zen.org Communal Weblog

It’s an incredible freebie Firefox 1.5 Extension called, Hyperwords™ that makes browsing the Web easier and faster than ever!

All you have to do is select (highlight) any text on a page and a menu automatically appears; click on what you want to do with that text – use it to find more info with search engines, check reference sites [eg., Wikipedia, IMDB, Share Prices, etc.], get its definition from a dictionary or translate into another language; if you’ve selected a product name or type, go shopping for it and/or do a raft of other things.

Hyperwords runs on the Mac, Windows and Linux versions of Firefox, and also works with Flock; one for Microsoft Explorer is anticipated sometime by this coming summer.

I’ve only had it for a short while but am already addicted. Do give it a whirl; it’s simply brilliant! 🙂

Merry Groundhog Day, or as Wiccans call it, Imbolc. Phil says “Six More Weeks of Winter.” It seems Phil’s a poet too.

Prophetic rodent aside, I was walking around Princeton Borough before eight in the morning a week ago and gardeners where taking out the winter cabbage and putting in bulbs. I love winter, but not without the anticipation of spring. Zoë picked up a stick of the ground the other day, even it was budding. Has anybody seen signs of spring yet?

Less then two months until Ostara, er Spring Equinox. Stupid Wiccans.

With a platform including: “I despise and hate the Christian God the Father. He
is my enemy” and “Any Terrorist who is caught in Minnesota while I am Governor, will find out what the true meaning of my nickname ‘The Impaler’ means. Right in front of our State Capital” how can Minnesotans not vote for this former wrestler?

You remember Exxon, right? Alaska? Death and destruction?

They posted the highest profit earnings of any US company. ever. Wonder how they did that? Hmm, well “[in early 2005] Exxon pumped more than $8 million into more than 40 think tanks; media outlets; and consumer, religious, and even civil rights groups that preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe [of global warming].” Mother Jones May/June 2005 Issue

Google, but everything is backwards—meaning, do your search backwards too.

What an awesome hack.

Visit my webcam at:

http://www.zen.org/~sven/webcam.html

When posting this it’s pointing at very interesting location, my back yard, and currently updates every 60 seconds. The camera is hooked up to my laptop which has a wireless connection, so long there is a plug around I can put it anyplace within range. Don’t expect it to be up 24 hours a day.

My question is, what should I point it at? Please post any ideas you have, no matter how silly. Some of my ideas include:

• Where the cat often naps.
• The cat door, see if he brings any critters in.
• Main Street, where speeders often get pulled over.
• The stove: “What’s Sven cooking?”
• The TV. Would that be legal?

I don’t expect anybody but me to watch it in the long-term. I just thought somebody might think of something clever.

As I try to make sure to do more blogging regarding food, I thought I’d list what we ate today…

For lunch, our classic roasted red pepper and carrot soup. Great for a yukky day like today, esp when P and I both have colds and Magda thinks she’s getting one (from us, of course). Simple and fast, that soup. It’s not actually ours, it’s from Avoca, but one of our favorites, for all year round.

Dinner was a Jamie Oliver recipe, from Happy Days, his third book. I don’t remember the actual name of it, but it was salmon fillets, baby beetroot, watercress and a creamy horseradish sauce. Oh YUM. I didn’t think that beets and creamy horseradish would go well, but they doooooo.

I’m trying to suck down as much hot lemon and honey as I can…thank heavens I love honey and lemon :-).

Have you ever writting some horrible code that works you. Then stare and stare at it for a way to make it cleaner and nothing comes to mind? I think I’ll keep it and think of it as grotesque, like gargoyles.

I called TiVo today to ask about having our account suspended or put on hold, since we’ll be away for a while and would prefer to not pay their fees. You can’t suspend an account, unfortunately, you have to cancel and then start up again. If you cancel and sign up, you’re doing it as a new user again and commit to a 12-month contract again, among other things.

Or, TiVo will just give you a credit for the cost of the automated charges for the duration of your absence, effectively making it not cost you anything to keep the service going. If we’re back earlier than I estimated, it’s effectively free TiVo.

Positive side: this is awesome, it makes it much easier.

Negative side: I wonder what it’ll take for this to go away cuz too many people are lying to get free service?

Or maybe TiVo will just absorb this in exchange for their customers being really happy?

Time on my hands? Naaaaaahhhh

But it is fun to see things like that. I love me teh interweb.

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