Was surfing

some random blogs, something I haven't done a while, and was upset to find 4 spam blogs in the 20 or so that I visited. I flaged them, and hopefully Google will have the good sense to remove them.

This is kinda fun....

The UPC Database online. Plug in a UPC and see what it belongs to. You can also add UPCs that are not in the database. It knew what my copy of H&R Block TaxCut was, but I had to add the Brita filters we just bought (though it did know that it was form the Brita company). There is also and interesting (to the geekish type anyway) explaination of what the numbers in a UPC mean.

In the news

Google just launched Chinese version of it's search engine. In a major concession to Chinese government, it is self-censoring. For a company who's unofficial motto is "Don't be evil," the fact that they bent over in the name almighty dollar raises some interesting moral/ethical questions. By the way, I checked it out and tried some very risque image searches and it was like the internet was scrubbed clean. Check it out yourself

Genealogy

I have long wanted to buy some genealogy software and begin tracing my roots. Recently, I came across some info on my great-great uncle, Rev. William Ferree, S.M., Ph.D. (1905-1985), that clinched it for me. It turns out, in addition to being a Catholic Priest, he was a professor of philosophy and greatly interested in social justice. here is a short bio of the man, and here (.pdf)is something he wrote in 1948.

I'll be posting more as I come across it, I think.