tiltawhirl

How do they do it?

I love www.zappos.com.

I ordered a new pair of sneakers last night around 6PM, and it appears they are sitting at my house, waiting for me now.

I've ordered from them at least a dozen times, and it is always the same - the shoes arrive the next day, or at worst, the day after. And this is their standard shipping - no extra fee etc. As a matter of fact, they are offering free shipping as a promotion right now, so I didn't even PAY for shipping.

Sometimes I have ordered shoes at 11PM at night, and had them arrive the next day. And they are shipping from Kentucky, it's not like they are based here in Seattle or anything.

ninjas and zombies and aliens, oh my

http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/easyeasier/index.htm

Compact fluorescent bulb holdouts, please read

At lunch the other day, some friends and I got on the subject of compact fluorescent bulbs. Lest you think my friends and I sit around talking about high-minded subjects like energy conservation all day, let me assure you this is not the case. The way we arrived at the subject was like this. They were talking about things their spouses are always yelling at them for, and one of the things was leaving unneeded lights on. The other person suggested that CF bulbs make that a moot point - leave em on all you want. (I do not endorse this point of view, BTW). The other person made a face and said the he hated fluorescent bulbs. I was surprised - I thought everyone knew that the new CF bulbs are great.

So, if you are out there, and you don't use CF bulbs because you think they will be ugly or something, read this article from Popular Mechanics. (Thanks to my friend Richard for pointing this article out). It shows you just how efficient the bulbs are, and which ones are the best.

In brief, CF bulbs use 66% less energy than standard bulbs, and last up to 9 years. And as far as the difference in quality of light, I'll quote directly from the article:

"Even though the incandescent bulb measured slightly brighter than the equivalent CFLs, our subjects didn’t see any dramatic difference in brightness. And here was the real shocker: When it came to the overall quality of the light, all the CFLs scored higher than our incandescent control bulb. In other words, the new fluorescent bulbs aren’t just better for both your wallet and the environment, they produce better light."

if I stuff a twenty in there....

can I sleep all day?

http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2007/03/the_alarm_clock.html

the interweb is rediculous

No one on the Internet can spell "ridiculous".

At least no one who posts on a gaming forum. And gaming forums seem to be be full of posts about things that are "rediculous". People are constantly posting about things that are "rediculous". Either games are rife with "rediculous" things, or people who play games have a low threshold for "rediculosity".

Someone (and I swear, it's not me) invariably replies and says:

"Hey, just so you know, it's 'ridiculous' not 'rediculous'. Just thought I'd tell you, you know . I know I'd want someone to tell me if I were spelling something wrong. It's good to learn new things, right? Have a sparkly day!"

which is then met with:

"OMFGZORS spelling nazi!!!! I dont care if i spell it rite! die in a car fire!!!!!1111!!!111one"

This of course is an exaggeration. But I've given equally ginger corrections to people in person and gotten the N word flung at me in response.

Spelling Nazi/Grammar Nazi. The new "worst thing" you can call someone. Worse than implying inappropriate relations with your mother, or one of the myriad vulgarities for body parts. They have located *actual* Nazis, and asked them about spelling Nazis. The Nazis have said "Oh, no, we don't associate with them." Even hardcore, hiding-in-Paraguay Nazis want to distance themselves from the spelling Nazis.

Why do we care? Why do the spelling/grammar Nazis want to correct you? I'm going to give you the straight truth. The other spelling/grammar Nazis won't tell you this. But I will. And it's going to hurt. So brace yourself, my little bunnies.

When you spell common words wrong, or make usage errors (and I'm not talking about typos here. Typos are a whole other animal.) it makes me think you might be dumb. And I really like you, so it hurts for me to imagine that you might be dumb. Because if that were true, we couldn't be friends. So I need you to stop making that mistake, so we can get on with being friends.

I know there are smart people who can't spell. But most of the time, if you can't spell, it's because you never read books or newspapers. I can't be friends with people who never read anything.*

If I point out your mistake, it means I've seen you do it a lot. Maybe many, many times with that same word and I've resisted saying anything about it. Or, you're about to publish it somewhere where someone else will see it. Maybe someone like ME, who will judge you and think you are dumb.

I'm trying to protect you. From people like me. Who might not know you like I do.

I don't bother to correct people I don't know, or people I don't like. I don't care if they seem dumb. I probably already decided that they are dumb, and that's why I don't like them.

I know there are people who like to crow over every spelling error and rub your face in it. A lot of the Internet spelling Nazis fall into that category. That's not me. I don't take any joy in your mistakes. I'm a different kind of Nazi.

*If it makes you feel any better I have a similar problem to the "don't read/can't spell" problem. There's a huge collection of words that I know how to spell and know what they mean, but am not sure how to pronounce them. You can surmise from this that no one ever talks to me. You can probably guess why.