allow Benitez to give keeper Jerzy Dudek a final start, and Fulham visit on Saturday.

After a week off the holiday congestion really hits (all Premiership contests unless noted):

• Away to Charlton on the 16th (Saturday)
• We host a midweek Carling Cup match with Arsenal (Tuesday)
• Watford comes to Anfield on the 23rd (Saturday)
• Away to Blackburn on the 26th (Tuesday)
• Travel to London to play Tottenham on Dec. 30 (Saturday)
• Bolton visits on New Year’s Day (a Monday)
• Finally, on Sat., Jan. 6, another cup tie against Arsenal at Anfield, this time for the third round of the FA Cup

Of the 18 points up for grabs in the six EPL matches I can see 14 being a very achievable minimum take; Big Sam’s Bolton seems like the toughest league test and all 18 not being out of reach. The two tournament fixtures against Arsenal are another story, of course, since they beat us 3-0 (at their new stadium) just three weeks ago though with the injury/dissension trouble with captain Thierry Henry, a run of poor play and continuing questions at fullback both games should be competitive.

Meanwhile, the rumor mill is hotting up as the calendar change takes us within a month of the next transfer window. LFC speculation is focused (as far as I can tell from this distance) on three players, two midfielders and a defender. Both midfield targets are babies, only 16 years old, and despite being regular starters I wonder if they’d have much impact on this season; Jamie McCarthy is on the books at Scotttish League club Hamilton Academical with Championship contender Derby’s Giles Barnes the other player of interest. Blackburn’s Lucas Neill, though, is a seasoned pro who might slot in at left fullback and allow John Arne Riise to push forward to the left side of midfield. Dudek, barring injury at the position, is the most likely departure.

P.S.: If you’re wondering about Freddie Adu making a move after his trial with Manchester United, the word is no. Or at least not yet, and his DC United coach publicly stated it would be a poor choice even if the Red Devils make an offer; a better one is to sign with a club with a history of developing young players like the above-mentioned PSV (who recently sold American team star Damarcus Beasley onto the EPL) or Dutch #2 Ajax. Clint Dempsey, already 23 and the best American player at this summer’s World Cup, on the other hand looks set to
join national teammate Brian McBride at Fulham.

ESPN gave us two decent games live this week, despite both turning out to be 0-0 results, Bayern Munich-Sporting and Arsenal-CSKA Moscow. The latter was probably one of the best scoreless matches I’ve seen, in fact, with Arsenal pounding over 20 shots and the Russian champions far fewer but working the counter-attacks like a silver mine.

The Londoners ought to have won 3-1 but for two things: terrible–and terribly unlucky–final touches and several brilliant saves from 20 year old keeper Igor Akinfeev. van Persie, Henry, Fabregas, Hleb and Rosicky all had opportunities that should have been scores. Going the other way, CSKA’s all-Brazilian frontline tested Jens Lehman a few times and caused some shouting between Lehman and his center backs.

Moscow clearly had the better in this home and away, winning the home leg 1-0, and now top their group on eight points while Arsenal will need results in the final two group matches. Yesterday’s match in Germany was much less exciting; the hosts seemed to think the three points were their’s for the showing up while the Portuguese side couldn’t break down a harsh backline.

The Livepool game with Bordeaux didn’t make it on air but the Reds ruled their home ground. Two goals from Luis Garcia and one from the inimitable Captain Gerrard made for a 3-0 victory that puts them ahead of PSV Eindhoven on goal difference, with both sides qualifying for the knockout stages. The group leaders meet at Anfield in three weeks and if one comes away with a win they’ll likely have the benefit of finishing first.

Sure, they’re telemarketing but I think the spam label is more appropriate since they wanted to help me ‘market’ this website. As soon as I told the guy it was a personal, non-business website he hung up. Step back to explain: I got a call just now from a man who said he was with Advertising, who asked if I was saitisfied with being found through the Yahoo! Web Directory.

Posting this as an advance warning to those of you who own their own domain and have supplied accurate phone information in registering it. I wasn’t listening closely enough as he started speaking and didn’t catch the company name, nor did I think to mention being on the National Do Not Call Registry.

Perhaps someone will see this and then get called, if so please try and get the company name so we can report these sleazemeisters. Feel free to drop a note to me too, thanks.

A buddy tipped me today to a new National Geographic Channel special, which will run this coming Monday night at 9, called Fight Science that you’re almost certainly going to have to see. Check the video preview if you have any doubts, or read the show description:

“It strikes four times faster than a snake. It kicks with more than 1,000 pounds (453.59 kg) of force. And it can rival the impact of a 35 mph (56.33 kph) car crash. It’s the most complex weapon ever designed—the human body. National Geographic Channel brings together a team of experts and a cross section of champion martial arts masters to analyze the world’s greatest fighting techniques and find out which discipline has the hardest hits, the fastest moves, and even the deadliest weapons.”

So they gave some scientists several hundred thousand dollars to go nuts on monitoring and sensor equipment, plus snap visualization software, and brought in a bunch of top practitioners of various fighting styles and let them go in the lab. With high-def, high speed cameras rolling all the time.

Very cool, the kind of intelligent thing one would expect from smart video journalists but in practice rarely see.

I have a Google Alert set up for NetDynamics, which most frequently shows me articles where former colleagues are mentioned. This morning, though, I got one for this FastCompany interview with Craig Newmark. I scanned the article trying to see where a company that died over six years ago would be relevant and at the very end he mentions my old peer-to-peer support forum as a sample of a commercial site with real community. Cool, but that forum closed years ago. Then I looked at the top of the page and noticed the article is from the November 2000 issue! How funny, what a timely alert Mr. Google.

Ah well, so much for StevieG and co. 120 minutes without giving up or scoring a goal, 60 at 10 men after Rooney’s ridiculous groin stamping and petulance (would have a been a yellow if the boy’d walked away), only to lose because their PKs were absurdly weak. Portugal didn’t really earn the win, barely taking advantage of the extra man, but Ricardo did the necessary in goal and CRonaldo made lots of pretty dives before putting in the winner.

Let’s just say Brazil do in France. That gives us Germany-Italy on Tuesday and Portugal-Brazil Wednesday, I’ll pick Italy and Brazil for the final and Brazil winning for the third time in four.

Later: Well, having seen the final score but not the match, I guess the Brazil I suggested the other day didn’t play terribly well against Ghana showed up today and so the samba ended a week early. I don’t have a great feel for France or Portugal in their semi-final, but am now leaning towards the Germany-Italy winner taking home the trophy. Though my track record should warn you against putting money down on it.

British vote Oasis album best of all according to a poll by British music mag New Music Express. I can’t find the entire list online but the top ten includes two Oasis releases, two from Radiohead and one each from The Smiths and a group never heard of in the US called The Stone Roses, plus two Beatles, one Nirvana and one Pink Floyd. I organized the ten into Are they serious? and Decent choices; can you tell which is which?

Really, no Bruce, U2, Stones, Kinks, Dylan, Beach Boys, or any black singer or group? While the remaining 90 spots do include U2’s “The Joshua Tree” at 11, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at 35, the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” at 42 and Springsteen’s “Born to Run” at 84 I find it hard to take this poll seriously. One of these days I’ll post my own (admittedly highly biased) Top 100 and then you’ll see what quality really is.

Continuing their recent run of underwhelming performances–you should have seen the humiliation Chelsea handed them two days ago!–Manchester United managed only a scoreless draw with Middlesbrough today on their own field. They truly missed Wayne Rooney, who will also surely be missed by England’s World Cup squad next month in Germany, as the van Nistelrooy/Saha partnership produced nothing and RvN couldn’t beat a backup keeper on a penalty shot. Boro is probably ecstatic to have earned the away point, suffered no injuries and kept themselves in high gear ahead of their UEFA Cup final a week from Wednesday against Spanish side Sevilla.

While the point technically puts them one ahead of my Reds in the table, the clubs are now even on games played with only one remaining. Wouldn’t it have been sweet if they were meeting at the weekend? The scheduling elves weren’t that kind and so Sunday has ManU hosting Charlton while LFC travel to Portsmouth. Still, while I won’t make a forecast, if we win and the Red Devils do not second place is ours. A month ago I didn’t think it would be even possible so no matter the outcome, cheers to Gerrard and Co.

And of course the following Saturday is the season capper, the FA Cup final against West Ham. Who we beat 2-1 last Wednesday albeit with both sides fielding very different starting XIs than we’ll see in Millenium Stadium.

GO REDS!

So I’m a Charlie Stross fan. If you enjoy stories of smart characters thrown off stride by mystifying, life-changing impossible events then you’ll enjoy The Hidden Family, the second volume of The Merchant Princes series (after The Family Trade). As usual I’d have preferred to not find or at least start the series until all of it was released but since that won’t be for several years or more that wasn’t really an option (book 3 comes out in a month or so).

Miriam Beckstein, a/k/a Lady Helge Thorold-Hjorth, has firmed up her plans to make her life more secure and in doing so bring the technology and freedoms of our world to the one she was born (and elsewhere) with her trio of female assistants and support from the man she loves. Not an easy goal with multiple factions arrayed in opposition and others wanting to use her to subvert The Clan itself but Mom has raised Miriam right. Stross tosses in a couple of neat surprises when several characters’ true identities are revealed and he doesn’t ignore the possibilities available by throwing in some realities from our world too.

Being an early element of what will clearly be much more than a trilogy, perhaps seven to ten books in all, Hidden Family resolves only small questions, opens many more and finishes with an old-fashioned cliffhanger or three.

recommended

For years Microsoft has been the post-Soviet Evil Empire, the Beast from Redmond and the object of hatred and derision from Linux and Mac lovers far and wide. Google has blasted its way to adulation and a huge market cap the last few years as Gates and Co. appeared to get lost in their huge SKU list. But the Mountain View boys lately seem to have loosened their definition of evil, as in the “Do No Evil” motto, earning an unpredicted measure of scorn and backbiting.

For my part, I think to a large degree both companies have produced lots of good software, have hired many good and smart people and yet have failed to totally reach the lofty goals to which each aspires. Or at least which their marketing engines attempt to sell us. Some of the decisions taken have been different to what I’d prefer but then again I haven’t founded a company with thousands of employees and billions in sales. Yet. There is that whole antitrust morass, a big black mark against the Microsoft leadership.

One difference which, to my eyes, Microsoft does come ahead of Google is providing early information on upcoming releases to users and interested outsiders. Just look at the betas and community technology previews, often available more than year before products like Windows, Office and Visual Studio hit the shelves. Google, conversely, rarely allows confirmed whispers more than a week in advance.

The most significant product of Google’s where this is simply bad, unnecessarily, is Blogger. I started using it long before Google bought Pyra Labs, hell I even worked for them as a contractor for a couple of months and helped write a PHP class library for the API. From the business side I just don’t see why–other than an unwillingness to grant variance from corporate policy–a real product roadmap should not be published.

Just today Eric Case, one of the three publicly visible staffers working on Blogger, posted to the developers mailing list yet again this message: “Google doesn’t tend to talk about these things publicly, and Blogger’s part of Google, so… silence. It sucks, but it’s just how it is.”

Google makes no direct revenue from this service. I suppose the blogs running AdSense and the search results content are reasonably valuable. They certainly don’t seem to spend much money improving it. There are a few direct competitors but I don’t see any of them benefitting much from learning the company’s plans regarding OpenID, which is what drew Case’s answer.

Doesn’t someone have connections to Marissa Mayer? Make the call, get some muscle behind this loyal user base.

“Fontifier lets you use your own handwriting for the text you write on your computer. It turns a scanned sample of your handwriting into a handwriting font that you can use in your word processor or graphics program, just like regular fonts such as Helvetica.”

Not if I want you to read it! I’m sitting here laughing hard at the thought of this. You think doctors have bad penmanship, just try and read my notebooks. Security through obscurity, I say.