We’ll let Weird Al Yankovic explain on why the bird IS the WORD.

UPDATE:Thanks to ZPedro for alerting me how sucky WordPress can be when it comes to embedding audio links.

The head of state died, no one’s been named a successor, now’s the time to grease some palms and create a new tax haven.

I understand Grand Fenwick is right up the road, you can always launch an invasion, and start your own empire. How hard could it be?

Could you imagine Dear Leader’s face on a coin some day?

Yak, yak, yak, yak. For a guy who had zilch to do with the project and was completely unaware of its existence, on what his former employer is up to, he sure seems to think he has a handle.  Essentially, I think this guy is interested in convincing fund managers who read his blog to buy scads and scads more Google stock, making his own hoard more valuable. Google’s strategy, he feels, is not the success of Chrome but of getting people off the desktop completely and doing everything online. I think this inevitable, anyway, and a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon without having a clue, and Google will probably profit for this for awhile, until some upstart blindsides them, becoming the New Borg.

The future generation of the internet is going to be communicating directly from our heads folks, it’s the ultimate step, probably something like

Cogswell’s singularity or sumptin’, and someone will figure out how to profit from that

.

See you at that party, or probably readin’ your mind.

A tip of the hat or

beanie

or whatever headgear the geeks are wearing this year, the brilliant online nerdsilvania comic

SCIENCE - IT WORKS, BITCHES!

xkcd releases its first collection,

plus some other stuff you can wear and junk.

Catch up on latest comic or peruse the whole series, but be nice and drop a few sheckels in the bucket, okay, hmmmm?

see the Chromium, see? No? Awwwww!

Although the Chrome OS will not be out until some time next year,

Chromium, the open source version Google made available for geex ‘n’ freax, is already being employed for commercial netbooks, specifically the Dell Mini10V.  Sure, you boot up in less in 15 seconds but it takes a quarter of an hour for it to locate a WiFi connection. Nice goin’ fellas, Ballmer’s gonna’ sleep easier this weekend armed with this bit of FUD.

it's pretty - hey, where'd my slide rule go?

That figures. All time and money and resources built to create Large Hadron Collider and two geeks in Indiana propose how to build a mini black hole on the desktop, and then the Chinese go ahead and do it. AAAAAAAAAaaaand we’re still here. Practical aspects? Well, you could use a mini black hole as a source of converting light into energy – your laptop or mobile device could store energy in daytime for nighttime use (unless you live in the polar regions, where it’s night half the year and what the fuck are you doing living at the polar regions with a laptop and a cell phone, are gonna hook up with a walrus or a penguin, Nanook?). You could use such a collection of “batteries”

I gotta get me one of those!

to run a gas guzzler the size of a Sherman tank. You could probably in fact put

you like havin' that in your backyard?

the power company and

refineries smell like god awful hell

the oil business into

the where are they now category by the end of the century.

For years, Walter Cronkite was the news.   That’s where America got the news, straight from Walter Cronkite on CBS.  The bond with his audience was unmistakable, and unshakable.  But let’s go back to November 22 of 1963.  When President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, it took 38 minutes from the time he was pronounced dead, to the time Uncle Walter broke the news to a stunned nation.

Fast forward to 2009, and an excellent article from MG Siegler.  He has concluded, rightly, that the news now operates at the speed of Twitter.  Today’s Tiger Woods story (PDF) went around the globe in the click of a mouse.  Some people, especially non-users, will either not “get it,” or see it as frivolous.  Fair enough.  But Twitter is a brand that’s changing the way the news is covered.  For better or worse.

Now that the dust has mostly settled from Black Friday, you’ve got the weekend to rest up before Cyber Monday.  That term was invented four years ago by an outfit called Shop.org, and of course they have a website.

Yes, these two were married.  The groom is named “Sal9000.”  The bride is a video game character named Nene Anegasaki.  Let’s dispense with the formalities and cut to the chase, shall we?  (Happy couple shown lower right..no word on the pre-nup.)

Kudos to Skype for their donation of equipment and service that allows troops overseas to connect with their families.  Check this tale about a San Jose woman and her Japan-stationed brother.  A great story to kick off the holiday season.