Todd's Old Blog

Mostly Ignored

  • ONLY YOU Can Prevent Edit Wars

    Recently, I resolved an edit war on GCPEDIA.  Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement I suppose.  I intervened in a situation where a couple of users were beginning to revert each others’ edits and exchange words via the edit history comments.  I smelled smoke, then stomped out the sparks before any serious fire could…

  • Signal much?

    In my previous graph, I illustrated the challenge of driving with children.  This time around: one of my challenges in dealing with the rest of you out there on the road: Do you recognize yourself in here anywhere?

  • Car trips are never the same after kids

    My wife and I used to be able to drive to our favourite vacation spot in about 11 hours, including rest stops.  Since we’ve had children, it’s a minimum of 16 hours of travel time, spread over two days. Here’s a graph I made that illustrates the new dynamics at work: Your mileage may vary, but if…

  • ToddiPhone Unlimited Digital Home Phone

    Introducing ToddiPhone Unlimited Digital Home Phone & Mobile Combo™: * Unlimited Local and Long Distance  Calling Unlimited Incoming Calls Call Waiting Dedicated Voicemail Call Forwarding Caller ID Free, Unlimited Calls to 911 Keep your phone number! Over 50 other Features! 12 Month price guarantee Sign-up Month-to-month for one LOW LOW LOW Price Sign-up yearly, get $30 Instant…

  • Placebo’s Actual Lead Singer?

    No, it’s not Brian Molko, even if that’s what it says in the album notes. No, it’s not Brian Molko, even if that’s who appears in the video. It’s Dave Foley, from The Kids in The Hall and NewsRadio.  Now don’t brush me off so easily.  Imagine Dave’s voice, then watch this video: I’m right,…

  • Building an RT Twitterbot

    Creating a ReTweeting Twitterbot used to be easy. My colleague Peter Smith originally pointed me towards Tweetalert, a service which scanned Twitter Search for the hashtag of your choice, then retweeted the associated posts via your own Twitter account, or another you’d created for that specific purpose.  This is how the GCPEDIA and GCconnex Twitter…

  • Goodbye Google Buzz

    Another day, another social media tool I’m divesting myself from.  Why?  Well, on one hand, it has been as rife with privacy problems as Facebook.  In their rush to get the product out to market to as many people as possible, Google sacrificed the sort of quality control testing that comes with gradually released beta.…

  • Goodbye Facebook

    So, it’s a month to the day since I posted my most recent tirade against Facebook, but this time I’m writing to report that I finally kicked Mark Zuckerberg’s travesty to the curb.  Granted, there wasn’t much left there to delete… And that was the aspect that made it more difficult, actually. I didn’t have much…

  • Ronnie James Dio (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010)

    As much as I’ve enjoyed making fun of Mr. Dio for his biblical-babble fantasy lyrics; it was homage.  No one sits down to craft careful parody for someone irrelevant or insignificant.  Dio inspired me.  I was an instant fan upon the release of 1983’s Holy Diver.  While there were no secrets of the universe to…