truth in advertising

--timball

40 Gorgeous Vintage Tobacco Advertisements // WellMedicated

The last post on the Soapblox homepage reads:

All these hackers messing with our stuff, and we here at SoapBlox have no clue what to do. We don't have enough knowledge, time, money, or care to fix it.

So I hope the Hackers are happy.

If you want the data from your blog, we will get it. But we are not going to try and restore anything.

Consider this the "We're Out of Business" post.

The attack is a reminder of how little redundancy there is in big portions of the rapidly-expanding Internet, and how fragile the systems that manage content can be.

my favorite post from the soapblox site is this:

Please pay your bills
by: pacified
December 28, 2008 at 22:21:14 MST
50% of you NEVER pay your bills on time. Half of you must figure "might as well not pay my bill".

How am I supposed to provide this service if you folks never pay your bills?

If your site is more then 2 months behind when I do billing in January your site is going to be SHUT DOWN and all the data destroyed.

I provide you with 100% uptime, an awesome blog framework, and have been nice to let you keep running your sites when you haven't paid for 2 months, three months.

Well, so long Mr. Nice Guy. After four years of dealing with this nonsense, and having to track which of you are unable to keep your end of the agreement, a line has to be drawn.

This is your warning.

apperently someone took the threat seriously.

--timball

Ben Smith's Blog: An attack on the blogosphere - Politico.com

if this isn't bookmarked i will end up googling for another 3hrs.

--timball

Top10SQLPerformanceTips - MySQL Forge Wiki

OMFG i want one. Don't know why they use a donkey forum system to run their website. suppose they're too busy being surrounded by awesome cameras.

--timball

RED ONE

the plum book in downloadable form.

--timball

Plum Book: 2008 Edition

In late 2005, cardiac researcher Doris Taylor revived the dead. She rinsed rat hearts with detergent until the cells washed away and all that remained was a skeleton of tissue translucent as wax paper—a ghost heart, as Taylor calls it. She injected the scaffold with fresh heart cells from newborn rats. Then she waited.

What she witnessed four days later, once the cells had a chance to make themselves at home, was astonishing. "We could see these little areas that were beginning to beat," says Taylor, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Cardiovascular Repair. "By eight days, we could see the whole heart beating. The first time that happened, it was like ‘yes!' "

Miracle cure or ZOMBIES?

--timball

Ghost Heart | Popular Science

In classic congressional fashion, the Senate has decided to use a crisis piece of legislation as a way to push through a massive package of other priorities forcing an inter-chamber factional battle to come to a head. The inclusion of this controversial legislation could also serve as a remedy to the current failure in the House.

Poison pill or appeasing antidote? We’ll wait and see.

read the bill

then tell everyone else to read the bill

--timball

Sunlight Foundation » The Other Provisions in the Senate Bailout Bill

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

ha!

--timball

Op-Ed Columnist - Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

The BBC is following a shipping container around the world for a year, starting on Monday in Southampton.

Declan Curry explains why such containers are so important in the modern world.

The Beeb is doing a news show about following around a shipping container. it's an ongoing series so be sure to check back for new video content as well as an interactive map of where the container is.

Unfortunately the first shipment of scotch will be headed to asia.

--timball

BBC NEWS | Special Report | The Box

Project Golf 1.8T

I love my GTI. It's just passed 120k miles... it's been perfectly great to me. It's now time to make it go fast.

--timball

VWvortex - The Volkswagen Enthusiast Website