Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….
- The last Republican presidential debate in 45 seconds.: Les
- While McConnell Opposes Infrastructure Investment, Major Kentucky Bridge Shuts Down Over Safety Concerns | ThinkProgress – Well, I’m sure if it’s costing some of Sen. McConnell’s corporate sponsors to have a major interstate closed, he’ll find some reason to pay attention.
- Build the right monument « Decrepit Old Fool – How we live is a more important memorial to our beliefs than what speeches we make or what blocks of marble we inscribe. And more lasting.
- Is an AOL Email Address a ‘Status Symbol? – Whenever I get an email from someone with an @AOL.com address, my first reaction is, “Wait — AOL is still in business? And people are still using it for mail?”
- No, PBS Did Not Cover Up An “Error” in Obama’s Speech – Don’t get in the way of our OUTRAGED HEADLINES with your commie-symp “fact-checking”!
- On Eve Of 9/11 Anniversary, Cantor Insists On Massive Cuts To First Responders In Exchange For Emergency Disaster Aid – What a delightful way to mark how things have changed over the last decade.
- Exxon Makes Billion-Dollar Bet Climate Change is Real, Here Now and Going to Get Worse But Keeps Funding Deniers – “Exxon is a smart and savvy company, and even if its actions are reprehensible, they make sense in a political system that allows corporations to pay millions of dollars to avoid costly regulations. Blaming Exxon for these activities is like blaming a raccoon for going through your trash. They’re simply responding to available opportunities. This is exactly why we should focus on actions, not words. This deal is a multi-billion dollar investment predicated on Exxon’s belief that the planet is warming. It is one of the most powerful admissions of the reality of climate change imaginable. Michele Bachmann and the other Republican presidential candidates cannot blame this on disconnected academic scientists or members of a liberal conspiracy. This is the embodiment of free market American capitalism saying climate change is real.”
- 7 Problems With Purchasing From Chinese Factories – I’m not surprised to see China’s prices increasing, or that they’re facing the same industrial quality issues that other nations have. It will be interesting to see how that works out for them (and, downstream, us).
- Golf Talk – This was prior to the joint session speech that Obama gave. It’s actually kind of a fun fly-on-the-wall. I hear light braggadocio conversations like this all the time at business meetings and the like. Hell, I participate in them.
- Over is Right, Under is Wrong – Yes. This.
- Regarding the Ridiculousness of In-Store HDMI Cable Prices – Yup. Anyone who buys HDMI (or any audio-visual) cables at Best Buy (et al.) is almost certainly getting ripped off. The only thing they have to offer is convenience, and, really, is it worth a wasted $20, $50, or more for that convenience? (And, if so, go for it, but do it in an informed fashion.)
- Watch: Red Band Trailer For ‘The Raid’ – The Best Kick-Ass Action Movie I’ve Seen in Years [TIFF 2011] – Okay, I have to confess, this looks like it has some adrenaline-and-blood-soaked potential.
- The million dollar space pen hoax – I actually have one of these …
- Operation Northwoods, the 1960s government plan to fake terrorist attacks on the U.S. – The military and intelligence involves a lot of speculative and contingency planning. Pre-WWII US military planners had “case” files involving wars with all the major powers, not because it was thought likely, but because it was the sort of thing one did (and, presumably, still does), just to be prepared. The dangers, though, are obvious, ranging from someone saying, “Hey, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea” (which has been known to happen)to the papers coming out and sending the conspiracy buffs and “truthers” into a froth.
- Building 7 Explained – Fascinating (in a horrifying way).
- Man who grounded 4,000 planes on 9/11 was on first day of his job
- The world’s worst traffic
- IMPORTANT: BIG CATS VS. LASERS [Video] – Plus … many cute servals!
- Why science questions matter for candidates : Thoughts from Kansas – “Evolution is a shibboleth for a candidate’s general attitude towards evidence and ideology. The only basis for rejecting evolution is religious (and political) ideology, and it’s worth knowing whether a candidate is willing to toss out science and scientific testing for the sake of ideology. No question that it’s important to consider a candidate’s values, but people who don’t value evidence or expertise should not be in charge of important decisions.”
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I’m on AOL. I like AOL. No really. I prefer the AOL Browser.
When I first went broadband, AOL was the best deal cost wise, which I why I went AOL.
Since then I’ve tried the stuff people keep telling me to do. Keep going back to AOL, not because I’m some strange old man, but because Chrome doesn’t do what I want it to. I don’t mean I can’t be bothered to find out, I mean if the functions are there, then I haven’t found them, because they are not ‘on the surface’.
How it works is I fire up the browser. The first thing that happens is the log in screen. Each member of the family has their own user name, which doubles as the email @aol.com. You put in your pass word, and you are in your own corner of the internet.
When I open Chrome it doesn’t ask me who I am, therefore I share everything – history, layout, favourites. In AOL my favourites are mine. The history isn’t bunged full of Yogscast videos. The email is part of the browser, not a separate site, and there is an icon at the top of every window to insert link into an email. Can’t find this on Chrome (how do you send a link? No, really). I don’t have to have a tab open for the email – it sits all small and tidy in the top left, with a number of unread emails by it.
Now, I read all the IE sneers, but do you know what. I can’t tell the difference between IE and Chrome and Firefox. What I do know is that various search engines keep taking over my home page on these three. I had to reset my home page 3 times before searchqu.com took the hint on Chrome. Never happened in AOL. I never get any spam either.
Additionally, because I am behind an account log in, all my cookies are mine. It means I can tick the ‘remember me’ box, without worrying that my wife or kids will post inadvertently under my name, or make eBay bids. I don’t have to log out of every forum that I post on. My Blog can stay logged in. I don’t need Incognito: if you are not logged in as me, you can’t see what I have been doing.
Here is the real big deal for me. It may seem minor, but when I’m researching stuff clicking on a search result opens a new window. May seem nothing, but the default action is to click, not right-click and pick new tab. It means if I read two or three pages, I can close the window and the results are still there, rather than having to go back through every page. AOL opens emails in a new window as well, which is easier for me occasionally.
I do have gmail – Last Hussar wasn’t available on AOL, and I have another in my real name for my android phone, which allows me to use the diary (though I use Jorte interface for that on the phone, as it is more informative in the month view). My Gmail address automatically incoming redirect to AOL. I can read AOL mail on my phone – as far as android is concerned its just another mail address, and sits in the list.
The only thing I use Chrome for is Tabbed browsing on a couple of sites (Cracked and TVTropes), as AOL has windows not tabs. Also, for some reason your blog doesn’t like AOL, so I use Chrome for that.
RE #4: I was a charter subscriber to AOL. Part of the pitch they made that led me to join was that the price would stay the same as long as I was a subscriber. Of course they eventually raised the price unilaterally. At that point I stopped subscribing. I choose not to do business with companies that I perceive to be dishonest.
My assumption, when I receive an email from AOL or Hotmail, justified or not, is that this email is either spam or from someone who is so inflexible that they cannot or will not move on to something newer and better. I’d say AOL is not a status-symbol, but is an anti-status-symbol.
RE #11: It’s not just HDMI cables. I tried to get a 10-foot micro-USB cable recently. It was $16 or more at Target and Best Buy didn’t even carry what I needed. I got it for about $2 online.
RE #13: I have a Fisher Pen too. It sucks. The ink does not flow smoothly, and when I use it, my writing looks like I used a cheap crappy pen rather than an expensive one. I got it with a “Rite in the Rain” notebook in order to be able to write if things got damp. I discovered that I have more important things to do than writing when things are damp, that I’m almost always able to ensure that I am dry when writing, and that I never need to write thing upside-down.
I’m not inflexible. I just have no reason to move. Gmail doesn’t do anything that AOL doesn’t, or if it does, I’ve never felt the need to do it, so haven’t gone looking. I will now use AOL more because of that attitude.
Hussar,
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I was trying to say that my comment on inflexibility was an unjustified assumption and a perception not necessarily connected to reality. The point I was trying to make is that whether AOL email addresses are a “status symbol” is a perceptual issue not connected to whether AOL is useful or not. I admit to a bias against AOL and Hotmail users partly inspired by my own bad experience with AOL many years ago, which I recognize is an irrational bias.
@DN: 11. Oh, agreed on cables as a whole, but it’s particularly egregious with fancy A/V cables. Anything that Monster produces as an example.
@LH:
It looks like the most valuable part of the AOL Browser (which I think is an IE variant, from what brief looking I did) is the account/identity management it provides. You could probably do that at the OS level, or through a password/account manager, but what you have seems to work well for you.
How do I send a link? Right-click-Copy in the address bar (if it’s an opened link; otherwise right-click-“Copy link address” on the link on the page). Open an email. Paste.
The Chrome extension “Email this page (by Google)” also seems to be doing what you’re looking for.
The opening of new windows/tabs automatically is something I’m mildly irked about with Chrome still — esp. since I had that behavior configured on Firefox for years. I’ve gotten used to it, mostly, but it’s still annoying.
Not sure why my site hiccoughs on your browser, but I’m having problems figuring out info on the AOL Browser at the moment in order to test it.
Thanks for the insight as to why some folk are still using AOL.
That’s how I do it in Chrome. I wondered if there was an easier way, y’know like an icon in the title bar.
Interestingly we still have IE6 at work (this doesn’t matter, because the range of sites I can view is extremely limited, and work orientated only), and that has a ‘send link in email’ icon, where as the latest IE doesn’t. I not sure the AOL browser your looking at is the same as mine – this sets up as part of your subscription, and is unlike any other browser I’ve seen – it reminds me a little of Windows 3.1 with its windows in windows
I’ve not been able to get much info on the AOL Browser at present, and various tools that say “See your website in a variety of browsers” doesn’t include it. Which makes me think it’s a rebranded and extended version of something else. I do find it interesting that it’s window-based, vs tabs.
As I noted, there’s an extension for Chrome that sounds like it does the mailing function you’re looking for. I suspect it’s not part of the core functionality because it’s fairly easily worked around and not something that a lot of people do, but I could be wrong (on all three counts).