I was going to hit the sack when I happened to find the killer trick in Firefox via Jan’s Tech Blog. The original post was from Lifehacker.

From Firefox’s Tools menu, Options, General, enter the addresses of sites separated by a pipe |. Or, you can open up all the sites in tabs and hit the “Use Current Pages” button.

$206,000 is the median price of single-family home in the U.S. What kind of house you can buy with the money? NPR made an interesting comparison on house sale between Milwaukee and San Diego.
In South Milwaukee, you can buy a ranch-style house with three bedrooms, three bathrooms (1,600 square feet of living space altogether), two two-car garages, and a flower garden. South Milwaukee is an older close-in suburb with very good schools.
How about in San Diego? With $206,000 you buy a one-bedroom condo in the central part of San Diego instead: 560 square feet in total. However, in outskirt of San Diego, about 20 miles from town, you may find a house with three bedrooms and two baths. And the price tag says $208,000 only. Wait wait wait, you can own the house only—the land costs you extra $620 every month.
Just out of curiosity, what can one buy in Beijing with 1,600,000 RMB?

I’ve never read The Wall Street Journal before. I was somewhat intimidated by what’s suggested by the Wall Street—stocks, finance, and any other business-related stuff of no great interest to me. Anyway, it’s good to dig out something really interesting from the WSJ, a column called “The Numbers Guy” authored by Carl Bialik.
As the name suggests, the guy talks about numbers. He’d tell you stories behind numbers. He’d warn you of misuses of numbers so that you can avoid being blinded by something that looks good. In this week, he suggests Measuring the Impact of Blogs Requires More Than Counting. Even if you are not studying blogs as I do, the article is worth reading.
Also, don’t miss Jeffrey Henning’s reponse to Bialik’s thoughts.

Dedicated to my dearest nana. I know you are looking over me from Heaven. Smile for me, please.
I miss you day and night.

You are Charlie Brown! You are strong willed and determined, but sometimes a bit of a fool! You are always the butt of the joke but you never give up, you are intrigued by life and people cant resist you!
Which Snoopy Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Blo.gs, the most widely used sampling tool in blog studies, has been on sale for some time. Now, Jim Winstead has made it–the website will be handed over to a new owner on or after June 13, 2005.
Jim doesn’t disclose who will be acquiring blo.gs. I just have a hunch that it might be BROG, short for The (We)blog Research on Genre Project. This is a project maintained by a group of faculty members and students at School of Library and Information Science of Indiana University. Dr. Susan Herring ever suggested that BROG should buy the website because “it could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. But she also showed concerns that who would maintain the website and what would be involved. I’m wondering if BROG will make the investment and what changes will take place if that happens.

Thanks God I’m going to do my Ph.d in U.S.!
Chapter 5: The Ph.D. Defense, in, Research Genres: Explorations and Applications, by John M. Swales of The University of Michigan. Cambridge University Press. Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom [http://www.cambridge.org] © Cambridge University Press 2004. Reprinted with permission.

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Marquette University will have a new athletics nickname for the coming year: Gold. Marquette’s Board of Trustees turned down a $2,000,000 donation in request of reinstating the current nickname “Golden Eagles” back to “Warriors”, which had been used for 40 years in the history of MU (1954-1993).
Wayne Sanders, vice chair of the Board of Trustees, along with an annoymous trustee of board each offered a $1 million gift on the condition that MU change its nickname back to Warriors “in an honorable way that would offend no one.” Announced at the commencement in May, 2004, the gift was immediately declined by Marquette President Robert Wild, S.J while he said the issue was still open to discussion.
Warriors, an honrable part of MU’s tradition, is regarded offensive to native Indian community*. The debate on atheletics nickname has lasted 1 year. As Rev. Wild said, “this decision is not about money. It is about tradition, pride, and respect for all members of the human community.” An online survey was undertaken to gather opinions on this issue from student, faculty, staff/administrators, and alumni.
I am no fan of MU athetics. But I do appreciate the decision. It’s not always easy to say no, but MU did it to reserve its tradition and dignity. Well done, MU!
*Excerpt from “Indian” Mascot & Logo Taskforce” by Wisconsin Indian Education Association.
“Why is an attractive depiction of an Indian warrior just as offensive as an ugly caricature?”

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Mom, do I have to dress up on defense day?!

Lock, currently a graduate student at Yuan Ze University in Taiwan, is working on his thesis. The topic is enticing–[Chinese] bloggers and their using behavior [Chinese was added by me since the questionnaire is written in Chinese]. It is great to see more and more blog studies are emerging in Chinese context. As far as I know, this is the very first study on blogging behavior in Chinese blogosphere. Just can’t wait to read it!
If you can read Chinese and gladly to help the research, please check out Lock’s blog to know more details. Don’t forget to spread the word!
A few comments on the project.
Jay asked if bloggers from mainland China can take the survey. Lock replied to this but I don’t get it really [Shame on me! It's written in Chinese!]. Seems like he doen’t want [or expect?] responces from mainland China. I can totally understand Lock wants to aim at bloggers in Taiwan specifically but why not expand the population to the whole Chinese blogosphere? I don’t see the regional differences play a BIG role in determining specific blogging behavior, at least in this case. Participation of mainland bloggers won’t CONTAMINATE the data and it will help us to know all Chinese bloggers better instead. One big advantage of the study is the inherent language filter. Why not make full use of this? I think it’s pretty cool.

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