Well, it seems I've finally caught up from my four month blogging hiatus.  I'm down to a handful of entries in my RSS reader, from over 300.  Onward... 

So, I post about trying to lose some weight, and I post my 2004 California voter guide.  Which do you think got more feedback?  Seriously, you guys are great :)

The Desktop Search Land-Grab.  Of Google and Microsoft, and X1, and Blinkx...  So I actually think this is far from a done deal.  I don't mind Google or Microsoft indexing my blog, but I don't want them indexing my hard drive.  I don't trust them, their ambitions are too large. 

First we had the iPodDownload plug in, which enabled any song to be pulled off any iPod, and which Apple broke with an update, and which we can now fix.  Now we have Open Pod, which does the same thing.  See also Dave Winer's comments, and Marc Cantor's...  Apple is not helping themselves with this behaviour. 

Dave wonders how Griffin's iTalk works?  And then finds out how.  It does look pretty cool; essentially it turns your iPod into a spiffy voice recorder. 

Hey, this is cool: Amazon's A9 toolbar now available for Firefox!  Cool on two levels, first, since I use Firefox exclusively as my day-in-day-out browser, I can now try A9, and second, it shows the extent to which Firefox is making inroads on Internet Explorer. 

Browser statistics from Critical Section, month of October 2004: 

• Internet Explorer - 48% (all platforms)
• Firefox - 16%
• Safari - 5%
• Opera - 1%

The remaining 30% was a random collection of bots, spiders, and various other browsers.

Limecat is not pleased.  More proof, if any were needed, that you can find anything on the 'net.  [ via Ned Batchelder ] 

How to tell your personality type from your code.  I'm a combination of cynical and realist :)  [ via #!/usr/bin/girl ] 

Rolling Stone: Rock's 10 Wildest Myths.  [ via J.P.Butler ] 

Clive Thompson notes the latest issue of National Geographic, which has the cover story "Was Darwin Wrong?"  I'll spare you the suspense: No.  It is a terrific article but of course with their readership it is likely preaching to the choir.  Of course even if Darwin was wrong it doesn't legitimize creationism as a scientific theory.  But the evidence is overwhelming. 

From Addision at Grouchy Old Cripple: The Cat with the Hat.
Excellent Photoshopmanship! 

Tonight I did a bit of blogrollcleaning; I checked all the links in my extended blogroll.  I pruned the dead links (few) and the dead blogs (many).  Lots of great stuff there, and variety like you can't believe.  Check 'em out! 

Finally, here we have the Why Knot? tie-tying machine, which ties your ties in a mere 562 steps.  I am not making this up.