Email subject 'fw: It's funny coz it's true'

Snopes informs us that this is a real photo. I had my doubts when I received it but even then, it made me smile.

Doctored photos have a go at Bush

The Katrina related humour now doing the rounds of the Internet seems to be aiming directly at Bush, or at least at his administration. The photo below is not real - it's just a dig at the El Presidente. (Refer: LA Times - Web Photos Lampoon Bush)

See also The Spoof: Bush is walking on sunshine with 'Katrina and the Waves'. Please note, as per the sites name, this is a spoof - it is not a real news story/picture.

Web nerd stuff: pure CSS rounded corners

If you want rounded corners on content boxes using pure CSS (no background images) see the following sites:

• CSS PLaY: experiments with Cascading Style Sheets: boxes and krazy korners, including tutorial (I found this resource and tutorial the clearest to follow). Also snazzy borders
• Nifty Corners: rounded corners without images and More Nifty Corners
• Rounded Corners Without Images, Part 1

Is the press biased? Does 'ism' still exist?

Got this one via email. According to the articles below (pictured) black people LOOT while white people FIND stuff!!!

Actually, along the same lines, I've always found it intriguing in news articles that they insist on stating a persons race, religion, sexuality, etc when such facts don't actually have anything to do with the article at hand. More to the point, this only seems to be done in selected circumstances. It'd be quite funny (yet equitable) to see *all* articles do the same thing - for example, 'heterosexual white female/male today was accused of ...'.

These lots of commentary all over the 'Net on this matter see:

• Posting from Chris Graythen, Photographer, Photo Editor. The person who took the photo of the people 'finding' the items. Though, I don't honestly think people have an issue with this caption so much as to the perceived contrast with the photos of 'looting'.
• boing boing
• Wiki News
• Yahoo! News statement on photo language controversy - ironically the photo of the white people was removed from Yahoo on request but the photo of the black person was obviously ok to stay! :P
• Snopes while verifying the pictures do exist with their respective labels, issues a word of warning regarding journalistic differences and whether the people in question were, in fact, going into the stores (looting) or just collecting floating 'stuff' (finding). (See also: Two photos pose puzzle: When is it not looting?)
• check out Google for more resources...

Katrina Appeal - the dog ear link

Adding the Red Cross - code to add a red cross corner button/dog ear to your site.

After having this link sent to me I added it to my site by using most of the original code as provided. However, I removed the javascript (as it is pretty unnecessary), added alt/title tags and changed the link to the Australian Red Cross. Feel free to cut and paste the modified code (XHTML 1.0 compliant) below to your own web page (just above the </body> tag is probably as good as anywhere else).

I've now removed the dog ear from my site... if you want to help see also the link on this page to Michael Moore's letter and a few groups that are getting things done.

Wet Ink: be one of the first to subscribe!

Wet Ink is a new magazine being put out by a dedicated group of writers in Adelaide, South Australia. It is completely professional, looks great and will have exciting new writing between the covers.

For those of you who are writers, Wet Ink is a fantastic opportunity to get published. Keep sending us submissions (and don't forget to subscribe too...)!

To support this great venture is to check out our website and go to 'how to buy,' print out the subscription form an send it to us. It only costs $40 per year for 4 issues.

There'll be plenty of new writing as well as interviews with famous authors, book reviews, great photography and art by emerging artists. Don't wait, subscribe now!

Companies interested in advertising in Wet Ink (with an initial print run of 3000 and national ditribution within Australia planned for the first issue) should take a look at the Advertising section of the Wet Ink website.

Thank you all so much!

Web links: September 2005

• Anger Management, wrong numbers and assholes! - this has been around for a while... when I first read it I laughed myself silly. Anyway, after making a reference in conversation to someone about this story, I then had to dig it up for them and so here are the Google results that link to the story (well, the top few results at the very least)
• Odeo - Hey pod heads! (Mwhahaha, sorry... I just like saying that... ahem). Podcasting: Play, Download, and Create MP3s about Interesting Things
• You age on other worlds - Find out how old you'd be on Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto based on your Earth age.
• Optical Illusion - silliness to uh... make your day... um... whatever!
• *gasp* silo and roy split - article/news
• Party Trick - how to make the bottom fall out of a beer bottle using air pressure
• ASCII Art Made Easy! - can make ASCII art from any photo on the web. uh... yeah... cool.
• Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the Century - The list includes: leaders & revolutionaries; artists & entertainers; builders & titans; scientists & thinkers; heroes & icons.
• mr gone plays mr wolf - self portrait from mr gone. It amused.
• The Jesus Dynasty - Tabor argues, based on intriguing new evidence, that Jesus understood himself as a descendant of the royal house of David, someone who could be both a kingly leader of the Jews and a spiritual Messiah.
• Mozilla keyboard short cuts - 'well they're useful if you are using Mozilla!', she said in defense.
• Phone Sex Geeks - movie (a little lame... but ... *shrugs*)
• Web Developers Handbook - a heap of useful links for web developers
• Caught short in the web - Last week, Reuters took a photograph of President Bush writing a note during the 60th General Assembly of the United Nations - and it looked like he was indicating to Condoleezza Rice that a trip to the loo was imminent.
• Are we getting smarter or dumber? - news/article
• TV turns deadly - PRODUCERS of the reality-TV show Extreme Makeover promised Deleese Williams a "Cinderella-like" transformation that would forever fix her crooked teeth, deformed jaw and small breasts.
• National talk like a pirate day - Perhaps you're one of the millions of people from South Africa to Australia, from New York to the Pacific Northwest, who party like pirates every September 19th. However you got here, stick around an' learn all about September 19 - International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
• Shoot me down in claims - Come up with the most outlandish outrageous (and hopefully hilarious) claim to fame and make Jay & The Doctor (and the rest of Australia) believe it's true to WIN AN AWESOME PRIZE: 2 tickets to see Franz Ferdinand in New York at Madison Square Garden on Oct 17, including return economy airfares and 4 nights accommodation!
• Red Hat Society - Welcome to the place where there is fun after fifty (and before) for women of all walks of life. We believe silliness is the comedy relief of life and, since we are all in it together, we might as well join red-gloved hands and go for the gusto together. Underneath the frivolity, we share a bond of affection, forged by common life experiences and a genuine enthusiasm for wherever life takes us next. (NB: While their origin is US, there are chapters worldwide - I spied one lot from our balcony when a workmate pointed them out).
• Doctors are dangerous - I was sent this link by a friend. If you're even going to look, please do it with a balanced attitude and ask more questions/do more reading/research before making any radical decision just coz you have some 'exciting' new information (which may or may not be accurate).
• P-Mate - Oh dear! It allows women to pee standing up, just like the boys. Uh... yeah... right. [more: go your way / strange new products]. A friend, seeing this link reports, I turned a female p-mate (hosital version) into a fanged duck on night shift. The day staff loved it.
• LED Illuminated Bathtub [see also the spiel on gizmodo - or a glow brick perhaps?]
• Phobia List - a list of phobias (and that's it). [see also anatidaephobia, the phobia site, How to release the macho within]
• Beer Milk - A French dairy farmer has invented a product he calls milk beer. (more from google)
• Prayer - definition of, from the Urban Dictionary.
• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) - Internet Movie Database information.
• Lexus Inside Film Awards - The Inside Film Awards give Australian audiences the chance to play critic by rating Australian films between 1 and 5 (5 being the highest). Winners are determined by the overall average score, NOT by the number of scores received. Votes close midnight October 3, 2005.
• HP Photo - short film thingo whatever. (G-Rated)
• Lexus insidefilm awards -
• Channel [V] Oz Artist of the Year - the only publicly voted award given at the ARIAs. Vote now!
• dutch tub - :o) Methinks I could tow that behind a car into the mountains!
• Honorary Unsubscribe - Recognizes the Unknown, the Forgotten and the Obscure People who Had an Impact on Our Lives. Bonzer site of the week - Recognizing Interesting Sites that are Beyond the Microsoft/AOL-Time Warner/Media Megalith
• Winston's Lego Computer - yup... another person struck by obsession.
• Google Earth threatens democracy - yeah, right. (Military bases shown on google earth maps). And the decisions major governments of the world are making at the moment don't?
• A brave spelling mistake in the caption at the bottom of a picture in the Saturday edition of Tasmania's Mercury newspaper.
• iPod Nano Stress Testing - What does it take to destroy an iPod nano, and what's inside this tiny package?
• In Case of Emergency (ICE) Campaign advocates cell phone users store emergency contact information in their address books under the name ICE. This is not a hoax (see Snopes, Hoax Slayer, google resources)
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). 4.4 RFID / Microchips (from Inquiry into the Privacy Act 1988 - Australia). (see also PC Webopedia definition, Hacking RFID gas passes, RFIF used in disaster area morgues). While some potential uses of RFID mean less privacy and more power to 'big brother' and corporations, some uses are extremely practical and non-invasive.
• walking woman 1 | 2 - This is the walking man spam again, this time in disguise as a woman, who by pretending to be a she, is now promoting breast cancer. Poorly. Anyway... I heard the walking woman got run over by a bus today. And died. So why not do something a little more constructive? if you want to use walking for a cure, many countries run a Relay for life - why not email details about that to your friends rather than some dumb animated GIF that does nothing. OR you could visit the National Breast Cancer Centre (Australia) or some of the other sites that they link and find out other ways of helping.
• Worth1000.com: If Goths Ruled 2 - The gospel according to the goths. (See also If Goths Ruled)
• Acne Be Gone - game. Pop as many zits as you can before the timer hits. Hmmmmm. Satisfying in an... um... very sad kind of way.
• Croc Hunter... feed um babies Really dull game... but it may amuse those with a black sense of humour for 1-2 seconds.
• Virus - you are part of a sneeze and you need to avoid white blood cells. game. a very silly one.
• Here's How You Can Make an Immediate Difference in Louisiana - a message from Michael Moore (links to Vetrans for Peace, Hurricane Housing/moveon.org)
• backwash.com - the Internet organised by personality. Apparently. (The concept is a good idea but it doesn't appear that they actually arrange information this way at all).
• Handicapped Pets - the gallery Pictures of Fripple the diaper wearing cat and other pets from 'handicapped pets' a site devoted to the care of handicapped or injured animals.
• Survival of New Orleans Blog - This journal exists to share firsthand experience of Hurricane Katrina her aftermath with anyone interested. (It's kind of bizarre when you see the news to think there's actually computer/Internet connections available to do this).
• Simple Savings (saving money in Australia) Mostly for subscribers... but I think there are some tips/sections available to the public. I was sent it via email so here it is.
• Kevin Smith raises funds for Katrina victims - Mwhahahahaha... Kevin Smith auctions, well... stuff in order to raise funds for Hurricane Katrina Victims.
• What advice would Christopher Walken give you? - Ever wanted to know what Walken would say if he were your shrink? (I think this aimed toward a male audience - but if you're a chick... do it anyway!)
• Psychopaths among us, Characteristics of psychopath, Antisocial personality disorder, Humour: how to spot a psychopath, Undernews: is Bush a psychopath? (received via email in an 'essay').
• You do who? - Sometimes there are good reasons people lie about what they do, writes Matt Cleary. (article)
• the duck tape guys: wall tape gallery - from the duct tape guys. duct tape. and walls. and people. in some cases people duct taped to the walls.
• Reverse Dictionary - for instance depending what you look up you *could* end up learning about cool stuff like: Cotard delusion (It's a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief they are dead, do not exist, are putrifying or have lost their blood or internal organs. How cool *is* that?)
• DarthVader PC - oh. my. gawd. No, really. Take a look. (Here we have the depths of human obsession.)
• Sean Penn's rescue bid sinks - efforts by Hollywood actor to aid New Orleans victims foundered badly when the boat sprang a leak.
• Postsecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (Hardcover). Availability: This book has not yet been released but you *can* order it now. (see postsecret.com)
• Not *!# good enough - Not Good Enough was founded as the website to get consumer voices heard.
• Blinker Fluid - stupid links to stupid sites. (This is another thing I had to dig up coz someone asked... however, I've gotta say for every link I like there's a lot that don't really do it for me.)
• blifaloo - temporary boredom relief
• i-resign.com - it's been around for a while but was just telling a friend about it... a collection of useful information and humour related to resigning and jobs.
• Dig to the other side If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop? Another stupid application for Google Maps.... Select a point on the globe/map where you'd like to start digging and see where, if you went right through the centre of the eart, you'd come out.
• CSS Tutorial - CSS by example... at each step the template of the tutorial changes to match the step. Starts with no styles. Quite a good idea for beginners. In the same vein... well kind of, if you want compatible colours to use in your style sheet have a look at the colour scheme generator.
• Buffy: The *whole* box set - This beautifully designed, Limited Edition collectible box contains all 7 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, plus a bonus disk containing a brand new documentary featuring creator Joss Whedon.
• Anti-rape condom aims to stop sexual assaults - South African inventor creates 'rapex' device fitted with hooks and barbs.
• Matt's Music page - This is the place where good music goes to die. All of the tracks provided here may be freely distributed. I don't claim any kind of level of quality, as most of these tracks are works-in-progress at best.
• Women's Revenge - I got a few of these via email... I was amused by one wee snippet called 'silent treatment' (which is included on the forum page if you search/scroll down).
• Every woman should have... (Another one of *those* emails. Standard vomit warning/clause applies)
• Cats in Sinks - What is Cats in Sinks? It's obvious. It's about cats. And kittens. Who like sinks. And basins. And that's it.
• Ugly Duckling Competition - If you're in an un-signed 2 person hip hop outfit, and you've been waiting for your big break, this could be it. Triple J are looking for an act to open for Ugly Duckling's Melbourne show on Thursday 29th of September. Entries close Monday September 5.