Gravatar: Avatars for Comments

If you look at the comment section of this blog or any number of blogs on the internet you will notice an area that is available for a user image / icon / avatar. The empty space looks like this:

The little gray box with the white silloquette is where the Gravatar goes. What, you ask? [G]lobally [r]ecognized avatar or Gravatar. From Automattic:

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

Automattic is also behind the WordPress publishing platform. To sign up for a Gravatar you will need to go to http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup/ and enter your email address. Before you sign up find a nice photo of yourself because you will need it in order to set up your own Gravatar.

Gravatar works by recognizing your email address when you submit comments to blogs. When you set up your account you can register several email addresses. Once you have it all set up you will see comments like this:

Pretty slick, huh. Give it a shot @ http://en.gravatar.com/site/signup/

Updates – Blogging – Laziness

I’m still trying to get around to continuing my “FAILbill” series. Part 2 should come in a next few days. I have been focusing on building some new servers here at home for my lab which has taken up a lot of my time.

There is some new info out today regarding Barry Obama and his membership in the New Party (aka Socialist Party aka Labor Party) which was strongly denied by the Obama camp. There is new evidence to prove his association with yet another less than tasteful group/person. It seems to be a continuing theme of Barry’s lack of proper characture judgement.

FAILbill: A History Lesson In Financial Failure

Over the last week and a half the possible $700 billion bailout of the financial sector has been the talk of the town. Lots of TALK and no study of the history. Lots of TALK about how to solve the “problem” without spending any time to figure out what the problem is. Lots of TALK and backdoor, dark room, under the table, secret meetings between Congressional leaders and the increasingly annoying Bush Administration.

When the bill failed to pass the first go in the House the market reacted with shock and awe. Why? Because they continue to get caught with their pants down. There is more blame to go around than there is time to explain and it falls on Democrats, Republicans, Presidents over the last 50 or so years, and to bankers and Wall Street slicksters alike.

But lets not forget that we are the ones who ultimately are responsible for this mess. Not only did we not do our duty and provide proper oversight of our Representatives WE took the credit (as in $). We bought houses we couldn’t afford. We accepted the credit cards and department store cards and the expensive cars. WE failed to understand that we were being swindled by a gang of swindlers consisting of many Congresses looking for votes and heeding the calls of lobbyists to bankers looking to grant more and more insane ARM loans without considering who their were giving them to.

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Starting Over

Didnt feel like moving over any of the stuff from my old wordpress installation. So, its all new from here on.