Digital Brainwaves

Someone shot last Monday night’s launch of Endeavour to start STS-123 from their backyard. Awesome video.

(Hat tip: Little Green Footballs)

It’s that time again…

This post is late this year, but March 15th is still International EATAPETA Day.

That’s right, it’s the day when we piss off the hypocrites at PETA who have the highest kill-rate out of any animal shelter in Virginia; who send their people to lie to vets and shelters and steal animals that they then euthanize, and who create hugely offensive ad campaigns that compare the slaughter of food animals to the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust.

Yep. It’s EATAPETA Day.

On March 15th, we make sure we eat meat, fish, or dairy products—all the stuff that pisses of the PETA vegans—in protest of PETA’s deceptive and execrable tactics.

I think my brother owes me lunch for his use of my washer and dryer tomorrow…  Hmmmmmmmm…..

I’m a space shuttle junkie, and will be eagerly watching for a possible launch this afternoon of Atlantis into orbit to work on completion of the International Space Station. Follow along at Spaceflight Now’s STS-122 Mission Status Center, or watch NASA TV online.

US iTunes customers (and if you’re in the US and not one… why the hell aren’t you?) can dowload a free 34-song album of music by artists who are customers of TuneCore, a service that helps artists get listed on the iTunes Store. Details can be found at TUAW.

Americans can a text message of support for our troops to 89279 this week.  Check out AmericaSupportsYou.mil for details.

A popular tradition has resumed for many of my friends this month, as November is NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month. The idea is, write a novel of at least 50,000 words over the month of November. Doesn’t have to be a good novel, just has to be a novel.

I’ve never been all that good at writing creative fiction, which kinda hampers my ability to do much on that front. However, Eden Marriott Kennedy started a new sibling to NaNoWriMo, called NaBloPoMo — National Blog Posting Month — that only asks you to write a blog post every day, weekends inclusive, throughout the month of November. No cheating, either — you can’t back-date posts. Plus, in theory, if you wanted to drive yourself completely insane, you could do both projects.

Now, obviously, as you can see from the date on this entry, I’ve already fal– well, no, I wasn’t on the wagon to begin with. So I’m already starting out chasing the wagon out of town. We’ll see how well I stay on it through the rest of the month… Maybe I’ll consider a novel next year… at the minimum, I want this to help me write more here.

It’s that time again.  Turn your web site pink for October to promote awareness of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I just lost!

And so did you.

Clive Thompson writes in this Wired article about how Twitter isn’t the self-centered outlet it’s usually made out to be. In fact, it’s more the opposite:

So why has Twitter been so misunderstood? Because it’s experiential. Scrolling through random Twitter messages can’t explain the appeal. You have to do it — and, more important, do it with friends. (Monitoring the lives of total strangers is fun but doesn’t have the same addictive effect.) Critics sneer at Twitter and Dodgeball as hipster narcissism, but the real appeal of Twitter is almost the inverse of narcissism. It’s practically collectivist — you’re creating a shared understanding larger than yourself.

This is, unfortunately, something I appear to be missing out on, as not very many of my friends use the service. I’ve attracted a few to at least follow me on the Twitter page, but only a couple have actually signed up for Twitter. I have to concede, it takes time to get into the habit of using it, but you do have to try it, and give it a fair amount of time before abandoning it. After a while, you get into it.

If anyone in my circle of “real” friends signs on, let me know, I’d love to add you to my list.

(Hat tip: David Hewlett — yes, that David Hewlett — via Twitter)

If you’re not familiar with it, Ask Yahoo! is a component of the Yahoo! web site that takes user-submitted questions, researches the answers, and posts one answer a day.

Today’s article seemed pretty straightforward: what’s the best-selling album ever?

Before we began our research, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case.

The high-flying Eagles are the real champs of the charts. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975″ by the Eagles is the best-selling album ever with 29 million copies sold. Jacko’s “Thriller” is second, followed by “Led Zeppelin IV,” Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”

I might not have even read the article, though if it weren’t for the text in the article’s RSS feed. As I’m looking through Google Reader, I come across this little gem:

Before we began researching, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case. Believe it or not, the best-selling album of all-time actually belongs to rap star and Mensa member Kevin Federline…

Waitwaitwait– WHAT???

Mensa… K-Fed… *brain explodes*

I have no idea how long this was live on the site; Google’s RSS reads are cached for a while, and the live feed has already removed the third sentence from the site:

Before we began researching, we thought Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” held the title. But, as we quickly learned, that’s not the case…

I wonder if anyone’s getting reprimanded, if not fired, for this one.