Soldier Ant 

You've seen the stills, now see the bottle-diving exploits in full motion, set to a snappy pop soundtrack, even! (No rights acquired, so ... shhh.)

(That itsy-bitsy type at the end? It's a faux-disclaimer -- see if you can guess what it says. Or leave a comment with your own suggestion..)

Update, 11/29/2007: Changed the link to point to YouTube, instead of the old, defunct .Mac location the movie was previously hosted at.

Big photos in Soldier Ant makes it go ka-boom.

In preparation for a swift kick.

I suppose it could be worse. At least we're not being physically assaulted by chupacabras. Yet.

Alright, I may've been wrong about Clooneylicious, but this one is all mine:

Holidalayoffs. The definition should be self-evident.

(Born out of an AIM conversation with C. Tokyo. Oh, and mad props goes out to the genius who recommends 2-fer Quarter Pounders at Mickie-D's as your cure-all tonic for the end-of-year unemployment blues.)

Evan Williams speculates about blogs coming to AOL.

Wired reports that Hackers Run Wild and Free on AOL.

"A third hacker, using the name hakrobatik, confirmed the mumbling method.

'I kept calling and pretending I just had jaw surgery and mumbling gibberish," hakrobatik said. "At first I had no info except the screen name, then I called and got the first name and last name by saying, 'Could you repeat what I just said?' Then each time that I got information I called back making the real information understandable, and everything else I just mumbled.'"

I suspect this tactic is so remarkably effective because of the way it plays to AOL's corporate culture. (I've seen design reviews and product direction given with almost exactly the same level of attention.)

I don't think his perspective is particularly compelling, but I haven't posted anything for a couple of days... So John Dvorak asks: Can AOL Survive? (He also wonders whether Apple will soon switch to an Intel architecture. And he's got evidence.)

Besides the political quagmire that greets me this morning, there's one other bit of bad news thats on my mind. Rumored layoffs at AOL (although I'd say they sound like more than just rumors, and maybe fall into the category of 'announced layoffs'.)

My heart goes out to you Lance. I always hated this time of the year at AOL.

In the weeks leading up to my departure from AOL, I had the intense displeasure of sitting in on some planning meetings for the next version of the Netscape browser. Which went into limited beta this week.

What impresses me most is how eerily accurate this Slashdot comment is:

We're talking about a design committee that must have obtained a dozen Congresses worth of stupidity, distilled it over the flames of historical ignorance, condensed it on flask walls of monumental technological apathy, and beer-bong-chugged the elixir obtained therefrom.