Rubenerd

The Register's conclusions on the latest beta of Internet Explorer 9:

It is a good modern browser then – but do not believe all the hype. The competition is moving faster.

Good summary. Progress is being made, but it still performs relatively poorly in standards tests and still feels like too little too late in my books. A company with Microsoft's resources should have made this progress years ago.

The Tracking Protection List sounds like an interesting feature, though I prefer how Mozilla and Google [mostly] are dealing with the issue of advertising opt-outs. I'll be writing more on that to coincide with some uni studies I'll be performing on it.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Uuuuuuuuuh yeah!

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Best review of Gawker’s new site designs I’ve seen in a while!

Good thing Gina Trapani bailed when she did.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

empathyfarmer:

doctorbluebox:

tellmeguillermo:

changewillsaveyou:

Anderson Cooper: Superhero

:O

What’s the story behind this?

The boy got hit by a big brick thrown by a looter. Anderson saw it happen and carried him to a safer place and made sure he got medical attention.

Seriously this man just gets more and more badass.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

How fetching! They should wear these all the time.

I mention because the anime was set... a year ago now. It came out in 2006. Wow.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

:D

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Heeeee :D

Here's some random stuff that fell through subspace into this Trekkie's browser over the course of the last few days and thought deserved more than a frantic bookmarking on del.icio.us, et al.

We start with the cast of the original series chibbified! Obviously I'm arriving at this party seven years too late ;). As my sister quickly pointed out, these were clearly based on the original cast not the remake. I like the original Trek timeline, she only likes the 2009 Star Trek film, enough said!

I've since lost where I got this image from, if I find it I'll link to it here. Danbooru has a copy, but it hosts some NSFW material.

A Spock Minifig

I only just found out about CustomMiniFigs, but already I've poured through a ton of their posts and am loving the creativity! This is a minifig of everyone's favourite Vulcan, complete with pointy ears and a combadge!

MiniFig customization is an art, and whilst they can be as simple as mixing and matching logo body parts, they can also be as complex as creating entirely new minifigs and minifig accessories, not necessarily using Lego pieces.

All Good Things…

A press photo from Star Trek Online. For those who remember their Next Generation episodes, this Dreadnought class ship was from the last episode All Good Things set in the distant future.

Star Trek Fish

You know those Christian fish that some people feel compelled to put on their cars, along with the same fish with legs that Darwin supports use to poke fun of the former? Here's one for Trekkies!

The ratio of the warp nacelles to the rest of the graphic and the shape of the fish saucer section suggest to me an Intrepid class, but the nacelles aren't mounted in the right position. Its an Intrepid Fish! I'll stop now.

I got an unexpected package in the mail today!
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Keith Olbermann’s last show

A week ago I was on the phone to a friend of mine in America lamenting Keith Olbermann's recent suspicious and secretive dismissal after NBC was bought by Comcast.

Olbermann was a news anchor for MSNBC who I thought composed excellent news dialogue, delivered it in his fast pace, no nonsense style and had wit as sharp as a tack. As someone wary of TV news I found myself disagreeing with him at times and I still did my own research, but I also found him to be a breath of fresh air and a valuable counterforce to "certain" loud Fox News presenters. Bill O'Beck, I think that's his name.

As well as his role as a general news commentator for breaking stories, he hosted MSNBC's highest rated show Countdown which discussed five news stories of the day interspersed with readings of Thurber, odd news in the Oddball segment and his infamous Worst Persons in The World which got him into trouble with Jon Stewart of all people, though Bill Maher was quick to show his support. Ah politics ;).

I bought my second pair of glasses to match his. I emailed him a couple of times with opinions on news stories and even got a reply once! But I digress.

The Podcast Factor

What I appreciated as someone without access to their channel is that unlike many other media companies, MSNBC made Countdown available in its entirety as a podcast. Generally speaking networks prefer cutting up shows into smaller segments and releasing them, I suppose to make watching it on TV with advertisements more appealing or to reduce load on their servers.

Despite living overseas, I was able to download and watch his show for three years to get a glimpse into what was going on with my American friends.

I first talked about this in October 2009: Keith Olbermann's Countdown as a podcast.

Mail, motherf*cker!

I belabour all of this to say that after hanging up with this friend in the US, without telling me he went on the NBC Universal internet store and ordered me some memorabillia that I talked about here back in 2009: A Keith Olbermann Bobblehead! Presumably now the show is toast, NBC won't be selling these for much longer, so now I have a piece of history along with all the gigabytes of podcast episodes I've downloaded over the years.

He stands about 20 centimetres tall – well actually he's sitting, at his smart desk thingy – which places him in a similar scale to many of my anime figures, though obviously much larger than my Singapore Airlines A380!

I wish I could use your name!

As this friend of mine has done in the past when he bought me 100 pixels on the Million Dollar Homepage and paid for my hosting fees for the whole of 2008, he insisted I not divulge his name on my site if I discussed it. He even paid a small mint to have it shipped FedEx Priority which meant it arrived in three days! Amazing!

He's truly one of the nicest, most humble people I know and I really value his friendship. If you're reading this good sir, thank you so much! I hope one day you'll let me talk about you here, though I understand your personal reasons why I probably won't be able to. Frustrating, but understandable! Thank you again manhug

The last heading

Like Countdown, I wanted five separate headings for this post, but I ran out after four so here's another one. I'll end by quoting some Thurber as Keith used to do:

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

Nice.