I have not updated my blog in forever. I apologize to those who used to visit it quite frequently. I am currently rebuilding it would like to have the new version up next month (July 2008) with lots of fresh content.

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First Look: YouTube has a New Look

Posted On: August 26th, 2007 | Published Under: Fun Finds | 1 Comment »

The new YouTube video page uses larger buttons, a much simpler and larger right column, and brighter icons for the tools located below the video. (Click the image below for a larger version of the pageview).

here

The new video player is quite simple. It appears they have removed quite a few of the controls, which I assume must not have been used very often. The new look is much sleeker and much easier to understand. The hollow cursor circle is actually beneficial on longer videos where its hard to see if the video is still loading like it is currently with the solid circle.

here 2

The new updated tool bar have been simplified dramatically from the old one.

here 3

The right column has changed the most I would say. They have eliminated the Director Videos column and the tags, URL, and embed code areas have been removed as well.The have added a much larger Related Videos section and a new section called, “Promoted Videos”.

here 4

As for what happens when you click the buttons, here are some screen shots. You must be logged into to use the Favorite, Add to Playlists and Flag buttons.
The Share link without logging in:

here 5

The Share link after logging in:

here 6

Favorite just gives you a quick message that says “added to favorites” when you click it.Add to Playlists pops open a little playlist dropdown.

here 7

Flag opens up a little flag this video dialog box.

here 8

Overall the new design is simple, fast, and much easier to read when It comes to the right column especially. I have no clue when this change will go site wide, nor do I know if this is simply a test and the final updated YouTube setup may look nothing like this.

Popularity: 39% [?]

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Conan The Barbarian will Protect L.A. from West Nile Virus

Posted On: August 13th, 2007 | Published Under: Fun Finds | 1 Comment »

Apparently Google is still trying to figure out glitches in how it pulls images for news stories. Until they figure out a more reliable system, we will have fun mix ups like this.

In referencing the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they pull what I would not consider the ideal photo for such a serious news story:

Conan the West Nile Killer

Popularity: 37% [?]

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I remember waking up in the morning and hopping on Yahoo News to check out the latest stories, not because I actually cared what was going on in the world, but because I wanted to see the comments. For ignorant trolls Yahoo Message Boards used to be a fun relaxing way to call someone’s mother a w***** or see who was the most evil religion in the world, etc…

Then on December 29th, 2006 all of that changed. Yahoo shut down what I assume had to be the single largest community of trolls to ever spam the web. A news story about Barrack Obama pops up, and watch the horrific racist jokes start rolling in. A news story about a new breed of dog; someone will share their story of bashing them with shovels.

Then all of a sudden this disappears from the troll universe. What I guesstimate must be around 30-50,000 comment trolls were released upon the web. The results have been detrimental to rational debate on Reddit and Digg. Before Yahoo opened Pandora’s box I can remember having fun talks and decent debates where only a troll comment here and a troll there was found.

Now, you can’t submit a link to Digg about something as fun as a “folding couch” and escape 134 comments that include calling everyone douche bags, lamers, haters, and a several Asian jokes (this is a story about a couch that folds up like an accordion).

Post anything related to race, religion, health, ethnicities, apple, Ubuntu, Bush, Barrack, or otherwise and expect within the first 10 comments a racist joke, a fat joke, and at least one religious joke usually involving Muslims.

Of course we can all assume Yahoo had to cut off commenting due to advertisers and newspapers complaining about the comments being located a single click from their story. But I feel its Yahoo’s ethical duty to take them back. Instead of spending their 3-5 hours at the office each day on Yahoo News, they now spend it polluting Digg and Reddit.

Popularity: 49% [?]

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Normally that would take at least a couple days.

The sad state of the domain squatting industry, and society in general, is that after a horrible shooting a bunch of “business people” sprint to grab up every VT shooting/massacre domain possible.

If your first thought upon seeing the news of this horrible shooting, is “Oh crap, how can I make money off of this?”, then you need to get off the computer because the internet has completely warped your ability to care for other people.

After noticing that domains were popping up right after recent tragedies like Katrina, I was curious how often these tragedy induced domain buying frenzies actually happen, and the results were naturally disgusting and not surprising. This latest VT tragedy is just a long history of people snatching up tragedy domain names immediately and then selling them off later for a profit.

The domains that were immediately purchased within 20 mins of the shooting are:

virginiatechshooting.com
virginiatechmassacre.com
vtmassacre.com
vtshooting.com

Special Note: virginiatechschoolshooting.com is still avilable! Hurry, you too can profit from other people’s suffering!

UPDATES:

The first domain is already up for sale already. These poor kids aren’t even in the ground yet and this guy is already making his money: (Copy and paste if you want, I’m not linking to their auction.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Virginia-Tech-Massacre-info-Domain-name-lot-vatech
-va_W0QQitemZ320104764149QQihZ011QQcategoryZ3767QQss
PageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not only has virginiatechschoolshooting.com been taken quickly after posting this, but the following domains were grabbed up as well (hokiemassacre.com is probably the worst): Source 27BStroke6 on Wired

virginiatechshooting.com
virginiatechshooting.net
virginiatechshooting.org
virginiatechshooting.info
virginiatechshooting.us
vatechshooting.com
vatechshooting.net
vatechshooting.org
vatechshooting.info
vatechshooting.us
vatechshooting.biz
vtshooting.com
vtshooting.info
vatechmassacre.com
vatechmassacre.net
vatechmassacre.info
vatechmassacre.biz
vtmassacre.com
vtmassacre.net
vtmassacre.org
vtmassacre.info
virginiatechrampage.com
vatechrampage.com
vtrampage.com
virginiatechmurders.com
virginiatechmurders.net
virginiatechmurders.org
virginiatechmurders.info
virginiatechmurders.us
vatechmurders.com
vtmurders.com
hokieshootings.com
hokiemassacre.com
blacksburgshootings.com

Also, thank you to the dozens of people including (Washington Post, Univ of Kansas, Wired, Hipinion, and others) who have referenced my blog and did not just steal my content! :)

Popularity: 99% [?]

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