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Global warming is one of those topics that is very controversial. One side says humans are destroying the word and are a major cause and catastrophe in eminent. The other side says what us humans are doing has little to do with global warming and it’s all natural.

I have always stood somewhere in the middle. The world hasn’t warmed up enough yet to show any signs yet. It bugs me when people say they notice global warming. The average temperatures have increased less than a degree over the last hundred years. Very unnoticeable, and it could be happening naturally. In fact there is a lot of natural global warming that we have no control over.

That being said, we do live pretty wasteful lives. If we are doing anything to help the natural warming increase, our part is going to increase exponential. people are living longer, and other parts of the world are getting more industrialized. Image in China was as wasteful as us? Their 1.3 billion people compared to our measly 0.3 billion.

I have always been on the side of trying to conserve. Sure, it might cost more money and add a few hardships, but it’s the only thing we control. With all the technology we have these days, we should be relying of fossil fuels a lot less. We should be generating more power by the sun and the wind, and nuclear.

This guy explains my view much better.

There was also an episode of Penn & Teller’s : Bullshit! about the energy crises that was very good and can be found on youtube in three parts.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I like a good latte or cappuccino as much as the next person. Now with my new coffee pot I got at home I make them all the time. I hardly ever buy them at a Starbucks or Caribou Coffee. They are just too expensive. Yeah, I am a tight wad. I don’t like to pay $4 for a cup of coffee.

Today I was out running errands and the wife wanted me to stop off at her work and bring her a latte from Caribou. So of course I did. It was almost $6 for a latte and a biscotti. What a rip off. I could have gotten a fast food meal for that price.

Oh well, it made her happy, and if she is happy I am happy.

I just set the Tivo to record the Price is Right tomorrow. I figure I should watch Bob Barker’s last episode. Two of my childhood memories ended this week. First Mr. Wizard passes away, and the Bob Barker retires. I grew up watching both. Just another sign that I am getting old.

I have been playing around with Google Adsense for the past few days. I just started using Adsense ads, so I am by no means an expert, but there are a few things that I think can optimize clicks.

First, put the ads in your content. I know my eyes ignore ads in headers and sidebars. I am sure others do too.

Second, make the ads blend into your page. Make the link color the same color as your link color and make the backgrounds the same color too.

Third, use the box format rather than the banner. My eyes are also trained to skip over banners too. I am sure mine aren’t the only ones.

Fourth, ads can look like more content. If your ads are blended into your site, and Google is showing relevant ads, the ads can actually be helpful for your readers.

Those are a few things that I think will increase your clicks. I am still trying to make my ads more relevant though. Google has some tips to make your ads more relevant. I just implemented them. We will see how they work.

I have never really gotten into calendar software. I have checked out iCal, 30 Boxes, Google Calendar and many others. My life just isn’t really busy enough to use one. I may start using Google Calendar a little more now. They now have a Netflix release public calendar. Now I can check my calendar to find the top new releases from Netflix each week. Pretty cool. I may have to look into more of these public calendars. I might have a use for Google Calendar after all.

Technorati Tags: 30 Boxes, Calendar, Google Calendar, iCal, Netflix, Software

I just read that Mr. Wizard died. Mr. Wizard’s World was one of my favorite shows as a kid. Mr. Wizard got me to enjoy science. He made science fun. There were never enough shows like his when I was a kid. To this day I still love watching science stuff. The Science Channel is one of my favorites.

So a while back I tried the “picture a day” thing, but couldn’t keep it going. Yesterday I found flickaday.com. It makes it as simple as going to a website to take a self portrait if you have a webcam. I have their badge in my sidebar. It should be interesting once I get a few more pictures taken.

I don’t really mention my link blog very often, but recently I have added some cool links. My link blog contains the cool stuff I find on the web from day to day. It usually has way more cool stuff then my blog does. Here are some highlights from the past few days:

Make A Giant Sandwich (Costume) (via make)
Ugly Mailbox Blog (via Boingboing)
Determine the Doneness of a Steak (via Lifehacker)
What the Workd Eats (via Boingboing)
Flying Spaghetti Monster on Toast (via Laughing Squid)
My Generation (via xkcd)

If my link blog isn’t enough content for you, you can find everything on my tumblelog at tinkr.tumblr.com.

So yeah, I got Google Ads now. It’s weird how often I notice them on other sites now. My brain has been trained to ignore ads. Now that I got ads I am looking at other people’s ads more. I have been looking for the best place to place them. A place where they will get clicks, yet they wont annoy the hell out of you. It’s also weird how I am so tempted to click my own ads. I guess they are geared toward the content and since I wrote the content they are geared mostly to me.