Here’s the article, but my favorite part was the disclaimer at the bottom:

I am not responsible for what you do, nor is my employer, my mates, government, the Russians, the Americans, God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

In case you’re interested, I’ve started using del.icio.us for bookmarking things I might want to access later… storing everything as e-mails to myself or starred items in my reader wasn’t working out to be the best. Mostly, you’ll find usability info I want to refer back to, etc, but there’s a few games and other funny things posted there.

Here’s a link to my bookmarks.

This is just cool. A little disillusioning, though, to find out she was overweight, diabetic, and probably had liver cancer. Kinda spoils the typical vision of the good looking, fit, take-charge female who did something no other female has ever done… become pharaoh, with all the requisite titles (except, of course, Bull of Ma’at).

But cool and interesting, none the less. When I was about 10, my life ambition was to be an egyptian archeologist… probably why I enjoy my Elizabeth Peters books so much. This tomb (KV 60?) was actually discovered during the time those books were set… I think one of the Amelia Peabody books mentions it, actually… I’d have to look it up.

Having flexed my political activism muscles yesterday over the internet music debate, I wasn’t planning to delve into the realms of politics again this soon… But yeah, I have something to say.

Read this, about Massachusetts’ initiative to “make sure everyone has health insurance”. And everyone is praising it, and if it succeeds it could be a role-model for a national plan, etc.

But I don’t see how they are helping. Telling people to get insurance, or risk paying a fine probably isn’t going to get great results (look at how many motorists don’t have insurance in states that require it — and the fines for not haveing car insurance are much much higher)… And what about people who can’t afford health insurance? I mean, there is a substantial SES demographic that falls between the “I’m so poor I rely on the state to provide my basic needs (and healthcare)” bracket and the “I have enough money to get by (and buy insurance)” bracket. Simply telling people to get insurance isn’t going to help.

Asking insurance companies to play nice, probably not going to help either. I mean, really. Plus… if you forced the insurance compies to comply and insure *everyone* who applied… They will raise rates.

Having the government provide health insurance isn’t the way either… honestly, I don’t want to spend my tax money paying for druggies and alcoholics and people who are otherwise screwing around with their health (any more than it already does).

So the answer? No idea. I agree the healthcare system is broken… but I don’t think that either a) mandating health insurance for everyone or b) providing government health insurance for everyone is the answer.

quote from a technical document:

“Toolbar controls are called butcons – a combination of button and icon.”

I guess you learn something every day… but for some reason, the concept of calling anything a “butcon” make me want to giggle.

Pandora (along with a great number of other internet radio stations) is participating in a Day of Silence, to protest the new increased royalties that are going to be charged to internet radio stations.

I wrote my representative… who was very politic, and basically said the bill to exempt internet radio from this is in committee, and she can’t do anything about it, but to please vote for her the next time she’s up for re-election.

Pandora is one of my biggest sources for discovering new music. I have bought probably 50 CDs, just because I heard the artist on Pandora and liked them. Regular radio around here has a rotation of like, 40 popular songs, so it’s difficult to find things that are new and interesting (especially if your taste in music happens to be slightly off the mainstream). As usual, the music industry is missing the mark by putting these people out of business…

An interesting take on a “top 100 hottest women list”…

Angelina Jolie made number two, although I wouldn’t have put her second to the chick from L-word… but I wasn’t asked.

Other people I was glad made the list: Kate Beckinsale (28), and Jorja Fox (60). But Jodi Foster made the list? And Meryl Streep? wtf?

I want one of these. That’s just cool.

I’m not a big fan of rap, but this caught my attention. The lyrics are really well put together, and well… funny. And geeky. I might have to look into more of this group…

A funny take on software engineering methods. (very true, though…)