The importance of good communication

Nothing quite brings that lesson home than watching your production web server go down just before you’re about to leave for the day, all because a message from you to the hosting reseller inquiring about hard drive capacity was translated by the hosting provider as “Take the hard drives out of that server.” :|

January 30, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Beauty and the Geek topics

We like to watch the show Beauty and the Geek on The CW. It’s an interesting social experiment, even though it requires a lot of stereotyping to function. However, it normally treats it with a little self-consciousness. However, catching up on recent episodes, we heard this statement: “Guys, we’re going to ask you questions about topics women like to talk about: Fashion, beauty, and pop culture.” The women were asked questions about aeronautics. ...

January 29, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Information wants to be free

So it organized itself into a large list of free online education resources. Although, it does claim to have been created by Jimmy Ruska. :) Link courtesy of Too Many Topics, Too Little Time.

January 28, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Spam knows me a little too well

I was checking the comments flagged as spam by Akismet, and I found one authored by Shakira! Now, I’m not sure why she wanted me to know more about mortgages and insurance – by including 25 links – but I am so flattered she found my blog interesting. ;) I should point out that Akismet is amazing. It’s picked up more than 4,000 spam comments since install, and I haven’t found a false positive yet. ...

January 28, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Alpha Kitty

In an attention economy, reputation can take you a long way. In this case, it takes Atoosa Rubinstein, former editor of Seventeen, to an investors meeting to talk about videos of her cat. Perhaps someday I’ll be famous enough to propose cat videos as a business project. Or maybe I’ll keep it simple and just get a cat. :) Link courtesy of Gawker. Update: Doesn’t Alpha Kitty Atoosa sound like a good name for an anime? ...

January 26, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Acting!

You know, I missed out on this particular cultural phenomenon, and now I am so sorry that I did. All My Children. Transsexual. Zarf. “I have a penis.” Words fail. http://www.ifilm.com/efp Courtesy of Best Week Ever.

January 24, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Get a First Life

GetaFirstLife.com: A 3D analog world where server lag does not exist. I like this First Life. :) Link courtesy of the Doc Searls Weblog.

January 23, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Updated to WordPress 2.1

Well, I’ve just upgraded this blog to the “Ella” WordPress 2.1 release, named after Ella Fitzgerald. The process went fairly smoothly, although the upgrade instructions leave out the usual one-step database upgrade, so I was a little surprised to see my installation immediately break. However, when I logged into my admin, the first thing I was presented with was an opportunity to run the database upgrade. I don’t see a huge difference on the admin side, even with a modified interface, but I do appreciate the autosave feature. Hopefully we won’t run into any bugs. If you do, let me know at admin (at) thephantomcity.com. ...

January 23, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Students assaulted on Guilford College campus

A sad story. I guess not everyone understands the whole Quaker college thing. Link courtesy of Automatic Writing.

January 23, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker

Me in South Park

What I would look like in South Park: You can make your own as well. Link courtesy of HOWBlog.

January 22, 2007 · 1 min · shanethacker