Happy weekend! -TimK

Therefore, here’s a video of every conference call you’ve ever been in…

(Except for the one with the speakerphone that doesn’t quite work right, and you can’t understand anything anyone is saying.)

What are you doing online today?!

As for me, my side of the family is getting together for a big holiday bash tomorrow, and my Beloved’s family on Sunday. So that means I have another day to prepare the big Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday offer I’ve been working on, which I promise I will not talk about until tomorrow at the earliest. And that’s my excuse for why I’m online today.

Or Maybe I Need to Learn to Talk Like John Moschitta

… or Paris Geller.

My mind goes back to one episode of Gilmore Girls (“It Should Have Been Lorelai”, season 2, episode 14—and no, I didn’t know that off the top of my head) when Paris was trying to coach Rory for a debate, and trying to get her to up her wpm. (And Gilmore Girls, if you remember, was all about increasing the wpm.)

I finally sat down and turned my sketchy notes into a first draft of my bat-mitzvah speech: 1014 words. At 125 words per minute (a reasonably average speaking speed), that’s over 8 minutes of talking, which is 3 minutes too long.

So I need to cut about 40% of those words. Or else maybe I just need to learn to talk faster.

(However, I’m thinking I’ll clean up and post the full version of the speech in these pages, in a couple of weeks after the bat mitzvah is done.)

Do You Remember the "Internet"

Links and things that I’ve run across recently.

NOTE: I’ve been light on the posts, because I’m working feverishly on the next novel, Ardor Point #2… which I need to come up with a proper name for. Currently, the two top contenders are A Reason to Live and Finding Light.

Race Relations on the Internet

Seen on Facebook…

Is it bad to hate a certain race?

... cuz I like running the 5k...but the 10k really takes a lot out of me...

But Maybe Margaret is Right about the Hair Dye

It really hit me the weekend the girls came back from camp, and I asked my Little One to help me out with a new profile photo. While they were gone, my Beloved and I did a little small-scale clothes shopping. And I thought it might be time to try to update the photo.

Are You a Twitter Bot?

I ran across this site while searching for statistics on Twitter bots: BotOrNot.net will take a Twitter username and predict, based on that user’s public timeline, whether he’s a bot or a human.

As it turns out, I’m a human—Phew! And so is Neil Shurley (ThatNeilGuy), of the blog This Week in World Robot Domination, so that’s comforting news. (I’d hate to think he was actually a saboteur whose raison d’être is to plant pro-robot agitprop into our resistance efforts!)

However, my fellow author Missy Frye is apparently a bot! Oy! As are Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble. Hmm.

So I’m beginning to doubt the statistic that 31% of Twitter users are “probably bot.” (However, 15% may be bots.)

Dominos, Dominos, Dominos

You may have heard of FlippyCat and his thousands and thousands of colored dominos. I had not, until one of my friends shared this video of Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” made with over 7,000 dominos. The second attempt took about 11 hours total to build.

The San Diego Fourth of July fireworks show this year malfunctioned, setting off the entire thing like a match in a fireworks factory, burning through the entire 18-minute display in about 20 seconds. I think I saw that in a stupid movie once, but this was for real. No one was hurt, as all the workers were following safety protocols and were protected inside their metal shelters. But the accident resulted in one hell of a show.

The punch line? And what makes this story relevant to this week’s software theme? According to the San Diego Union Tribune, a software glitch set off the 20-second boom fest. Ha! Software glitch!

(Video below the cut.)

Over the past two days, I’ve been (a) digging out from under more than a foot of snow and (b) taxiing everyone around in the Corolla (because the Saturn is still stuck in more than a foot of snow).

The Little One has had three days off from school, and my Firstborn is perhaps weighing the advantages had she stayed in the government-run high-school, instead of switching to a school that prioritizes learning stuff. Of course, the Little One will have to pay for her 6-day weekend at the end of the year. Immediate gratification has its price. C’est la vie.

In any case, I haven’t had time to write a proper Friday Fun post, so today I’ll have to rip off– er, I mean, link to, others’ material.

Rats! (And New Year's Resolutions)

First up, a humorous cartoon by comedian Jason Love, all about animal testing of those New Year’s resolutions you may already have decided to give up on.

(I’m sorry that I forgot to bring Jen Knox’s excellent memoir with me when I did the video. But she is giving away two copies, hosted on this blog.)

Don’t forget to check out the full giveaway listing at www.JTimothyKing.com (with more books coming, continuing into February).