Anyone who knows me know that I absolutely love Internet Explorer 6. It's just a nice solid piece of software. I have a few comments on IE6.

1. IE6 has single handedly ruined the Internet

Web developers are constantly having to cut back on their designs to account for IE6. No alpha channel on PNGs? No accurate CSS support? You can create beautiful pages all day long, but only some of them are going to work in IE6. Most developers just give up on the bells and whistles and settle for something semi-attractive but that will work in IE.

If you ever wonder why websites aren't cooler than they are, this is it.

2. Pablo Picasso is the creator of IE6

A painting by Pablo Picasso

A website rendered by IE6.

The best part is that all those hacks you made to get your site to work in IE6 now break it again in IE7!

3. Remote what?

A was running a script on my virtual machine in Windows. It was using IE6 as it's engine and it landed on some random page as part of it's process. The page immediately opened up 3 or 4 shell windows (command prompt) and started executing code. It installed who-knows-what all over my machine.

I view this as a feature. It's a good way to remind me that I need to reinstall Windows - or it serves as a reminder of why I avoid Windows at all costs.

In third grade, when we would go around the room and announce to our class mates our future employment plans, I would always proudly say that I wanted to be a bum. This is mostly because there were these commercials on TV back then about going to school or working hard or something that always ended with "...because nobody says they want to be a bum when they grow up." I single-handedly proved them wrong - I wanted to be a bum.

Recently, as I resigned from my employment at Sewell Direct, my dream of a life of leisure came true. Now that I'm unemployed funemployed, I have some big plans on how I will spend my time. Everyone keeps asking me what I'm up to, so here are a few things I've been keeping myself busy with:

• Laying on the beach. True, Utah is not commonly referred to as a coastal state, but I think what I was thinking of when I said "laying" I was talking about sleeping. Oh, and that part about the beach, that means "in my bed."
• Starting a for-proft local wrestling league. I had no idea how many local wrestlers there were just itching for a challenge. We specialize in greco-roman as well as traditional wrestling styles, and anyone is welcome. Please visit hotmale.com for more info.
• Finally saving the whales.
• Throw big parties during the middle of the day, then call all my friends with jobs and tell them I'm sorry they couldn't make it, but it was awesome.
• Standing in the unemployment line
• Looking in people's windows
• Writing a weight loss book. It's called "Slimming down with Sam!" and there's this great picture of me on the front dressed like Richard SImons. My program is called the "parasite diet."
• Import/Export (exporting things from other people's homes late at night and importing them into the pawn shop the next day).
• Hanging out at bookstores (Libraries are full of really boring people)
• Walking around BYU or UVSC campus with a backpack and looking like I am urgently trying to get to a class somewhere. This is pretty good exercise and people think you're a productive citizen as opposed to a unemployment-hording dreg like you really are.
• Writing letters to the editor on all sorts of awesome subjects. "That light pole on 3rd south looks crooked"; "Those motorbike kids and their tomfoolery"; "Dear Provo, Lay Off the Azalea Bushes!"; and "Let's make an honor code for Provo citizens!"
• I also write a weekly column for the daily unifarse about how to make it as a homeless person. I cover topics like best tasting garbage cans, how to beg properly, and how to knit together newspapers to make a blanket.
• Taking out awesome craigslist ads; "M4F - Handsome billionaire seeks woman to spend money"; "Missed Connections: Old lady at Smiths on Friday, you're super hot! Is you husband dead yet?"; "For sale: half eaten bag of Dorritos."

You get the picture...

I just got back from nice bike ride around Provo. I rode straight west from my house over to my little brother's place. The lights were out so I figured he must be asleep. I rode back on Center all the way down to the city building and then back to my house.

Over by the city building, I noticed a small dog wandering around in the middle of the street. I slowed down and rode up closer to see if I could spot some tags. Sure enough, the dog had some tags, so I whistled to the dog and snapped my fingers until it came over to me. Her name was Poppie. I called the owner, who surely would be interested in knowing her dog was in the middle of the street wandering around.

The dog was pretty mangy, I figured it must have been lost for a while so the owner would be happy to hear from me. She was also a bit skittish - like a dog that gets abused and it afraid of people.

A lady picked up and said "Hello." I told her I had found her dog. She said "Oh are you over by the city building? Sometimes she just wanders around but she always comes home."

"Oh, okay," I said, "but she was wandering in the middle of center street."

"Oh that's too bad, " the lady said "but I'm in bed and everything, just let her go and she'll find her way home."

I hung up and let the dog go, who continued to stand there in the middle of the road and watch me ride away.

I don't own a dog, but I can't say that if I did have a dog, I would be comfortable with it wandering around in the middle of the street late at night. But that's just me.

Here are a few more in my recent line of motivational posters.

I must give credit for the inspiration behind these ... uhh .. inspirational posters to Eric D. Snider.

While coming up with some new decorating ideas, I decided that some motivational posters would help me maintain a good attitude and a positive outlook. Here is one I came up with tonight:

And on a related note, how to get your very own restraining order:

from xkcd

I'm so going to use that.

A small group of people sit huddled around two tiny screens. Their fingers work frantically as they mash at hand-held keypads. Onlookers watch in anticipation as the two players face-off in a life or death battle royale to the finish. The game is Tetris, the players are seasoned and trained.

Suddenly, the game goes quiet. The lights go dim. As the small group looks at each other in bewilderment, asking what is going on, a hush comes over them. Looking back over their shoulders, they see that the double door to their lair is wide open. A fine mist is rolling in as a backlit figure stands, totally tough looking, in the doorway. Who is it? Nobody can tell - it's just a silhouette.

Slowly, the figure steps forward, and everyone realizes it's me and that that thing on my arm ... it's a Power Glove.

As noted by Justin Hileman, Myspace has changed their outbound linking structure so that all outbound links go to msplinks.com and are redirected (with a 302) to the outside link. So what?

Well, for most everyone on the planet, this doesn't mean a thing. Please continue your daily lives and forget I said anything.

For those in the know, this new change means any SEO benefit from outbound links from the myspace domain is gone. Myspace will increase it's value by having no outbound links, and tons of inbound links.

Tom claims this change is to stop spammers. It allows them to easily blacklist domains that are causing problems. I'm sure it has nothing to do with other things that might benefit him.

The change is not retroactive - meaning that if you already have outbound links they will stay the way they are until you edit whatever piece of your page they are on. So as time goes on, it's possible that those links could become valuable. Of course, your stuck with the anchor text that was there before, but you could conceivably 301 redirect the link to wherever you want it to go. Probably not even worth the trouble, but if Myspace eventually only has a few real outbound links, it would be nice to be one of them.

I recently purchased a new scooter. It's a Tank, which anyone who knows about scooters will tell you is the best top-off-the-line scooter you can buy. They're also the most expensive. Think of Tank as the Cadillac of scooters.

I got mine for $250.

I was reading through the manual and thought that I would share some scooter tips and tricks with you, straight from Tank.

A man once tried to sell me scooter oil
which he claimed has magical properties.
Turns out, it was counterfeit oil, not
especial oil like I needed.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm not supposed to do here,
but if I do it, the engine will get ill.

Tank wisely advises people to avoid raves.

Don't avoid the motorcycle, because then it will
get depressed and think you don't like it anymore.

Again, not sure what I'm supposed to do, but if I don't
do it happen to accident easily.

While doing some searching on where Utah is at with the REAL ID Act, I came across this resolution - H.R. 2 Resolution Opposing Real Id Act - Sponsored by Glenn A. Donnelson. Reading through the resolution you realize that it's totally awesome. They lay out all the reasons why REAL ID sucks.

According to the status page for the resolution, and if I'm reading it correctly, It looks like the House (as in Utah's house) has passed the resolution and it is currently waiting to be filed with the Governor. I'm not up on my United States law processes, but I think the Governor has an opportunity to veto it at this point. I wrote him an email urging him not to, and I urge you to do the same. My email was generic like "please oppose anything to do with REAL ID. REAL ID is not good for Utah."

Here's some highlights from the resolution, if you don't want to read the whole thing (which at a whopping three pages would surely keep you up all night):

identification-based security provides only limited security benefits because it can be avoided by defrauding or corrupting card issuers and because it gives no protection against people not already known to be planning or committing wrongful acts

the use of identification-based security cannot be justified as part of a "layered" security system if the costs of the identification "layer"--in dollars, lost privacy, and lost liberty--are greater than the security identification provides

the "common machine-readable technology" required by the REAL ID Act would convert state-issued driver licenses and identification cards into tracking devices, allowing computers to note and record people's whereabouts each time they are identified

the requirement that states maintain databases of information about their citizens and residents and then share this personal information with all other states will expose every state to the information security weaknesses of every other state and threaten the privacy of every American

the REAL ID Act wrongly coerces states into doing the federal government's bidding by threatening to refuse noncomplying states' citizens the privileges and immunities enjoyed by other states' citizens

the REAL ID Act thus imposes a national identification system through the states, premised upon the threat to national security, but without the benefit of public debate and discourse

How awesome is that?! This is for real - The Federal Government passed the REAL ID Act as a rider to an emergency spending bill for the war in Iraq. Everyone voted for it because the troops over there needed the money. Now we all have to be added to a national database by May 2008 where everything we do will be tracked. I know that sounds like a tinfoil hat theory, but it's right there in the bill - they want to track everything so they can look for terrorist patterns. The senator from Texas said you would not be able to make a purchase without it being logged in a national database.

Of course, resolutions don't really mean much. All they mean is that a body is an agreement about something, but not that they're necessarily doing anything about it. Still, passing a resolution does send a strong message to congress, and makes sure everyone is in agreement when it comes down to making laws regarding the issue.

(Note: This post is in response to this. Opinions expressed may not actually reflect those of gthing.net or it's owners. This response is meant in good, clean fun.)

Many years ago I bought a tube of toothpaste for $3. It was good toothpaste, it got my teeth clean, it tasted okay, and it was great for every day tooth cleaning jobs. When it came time to refill my toothpaste, I realized what the catch was - it was not refillable. At least, to refill it I would have had to buy another tube of toothpaste and squirt it into the first tube, and that just seemed pointless.

I bring this up because a friend of mine recently bought a Dell computer for a couple hundred bucks. He may or may not know it's a terrible computer, but he's excited anyway. You see, at the price, it's a disposable computer.

He was telling me all about it. He told me it was a Dell. I know a thing or two about Dell's.

In my opinion, any company that sacrifices quality for a price point is more than a little shady. Here are some highlights.

• Chinese manufacturers believe Americans will buy whatever is the best deal. To accomplish this, they use whatever parts can be sourced for the cheapest price that day. This results in mixed quality of the finished product.
• To further cut costs, as much cheap, outsourced labor is used as possible. Have a problem that is actually covered under warranty? Call it in! Guess where you're calling? Overseas.
• The warranty is halfway decent, but the service sucks. Send your computer in and expect to wait 3 months (that's a quarter of the total warranty period) to get your computer back. If you're wondering what the status is, don't worry - just call their crack support team (this may require you to speak another language)
• Dell uses a design-by-comittee method of designing their computers. This results in them churning out the same clunky plastic ugly computers year after year. These things aren't light either - you can use them to bludgeon people to death.
• Dell cuts corners wherever possible. It's a business model that works since most consumers are not discerning, and really do go for the price point. Go for one of their business class machines, and you might even get a halfway decent computer.
• Resale value on Dells sucks. Keep one for a normal 2 or 3 year period and you can only expect a few hundred bucks out of it - if you're lucky. There are reasons for this kind of devaluation, and it doesn't happen to all computers like you'd think.
• Flimsy hinges. I hope you like your screen falling backwards as you type.
• Dell's warranty is full of loopholes that help them get out of solving even the most common problems.

Congratulations, you have purchased a disposable computer. When it dies (not if, but when) it will actually be cheaper for you to buy a new one than to try to repair the broken one. Anyone who buys these computers is contributing to our single-serving, disposable society. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

But at least it was cheap!

I am selling my bass. Somebody please buy it.

If any of you are interested in some pretty sick (as in "that 360 McTwist Grab was sick, bro!") web design, you should check out some of Justin Hileman's work. Not only does he have the only decent myspace page I have ever seen, but his blogs (both of them) are also very unique and well-designed.

Be sure to check out his "links" and "tags" links on his main blog, and notice the horizontal scroll action. OOoooo .... AAahhhh......

I happen to know Justin, and he's a pretty decent fellow, albeit a PC-lubber. Word.

Let's face it, there are awesome websites and there are lame websites.  There are also websites that are in the middle and some websites that are neither awesome or lame - just there.
So how do you make sure your website is set apart as an awesome one, and not dragging along in the mud with the lame ones?  The answer is simple: join a webring.

What is a WebRing?

Think of a WebRing as an exclusive club filled with only the elite members of the internet who share your same interests.  For example, if you are interested in cats, you could find a webring full of only the best sites dealing with cats.  Sites that don't have enough good stuff about cats can't be in the webring, they have to make it on their own.

How does a webring work?

A webring works like a big ring of websites.  Each website has a forward and back button placed on it that you can push to go to the next or previous site in the ring.  This makes it easy to browse around on all sorts of different sites that are only about what you are interested in.

So how do I get on an awesome webring?

First of all, don't get your hopes up.  These guys are exclusive!  Prepare yourself early for disappointment, because not just anybody can get into a webring.  First, you need to find the webring you want to join.  Then you need to submit your site.

Now you wait.  Member of the webring will hold a meeting and review your site.  One member must decide to sponsor your submission and bring it before the webring council.  After discussion and evidence is heard for and against your site, they will hold a silent vote.  This is like the playoffs.

If your site receives a majority of the votes, you will go to the next round of ratification.  All the sites that have submitted themselves to the webring have their URLs written on an item owned by the proprietor of the site.  This is sometimes a piece of clothing or a few hairs from the head placed in a small baggie.  Your webring will tell you what you need to provide.

All the objects are then lined up and a diving rod is employed to pick out the very best ones.  Only a small fraction of those who submitted their sites will be chosen.  Again, prepare yourself for disappointment.

This process normally takes place at midnight on the first full moon after a 30 day waiting period from when you turned in your site.  Don't get discouraged if you haven't heard back within a month or so, just check your almanac to find out when the next full moon is.

I got accepted!  Now what?

Congratulations, you've made it!  the first thing your new webring bretheren will want you to do is come to their headquarters for initiation rites.  This may involved flying (at your own expense) to some other part of the country, or simply meeting everyone online in a designated chat room.  Don't be nervous though, you've already been accepted.

Initiation rites differ from ring to ring, but usually involve drinking the blood of an innocent and taking dark oaths regarding what content you will allow on your site.  These rites are administered by the Grand WebRing Wizard or one of his underlords.  Nobody really knows who the Grand Wizard is, but some believe it is the WYYZZRD.COM (that's his name, not his web address).

These rites take place only once per year during the ancient festival of death as calibrated by the druids during the dark ages.  Other festivities include sacrificing the best of the flock, taking blood oaths, painting your faces black, and pin the tail on the demon.  Expect to be out of communication for up to a week while these rites and festivities are taking place.

How will this change my life and my website?

Being the member of a webring is no small thing.  Many people can't handle the pressure of the monthly secret meetings and union dues.  But if you can stay in the webring, you will see increased targeted traffic to your website.

Some awesome sites that have already joined webrings:

Escobar Status
Some other guy
Awesome Poetry and Skull Pictures!!!1!