So I was searching Google for "Gondwanaland", the huge southern supercontinent from long ago, and noticed that somebody had actually bothered to buy ads for that keyword. Maybe a museum or a science book publisher? Nooooooo....

Somebody needs to scrub their geographical location database a little better, methinks.

Those of us on the X Prize mailing list have received an invitation to the X Prize award ceremony. Truly a historic event to be a part of. And what would you expect to pay for such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Tickets range from $275-$750 per person, depending on how close you'd like to sit to the world's newest astronaut.

I guess that explains how they got the "backing" for the prize money. They'll tell you to just bring the cash to the event, which they'll put into a big box and present to Burt Rutan during the ceremony. Clever, eh?

So, every time you see a blog post or magazine review for some new tech device with onboard 802.11, the inevitable suggestion is that the usefulness of the device is substantially increased because now it can get online from the nearest coffee shop. "With onboard Wifi, the newest iPods can download tunes from iTunes Store while you're at the coffee shop!!" Huh? How is this a selling point? I'd much rather be able to download new music while I'm laying on the couch feeling too lazy to pick my laptop up off the endtable, which is a much more likely place to find Wifi anyway.

Does the coffee shop aspect of 802.11 connectivity really make that much of a difference to people? How much time do ordinary iPod-toting folks spend sipping lattes and wishing they could download the 839th Dave Matthews concert CD without having to leave the lively, stimulating environment of their local Starbucks?

Sheesh. Clearly these people need help to overcome their unhealthy addition to Wifi access and caffeinated beverages. I recommend a Bluetooth-enabled 3G cell phone and some Penguin mints.

Some dude posted a tirade about the uselessness and banality of most weblogs, which obviously touched off some sentiments throughout the "blogosphere". (Yeah, it's from February 3; I'm not exactly Mr. Current Affairs, am I?) The article starts off attacking bloggers in general, then degrades to harsh criticism of Movable Type. I don't agree with his attacks on weblogging, which I believe rivals instant messaging as a revolutionary communications technology, but I'm more than happy to add my piece about Movable Type.

This sentence sums it up: "Movable Type is written by web designers, not programmers." We all know how well web designers can program. Most of them are even honest enough to admit that they are not capable of producing code any more than I am capable of producing a decent-looking webpage. Not the oblivious folks at Six Apart though. To make matters worse, they've taken it upon themselves to lead the creation of new weblog "standards", such as the disgustingly-broken TrackBack mechanism. I could live with ignoring their bad code, but creating bad standards that other people have to conform to is inexcusable.

Maybe one day some sort of standards group will tackle the problems confronting weblog interoperability. It has already started, in fact, with the intention of developing Atom through the IETF. Until then, we'll be forced to put up with "standards" defined by a single, incompetent vendor.

Most of the time when I eat at McDonalds or Burger King, it's for breakfast. Their hamburgers and what-not are so disgustingly unhealthy that I try to avoid eating them very often, but their breakfast foods are rather similar to what I would eat for breakfast at home.

Anyway, it seems to me that fast-food places keep moving their end-of-breakfast time earlier and earlier. I remember back when I was younger, like 10-12 years ago, it was typical for breakfast to end at 11am. Then in high school, it was 10:30. These days, everyone seems to end breakfast at 10:00. A couple places I've even seen 9:30. (Like the Burger King at the Detroit airport. I flew red-eye flights from Alaska, and after having barely slept at what felt like 5:30am to me, I was told I could only order a burger. So I ordered a Whopper and told myself it was more like a late-night snack.)

So the question is, why are they doing this? Does their market research really show that what people want most at 9:30 in the morning is a burger, fries and a coke? Or, more likely, do they find that most people will give in and order lunch food anyway even if they came in to buy breakfast? Considering that their breakfast foods appear to be of higher quality and thus have a lower profit margin than lunch foods, this would be a good business decision. Then they're walking the line between higher profits and irritating their customers, which in the fast food business does not bode well for the consumer.

Every time I heard Pink's "Trouble", I thought, "That sure sounds a lot like Rancid." Turns out it is Rancid, or at least several members of the band, with a little touch of Blink 182. Man, that takes me back...

Now, I'm not going to say Pink is particularly creative or talented, but she's really been able to adapt to a wide variety of musical genres. I just wish her songs weren't so trite.