comment aggregation

i was chatting with a friend today and during the conversation i mentioned something that i later realized would make a good blog post...

i mentioned that i had been using the comment aggregation service co.mments... up until about 2 weeks ago i had no idea what that service was but now i know and i'm finding it very helpful...

essentially it's a way to track comments that you make on blogs and the replies you get all in one place (so that you don't have to go to a bunch of different sites to see if people have responded to your comments and what they've responded with)... it keeps checking those conversations periodically and the ones that have updates rise to the top of the list (so that new material is always easy to find)... also there's an rss feed for new comments in your list of tracked conversations so that you can keep track of them in a feed reader the same way you keep track of sites you enjoy reading... some sites have rss feeds for their own comments but how many individual comment feeds do you really want to subscribe to?

there are some imperfections of course... some sites it just can't figure out how to track (lack of standardization among blogs i guess) and some blogs have the comments for an article on a completely different page than the article itself so that you can't refer back to the original article when you follow co.mments.com link to the comments page... it would also be nice if i could re-read old comments right from the co.mments.com tracking page instead of having to go back to the original (right now you can only see new comments on the co.mments.com tracking page)... other than that though, i'm finding co.mments.com to be a good time saving device for participating in discussions in blog comments...

tank chair

i've heard of arm chair warriors but that's a little much, isn't it? and besides, where's the large calibre weapon that's supposed to be mounted on it? i mean it is supposed to be a tank chair after all...

ok, well, actually the tank chair is just an all-terrain wheelchair, but still - doesn't it look like there should be some sort of cannon in front?

[found on ohgizmo]

more from feynman

i've blogged before about richard feynman and well, here i am doing it again...

i stumbled across this interesting video on google that's basically an interview with feynman... it's not not nearly as heavy with the science as the lecture videos were, but still very interesting... at least it's interesting to me... he talks about his experiences and opinions, what he knows or rather doesn't know (at least not really) about the world - that sort of thing...

they call me google

you know you've become a rich source of valuable information when the people you work with start calling you google...

really, i can't think of a nicer nickname to have...

explosive chocolate bombs

yes, that's right, chocolates that actually explode... i couldn't let that pass, that's just too neat... found on boing boing...

problems at bloglines

bloglines is down at the moment... if you're not familiar with bloglines (i've mentioned it before) it's an online news feed (RSS, ATOM, others?) aggregator... that means it pulls in new content from a whole bunch of different sites (that the user selects) so that the user can read all that new content in one place instead of having to go to who knows how many sites (in my case about 150)...

i was getting a generic timeout message before and it was very frustrating, but now they're showing the bloglines plumber (this rotund guy in overalls - and really, i think we'd all be happier if plumbers wore overalls - and a pipewrench see the picture here)... i realize now that the plumber actually makes me feel better about the service outtage - it's really weird but i'm not so frustrated anymore... maybe because i know that now someone is actually working on the problem (even if it's not that guy)... i think maybe more sites should use something like the bloglines plumber when they're temporarily down...

useless inventions

here's an oldie i never got around to posting... it's from last year, i hope the links still work...

what's that word? shindogu? i think that's it... ok, this definitely qualifies as a useless invention... it ranks right up there with the motorized icecream cone... it's a motorized marshmallow stick...
T3 - Electric marshmallow toaster

i think i see a pattern here... i wonder, what can i stick a motor in in order to make a lot of money... i've got it - a motorized door knob!

[via Gizmodo]

so did anybody see a post that didn't belong?

i don't know why but it seems it invariably happens... i post an article to one of my blogs that actually belongs on the other one... for possibly an entire minute there was a post here that belonged on my anti-virus blog... oops... oh well...

i'm still alive!

yes, i haven't died and gone to geek heaven or anything like that... i've actually been a very busy beaver over on my other blog... yes, i have 2 blogs, this one is my personal blog where i can be goofy and weird and post about all kinds of crazy stuff, and anti-virus rants where i tend to be much more serious (usually)...

so anyways, yeah, i'm usually serious on the other blog, but not always... the recent post about a cellphone spyware rep complaining to me that some other company was getting all the attention from the av companies gave me a case of the giggles (yes, i giggled)... of all the ridiculous things they could do, they actually complain that their product isn't the one being labelled malware...

i've got a bunch of things i really should post here, actually.. stuff i've stumbled across on the net... some of it's been collecting dust in my collection of things to blog about since last year... i'll definitely try to get on that...