The Massachusetts state chief information officer has resigned in the wake of his push for open source document standards in Massachusetts according to C-Net. The article makes it sound as though significant pressure was assert both on him and on his family as a result of his push for this standard. Amazing … what people will do for MicroSoft I guess. Who is putting pressure on him anyway?

In fairness, his decision brought him a lot of scrutiny in other areas, including an investigation into his travel documentation. In the end, he just found it not worth it probably when he lacked support from top administation who decided that Microsoft’s XML format might be sufficient. Whatever the reasons, he certainly got people talking, thinking and discussing the issues.

I read the most recent Microsoft Press Release: Xbox 360 Powers All-New Nissan URGE Concept Car. Now I have to apologize to Microsoft because I am thinking it means what it says … that a car is ACTUALLY powered by the 360 … so I am thinking blue screen as you merge onto a busy highway. The Release doesn’t however (fortunately?) mean what it says. What it means is that the 360 is installed in the car and when parked you can use the vehicles controls (steering, brake, gas) to control the game console as you race through the game “Project Gotham Racing® 3”. I guess that is a neat enough concept (although I cannot imagine it being a good value). The problem however is that you wind up playing it on a 7″ LCD screen. Nothing like taking away the realism. If you want to have it real, then pop up the front hood and display a wide screen tv in front of the driver! Now that would be gaming of the arcade variety. Anyway, this will give whole new meaning to running to the corner store …

On New Years Eve this year, an extra second will be added to the year. What will you do with yours? I think it is amazing that the calendar, and modern clock are as precise as they are. As amazing as technology is, the wisdom of our ancestors continues to amaze me.

This is a great tutorial on how to build a Firefox Extension. I am tempted to try one myself!

Google offers several options for searching. One of the primary ones is “safe search” that should filter out adult content. That progresses up to “safe search off” that should give all results. There is also a moderate level of google search filtering that most people might prefer. If you are looking for nude pictures of say Drew Barrymore (no unsafe link provided here … if that is what you desire and you don’t know Drew personally, you can figure out how to find them by using this post of course), then you would want to turn safe search off. This side called S ** T – O – Meter (missing letters are L and U, not H and I! We are a family friendly site). By comparing the ratio of safe to unsafe searches, they propose that you can conclude how promiscuous a subject is. Of course, I always have safe search off and self filter. I hope my children choose the opposite until they are a bit older. So I am not sure that this really tells the whole story, but I guess it does tell something about the clientelle of a given subject matter. Interesting.

Two other points:
If this were my site I would consider having the name at the top of a search clickable to the google search result for that subject. I would also see if I could pull in the “suggested correct spelling” feature that I so like in google. If you spell a name wrong, it might suggest the proper name. Drew Barriemore might be an angel only because one Baptist preacher looked for her with safe search on. All of the Methodist’s with their safe search off knew how to spell her name. (btw: just kidding about the religious groups used here, you can fill in your own) or disregard if that is offensive.

I was disappointed with day five of the current Google Doodle — and I suspect the final one in the series. The mouse puts together a wheel and powers the plug on the logo. That part is fine and clever, but it just washes out the logo with pastel behind it. I hope they continue the tradition.

Today I read about the Slingbox, a device that lets you watch your local cable from a remote location. To use it you need a remote high speed internet connection and a laptop to watch on. They claim special technology will adjust to varying broadband speeds to permit viewing. A better move might be to take your Direct-TV Box and an extra dish with you. Then you can actually watch the show on a television set. The Slingbox may have some current drawbacks, but it is a start.