Science & Technology – Page 2

December 28, 2009

There’s a Map for That

atat By: Billy BeerSlugger

With the recent ad campaign from Verizon showing 3G coverage on the United States map for both AT&T and itself, it’s weird that I am now seeing ads from AT&T with Luke Wilson in them telling me this isn’t true. I’ve seen this type of competitive advertising this year before with Direct TV and Comcast stating who had more HD Channels or Programming. What is a consumer to think when two direct competitors are spewing two almost completely different stories and passing them off as gospel to the American Public?

First, let’s read between the lines. Verizon’s ad displays a map of “3G Broadband” coverage for both itself and AT&T. That being said, the maps are correct. Verizon’s network is immensely greater in terms of 3G coverage and AT&T can’t really dispute the 3G coverage on their map. The thing that AT&T should dispute is that the ad makes it seem like they do not offer or can’t get service in those areas. While Verizon’s network is far beyond AT&T’s in terms of 3G service, it does not mean AT&T users cannot make calls in those areas and in most cases can still access the Web (granted not in 3G speed). Basically, if you can make a phone call you can still check your email though streaming video is probably out of the question.

Chalk one up in the W column for the advertising people at Verizon for stealthily taking one fact about one aspect of their competitors services and having a good portion of the general public associate the 3G coverage map with the entire AT&T wireless network.

Don’t think that this is just an AT&T vs. Verizon matter either. There are two very prominent names attached to these cellular carriers in Google and Apple. With Google coming out recently with it’s Android OS on every major carrier except AT&T and Apple having an exclusive licensing deal with AT&T for the iPhone, it’s more than just about the carriers. AT&T apparently made 1/3 of it’s 2nd Quarter revenue off of iPhone users and that’s something that Verizon and Google hope to accomplish with their partnership.

Luckily I’m off all this week and could figure all of this out for you. Unfortunately neither Verizon or AT&T subscribers can get 3G coverage in the middle of Lake Huron.

December 25, 2009December 25, 2009

Vertical Farming

vertical_farm By: Billy BeerSlugger

As far back as 2007 I have been captivated by the idea of Vertical Farming. After all, it only makes sense given that no one is making any more land and the population continues to rise exponentially. Just as man has taken urban living and working quarters to the skies so soon will farming. If you take a patch of land using traditional farming methods you can only grow as much product as the land will allow. However, if you take that same land area and farm vertically, you can produce many times that amount. On top of all this you can produce the product all year round instead of just in the weather permitting seasons.

In an ever carbon-footprint, green conscious world, building these structures seems absolutely logical given the amount of fuel it takes to cultivate and transport our current food supply. Instead of lugging produce hundreds of miles by trailer or truck it could be delivered by foot, bike and other more environmentally methods over hundreds of yards instead. Even better you could just purchase the produce from the Vertical Farm itself, cutting out the middle man exchange.

There’s also a wealth of benefits from growing products indoors instead of outdoors. One of the most significant being that it all but eliminates the need for harmful pesticides. Inside you can better control what can come into contact with your produce. Everything produced in the Vertical Farm would be considered “Organic”.

Another significant advantage is the use and reclamation of water. With traditional farming methods, excess water used to hydrate plants either seeps back into the water table below ground or evaporates back into the atmosphere. One of the biggest costs of farming is water and one of the biggest costs of water is water being treated to the point where it is safe enough to drink and use. Using an indoor, vertical farming system, excess water can be reclaimed and reused over and over again.

Some farms have begun using a Hydrophonic method of producing veggies without soil at all. Produce is grown in nutrient rich water cutting down the need for the process of constantly re-enriching soil. Also, without soil and with water being transparent farmers can make sure there is nothing contaminating the soil, just taking regular water readings to ensure it is not contaminated.

There are a number of other benefits including using local food wastes from restaurants and fast food type places and composting them inside the vertical farm, cutting down on waste/trash which doesn’t have to be hauled away to a dump and also eliminates trash for rats, mice and cockroaches to live on in urban areas.

With the world facing an ever increasing population along with the somewhat antiquated and vulnerable methods of traditional farming it will be interesting to see when the first of these major Vertical Farms will be built and where. It is only a matter of time though in my opinion and is a most logical one at that.

Dickson Despommier is a leader in this movement and you can get more information on his website http://verticalfarm.com/ including more illustrations/designs of what Vertical Farming would look like.

November 21, 2009

Digital 3D: Lousy name, Great experience

By: Sean Millski

I went into my first new 3D movie, The so-called Digital 3D, thinking it was going to be like the 3D movies of old, the ones I grew up with…Blurry, oddly colored images briefly darting off the screen, flying over the audience and into your face…. but I was way off, it wasn’t like that at all. It was much, much better.

As a movie buff, I would’ve ran to the theater to see this new technology if someone had come up with some cool, kick-ass new name meant to distance themselves from the old 3D format or to take a second and say “Hey man, This is something different” but they didn’t. They just added the word digital and I guess hoped that would do it. That monumental marketing failure has left me, and the rest of the movie-going public, slow to catch on to the new way to watch movies. It‘s no longer a momentary parlor trick that happens a few times during a hazy green and red colored flick. The new and vastly improved effect is an amazingly realistic depth with an even more amazing image clarity! I came away thinking “That was F’ing awesome!”. The digital technology offers a new viewpoint for the movie goer, a new perspective. It’s almost as if you’re in the movie! I don’t know how it all works, something about 48 frames per second and polarized ocular distance, but I know I like it!

The most noticeable and impressive change is the depth. you see things clearly that are in the foreground and in the background and as if they are, in fact, in front or behind each other. The characters have a realistic roundness to them. I can’t explain it, you have to see and judge it for yourself. The preview for the upcoming December release of Avatar, a combo Live-action and CGI animated film looked even more impressive! The effect on the Live action actors was flat out amazing! I think I will buy a ticket in advance for the first time ever.

So what did I go see? I went to a Loewes/AMC theater to see the IMAX presentation of Disney’s A Christmas Carol shown in Disney’s own Digital 3D format. I was Psyched but was disappointed to find that AMC’s IMAX screen isn’t the huge, 7 story wrap around I thought it would be. Instead it’s a flat, traditional screen that’s maybe a little bigger than normal. You also still need to wear 3D glasses. The new glasses aren’t green and red anymore, they’re both tinted black in a plastic, one-size-fits-all frame that you drop into a collection bin on your way out of the theater. They need to work on that end of things.

As far as A Christmas Carol was concerned ,I’ll give it a B-. It was good but we all know the story so no surprises there. Jim Carey’s face is flawlessly reproduced as a withered, bitter Ebenezer Scrooge. Gary Oldman, Cary Elwes and a few other actors are also easily recognizable. The facial details of some of the minor characters could use some work though. Also impressive is Jim Carey’s voice performances of Ebenezer and all three spirits. Gary Oldman also put in a great voice performance as Jacob Marley , Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.

Over all, I think I expected more imaginative storytelling from Disney but the IMAX Digital 3D, albeit horribly named, made it all worth while.

November 21, 2009November 21, 2009

How To Secure Your Wireless Network

wireless_cables By: Billy BeerSlugger

First of all, I’d like to thank you for allowing me to steal your internet this whole time. I just feel kind of guilty now that I’ve downloaded all the porn on the internet using your signal that I thought I’d tell you how to put a password on your wireless network so that someone else doesn’t do the same thing to you.

Seriously though, if you have a Wireless Internet connection and it’s not protected by a password you may be opening yourself up to a host of security problems not to mention other people stealing your bandwidth so you can’t download your own porn as fast as you could be. You definitely don’t want to be liable when the weird dude down the hall from you grabs some kiddie porn using your Wireless Network. Everyone knows you don’t download kiddie porn on your own internet service, you go to your buddies house or you steal an internet signal from the stupid person with the unsecured network in your apartment building.

So I’ll assume that you can actually access the internet from your Wireless Router but never had to put a password in to connect to it (If you have secured your wireless network you can probably skip the rest of this article).

Here’s what you can do to try and set the password but before I tell you I want you to know that I’m not liable if you fuck something up.

Using a network cable you should temporarily connect your computer to one of the open network ports on your wireless router (any port that isn’t labeled Internet, WAN, or WLAN). If you need to, turn your computer on. It should automatically connect to your router.

Next, open Internet Explorer and type in the address to configure your router.

You might be prompted for a password. The address and password you use will vary depending on what type of router you have, so refer to the instructions included with your router.

As a quick reference, this table shows the default addresses, usernames, and passwords for some common router manufacturers.

Router	Address	Username	Password
3Com	http://192.168.1.1	admin	admin
D-Link	http://192.168.0.1	admin
Linksys	http://192.168.1.1	admin	admin
Microsoft Broadband	http://192.168.2.1	admin	admin
Netgear	http://192.168.0.1	admin	password

Internet Explorer will show your router’s configuration page. Most of the default settings should be fine, but you should configure three things:

Your wireless network name, known as the SSID. This name identifies your network. You should choose something unique that none of your neighbors will be using.

Wireless encryption (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which help protect your wireless network. For most routers, you will provide a passphrase that your router uses to generate several keys. Make sure your passphrase is unique and long (you don’t need to memorize it).

Your administrative password, which controls your wireless network. Just like any other password, it should not be a word that you can find in the dictionary, and it should be a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Be sure you can remember this password, because you’ll need it if you ever have to change your router’s settings.

The exact steps you follow to configure these settings will vary depending on the type of router you have. After each configuration setting, be sure to click Save Settings, Apply, or OK to save your changes.

That should be it. You should now be able to connect to your wireless network using a password and thus thwarting the efforts of would be child pornography downloaders.

November 13, 2009

Selling out for DJ Hero

It Doesn't actually teach you how to be a DJ. Much like Guitar hero doesn't teach you how to play Guitar.

By: Robby RipChord

I’m not really mad at Eminem or Jay-Z for selling out to do DJ Hero but there must have been some serious postulating on both sides before they committed. Something like this, as a hardcore rapper, can seriously hurt your street credibility in terms of fan base and the ability to sell records in the future. Maybe they are both worried about record sales for the industry in general and are trying to make as much money as possible right now, who knows.

There’s something different about DJ Hero as opposed to most of the other “Hero” games in that Jay-Z and Eminem are still in a position to sell a major amount of records any time they drop an album. They could debut at number one just from name recognition alone for the most part and one or two singles on the radio. With the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rock Band it’s an easy progression to try and make money off of hip-hop too and what a better instrument than the turntable. But while Guitar Hero and Rock Band are highlighted by back in the day bands like The Beatles, Aerosmith, Metallica and others who really haven’t had a viable hit in years (or decades), the makers of the game chose to go with current rap/hip-hop stars instead of going with back in the day talent. They didn’t even get DJ’s to front their product they got rappers instead of DJ legends. Why not pick out The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Wu Tang, Public Enemy, Rakim, Salt N Peppa, Nas or one of 50 other artists who deserve to be kind of honored (and compensated) for their role in Rap and Hip-Hop? We’re these people approached and told the Video Game Company to fuck off, “We’re not going on a video game”?

Do Jay-Z and Eminem really need the money that bad? Jay-Z is always rapping about how much money he has and he’s a mogul but how do you justify all this to your “street” fanbase and becoming overly commercial? Eminem I don’t really see with the same problem because I’m not sure anyone ever took him for a Gangsta but doesn’t this cheapen his work as an “Artist”? I’m all for people making money but at what cost to your reputation?

November 10, 2009

Some Apple’s Have Worms In Them

Apple's market Share is up around 10% now.

By: Billy BeerSlugger

Something I’ve argued for a while with my friends who use an Apple Macintosh (Mac) computer and a real problem I’ve had with the “Mac vs. PC” commercials which have come out is the notion that Mac’s “don’t get viruses”. Though I believe the Mac vs PC commercials point out Windows propensity for being “more vulnerable to viruses” it is a pretty subjective statement and not the whole truth.

The estimates for the number of Malware (Viruses, Spyware etc.) threats geared toward a Windows environment is around 1.8 million while compared to only a couple hundred aimed at the Mac. So by looking at those numbers, Windows has a lot more to worry about and a lot more to stay on top of than Mac in terms of threats. The disparity in the number of threats from Mac to PC is directly correlated to the dominant market share PC’s hold over Mac’s. It’s only logical to think that a person who makes viruses/malware is releasing them for the most part to make money stealing information or just in it for the ego boost of disrupting millions of computers (sick I know but it happens). So either way, the maker of the virus is naturally going to target it to the largest audience possible, this being the PC market.

Given this I do agree that PC’s are “more vulnerable to viruses” given the abundance of threats when compared to the Mac , however, that doesn’t necessarily make a Macintosh safer than a PC. In a Wired Magazine Post I read a month or two ago it describes the various ways that a Mac is actually less secure than it’s PC counterpart. It also goes on to say that “Their good track record is more a matter of luck in small market share”, which has been my argument for some time.

Something else I’d like to bring up that goes along with the substantially larger market share the PC has is the amount of Computer Illiterate users who take a perfectly good system out of the box and can turn it into something almost unusable inside of 3 months. Letting their Anti-Virus subscription run out, downloading fake Computer Cleaners that claim your PC is infected only to then be infected by the downloaded software. Adding 5 or 6 Poker games which are notorious for containing complete crap or downloading porn of a Hollywood Starlet which they must accept to install infected software to see and then ultimately be disappointed to find the starlet never even got naked in front of a camera. I can’t tell you how many of these inept people’s computers I’ve fixed for these reasons and while it does keep me in extra money if they were just a little smarter and cared a bit more they wouldn’t have 90% of their computer problems. It’s amazing how many people don’t renew their Anti-virus subscription for $30 a year and instead opt to have their computer fixed for $40 an hour. Same goes for Mac users too! Apple recommends the use of Anti-virus as well and I’ve seen Mac systems (a client’s work computer in particular) pretty much crippled and non-responsive.

If I were Apple, I wouldn’t be letting my marketing department brag about how the competition is susceptible to viruses when they’re not exactly secure themselves. They may find that a brilliant (but obviously socially challenged) programmer could stay home on both weekend nights and devise a virus which could wreak havoc on Mac systems for just the notoriety of it between him and his nerd friends.

This wasn’t intended to be a Mac vs PC discussion at all. I am just trying to point out the flaws and half truths that are being spun by Marketing Firms and thus taken as gospel and regurgitated by the some parts of the computing community. However, you read this so please know that the real geeks, the hardcore computer enthusiasts and power users shun both Mac and Windows. They opt for the Linux OS whether Red Hat, Ubuntu or another iteration.

November 2, 2009November 2, 2009

60 Minutes of Unchecked Facts

By: Billy BeerSlugger

I didn’t actually see this episode of the investigative news/magazine 60 Minutes since the Phillies were on but from what I and other people on the internet can tell you, their editor needs to do a little better in the fact checking department.

Their segment was on how illegal downloading was costing Hollywood 6 billion a year, which may or may not be that far off, however, the reasoning they give to support this claim is pretty much fabrication or conjecture which ever way you want to look at it.

First there is the claim that Organized Crime (the Mafia?) is making most of it’s money off of counterfeit movies. Now I’m not going to dispute the fact that there are bootlegged movies out there but 60 Minutes is having me believe that Tony Soprano is behind all of this and not some dude with a DVD burner in his basement looking for some extra cash. I mean I could at least warm up to the idea if 60 Minutes gave me any proof. There was some talk about gangs of pirates using mafia style pickups but the focus quickly turned to illegal downloading.

Second, there is the segments claims by director Steven Soderbergh that piracy is costing the movie industry 6 billion a year. Neglected is the fact that Hollywood continues to make more and more money each year. Another Soderbergh assertion is that fewer movies are being made and will continue to be made because of piracy. Another assertion debunked given the statistics on movies 567 movies made in 2004 and 1038 in 2008, almost doubling inside of 4 years and still increasing.

I’ll give you that if movie tickets continue to go up every year then revenues should go up every year but you can’t really say that in this kind of economy. Bottom line Hollywood made more money last year than the year before and the year before that.

The segment also delved into the role Bit torrent plays into illegal downloading and then cutting to a guy saying, “what we have done for 15 years is not put in any speed bumps, any technological blocks in the way of individuals so that the conclusion that the younger generation in particular draws is that if it’s so easy it cant be wrong.”

Well yes it is easy, people can choose to share anything they want on Bit torrent and if they choose to share or download things illegally it is on the government and the copyright holders to find a solution that does not intrude on the openness of the internet. The blocks and speed bumps the guy interviewed in 60 minutes is advocating sound a lot like bandwidth throttling and packet sniffing, things which go against the principles of net neutrality.

While there are millions of Bittorrent users out there, I only know about 3 people who could use Bittorrent effectively enough to download music, movies and the like. So if it’s so easy and so popular, why don’t I know more people that do it? Why can they use iPhones and computers but have no idea how to use Bittorrent even after I wrote an article on it?

I digress, the real focus here is on 60 Minutes and it’s one sided affair with File Sharing and the Motion Picture Industry. There were a few facts thrown in about how the movie Wolverine was leaked and still did extremely well at the box office but overall there was not a peep from anyone on the opposing side of issue of illegal downloading. Further, the “so called facts” that they gave didn’t coincide with any of the generally accepted statistics reported all over the internet.

I wonder how much money CBS makes off of Movie Advertisements a year? Could this be yet another sacrifice of journalism for advertising dollars? The whole thing to me seemed like a propaganda piece for the MPAA, chock full of bogus facts and subjective estimations.

Maybe more people would go to see movies if 90% of them were not lacking in substance, didn’t recycle old stories, didn’t remake old movies or have plots which are so horribly obvious as to the outcome that all you really needed to see was the previews.

What about the film-makers who are using file sharing technology to get their movies seen by the masses or the ones exploring new business models like some in the music business are. Let’s not talk to the copyright professionals or consumer advocates who render baseless most of the MPAA’s claims 60 Minutes. That wouldn’t be a balanced approach to the issue, would it?

P.S: Maybe if Steven Soderbergh didn’t put out pieces of crap like The Girlfriend Experience people wouldn’t walk out of the movie theater requesting their money back like me.

October 31, 2009

The Android Army

By: Billy BeerSlugger

People are pumped for the release of Google’s Android Operating System for mobile phones. It’s inevitable that the number of phones supporting the OS will multiply a couple of times in the next couple of years. There’s a lot of reasons why I believe Android will soon dominate the smart phone realm and most of my opinion is based on empirical evidence.

The main reason Android will soon outnumber the precious IPhone is it’s open source operating system. I am a huge supporter of Open Source software as are millions of other people on the Interweb. Apple’s IPhone platform is closed.

It makes me think back to the 80’s when Apple dominated PC sales only then to be supplanted by IBM’s PC which was an open platform. You see on IBM’s PC you could run pretty much whatever OS you wanted, Windows, DOS, Unix etc, and by extension all of the applications that were available to those Operating Systems. On a Mac you could only run their proprietary Operating System and thus were limited to the applications developed by Apple and the companies they licensed.

It’s not exactly the same situation here with Android vs. iPhone but it is still a case of Open Source vs. Closed. In effect it is kind of the reverse of the 80’s situation for Apple where in the 80’s it was multiple hardware manufacturers making computers which were open ended and enabling Microsoft Windows to crush the OS competition. Now it is multiple hardware manufacturers making computers (phones) which will run an Open Source Operating System.

Even with the millions of iPhone users with their phones attached to their hands at all times playing Rock Band or drinking a fake pint of Carling from their phone at a bar, I’m not sure the reputation and brand loyalty to Apple can beat (sales-wise) Google’s first foray into Operating Systems.

Though all of this doesn’t mean that the iPhone will just fade away in the near future it certainly does not bode well for it given Android addresses some of iPhone’s weaknesses.

1) Lack of background-processing capability: The iPhone can’t run multiple 3rd party apps at the same time which could be a draw for the multi-tasking individual or business-person.

2) Carrier Exclusivity in the United States: The iPhone is only available on AT&T which could push some people to grab an Android if they are locked into another carrier. Verizon is the largest mobile network and does not carry the iPhone due to the deal between Apple and AT&T.

3) The App Store: What is viewed by many as one of the iPhone’s greatest strengths is something that in my mind is holding it back. Yes anyone can make an iPhone app and there’s almost 100,000 of them right now. However, an iPhone app must be developed on a Mac leaving Windows and Linux developers to either buy a Mac or not develop iPhone App’s. A slight gain in Mac sales for a huge sacrifice in the developer community. The approval process has been loudly criticized as vague when an App is declined and the guidelines for developing are just as opaque.

Not only is the Android OS invading smart phones, you will see it on e-book readers such as Barnes and Noble’s “Nook” and Netbooks (cheap laptops used for internet access, emailing etc.). With Android popping up in so many places and with phones and other devices having more of the capabilities of our laptops, seemingly merging, Google’s OS could take a bite out of Microsoft’s market share without even challenging for dominance on the PC. If Google dominates smart phones and smart phones continue on a path of greater functionality and computing power, you may see the first true OS war between Google and Microsoft.

Google still has to get by Apple, Research In Motion, Palm, Symbian and Microsoft though. The Android OS still has some catch up to do to the iPhone, mainly because of the differences in hardware it will be installed on but I wouldn’t bet against Google, they have the money to throw at it and innovation is the culture in Mountain, View California.

Not that there will be a clear cut winner in the smart phone market any time soon considering iPhone is the current leader at 25%. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds.

October 27, 2009October 27, 2009

Windows 7, Bill Gates Out-Foxes Fox

windows_7_leak By: Billy BeerSlugger

I’m a PC. Since 1992 and for the foreseeable future I’m sticking with Microsoft through thick and thin. I wasn’t happy with Vista and didn’t particularly care for Windows XP after Windows 2000. Vista for the most part was riddled with problems and even though the majority of them were fixed in successive Service Packs, the negative press and word of mouth killed it’s ability to be a successful operating system in the mainstream consciousness. Windows XP was shinier and had a updated graphical interface as opposed to Windows 2000 but also came at the expense of lag. Loading Windows Explorer was considerably slower as well as a host of other things I didn’t find satisfying on a supposed new operating system.

While Windows 7 is essentially a “refined” progression of Vista, it has given my laptop life it did not have in the Vista era. “Aero” effects that I could run while decreasing my system stability in Vista seem to be of no consequence in 7. Searching for a file takes seconds not minutes and overall my laptop is more responsive and “feels” better with faster page load times using the interweb and downloading files. If you’re on a computer as much as i am, multitasking resource consuming applications this is a very good thing!

Overall, I haven’t been this excited about an operating system since Windows 95. It’s really that much of a step in the right direction though not without it’s flaws (as any OS has). Maybe I’m a little biased given my history of working on PC’s since birth essentially, working on DOS then Windows 3.1 and so on. Or maybe it is my trip to the Microsoft’s campus in 1997 while my father’s company was subcontracted to help fix their help desk and I was able to experience a T1 line well before anyone except large companies had access to anything but dial up internet. Either way, if you’re running XP or Vista you will be more than pleased if you upgrade given you have the recommended hardware.

But now to the reason why I’m writing this post. Microsoft has pulled out of an advertising campaign that would have consumed all of the commercials and Windows 7 being worked into the plot of an episode of The Family Guy much like Bud Lite Golden Wheat bought all the commercials on a recent episode of Saturday Night Live. Microsoft pulled out of the deal citing the episode’s “content was not a fit with the Windows brand.” . Well I had been following this “breaking news” since it’s announcement and subsequently found it funny that Microsoft would pull out of the on the premises that The Family Guy‘s content was not a fit. Have they seen an episode of that show?

However, then I thought about it. Microsoft was in a win-win situation the whole time. Best case they get all the advertising on a show that appeals to the coveted 18 to 40+ market that they want to get the word out to and spend a lot of money doing it. Second best case scenario, they leak the information on the web about Microsoft buying the entire advertising budget for an episode of Family Guy, wait for the eventual backlash from Microsoft haters and determine whether or not this is a great idea. Apparently they decided to bail on actually buying the advertising time and but still take the internet buzz about the Microsoft/Family Guy union. Another in a long line of shrewd Microsoft moves.

Check out the docudrama The Pirates of Silicon Valley for more Apple/Microsoft Steve Jobs/Bill Gates info in it’s infancy up to about 1999. Great stuff if you’re a geek like me.

September 25, 2009September 25, 2009

BeerSlugger.com Getting Social

By: Billy BeerSlugger

We’d like to thank the many BeerSlugger’s out there that support our site and read our crappily written articles.

Being that this is the 22nd century I figured we’d bring BeerSlugger out of the dark ages and allow you guys to use all your little crazy social networks, social bookmarks and all that other bullshit.

So if you’ve got Facebook you can share an article you like by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the post. If you use Digg you can help BeerSlugger.com reach the masses by submitting an article you like by clicking on the dig icon at the bottom of the post. Same goes for Reddit and Yahoo Buzz.

If you are a Technorati user there is an icon on the right column that you can click to make BeerSlugger.com one of your favorite blogs.

We’re not really sure what any of this stuff does but we’ve looked at other blogs and they have the same shit. So in and attempt to be homogeneous and banal we have bowed to the peer pressure, emails and comments and added these features to BeerSlugger.com.

It’s Friday so I’m going to get drunk now. Enjoy your weekend and thanks for logging on.

Sincerely,

William J. BeerSlugger