Daily Links - 3/19/10

URL Shortener Performance - Which URL shortening service performs the best? Not Facebook's.

Never Online - Never do these 11 things online.

Tetris Effect - OK, who hasn't experienced this?

Steve Jobs Cheese Head - Yes, someone made a replica of Steve Jobs' head out of cheese.

HTC Disagrees - HTC things Apple is wrong, and plans on proving it.

Logic Problem - Once again the hardest logic problem ever.

Nano Enterprise - The smallest starship Enterprise you will see today.

Daily Links - 3/18/10

New Dates for w00tstock - Get your tickets now for the geek festivals near you.

New CD from MCF - MC Frontalot releases a new CD and you can get the music now. Sweet.

Mars Avalanche - Caught on tape. Film at 11.

Desktop Dungeon - 10 minute Nethack like games. Looks fun.

Browser Vehicles - 5 browsers represented as vehicles.

Breakfast of the Gods - A graphic novel with characters from cereal boxes.

Goo.gl Shortener and Sharer - A Chrome extension that uses the Goo.gl URL shortener and integrates with sharing on Twitter.

Daily Links - 3/17/10

Ancient Aliens - Structures that could've been built by ancient aliens, but weren't.

Gmail Future - What the Gmail team is working on.

Grade Inflation - In chart form.

The Piano Man - Improvisational piano man provides entertainment on Chatroulette.

It Blowed Up - Yes, I know it's not a word. What happens when a star blows up and there's nothing left?

Playing Games - Show this to your Mac friends for a laugh.

What's Hot - This is a geek site, so you know what kind of hot I'm talking about.

Daily Links - 3/15/10

Sci-Fi Fish - So long and thanks for all the fish.

Break the Wall - Break the wall or run into it.

Paper Sizes - And the rationale behind them.

Showdown Bracket - This should start a few debates.

The New Dork - A parody of Empire State of Mind.

Guilty Geek - I have to plead guilty to most of the items on this list.

It's Not News - It's PR.

My First Substitute Teaching Assignment Wasn't What I Expected

You may remember me posting about how I was going through training to become a substitute teacher. Back some time during January, I became eligible to teach. The company has a web site where you can look for openings, but I've never seen any there. They also have a phone system that calls you in the morning if they have a job available.

The first couple of calls from the phone system, I didn't realize were from this company so I ignored them. Then after I figured out who it was, I missed the next couple calls because it would call my cell in the morning when the ringer was off. I rectified that situation by giving them my Google Voice number, so both home and cell ring. The calls don't come very often. Maybe once a week, if that, so this whole process took a couple months.

Finally, I'm all set, or so I think. I get a call, I press "1" to accept the assignment, and then it asks me for my PIN. I've never gotten this far in the process, and I have no idea what my PIN is. I scramble over to the computer, but the moment I find my PIN, the phone call times out, and hangs up. As an aside, it's embarrassing that technology like this would cause a geek like me so much trouble. Must be something psychological about it.

But, the story doesn't end there. I'm getting my breakfast ready and the system calls me again. They have a substitute teaching assignment that starts at 8:35 AM. It's 8:10 and I'm in my pajamas. I accept it anyway, because my pride is on the line now. I scramble to get cleaned and dressed while Mrs. BBspot packs me my lunch. Then I'm out the door, on my first non-BBspot related job in over 7 years.

My assignment was helping in a room with seven severely autistic children that are preschool age. We had 6 adults for the 7 kids we had. This wasn't the kind of assignment I had imagined when I signed up to substitute teach, but it was a great experience. I love working with kids, and working with these kids was great. Library, gym, painting, eating, sand, listening to silly books, trikes in the hall (I had to push my little guy around), snack, then helping them get ready to go home. I must've done all right, because at the end of the day they wanted my number so they could request me again if they needed. I'd be happy to go back.

That's all for now. Stay geeky!

Daily Links - 3/15/10

New Hard Drive - New standards for hard drives aren't friendly to XP. Maybe I'll have to upgrade.

iPad Alternatives - 7 alternatives to the iPad.

Useful Signs - The secret language of signs to add to your geeky knowledge base.

Gamer IQ Test - How many characters do you recognize?

Plants vs. Zombies - A showdown.

Tripit Travel Organizer - We're using TripIt to plan for our next "collaborative trip" with our friend. Really like it.

PlayStation Move - The PlayStation 3 gets a Wiimote.

It's Not You, It's Me

Happy Friday to everyone. I've been pondering for some time my lack of separation between my "friends" and my friends in my online accounts. Friends, family, acquaintances, fans, foes are all bundled together on Twitter, Facebook, email etc. It does accurately reflect how much a part of my life BBspot is, but there are moments when I need the two separated.

This article about a blogger who defriended 99% of friends on Facebook and directed them to the "fan pages" he set up made a lot of sense to me. I've had a BBspot fan page on Facebook for quite a while, but never made it active. I've done that so now. I plan on updating that regularly now, so instead of befriendng my personal Facebook account, follow that page instead.

Now, I'm not sure I'm going to go through the process of defriending people at this time, but when the transition to the fan page seems mostly complete, I probably will. Like the other blogger says, it's not you, it's me. Being as Internet savvy as most BBspotters are, I think you can understand this. Thanks.

That's all for now. Stay geeky!

Daily Links - 3/12/10

Your Attention Please - An article on reclaiming your attention.

Party Place - Wisconsin is the place to go for bars.

Lessons from Einstein - Life lessons you can learn from Einstein.

OK Go Away - The band OK Go leaves their label and starts their own. Not too surprising is it?

Jetpack for Sale - I think geeks could have some fun with one of these.

The DMCA Sucks - As if you didn't already know that.

Portal 2 - Looks like I'm going to have to remove my self-imposed ban on Steam again.

Daily Links - 3/11/10

Google Apps - The Google App marketplace.

Big Tree - Let's just hope it's not an Ent.

Star Wars Minis - Patterns to make Star Wars mini figures from yarn.

Canadian Flush - What if everyone in Canada flushed at the same time? They did during the Olympic hockey game.

Bomb-proof Suits - How they work.

Sabotage Galactica - A remake of the Beastie Boys Sabotage video using footage from Battlestar Galactica.

Tron Legacy Trailer - New trailer for the Tron Sequel being worked on. Looks pretty good.

Daily Links - 3/10/10

Asteroid Wiped Out Dinosaurs - CONFIRMED!

All Apps are Apple's - The iPhone developer license agreement.

YouTube Closes Down - YouTube ends for the night.

Exit Sign War - The international war over the EXIT sign.

Geek Test - A rather extensive (and somewhat dated) geek test.

JMS Superman - Yes, that's true, J. Michael Straczynski is taking over writing duties for the Superman comic.

Pain Reducer - Ripping off a bandage fast has been scientifically proven to be less painful.