A better person

In an effort to become less of a sissy I have decided not to be afraid of spiders. In general not to squeal like a little girl when I see them around my house. This was working really well for a few days until a actually saw a spider. Then not so well.

I've decided that at some point in my past I'd convinced myself that the sight of a spider scares me, so in an effort to reprogram that part of my brain I am leaving a giant scary spider on my work computer desktop. I have to change it every few days so that I don't get used to any one spider. Flickr is a great place for finding spider pictures.

So here's my desktop for today.


Pretty fearsome, huh? I get a little jolt every time I minimize something. Makes the day more .... interesting.

What will we call Canadian money now?

Now I'm not saying that we should all have to sit around and do integral calculus with our trusty slide rule or anything ( yes, Dad, I know you think we should ), but this is a little silly. No more Monopoly money? Why didn't they just go straight for the retinal scan for indentity verification to directly debit your fake monopoly account?

What fuels the fire?

Here is a very interesting LA Times article about some of the possible motivations on all sides surrounding the new open conflict in southern Lebanon. How many groups over there really want to see the fighting stop? Are there any?

Need glasses?

I don't even care what the commercial is for.

The long wait

I'm not really into video games, but the prodigious wait for Duke Nukem Forever has a way of bringing a decade into perspective.

If you're not the lead dog the view never changes

Here is a quite long but very interesting take on the geekier side of leadership.

An issue of scale

The US is in a bit of a spat with the rest of the world over . But I saw an article on space weapons that made me laugh

From the article:

The White House is due to announce a new space policy this month, the first overhaul in a decade. Some U.S. experts have said it will underscore the Pentagon's determination to protect its existing space assets and maintain dominance of outer space.

For some reason that strikes me as a statement that is going to be sublimely funny someday. I wonder if my cats are vying for dominance of that one clean litter box in the back of the basement.

"just a few clicks away"

"just a few clicks away"
Originally uploaded by 37signals.

Now that is just funny.

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds (I.R.)

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds (I.R.)
Originally uploaded by tricky (sovietuk).

This is one of the best flickr shots I've ever seen. Beautiful filtering.