http://matt.ntugo.com Because I can't think of a better blog name... Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:49:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en No they aren't. They're sleek, they look high-tech, and they're cool. They look like freakin' Apple products! Anyone with any sense likes the way iPods, iMacs, and the like looks. If you don't, what the *beep* is wrong with you?If you don't like the way wind turbines look, then don't ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/windmills-are-ugly/ Approx. 1 bird is killed yearly by each of the U.K.'s wind turbines. Of the annual bird casualties in the United States, 57 million are from cars, and 97.5 million from hitting plate glass windows. And besides, couldn't you just fit cages to the windmills, in a similar manner to household fans, ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/windmills-kill-birds-take-a-look-at-these-statistics/ Who needs TV? Netflix + Hulu = all I've been watching since not long before the Writer's Strike. The only current TV show I really care about is Smallville, and I can't watch it anyway. Why? The local CW affiliate station is a digital station...and do I have access to ... http://matt.ntugo.com/misc/hulu-the-a-team/ Have you read Facebook's terms of service? Here is one particularly worrying bit (and I'm sure there is a similar part of the MySpace ToS): When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/have-you-read-facebooks-terms-of-service/ Yahoo's Main Page After Microsoft Acquisition - Hopefully this won't really happen, but you have to admit it's real funny. (Click the image to open it full-size.) Danish Pirate Bay Block Breaks EU Law If you've donated money to Hillary Clinton, prepare to get more spam! Hillary Clinton sells emails to spammers. HD-DVD ... http://matt.ntugo.com/wth/weekly-wth-february-25-2008/ Microsoft must really want to get rid of all those Zunes (screenshot from Hotmail promotional email): http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/they-must-really-want-to-get-rid-of-those-zunes/ I've been watching a lot of videos on Hulu lately (in between Netflix movies). I'll probably write-up a review of the service sometime in the future, but in the meantime, I'd like to share what I've been watching... I remember The Pretender from when it was still on, but not many ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/hulu-the-pretender/ Well, that was encouraging. I've been going to a monthly teen writing workshop/class/thing at the local library, taught by one of the librarians and a New York Times bestselling author (I'm not going to give any names, or anything). Both of them liked the story (which is still in progress), and ... http://matt.ntugo.com/writing/my-unfinished-short-story-earns-praise-by-nyt-bestselling-author/ The MacBook Air is a totally amazing computer. Not only is it small, it's feature set is amazing. Look at this comparision. "Over the past decade it has become increasingly obvious that countless web users are misrepresenting themselves by typing LOL (or "lolling" as it has come to be called) when ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/weekly-wth-february-2-2007/ Wise words: "SELECT only what you need. Even though databases fetch data blindingly fast, you should still try to reduce the load on the database by only selecting that data which you need to use. If you need to count the number of rows in a table don't SELECT * FROM, ... http://matt.ntugo.com/tech/mysql-select-only-when-needed/