pa href=http://www.parentsconnect.com/preschooler/chat_it_up_thread.jhtml?tID=36119 is Santa real/a/p pThe link above is to participate in an experiment to measure how many incoming links it takes to move this post up the charts in Google. You can read more about the experiment at:/p pa href=http://www.blogonawire.net/blogonawire/archives/197http://www.blogonawire.net/blogonawire/archives/197/a/p

pI really enjoyed the music and story in this commercial: great message in a short time with almost no dialog. Great drama from a href=http://www.us.hsbc.comHSBC bank/a. Did you catch the touch of humor with the bear?/p p[thumbnail:id=UaRYR7wQPsk]/p p[video:id=UaRYR7wQPsk]/p

pLast night I watched some videos of the Epicrsquo;s newly released ldquo;Gears of War 2.rdquo; Itrsquo;s of special interest to me because I was VP of programming at a a href=http://4dgames.virtustate.comgame company/a developing a game on Epicrsquo;s engine during the Unreal Tournament/Warfare time frame around 2000-2002. Working with this game engine was one of the most challenging and fun things Irsquo;ve ever done./p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/games-cathedrals-digital-age target=_blankread more/a/p

pI started poking around with Drupal's RDF module last night and ended up staying up VERYnbsp;late. RDF is one of the languages supporting the a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Websemantic web/a and the semantic web may be, or already is depending on your view, the next great thing on the Internet. The idea of the semantic web is to leverage all the content on the web as structured, meaningful data. This would enable automated systems to search and process this data with reference to its meaning rather than just a mass of unstructured text./p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/semantic-web-alive-and-well target=_blankread more/a/p

p style=line-height: 125%span style=font-size: 10pt; color: #292929; line-height: 125%; font-family: quot;Helveticaquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;In my first job outside academia, I was encouraged to break my habit of cobbling things together from whatever I could scrounge for free and begin spending money on the best hardware and software I could find. At the time and place, this was exactly what was needed for me and the company. Since then, Irsquo;ve continued to integrate the benefits of being frugal and using the best. In almost all cases, the best is the most frugal course./span/p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/new-toys target=_blankread more/a/p

pAs Irsquo;m following current events unfold at home in the evening, Irsquo;m thrilled at the education Irsquo;m joyfully receiving in history, economics, and politics. I had rare tastes of this in High School and was largely oblivious after as I focused on Physics in University./p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/i-love-internet target=_blankread more/a/p

pI had a great time at an University of Iowa job fair which I attended with Tammy Shull, ournbsp;HR manager,nbsp;on Tuesday. We met many impressive students. In particular, I was impressed with the recognition in the university programs and students of the value of cross-discipline skills. It's sometimes hard enough to gain expertise in one narrow discipline./p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/bridging-gap-bright-young-talent target=_blankread more/a/p

div p[thumbnail:id=iqmBlICSBms]/p p[video:id=iqmBlICSBms]/p pAs the November election appears on the horizon, itrsquo;s my civic duty to give the candidates and their handlers a primer on how they could modernize their approach and utilize some advanced electronic direct response advertising techniques to their advantage.nbsp;After all, Infomercials are the most effective and measurable form of advertising there is, so Irsquo;m being patriotic and sharing our unique marketing expertise with the candidates./p/div pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/primer-candidates%E2%80%99-drtv-opportunities target=_blankread more/a/p

pWersquo;re looking for abilities to manage web site design and online media campaigns for our clients. Our focus is to create and test high-conversion direct marketing websites and targeted direct response media campaigns to these sites. The idea candidate would have firsthand experience personally executing or managing as many of the following areas as possible:/p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/immediate-opening-our-digitalinteractive-department target=_blankread more/a/p

pspan style=font-size: 10pt; color: #292929; line-height: 125%; font-family: quot;Helveticaquot;,quot;sans-serifquot;Several unexpected, critical issues and tasks came up today which required me to drop my planned activities to handle. At times, in several different jobs,nbsp;I've moaned and complained, or even railed at the injustice, inefficiency, or sheer stupidity of having things like this happen. These types of reactions have never had a positive impact on my career.o:p/o:p/span/p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/thriving-flexibility target=_blankread more/a/p

pI had a chance to talk to some people at a href=http://www.permissiontv.com/permissionTV/a. They have some really nice services and software. In particular I was very interested in their a href=http://www.permissiontv.com/developers/PDK/a, Permission TVnbsp;Platform Development Kit. It made me think of think specifically of the pros/cons between paying to license something like this or building on an open source project like a href=http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Media_PlayerJVnbsp;FLVnbsp;Media Player/a./p pa href=http://www.hawthorneblog.com/content/permissiontv-and-flash-video-players-buy-or-build target=_blankread more/a/p