I've decided we need more recurring posts on the site, so I'm starting a new feature called Friday Flickr Tag Fun, and will find a popular term for the week, do a search in the Flickr Creative Commons pool, and post the top 9 images with the popular tag.

This week's word/tag is Alaska. Why? Well, today we learned that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Turns out, Sarah is from Wallin (?), Alaska. These are the first 9 "Alaska" photos.

Photo by Timothy K. Hamilton

Photo by B Mully

Photo by B Mully

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From USNews:

It was just announced that Sarah Palin is John McCain's choice for Vice President. It's an interesting choice, and USNews has a great list of ten thing you didn't know about Sarah Palin. Take a trip their site and have a look.

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Thesis Demo Page
Check out the Thesis live demo here.

ProBlogger is hosting a group writing project/contest for writing Killer Titles for your blog posts. I am participating, and submitted 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now. I'm a huge fan of helping people blog better, and this group writing project is all about people coming up with creative "Killer Titles," reading other bloggers' work, discovering new sites, making friends, and having a virtual kumbaya around a campfire. ProBlogger will randomly select a participant, and award them with a $2000 identity design (logo) from logo designer David Airey, but they've challenged all of the participants to select their favorites, and post their winners.

This is the Day 2 List of Lists. If you missed it, check out 12 Lists with Killer Titles - Day 1

Tuesday's Lists

• 5 Simple Steps to Fantastic Fruit Pies by ZestyCook ( Cory)
• 7 Ingredients Of Magnetic Blog by Sunil Pathak
• 46 Simple Ways to Save Cash Now with Green Travel by Elizabeth
• Daily Blog 26: Top 10 Reasons People Don’t Like To Read by Chris Verstraete
• 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now by Shaun McLane
• The 10 Best Olympic Gold Blog Titles for Free by Christoph Merrill
• 5 reasons you should use plain text to save your data by Rarst
• The 114 Most Fuel Efficient Cars From 2005 by Mike
• 120 Proven Ways to Boost Your Brain Power by Luciano Passuello
• 5 Small (But Big) Ways to Beat Depression Every Time by The Daily Minder
• Internet Marketing: 6 Steps for Using Scarcity Tactics with Integrity by Edward Mills
• Top 10 Webcomics for Total Geeks by mrmuggles
• 3 Reasons Why I Refuse to Use Lightroom by Brian Auer
• Banish Blogger Butt in 7 Beneficial Ways by Stephanie Quilao
• 10 reasons why I wouldn’t be without my scissors by Sue
• Top 10 Scrapbooking Articles of All Time by Karen

Check back tomorrow for the next group of participants, and keep in mind, there's still time to participate. If you think you can write a post with a Killer Title, head over to the group writing project page for more details, and to sign up. If you write a list, you'll be added here!

Thesis Demo Page
Check out the Thesis live demo here.

ProBlogger is hosting a group writing project/contest for writing Killer Titles for your blog posts. I am participating, and submitted 9 Super-Sexy Betas to Crave Right Now. I'm a huge fan of helping people blog better, and this group writing project is all about people coming up with creative "Killer Titles," reading other bloggers' work, discovering new sites, making friends, and having a virtual kumbaya around a campfire. ProBlogger will randomly select a participant, and award them with a $2000 identity design (logo) from logo designer David Airey, but they've challenged all of the participants to select their favorites, and post their winners.

The first group of participants was released today, and as I was reading through the titles (some really great ones), I decided to pull all of the lists and post them here in a four-part series. The cool thing about this project is in teaching people how to write "Killer" titles, using a list is always near the top of the....well, you get the point. It should provide you, the reader, with plenty of content to keep you busy for the week. ProBlogger will be announcing the winner (randomly selected) on Friday, so wish me luck!

Monday's Lists

• 9 Of The Best Ways To Present A Website To A Client by Jacob Cass
• Top 10 Ways To Save Money Building Your New House by Todd
• 5 reasons to be Canadian and definitely forget that you were ever Latino (In Spanish) by Guillermo
• 17 Ways To Increase Advertising Income On Your Website by Rob Malon
• 12 Things to do in Denver Besides the Democratic National Convention by Mary Jo
• 10 Ways To Grow Your Senior Photography Business by Lori Osterberg
• 2 Reasons Why Women Should Vote for Obama by Trisha
• 5 Title-Writing Lessons You Can Learn from Naked Beds by Susan Payton, The Marketing Eggspert
• The top 5 bands that I would erase from history by Roberta
• 5 reliable wineries that can help you learn about wine by Bill Wilson
• 18 sites that pay you for writing by Suzanne Roman
• "F*ck Martha Stewart" 11 Lessons from the Movie "Fight Club" by Joe Lucas

Check back tomorrow for the next group of participants, and keep in mind, there's still plenty of time to participate. If you think you can write a post with a Killer Title, head over to the group writing project page for more details, and to sign up. If you write a list, you'll be added here!

One last thing....I'd love to know what you think about these titles. Killer? Lame? Tell us what you think in the comments. We always love hearing your opinion.

1. An amateur built the ark and a team of engineers built the Titanic. That basically sums up why I don't trust Microsoft products.
2. Failure is not an option -- it comes bundled with Windows.
3. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
4. Flash is a program built for and by retarded cats
5. "I invented it, Bill made it famous."
   David Bradley (wrote the code for Ctrl-Alt-Delete on the IBM PC)
6. "Coding styles are like assholes, everyone has one and no one likes anyone elses."
   Eric Warmenhoven
7. "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
   Brian W. Kernighan
8. "Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing."
   Dick Brandon
9. "Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it."
   Seymore Cray (on virtual memory)
10. "Software Engineering is that part of Computer Science which is too difficult for the Computer Scientist."
    F. L. Bauer
11. "The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents."
    Nathaniel Borenstein
12. "The ultimate metric that I would like to propose for user friendliness is quite simple: if this system was a person, how long would it take before you punched it in the nose?"
    Tom Carey
13. "Writing in C or C++ is like running a chain saw with all the safety guards removed."
    Bob Gray

Other funny programming quotes and thoughts

Funny programming Tshirts

If you're a reader of this site, you know I'm a sucker for betas (and if you're not a reader, feel free to subscribe and become one). I spend a few hours a day searching for new sites, and if they have a beta tag, which most of them do, I'm hooked. These 19 sites are currently on my radar, and I'll do my best to explain why. You'll find a mix of open betas, private betas, and even an alpha or two mixed in for fun. By the way, if the title to this post caught your attention, I've accomplished my goal. I'm participating in a ProBlogger group writing project, and you should too. Here are the betas!

Buxfer is free online personal finance software for budgeting and expense management. I've been using it for about a week, and I'm very impressed. It auto-syncs with your banking info, and auto-categorizes most of the transactions. I've tried Mint, and a few others, and I think I'll be sticking with Buxfer. Keep in mind, it does ask for your banking info, so if you're not into giving out that type of info, this site's not for you.

Are you effing kidding me? This site kicks so much ass, but sadly, will probably be gone soon. I have no idea how it's made it this far, but Mygazines (clever) is a service I'd gladly pay for. They claim they are a free place to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by you, the Mygazines community. Okay, but what about having every magazine sitting on the news stand right this very second? Cosmo? Yep. Men's Health? It's there, as well as hundreds more. You better go there sooner rather than later, because like I said before, I don't see this one being around too long (although, I hope it stays for good).

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These holes are not only amazing, but some of them are really terrifying! The sheer magnitude of these gaping holes reminds us of how men will scar the earth to pursue their quest for power and wealth.

Apparently the largest ever hand-dug excavation in the world, this 1097 meter deep mine yielded over 3 tons of diamonds before being closed in 1914. More Info - Wiki Link

A glory hole is used when a dam is at full capacity and water needs to be drained from the reservoir. This is the 'Glory Hole' at Monticello dam, and it's the largest in the world of this type of spillway, its size enabling it to consume 14,400 cubic feet of water every second.

This is supposedly the largest man-made excavation on earth. Extraction began in 1863 and still continues today, the pit increasing in size constantly. In its current state the hole is miles deep and 2.5 miles wide.

This incredible geographical phenomenon known as a blue hole is situated 60 miles off the mainland of Belize. There are numerous blue holes around the world,
but none as stunning as this one.

I'm pretty sure most people have seen this one. It's an absolute beast and holds the title of largest
open diamond mines in the world. At 525 meters deep, with a top diameter of 1200 meters, there's
even a no-fly zone above the hole due to a few helicopters having been sucked in.

The mine is so huge and the area so remote that it has its own airport with a runway large enough to accommodate a Boeing 737. It looks equally cool when the surrounding water is frozen.

These photos are of a sinkhole that occurred early this year in Guatemala . The hole swallowed a dozen homes and killed at least 3 people.

That's all the holes we've got for you. Know of any others? Tell us about them in the comments.

From Oddee:

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From MSNBC:

Today, cutting-edge astronomers use space-based observatories to gain a sharp view of the stars and advance our understanding of the cosmos. But appreciation for celestial bodies dates back to ancient times. Many cultures built structures in ways that suggest they were in tune with Earth's annual trek around the sun. Other structures appear to take constellations and planets into account. Click the "Next" arrow above to learn about 10 of these ancient observatories. Each page includes an image taken by GeoEye's Ikonos satellite, shown in this artist’s conception, as it flew 423 miles above Earth at an average speed of 17,000 miles per hour.

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From ChrisBrogan.com:

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.

Your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Further, you might have some really great ideas to add. That’s why we have lively conversations here at [chrisbrogan.com] in the comments section. Jump right in!

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