You can click on advertising banners or special sites to save the rainforest, to feed the poor, and now to donate a free mammogram. Kinda almost makes you feel SORRY for the advertisers who are paying for it all - heh heh - okay - not really. But IS internet banner advertising WORKING? And what does WORKING mean? John and I were talking about this the other day - for instance, if Coke stopped advertising, we'd still drink it. But they spend kazillions on advertising because why - because they are afraid that if they stopped advertising people would forget about them and just go to the NEXT product that IS advertising? I guess there IS some part of the populace (or so advertisers believe) that is just led around by what they are shown, but that doesn't include MOST people *I* know. Hmmmm. Something for me to figure out later, I guess.
I DO appreciate Coke's latest "screaming on the bridge over the train" commercial though - heh heh. Now, if ad banners were all THAT clever I might pay attention to them as well - not necessarily buy anything, just enjoy them.
So, advertisers are then just... what... art studios with either really bad or really good artists? Heh heh. Anyway... for some reason right now I feel thirsty...
Swish is definitely an EXTREMELY cool piece of shareware and at only $30, well worth the money. I was able to create a bunch of little flash animations yesterday in just a few hours, compared to the fact that I'm still trying to figure out what all the TERMS mean in the actual Flash editor. Swish doesn't do EVERYTHING, but it does enough to keep my creative self very happily creating right now, thank you very much. *grin* Here's a sample of something I just whipped up... (If you missed it during the load, I believe you can right click on the image and replay it - and obviously, you will need Flash to see this - it's a free download.)
"Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level." -- Dr. Joyce (Diane Bauer) Brothers (b. 1929) -- American psychologist, author
I was going to post this the other day, but couldn't but now blogger is just ZIPPING along - congratulations guys! I guess the timing for this post now kinda matches with what tom mentioned about historical anomalies and inaccuracies... somewhat - LOL.
Comalcalco was a major Mayan port city that was believed to have flourished between 700-900 AD. Though others place it much older, and even perhaps older still, since the finds at Nakbe in the Petén, it may go back to 1000 BCE, and beyond. Since there was no rock quarry or stone to use in the area, they built the buildings out of bricks made of baked mud. The Maya raised HUGE structures made out of these bricks. That in itself makes this place unique to all the other Mayan locations. But, you see, the bricks have inscriptions on them.
In 1977 and 1978 the National Institute of Anthropology and History excavated the site and discovered that it was made up entirely of these bricks. And the site is HUGE. What they also found was that approximately 3% of the bricks had inscriptions on them, on the INSIDE. In a study conducted by Mexican archeologist Neil Steede of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, he
discovered that 3,671 bricks had inscriptions. Of these bricks, 2,129 had Mayan inscriptions on them. But 499 of the bricks were found to have completely out of place inscriptions. 13.6% of the bricks were found to have Old World inscriptions on them. These inscriptions include writing in Arabic, Phoenician, Libyan, Egyptian, Ogam, Tifinag, Chinese, Burmese, and Paliburmese. In all, about 17.3% of the bricks were inscribed with different languages, but if they had any Mayan inscriptions on them, they were designated to the Mayan inscription pile. Other bricks from this site had drawings on them, and 308 of the bricks were completely unknown and indecipherable.
According to Steede, all of the bricks were carefully photographed, and copies sent to the Epigraphic Society of San Diego, California, where the languages were identified and verified. Several of the bricks had Mayan inscriptions
and another language---typical translations. Some of the bricks were decorated with elephants, and other creatures not indigenous to the Americas.
(This is where the examiners abilities to figure this mystery out take on an almost comical note - to me at least.) Dr. Barry Fell, of the Epigraphic Society felt that the bricks were part of some type of language school at Comalcalco, where students used the bricks to write on. (Because using bricks to write on is so practical? WHAT?) The inscriptions weren't visible until after they had dismantled the structure. Steele made the observation that the problem with the dating is that the languages on the bricks go back to 0 A.D. to 400 A.D., while Colmalcalco is believed to have been built and/or inhabited between A.D. 700 to 900. Steele believes that the bricks may have been part of a more ancient structure that was dismantled and the bricks used in the newer building. (Okay, this is a little more reasonable - LOL - although it still doesn't explain the other languages.) He also notes that since they have only looked at 1/2 of 1% of the total amount of bricks, there could be a million inscribed bricks to discover. He also goes on to say that the linguists are all in agreement with the languages on the bricks, but mainstream archeology refuses to accept it, simply stating that it "just can't be correct." (This is where they usually lose it - by trying to fit the new information into the old framework instead of including the new information into a NEW framework - wouldn't it just be better to say that they just don't KNOW? Or are they afraid of admitting that some of their past assumptions might be incorrect? Hell - they're ALL incorrect at one point or another - just depends on your perspective at the time - oh well. It was an interesting article anyway.) (Thanks to Blue Moon News for the info.)
I haven't been posting lately only because Blogger's been cranky and in need of a new server. They have a new one now and are probably installing it as we speak - so I'll be blogging more soon - promise! :-)
Apparently, Low Power FM stations that were approved by the FCC got lambasted in Congress. When the issue first came up, commercial radio stations (including National Public Radio) stated that they were simply concerned about the technical issues of LPFM stations interfering with their stations - that was what their whole claimed basis for protest was about. Here's a great quote about that from the article, "The [National Association of] Broadcasters emerged victorious last week, as Congress passed -- as part of the budget deal -- a provision radically scaling back the low-power initiative. And it is worth noting that the language orders the FCC not merely to study the potential for interference but also to examine "the economic impact" on "incumbent FM radio broadcasters." Turns out market protection was an issue after all."
I'm certainly not surprised, are you? I mean, the IDEA of LPFM is cool, except that there were so many limits put on it as to hardly make it worth the effort - a broadcasting range of a thousand feet? I guess what I AM a little surprised about is that NPR was included in the protestors - afraid of losing their edge as 'the alternative'?
Internet radio and portable internet radio gadgets are rapidly being developed now. So I wonder - when we can listen to internet radio in the car and on our walkmans - what will the NAB do then? That will mean that anyone can listen to YOUR radio show, without you having to invest a gazillion dollars and without restricting listeners to their computers. When options for radio stations come down to basically TWO major coporations that own them all (same thing that was going on with newspapers) and all the stations play the same ten songs over and over again, you just gotta know that SOMETHING was going to burst that little bubble. As we all learned in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." *grin*
I'm interested in this because I want my own radio show - maybe even my own radio station with some friends. I did a radio show in college, and there's so much GREAT MUSIC out there that just doesn't fit the 'play list formula' (perhaps I'm being redundant here - LOL) and so many different POSSIBILITIES.... makes me grin just thinking about them all!
You know - I didn't really even care about the new year stuff last night - didn't even open the bottle of sparkling cider - just went to bed at about 10:30.
Hey tom - love your food page - especially your expressive use of choice graphics. *grin* I look forward to reading more of your food experiments!
Of course, you realize that tomorrow you can start every conversation with, "I haven't talked to you in a millenium!" - that is, until you are beaten unconscious. *grin*
And despite all my posting about the 'new year' right now, I never get all that excited about counting down. *shrug* It's been a tradition in our family for years to get fast food, bring it home, and just hang out. (Of course, that might have had something to do with living in Upstate New York and being limited by snow and ice a lot. But tradition is tradition - heh heh.)
