Being the 'net junkie I am, I do a ton of shopping online.

With the addition of eBay’s vast selection, MSN Shopping continues its march towards becoming *the* place to find what you are looking for and buy it with complete confidence.

[ MSN Shopping Insider ]

Continues? I didn't even know MSN did shopping. And I thought froogle was "*the*" place...

Some sort of talent show at some sort of highschool:

[ Google Video ]

And no one is getting beat up!

And if you don't recognize the music, or appreciate the jokes, make a couple purchases [1 & 2], spend a few months playing, and you'll be part of the in crowd too...

Props to Big G for the link.

Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a web services API for computers to integrate "artificial, artificial intelligence" directly into their processing by making requests of humans. Developers use the Amazon Mechanical Turk web services API to submit tasks to the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site, approve completed tasks, and incorporate the answers into their software applications. To the application, the transaction looks very much like any remote procedure call: the application sends the request, and the service returns the results. In reality, a network of humans fuels this artificial, artificial intelligence by coming to the web site, searching for and completing tasks, and receiving payment for their work.

[ Amazon Mechanical Turk ]

The 3 largest issues I see with this are:

1. Getting computers and internet connections in front of people who could make a living at these rates in the poorest of countries
2. Relying on this process for anything requiring a high level of QA
3. Handling the latency of the request if your HIT driven task become unfavorable

However, I can see the potential here, though I'm not sure what it has to do with Amazon, except that they already have the architecture to handle and route micropayments.

Oddly I found this via Seth Godin's blog, who thought it was a joke...

No indeed, finally a good Thai restaurant just around the corner from me.

Sakulthai Restaurant
408 south vandorn st.
alexandria, va 22304

[ sakulthai ]

For those who know the neighborhood, this is the spot where Thai Hut used to be. The menu had this enticing item:

10. Crispy Duckroll *** Must Try ***
Crispy duck, scallions wrapped with roti skin served with chef's special sauce.

So I had to try it, right? Incredible. On top of that I had the standard Tom Ka Gai and the Ka Prow Beef (28. Chicken Galanga (Tom Kah Kai) and 37. Fiery Basil respectively) and both were rather good. The Ka Prow was sufficiently spicey, and the Tom Ka was the best I've had in a long time.

In a city with as much Thai as DC has, Sakulthai does good enough with the standards, and offers enough specialties of their own, and in a much more pleasant atmosphere than Thai Hut ever seemed to have.

8:27am EST (5:27am PST) I go to pull up some music, and perhaps tame my increasingly sour mood this morning, and:

Our apologies,
RHAPSODY is currently down for scheduled maintenance and upgrades.


This maintenance period will be over at approximately
5am PST, Wednesday Nov 30th


We apologize for any inconvenience. Please check back soon.

That can be added to the list of:

• My building and the unannounced, unexplained, unfriendly mess that our front door has become
• Dig Dug: Digging Strike and the complete lack of a "delete profile" or "start new game" option
• Getting a lecture, with your lunch, about the correct way to request toppings for your sandwich
  

But I certainly expect more things to crop up.

And, in the time it took me to rant, Rhapsody is back up...

Update: added to the list

Some colleagues work better or feel more comfortable with a task if they can actually talk about it, and it's unwise to force them into an electronic exchange.

[ CareerJournal | Is Emailing Nearby Colleagues A Sign of Office Dysfunction? ]

And some of us appreciate email and IM for what they are, and don't want to be forced into a verbal exchange. Verbal communications are synchronous, and achieving synchronized in the office can be a complete waste of time. 9 times out of 10, IMHO, when I hear "wouldn't this be easier to talk it out" I believe what is really being said is "my time is more valuable than yours, so I want to monopolize you as a resource and force you to synchronize with me".

The worst offenders of this seem to be sales folks. If I send an email to inquire about your product, don't send me an email requesting my phone number to call me because "it would be easier". If it was easier for me, I would have called you. And since it is potentially my money, I would expect the courtesy of choice of method to communicate would be left to me.

Props to Joe G

[PSP OS 2.6] supports WMA (though it doesn’t support PlaysForSure, WMA9 Professional, and WMA9 Lossless, d’oh!), RSS (we hear that includes enclosures, i.e. podcast time on your PSP!), and some other incremental developments.

[ Engadget Gaming ]

And if you have an old laptop gathering dust in your closet, you might be able to get a real good deal on that PSP.

I'm a fanboy, but now an online one:

This is your view into the pulse of Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The games, the players, the scores, highlights… it's all here.

[ Nintendo WiFi ]

Headed out the door on vacation, so you don't see my scores posted yet, but soon. I'm not sure if it lists it under my DS name "Kearns" or my Nintendo profile name "NADKDC" but if you are playing worldwide Mario Cart DS, keep checking your rear view mirror, 'cause I'm already there...

Nintendo finally adds RSS to their site.

I guess there is a whole redesign that they did along with this addition of RSS feed, but since they didn't have RSS I didn't go there so often.

Yes, Henri, there was an Internet Bubble...

In April of 2000 while on a business trip I received a near-frantic email from someone with an unusual request. It seems that she represented a fellow with a company in Seattle (no, NOT Microsoft). Turns out that last September this guy was hired, and in his contract of employment it stipulated that he wanted a desk made out of LEGO.

[ The Desk -- LEGO ]

If so, check this out:

How to enable shortcut keys?

This is done by enabling the VSS Plugin action set. Enable it for each perspective under Window -> Customize Perspective -> Other -> VSS Plugin menu and shortcut keys

The action is invoked on the current active editor or the current selection if there is no active editor. Perfect with code browsing for a fast check out/check in for a small change.

There is also a known problem with the menu on startup before any editor activation/deactivation or before any of the menu actions have been invoked the disablement of some menu options do not work, which might lead to unexpeted faults.

The currently supported keys are:
   Ctrl+Alt+U -> Undo Check Out
   Ctrl+Alt+I -> Check In
   Ctrl+Alt+O -> Check Out
   Ctrl+Alt+R -> Refresh
   Ctrl+Alt+A -> Add

[ VSS Plugin version 1.6.1 for Eclipse 3.1 ]

If not? Then you are probably in the majority. I expect this is only helpful to 2 visitors out of my normal 10 per week...

Drinking coffee in them!

[ Nintendo Japan: Animal Crossing DS ]

Props to Nick and Zigg

However, type away:

Enjoy a drink while you work—this keyboard is designed to withstand an accidental spill.

[ Microsoft Hardware ]

So, the way I read it, a few double neat scotches are fine, and if you get so drunk that you fall on the keyboard, Microsoft has your back...