Michael Gracie

I once heard someone say “I love that guy - he is such a character.” I all could think was the fellow was full of shit, and I was going to avoid him at all costs. The comment was about personality, not character.
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I found out about a cute trick while browsing Frank Anderson’s Blingo Buzz. Pop your name into a search bar, followed by the word “needs” and see what the results tell you.

What do I need? As it turns out:

- open lines of communication;
- juice;
- a bit more flesh; and
- some dependable adults in my life.

I could also use a hole in my head, but who’s asking.

A constant technical (and PR) revolves around why Apple computers don’t get attacked by malicious code. Some say it is because there are so few Macs, and that as the user base grows, so will the problems. Others say the security is inherent in OS X. What does Spamroll say?
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Paul Buchheit throws up a quick post on Gmail, and notes that part of his drive to improve the product was all the spam he used to get. He doesn’t come right out and say all his spam is gone, so I’ll put my two cents in there.
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Financial institutions have long known that internet-based transactions lower costs. And with our increasingly cashless society, the internet can virtually eliminate the need for a customer to ever talk to anyone, or visit a brick and mortar establishment.

That is, unless some sneaks screw up the process.
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Einstein was undoubtedly a smart cookie. I’ve scoured Ideas and Opinions for tidbits, and go back to it now and then as well, but I missed this one:

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

I’ll thank the contributor ahead of schedule. Some friends of mine are punishing runners all weekend on the Gunnison; I got roped into some meeting (sans golf or other distracting activities). While they are counting their fish, I’ll be counting how many business cards I wasted. Ha.

According to Mark Cuban, Google has finally responded to their splog problem. They added word verification to new blogs and blog posts. This means no more automation.

I have two things to say about this: 1) Thanks Google, and 2) interesting how folks move, even big ones like Google, when some multi-billionaire is screaming bloody murder.

***UPDATE***

I may have screwed this one up, as I have been told Google has had the “captcha” in place for a while. If so, then how did the splog bot hit them?

Daily Kos reported today on the Coburn amendment, which was supposed to reallocate hundreds of millions appropriated to ridiculous projects, to rebuilding Katrina decimated New Orleans. And guess what…the amendment failed.

What a travesty.

Note that 15 senators did do the right thing. 11 Republicans and only 4 Democrats…hmm. I wonder what else was tacked on to the amendment, or what else was tagging along the original appropriations. I also wonder what the hell the other 82 who voted no were thinking.

A marketing trade group starts requiring its members to use authentication, but Techdirt says its a joke that only leads to more problems.

I don’t have much of an opinion on it either way, as the whole authentication battle seems like a bunch of monkeys in a barrel. But I seem to have been effected by Microsoft’s moves with Sender ID.
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As if this splogging issue couldn’t get any worse, you can now blame folks selling software like this in addition to blaming Google.

At least Google took the initiative to knock the purveyor’s Blogger sample page offline.