Google’s done it again. By incorporating historically disparate search results such as videos, news, and blogs into the main body of the first page of search results, Google has effectively closed itself to some of the more disgusting SEO habits.

Some in the burgeoning SEO industry are clearly already a little upset and suggest that Webmasters try to move past Google. I say, good luck. Seems stupid to me–Google’s not going anywhere.

All in all, this is great news for us at ArcStone. We mostly practice organic SEO, which emphasizes quality content rather than obsessive use of keywords by writing content and creating links that are useful to humans and search engines alike.

A pretty interesting view of of our culture and environmental issues through art. Artist Chris Jordan is working on a series called “Running the Numbers : An American self portrait” - where statistics are converted to images in the form of large format art works. As the description states, I can imagine they are even more impressive when seen in person but these works are pretty astonishing (and startling) at any scale.

Microsoft has recently asserted that Open Source Software violates 235 patents, and that Linux violates 42. While those claims are highly questionable since Microsoft won’t say which patents are violated, the real question is how many patents might Microsoft be violating? The sick thing is, nobody can really find out, since Microsoft won’t share its source code, but anyone can accuse Linux of any violation arising from its source since Linux is an open, honest operating system.

Worse yet, Microsoft is already inking agreements with some of the less altruistic Linux vendors, including Novell, which as part of its deal is protected from patent lawsuits.

I will admit that it seems unlikely that legal action could arise from these so called patent violations, but if it really is just a scare tactic, it’s a really dirty trick. Hinting at legal action to either scare businesses back towards Microsoft products or towards its partners that sell lawsuit-protected versions of Linux is highly unethical and really nasty. All this serves a purpose I suppose–if their gambit fails, they’ll have egg on their face. And regardless, this whole incident makes me feel much less guilty for bashing Microsoft. They deserve it in spades.

I recently set-up a completely ridiculous guppy cam in my office. Web cam software has come a loooong way from when I first used it. From start to finish it literally took 15 minutes to get set-up (including the 5 minutes to purchase and register the shareware). It feeds the web server a new image every few minutes - for complete, up to date guppy excitement! I could stream video via the included Java applet, but that seemed a little too far over the top (even for me).

I used Active Webcam from PY Software which I found on Downloads.com. It cost $29 and seems to be extremely full featured. I can definitely vouch for its ease of use.

Anyway - wanna see the guppies?

Next up? Evidently it should be a new camera.

I just read an article that literally (and metaphorically) blew me away.

Scientists have uncovered a source of clean power that could generate enough energy to provide over 100 times the current global demand. The jet stream. Duh - rather obvious if you think about it - a massive swath of 310 mile per hour winds blowing day and night…

There are currently several start-ups looking to tap into the jet streams power - there is some hope!

“E-mail” and “email” have been duking it out over the past few years….and it looks like “email” is winning.You can read all about it at the Email Experience Council.

Looks like some people are pretty passionate about this subject. If you are part of this crowd, you can voice your displeasure about hyphen abuse and sign the anti-hyphen petition!

So long, “e-mail,” and thanks for all the spam!

(No disrespect to that venerable Minnesota meat product we all know and love)

Thanks for the reference, Annie.

My new addiction is Web Boggle.

I need to assuage my guilt by getting others to join my addiction.

Best time to play is early in the morning, when the competition isn’t so steep. I can get in the top ten if I play before 6 a.m. Apparently you can form teams that play on separate computers.

It’s good exercise for the brain and fingers, right??

Pirates have long plundered Hollywood’s vast entertainment riches for fun and profit. With new HD formats on the horizon, media makers felt confident that they had learned from past mistakes, and took the necessary steps to protect their new, high-res digital assets.

Well they were wrong, very wrong. All it took was a determined hacker, a few gallons of coffee, and 8 days to put the first chink in HD’s armor.

Now that the super secret code, the keys to the proverbial kingdom, has been leaked, it’s all down hill from here. All that is left for Hollywood to do is futilely fight pirates on the high seas, with a big gaping hole already in their boat.