Google. Openly embracing and sharing your info with the online giant… Or trying your best to keep your data hidden from Vader? After you watch the clip, check out this infographic of Google by Pingdom.

1. Rob Abbott – TextMate + Versions (claimed)
2. Mark Nichols – TextMate + Adium (claimed)
3. Eric DeLabar – Coda + iTunes (claimed)

Winners, please get in touch by April 27 to claim your license. Drop a note in the comments or use the contact form.

So what’s going on with 5thirtyone.com?

• Quite busy with work at Cirqe (the reason for recent lack of activity).
• Migrated the site – Media Temple DV 3.0 to the DV 3.5 server.
• Moved back to Mint for site stats.
• Experimented with Amazon S3 as an external image host. Quickly dropped because of latency issues. Integrated as an automated backup target for my personal computer though.
• Took a break from Google Adsense. More on why later.
• New look uploaded today. Thanks to Brand Spankin New for the mini icons & Blueprint CSS for the PSD grid.

The site is still missing some core features. Specifically "search". I’m experimenting with a few different options, one being Lijit. Anyone have feedback? Plenty more to update but being 2:00 AM, it’s time to call it a night.

I had caved in, fallen victim to the tactics of the Gillette marketing team. Surely, 5-blades had to be better than the $8 pack of dual-bladed alternatives on the bottom shelf. I bit the bullet and picked-up the Fusion Power along with a matching can of "specially formulated" shaving gel. All the while Sylvia muttering "oh my god" as I imagined shaving with 5 vibrating blades against my skin. Oh the excitement.

Fortunately, I hadn’t shaved for a day so I had ample facial hair to experiment with. In an effort to keep this pointless rant short, I’ll fast forward to the part where I realize how irritating it is to shave with 5 horizontal blades vibrating on your face. With the Fusion Power vibrating, and a decent layer of shaving gel lathered on, the "pulsing" action of the battery powered razor actually made shaving more uncomfortable. It was as though each of the hairs on my face were being pulled in every other direction but down. On top of the hair pulling, the smooth shave wasn’t as smooth as a dual-blade disposable.

But then again, maybe it’s just me – random pokey hairs, Asian complexion, intolerance for any facial hair pulling (eye brows ouch!). I say the sweet-spot for razors was the dual-blade action introduced in 1970’s. One blade to serve the usual duty of cutting down morning grizzle, a second to pick-up the few that miss the cut. None of this one to cut, two to lift, three to wiggle / cut, four to catch the missed hairs, and five to give that baby bottom smooth finish.

Say hello to my 10-bladed, laser guided, self-sharpening with every rinse razor… Get smooth results when your facial hair falls out from the mere sight of the razor resting on your sink.

What happened to our beloved Technorati? Technorati makes it easier to find adult content by providing popular keywords which result in the freshest possible pornographic / spamuni related material.

So here are the rules for the game. Since it would be wrong to assume, I invite anyone to browse through the current popular tags on Technorati. These can usually be found to the left of the screen as a “tagcloud”, or conveniently listed 1-10 on the Technorati “pop” page.

• Identify one of or a combination of Spamuni-looking tags: sex, porn, orgasm, etc. Results may vary by day based on whether “real” news is the top blogged topic.
• Click through to the results page for an assessment of each respective tag.
• Take a few seconds to scan the titles in order to attempt any valid “clean” blogs.
• Report back with your results making note of any sites which utilized one of the aforementioned tags legitimately in order to simplify identifying content.

Any winners? The world obviously has quite a number of sketchy looking blogs which have managed to leave quite an impression on Technorati’s top tag results.

Before I pass into a much needed nap, I have one question for Superman fanatics. Now understand, Superman was nothing more than a bullet-proof man flying around in blue tights and a red cape prior to seeing the movie. Superman is bullet-proof, passes through the atmosphere without being incinerated, and manages to fall from the skies creating a giant crater. Despite all this, his blue and red outfit remains unscathed.

Naturally, you can’t have a super hero without super hero threads. So where exactly did Superman’s suit come from? I imagine the seats of his pants never wear through, the collar of his shirt remains unstretched, and the soles of his boots never get worn down. Where is his tailor? Does he make the suit(s) (presumably multiple suits)? Machine-washable? Etc?

I probably should have asked the mid-thirty year old sitting to my right if he might know. He came well prepared in Superman pajama pants, a matching t-shirt, red hair, red boots, and a blue Superman blanket. He probably would have know right?

The virtual listings, or online classified ads, continue to surpass my own expectations as I’ve witnessed first hand the ability to serve and sell items on short notice. Popular items often move from sale to sold within the span of an hour as local Craigslist users routinely scan “for sale” items.

I’ve often contemplated whether the bare bones appearance of listing contributed to, detracted from, or was neither in creating a successful selling / purchasing environment. The sheer simplicity of listing allows users to create multiple sale items (granted that items are not repeated listings). However, with these rapid successions of listings, how or what steps can be taken to prevent innocent individuals from falling victim to the scam artists who seem to run rampant on the sale boards?

Granted, Craigslist inserts scam warnings as a safety precaution within listing email correspondances, but what additional steps can be taken to increase the security and peace of mind? Does the appearance of listings lend credence into the validity of an item?

If you have prior scripting experience (think code generator), and have a little time on your hands, get in touch for a personal project which I’ve had rolling around in my head for some time.

It’s on a server, but it doesn’t mean it’s free

Like any other hosted domain: a) there are webpages, b) there is a server, and c) there are lots of directories. To any aspiring or beginning "designers" out there who are contracted out, bartered, or requested to do a favor by a friend, do not crawl through directories on someone elses server in search of work to claim as your own. Very, very, unprofessional.

Do not rip, borrow, use, or pass off as your own

Contrary to what others may have you believe, the interent is not all that grand of a playground. While you may sit at home gloating because a) you found a design to rip, b) you managed to pass it off as your own (from the clients point-of-view), and c) you think you’ve outsmarted the original author… you’re completely wrong. Bask in the spotlight while you can as your laziness will eventually catch up to you in the form of a missed reference to the originating authors server.

You’ve been caught, you carry no weight

If you’ve been caught and have received notice to remove content within a 24 hour window, do not attempt to sway the author or involved parties into extending that period. You hold no rights to the design and only irritate the originating author to make the situation public. CubeFund [ripped vs. original].

Reality soon set in. What if I actually had one of these giant bags of Haribo bears? Would my taste buds soon reject the idea of consuming 5 pounds, or the equivelant of 16 “normal” mini bags of Haribo bears, despite being the best damn gummi bears in the world?! Would it be the beginning of the end? Would I slowly grow tiresome of the perfectly chewy confections?

Only a real world experiment could answer these questions. For that reason, I’ve added the bears to my Amazon wishlist. I can easily prevent myself from stuffing myself with 5 pounds of candy, but it would be oh so rude of me to deny a bag sent from someone else. Besides, I failed miserably to make a dent of the 5 pound bag of chewy strawberries.

If life mimicked that found in Disney’s upcoming Pixar movie ‘Cars’, I would definitely be driving Lightning McQueen. Actually, nix that. ‘Cars’ is all about cars which seem to drive themselves. I’ll have to rethink my previous statement. I was going to say that I wanted to be Lightning McQueen, but I don’t think that’ll work.

The State Farm sponsored Disney/Pixar’s “‘Cars’ Road Trip ‘06″ just so happened to hit Seattle today on its road trip across America. Not to be mistaken for immovable movie props, these vehicles are actual automobiles with bulbous body work styled straight out of the upcoming Pixar movie. Call me a big kid at heart, but these cars look fun. On top of that, Lightning McQueen sounds like a race ready top fuel car and sure has the look with its Goodyear Lightyear drag slicks.