PSA for paid users

If you have a paid account and you don't watch paidmembers:

1. You should.
2. You may not know that you can receive a two-week extension for your account by going to this page, if you were paid when LiveJournal lost power this past weekend. See the announcement for details.

Let's take the "scenic route"!

For a bit of amusement, try this:

1. Go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. In the Start section, select "Norway" from the listbox and enter "Haugesund" into the "City" field
3. In the End section, select "Norway" from the listbox and enter "Trondheim" into the "City" field
4. Click on "Get Directions"
5. Observe the route chosen on the map

From the RISKS Digest, Volume 23, Issue 67. The submitter notes that inverting the cities in the request produces "less spectacular" results.

See also this page, which has images of the two routes, as well as a different route that is produced when you pick the "shortest route" rather than the fastest one… which also produces "interesting" results.

Also from that issue, I wonder whether the email address of this submitter was chosen when he was prompted for "please choose a username:" and couldn't think of anything good. (And I wonder how many LiveJournal usernames were chosen through a similar process.)

Random joke

…so I guess radioactive cats have eighteen half-lives?…

A "translation" of the powerloss page

Have a look at this entry.

I thought it was absolutely hilarious!

(I also thought it was très spiffy that Brad and co. kept us updated on the state of things.)