Since starting work, my 'blogging has moved away from the observational and towards the "interesting news". I suppose having less time on my hands means that the internet provides a more convenient insight into life. Who knows?
Rosanna Scotto, along with her supporting website, frustrates the hell out of me. The former is the anchor on Fox 5 News (I wish I could have used former twice in that clause), and her ability and willingness to offer up her personal views on news stories in my opinion goes against the role of a news reporter - although she does work for Murdoch, I suppose. Whether it's a snide side-comment or just a mis-placed emphasis she puts on certain words (like an old woman in the post office might do), it grates hugely with me. News in the US is bad at best, and Fox 5 - along with our dear Rosanna - is the embodiment of all of its worst qualities. Meanwhile, her frame-based supporting website sucks. First of all, frames are horrible. Secondly, every page having the same URL is really helpful for deep linking. Thanks, Fox! (You'll notice that the link to Rosanna herself necessarily lacks the left-hand navigation.)
The French seem to have kept the Millau Bridge pretty secret over its last three years in the making, but take a look. It's awesome (in the British sense of the word), and certainly worth a one-off $5.60 for the pleasure. I see they needed the Brits' help to build it :)
Not sure how widely this Google feature has been publicised, but some might like it. Basically, while you're typing, it comes up with auto-completions, along with the number of results that would be returned from such a search. (Apparently, it uses some quite cool technology.) On a Google scale, I think it's pretty pointless, as whatever you search for (unless it's a Googlewhack), it will come back with a plethora of results. Its only potential use might be to guide you into searching for something slightly different from the thing you were actually looking for - "I was going to look for long john silver (103,000 results), but half-way through typing, I noticed that long johns (2.48m results) gave me a wider choice - 103,000 just wasn't enough!") It would be more usefully employed on sub-site search implementations, like Directgov or DH, for example.
(BTW, in order to find out whether or not Googlewhack was hyphenated, I looked it up on, er, Google, only to find a bunch of sites listing Googlewhacks - thus making them non-Googlewhacks once these sites themselves had been indexed. I quite like that.)
Many will be aware of my knack for remembering telephone numbers. (If anyone wanted to contact my brother back in 1993, they'd have to dial 010 49 221 2093 531, 010 being the old international dialling code from the UK.) For some odd reason, a phone number (555-1934) was quoted in the 1989 film Major League - it was given to Tom Berenger by a woman in a restaurant. I saw the film back in 1989 with my then next door neighbour, and for some reason I remembered the phone number. Some years later, I remembered the fact that I remembered the number, which caused me to consciously remember it. Since then, I have wondered if it was correct, or whether I was remembering something that my mind had since manipulated. I saw a bit of the movie tonight on TV (for the first time since), and can confirm that this useless fact has clogged up my brain unnecessarily for the last 15 years.
BTW, if anyone's counting, this marks my 100th post. Everyone raise a glass, please.
