Posts by D. H. McKee

Top 10 Advertising Icons

Some of the best-loved ad images of the 20th century have names like Tony, Betty and Ronald. Others, like the Marlboro Man, may not be as beloved, but grew to have tremendous worldwide impact as an instant identifier of Philip Morris Co.'s Marlboro cigarettes.
From frozen vegetables to packaged cake mix, from fast food to automobile tires, these carefully drawn characters are the personifications of businesses that began small but grew to become dominant brands in their fields -- thanks in large part to their famous icons.
(Interesting to note that the Michelin Man originally held a glass of beer: "...lifting a beer glass and shouting, 'Nunc est bibendum! (Now is the time to drink!)' seemed to embody Michelin's slogan at the time, 'Michelin tires swallow up all obstacles.'")
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Newfound Respect for Jesse Ventura

And here I was dissing this guy for being elected Governor… Turns out he’s a tough-minded atheist… From a quote...

Star Wars, Donny and Marie style

The Donny & Marie Star Wars skit begins with footage of two Imperial star destroyers and the Millenium Falcon (actual film footage), spliced with cheap matte painting of planets (very non-Star Wars like). The scene fades and an opening crawl (as in the movies) begins:
A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...
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Tech Support, Revisited

Countless information technology workers started out in technical-support jobs, moving on to careers as network administrators and programmers. However, current trends are complicating the prospects for support professionals at every level. Is this a career still worth pursuing?

Better than WarDriving

Cable ties were cut across a large, four-kilometre swath of the region around University Avenue yesterday.
But there wasn't any disconnection.
It was a ceremonial "cutting of the cable" to launch Canada's largest coherent wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) zone.
The connection will be free until January, run as a pilot project by FibreTech Telecommunications Inc., a firm owned by the public utility companies in the region.
The wireless signal covers a four kilometre radius, in and out of all the cafes, restaurants, businesses, apartments, homes, parks and other spaces around 140 to 170 University Avenue, and up as far as Columbia Street, an area where a huge number of students live, eat and do their work.

I met Roy McDonald last night

I met Roy McDonald last night while R and I were in London. He was standing outside Jim Bob Rae’s...

Who Controls Your Computer?

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) yesterday published a landmark report on trusted computing, a technology designed to improve security through hardware changes to the personal computer.
The report, entitled "Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk," maintains that computer owners themselves, rather than the companies that provide software and data for use on the computer, should retain control over the security measures installed on their computers. Any other approach, says the report's author Seth Schoen, carries the risk of anticompetitive behavior by which software providers may enforce "security measures" that prevent interoperability when using a competitor's software.

Zuckervati Links to the Weirdest Things

Figured I’d post this here, and not in the Missing Links section. Not just because I don’t have any recent...

Amazing New Geek Sport: Geocaching

The sport where YOU are the search engine.
A GPS device and a hunger for adventure are all you need for high tech treasure hunting. Here you can find the latest caches in your area, how to hide your own cache, and information on how to get started in this fun and exciting sport.

World’s Smallest Blog

This is pretty tiny. My eyes are no good for this sort of thing.