A Butterfly Blogs..

March 02, 2004

You know, with all these viruses running around and all the warnings, there are times when I'm surprised at whose emails arrive bearing hidden gifts of destruction. I'm not going to embarrass them by exposing them publicly (I've already sent them an email), but the latest comes from a website that sometimes goes overboard in how it warns subscribers about protecting themselves from this very "ting". :wow:

Update: This gets even better. My email to them bounced so now I've headed to their homepage. Front and center is the latest display of viruses from Sophos. Double :wow:

March 03, 2004

The NYTimes (requires free not~too~invasive registration) just ran an oped on how hospital autopsies have dropped dramatically in recent years. It seems no one is even trying to keep track of by how much either. The opinion given, and one that really needs to be noted, is that time and again hospitals were uncovering their own liability for the death of patients in their care.

March 04, 2004

PlanetArk.com had an animal psychology blurb about research done on ants and traffic. Fairly short but went in a little detail on how they determined how ants would handled rush hour traffic while carrying their food treasures back to the nest. Most interesting to me was their comment about ants "pushing" each other when traffic got heavy, not unlike how the more aggressive drivers do out on the highway here in North Georgia.

March 05, 2004

Ok.. We've been being told for several years now that the email circulating the Net telling us we were going to be charged for emails was a hoax. So howcomefer, a number of times in the last few weeks we have begun seeing articles like this one telling us we will (be paying postage for emails)???? :wow:

March 06, 2004

Always one to share something good. Found this CyberSoulmate free online dating service. This time and at least for now, this one is really free. It takes a little while to work your way through the profile part. If you'd like to "Find Friends", "Love & Dating", and "Intimacy", and you've had no luck on the other ones, give it a shot. You just never know. At the very least, they have some fun message boards to play on with the other members.

March 07, 2004

Hmm..Well, at least this article explains where all those interest fees that we all pay to credit cards goes.... Time to pull out the scissors, guys and ladies.. :grin:
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Here's another article from the same online issue of the New York Times that is an an OpEd on jet lag. Speaking from personal experience, it sounds a lot like living in the world of adult ADD.

(Both articles require a not~too~invasive free registration to read.)

March 08, 2004

As a result of reading a Huro5hin article on opting out of credit card mailings, I took it on myself to double~check the FTC's website on the same. The FTC lists an opt~out phone number that will quickly and effectively remove you from future credit card offer mailings for the duration of time that you yourself choose.
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I always find it amazing to see where they have discovered new species by using the newest methods of research onhand at any one time.. This particular Planet Ark story says they may have discovered up to 1,800 species of microbes alone in the Sargasso Sea off Bermuda when genome expert Craig Venter and other scientists analyzed a water sample recently.

March 09, 2004

Happiness is.. Taking a nondescript two~page website from nothing but three very simple, very, very common everyday words then attaching that two~page website to just three ordinary nothing spectacular unrelated webpages already being spidered by the Net then sitting back and letting the poor little site fend for itself only to see it hit Number 1 of 3.4 million pages in three weeks.. For free..

Ecstatic is dropping the first of the three simple every day words and searching again to find that same free, no effort but truly heartfelt website sitting at Number 7 (my lucky number) of 7.29 million website returns. Kewl.. We're starting to feel like we just might have a clue as to what we are doing with web design..

March 10, 2004

For all you birders out there, can one of you tell me what's wrong with this picture? Or am I misunderstanding the classification of duck? :grin:

March 12, 2004

A little butterfly humor of sorts.. Worth a thousand words, don't you think?? :grin:

March 17, 2004

Something that really needs more publicity than it has been receiving. This has been public knowledge for EASILY probably fifteen years now. Hey there.. Passing this NY Times story on because it seems like you or Mom or someone said something about you and your liver at some point. You'll need to sign up for a quick, free account with them if you all don't already have one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/opinion/17LEE.html

I didn't hear about this until several years after I had been away from Robert down in Homestead. I used to go through tons of acetaminophen while he was abusing me. I'd do the worst thing one could do. Take handfuls all day long to ward off the headache I knew would come on from how much rum & coke I was drinking at the same time to block out his abuse. Trust me when I say it's apparently a wonder I even have a liver left to speak of.. :wow:

March 19, 2004

Robin William's You want a piece of me?!! is making the rounds again. Turns out, according to Snopes.com, that he is only responsible for that very last line. The rest is currently considered as being of unknown origin..

March 20, 2004

I, for one, have to say that I can FULLY understand where these eBay vigilantes are coming from in their quest to squelch the jerks who continue to be allowed to shaft eBay bidders.. j/a's.. :wow:

March 21, 2004

link

March 22, 2004

Quickie Webmastering Tip

If you use acronyms (ie: W3C for World Wide Web Consortium) on your website, a nice, simple, accessible thing to do for your surfers is to identify said acronyms by expanding the full phrase or name in at least the HTML coding.

Accessorizing acronyms is really easy to do and passes as XHTML 1.1 (strict) over at the W3C.. Unfortunately, and by now what probably goes without saying, this doesn't work consistently across all currently available web browsers.

We'll use CSS as an example. Run your cursor (pointer) over where I just used that acronym. Except for instances of web browser incapability, you should see the words "cascading style sheet" appear when your cursor passes over the "CSS". See, there it goes again. :grin:

This is very easy to do in your coding. Simply surround the acronym, the shortened version of a phrase, with the following:

<acronym title="insert your text here">IYTH</acronym>.

By remembering to do that very simple little step as you handcode, you make your website just a wee bit more user~friendly along the way..

March 23, 2004

Every once in a while, someone will dig up those longrunning lists of outrageously old, quirky laws that have somehow managed to stay on the books. Here's a little blurb on a relatively speaking fairly recent law that is causing a Mini-bottle showdown [that is] brewing in South Carolina. This law makes it a no~no for bars and restaurants to serve from anything except those miniature (airline~sized) liquor bottles.. Another one of those times when I think there are better ways to exert taxpayers' and government representatives' time.. :o/

Note: AJC articles now require a pretty invasive registration process to view their articles. HATE when that happens..

March 24, 2004

Gears installed backwards in shuttles.. Un~flipping~believable..

Including this one purely because I enjoyed the author's play on the words "bloat" and "stomach" in the article's title.

March 25, 2004

After reading a story like this one where Grady Hospital in Atlanta cut some 226 employees but says that NO patient services will be effected, one has to wonder how it is that they needed to spend millions upon millions of dollars on those employees in the first place????

March 26, 2004

The Net is covered up with stories of the first color television sets here in the US. I can still remember going next door to our neighbors, Colleen, Rose, and Bud, to see our first glimpse of an hour's worth of Saturday cartoons in color sometime in the early 60s. I've often wondered if they remember the same.. :grin:

March 27, 2004

I've often come across the occasional traffic light trip plate that even the weight of my car won't activate to change a city traffic light. In those instances, I've imagined trying to do the same with a motorcycle. I'll have to remember a few of these tips myself for the next time I can't trip light.

March 28, 2004

If you haven't heard anything about it before, there is a free office program out there called Open Office, software considered quite comparable to that of Microsoft's better~known office program. NewsForge, "The Online Newspaper for Linux and Open Source", offers a comparison of how the two programs stand up to each other with regards to system requirements, licensing, and more.

March 29, 2004

You know, I'm really not sure what to think about FundRace.org giving out names and other information on donors to the Presidential Campaign this year. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and all that good shtuff, I guess..... =o/