Just give me one of these.

A few of you have noticed that the Edit button under your just-created comments is gone. This is not on purpose; there's some issue/bug on Thinklings related to this. It's only happening here, from what I can tell (haven't seen it on other Bloo blogs). And it's not affecting everyone on Thinklings, just some.

I think I know what it is, but could use some experimentation: if you're having this problem (nhe, I believe you've experienced it) and would be willing to clear your cookies and let me know if that fixes things, that would be awesome. Let me know.

New Year's Resolution: go to monthly releases of Bloo. We'll see.

Jared just explained what Twitter's all about. I was all confused before, but now it all makes sense. And I'm not even being sarcastic.

Alterable!

Well, not really. But the new version of Bloo we just upgraded to gives the poster the ability to set the post date and time (a feature we had back in the day on our other blog software, and long overdue in Bloo). I posted this one at 10:26, but set it to not show up on the blog until 10:35. Just for testing.

It's kind of like sending Einie one minute into the future.

But not really . . .

I'll be upgrading the blog within the next ten or fifteen minutes, in case you're on and things start breaking.

A merry and blessed Christmas to all.

Update: Upgrade complete. We're now on Bloo version 1.28. Now to see if everything still works . . .

You won't be able to do it.

From Tim Challies - Rich Daddy God Board Game

I triple dog dare you. You won't be able to do it. I laughed until my gut hurt.

A taste...

Timothy (in the yellow robe) is my personal favorite (and be sure to check out the picture of him on the box). This must be the face he made while Paul circumcised him. Philemon (second from the right) looks like a Mafia hit man while Barnabas (far left) looks inebriated and Paul (far right) looks like a televangelist.

But you'll have to go to the original post to see the picture.

Possibly the funniest thing I've seen in a year.

This post is in reference to the leaked CRU emails.

A few notes before I launch into this: first, I am, like you probably are, a huge fan of clean air and clean water. I'm also geeking on new forms of energy, and I'm pretty much "all of the above"; let's develop our domestic supplies, lower (or eliminate) our reliance on foreign oil, develop hydrogen fuel cells, natural gas transportation fleets, wind, solar, geo-thermal, orbital solar arrays, etc. I think that stuff's cool and can only be good.

I also think it's good if we lower our emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere.

We as Christians should be good stewards of this good earth.

And . . . I don't for a moment think that we're heading for a climate disaster. I've been chicken-littled to death during my lifetime. As P.J. O'Rourke once observed, "have you ever wondered if Chicken Little had an agenda?"

One reason for my skepticism has been the reliance of AGW scientists on computer models. I am a computer scientist, and I've seen a lot of bad code in my time. And I've never seen a computer program that can predict the future.

So I was very interested to read this from Michael Williams. This is a view of the issue we're not seeing out there much, but I think it's very important. Question: just how good is the code behind those vaunted climate models?

Up to this point, it was difficult to challenge the conclusions of AGW-believing climate scientists because most geeks don't have much expertise in climatology. We tend to consider ourselves scientists and to give other scientists in other areas of expertise the benefit of the doubt. Without a great deal of experience in climatology, it's hard for a geek to justify spending much time questioning the modes and methods of professional climate researchers.

However, the email leak has changed all this. Along with a hoard of emails, some source code for the computer climate models was also hacked and released to the public -- and the source code is an unusable mess. It doesn't take expertise in climatology to look at source code and determine that the code is garbage. There are many more geeks with software expertise than with climate expertise, and the geek community will go through every line of code and likely conclude that the computer models are so flawed that any conclusions drawn on them are without merit.

Despite the liberal tendencies of many geeks, I believe that the source code evidence will be insurmountable for most. Some will continue to cling to AGW because of a devotion to left-wing politics, but the majority of geeks will abandon their belief, and that abandonment by geeks will truly spell the end for AGW.

Emphasis mine.

My wife and I just started watching them on DVD about two months ago, each episode in order from blockbuster.com. We don't get the Sci-Fi channel so we'd never seen an episode before.

Wow. It's awesome. One of the best television shows ever and possibly even the best Sci-Fi show ever. ("What?!?!", you say. "Even better than LOST and Star Trek?" Yes.)

Critics have been saying since it came out that it's so good, that even non Sci-Fi fans would love it. Being a Sci-Fi fan myself, I don't know if that's true, but I believe it would be.

The writing, the acting, the characters, the story-arc - everything about this show is near perfect. Another thing I really like about the show, is that each episode is unique. Though they are all a part of the story arc, each episode is a "different kind of episode." So many TV shows (Star Trek, lawyer shows, cop shows etc...) follow a formula. In BG, every episode is so unique. You never know what you are going to get. One episode, will be about space battle. The next episode about people on a planet. The next episode will be about internal politics. The next episode about someone's relationship. One episode was about boxing! But one thing that is consistent - it's all first-class.

We just started Season 4 this week (the final season) and I'm already sad that we're almost finished. I'm really looking forward to the BG movie "The Plan" that will be released this fall.

The purpose of this post: If you've never watched it before, watch it. If you have been watching, sound off. Let's talk about it, but do give people spoiler warnings. There are lots of surprises in this show.

If you are, like me, a NASA history nerd, you might enjoy this: We Choose The Moon.

As you may know, today is the 40th anniversary of the launch of the historic Apollo 11 mission. WeChooseTheMoon.org is following the mission in real-time, minus 40 years. In other words, you can listen to the back and forth between the Apollo 11 spacecraft and mission control and track the mission progress as the mission happened, to the second, forty years ago. You can also watch videos, view photos, look at flash-renderings of the current configuration of the spacecraft, etc.

It's awesome! Today I got to listen, in "real time", to the TLI (Trans-Lunar Injection) maneuver that put the spacecraft on course for the moon. I was absolutely in Nerdvana. Listening in also makes one an audience to the more mundane moments, such as the astronauts wishing a scientist a happy birthday, or talking about what they will eat for dinner.

This Monday (minus 40 years) the Lunar Module will land in the sea of tranquility on the surface of the moon and Neil Armstrong will take that historic first step. I hope to be listening in.

[Hat tip: me]

I think I've fixed the issue with Bloglines not always displaying all the posts in the Thinklings RSS feed. The problem was, as far as I can tell, undue finickyness on Bloglines' part regarding the structures allowed in one of the XML tags in the feed. This has been fixed.

If anyone out there uses Bloglines to read Thinklings, can you let me know if the feed looks good to you now?

The fix will be going out in the next general release of Bloo.

Update - well, it's still ignoring the posts entered today. Not sure why but I'll continue doping this out.

Update 2 - actually, it seems to be working very well now. Check that one off the list!

...And A Horn!!!!

For those of you using Bloo for your blogging software: Three new themes have been deployed to the Bloo Themes site and can be downloaded from there. More are coming - the hope is to start releasing more themes and extension SnapOns in the near future.

Note: for those of you who are blogging at the Bloo Community, these are available there too. Just login to your admin panel, select Look and Feel, and set the desired theme as your default.

Here are the themes.

Flower Power, based on the Wordpress theme by Mark Hoodia.




Japan Style, based on the Wordpress Theme by Good Design Web




Old Type - an original Bloo theme.



In addition, some problems that have been discovered when browsing with IE 6 have been fixed in the following themes:

Field of Dreams




Red Train



There are other themes, some in the core product, that don't render correctly in IE 6 (bleaugh on that browser). These will be fixed in the next version of Bloo, coming soon!

If any of you are interested in having a free blog, and want to try something besides blogspot or Wordpress, and if you don't want to have to manage the technical aspects of a blog, such as uploading code and setting up a database, you should check out the Bloo Community.

I'm launching it today. It's a site where you can request your own Bloo Blog. Once your request is received, I'll activate a blog for you (takes me just a few seconds, unless I'm at work or sleeping or something). Once your blog is activated, it's yours: a full-blown Bloo blog, all your own. Free. Easy. And upgraded with new themes and features as often as they can be rolled out.

Anyone interested in trying it out? Click here.

This is both uber-cool and a little bit frightening. This is an 8 minute video but well worth watching, especially once you get past the intro. It wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing devices like these soon, although I wouldn't like the part where someone blazons all my information (plus what they think of me) on my sweater while we're talking.



[Hat tip: The Anchoress]

There is no way that this blog known for superhero and Bono posts (is there a difference?) couldn't take note of this news.

The U2 Spider-Man Musical is coming...

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will include the story of the superhero's origins and will feature music and lyrics by U2 members Bono and The Edge.

It will be directed by Julie Taymor, the creative force behind Disney's long-running Lion King.

The musical will open in February 2010 at the Hilton Theatre with preview performances beginning in January.

The show is reportedly the most expensive Broadway production ever, costing $40m (£27.6m).

The Hilton Theatre as it is the only venue big enough to allow the superhero room to spin his way around the sprawling skyscraper sets.

Details on casting, or which villains will appear, have yet to be announced.

I realize that I've been posting too many videos lately. Hopefully that's not a trend, but as the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the Apple Macintosh nears, I thought a little retrospective was in order.

First there's this article on what critics thought of the Mac when it was released. My favorite quote is from famous techno-grouch John Dvorak. He wasn't too thrilled with that needless gadget, the mouse:

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.

Here's that great "1984"-themed commercial that aired during the '84 Superbowl:



Finally, here's Steve Jobs introducing the Mac on January 24, 1984. The oohs. ahs, and rapturous applause coming from the crowd are illustrative of how far we've come in personal computing over these past 25 years. My favorite part is when the Mac "talks" (this was actually pretty advanced stuff for personal computing in 1984).



Note: I'm not a Mac-bigot. But I do really enjoy having one.

This site is hosted on Hosting Matters. I've tried out a number of hosting servers over the years and Hosting Matters has consistently provided good service and well-performing servers.

Tonight I had an emergency problem, caused, unfortunately, by a difference in how the latest version of PHP interacts with Bloo . . . something to fix . . . Hosting matters resolved the problem by moving this site to another server still running with the prior version of PHP.

They did it very quick. And that was pretty cool of them.

I'm a happy customer. Just wanted you to know.

Just upgraded Thinklings to Bloo version 1.15. The upgrade went smooth, as far as I can tell.

You shouldn't notice much difference. It will just emanate that much more awesomeness. . .

Heh. It's funny because it's true (or, I guess, it would be funny if this was true. Because the matrix isn't real . . . is it?)



[Hat Tip: That Den of Ill Repute]

I'd like to point you to a new feature here on Thinklings. In the left navbar you can see a link entitled "View Posts From Our Blogroll". If you click on this link, you will see the most recent 50 posts from the excellent stable of bloggers that inhabit our blogroll.

This is accomplished via the "Bloogroll Posts" Extension SnapOn (comes with the core release of Bloo).

Feel free to peruse the posts from our blogroll whenever things get a bit stale here on Thinklings. Happy surfing!