Just a quick update - one of my colleagues fixed our research blog. The new address for the Cyberbrains blog is thecyberbrains.wordpress.com. I just added an entry yesterday, my first in a while.

Sorry to any of you who visited the old site and were startled by the Google warnings. Don't worry. I don't think it gave any of you a virus. But someone was using our old site to send out spam.

Anyway, if you're bored, check it out.

I could have lost my research job today. The professor I work for was ragging on Sarah Palin today, along with another graduate student. Now, let's get this straight - I'm not a huge Palin fan. I think she's inexperienced and choosing her represents a hail-Mary pass for McCain, but as they were ripping her up and down for her stupid answers during an interview with Katie Couric, I was getting more and more angry.
I think the thing that saved me from accusing them of all being leftist media elitists out of touch with the average person or reality was they started talking about Saturday Night Live. They chuckled about the sketch from this last weekend where Tina Fey was a dead ringer for the VP candidate and took most of her material directly from the Couric interview. Thankfully, I had just seen the sketch the night before online because remembering how I had laughed at Fey's Alaska-by-way-of-Minnesota accent made me realize politics needs a sense of humor, and anything that gets this nation talking about the issues can't be a bad thing. When you boil it all down, that is what SNL has done best for the 20-plus years it has been on the air. Those of us who choose to watch it do it so we can have something funny to talk about the next day.
The Internet's ability to offer individual sketches may have even enhanced SNL's ability to remain relevant because you don't need a water cooler to stand around anymore to talk about them. You can just embed the sketches in your blog and wait for the comments to roll in.
The season premier was the first time I have seen SNL in a while. My wife and I only watched because Michael Phelps was on. He was pretty good. Hulu, which is an NBC venture has only a couple of his clips (the Michael Phelps Diet, and some weird T-Mobile commercial that doesn't make much sense). It's missing the one where he acts like Napoleon Dynamite, which is a shame. That's the sketch people are talking about, even the one their imitating. Merilee and I wrung laughs out of that piece of comedy for days by just looking at each other and saying, "Uh uh!"
That's all SNL has really ever been good for, really. Most of the sketches aren't all that funny, but there's always one that strikes a cord. When I think back to my heyday with the show (the mid-to-late 80s, the waning Mike Myers, Dana Carvey years) I remember dumb old Hans and Franz, of course, not because it was so funny, but because I can't get their stupid catch phrase out of my brain. Let's say it all together now: "Hello, I am Hans ... And I am Franz ... And we are here to PUMP (hand clap) YOU UP!"
Thanks to the Internet and despite Lorne Michaels attempts to control every piece of content with the SNL label, I can experience pure pumpitude any time I want. If NBC and Michaels were smart, they'd open the floodgates. They've tried with the nearly 400 some odd clips they've archived, but they're missing some of the obscure classics in my book. Where are the synchronized swimmers, or Willie and Frankie (who I couldn't even find on YouTube) or even the Christopher Walken "more cowbell" sketch that has become such a phenomenon?
When you think about any of the sketches or even any of the 400 Hulu has by themselves, they're not really that funny. They're only funny when you're sitting around with a bunch of your friends and someone blurts out, "Ooooh, I hate when that happens!"
This is something NBC, Lorne Michaels and anyone associated with SNL should capitalize on, but they haven't. Yes, Hulu allows you to embed a clip now, but their library is limited to recent stuff and a bunch of Will Ferrell era junk, including Celebrity Jeopardy.
I shouldn't call it junk really because I laugh whenever someone adopts an Irish brogue and says, "Trebrek, you suck!" Fortunately for my family and my career, I chuckled when my professor said, "I want to use my lifeline!" I might keep watching SNL just so I can have something to talk about with those around me who are of such different political persuasions. I just hope NBC keeps giving me that opportunity.

I should be blogging about my comps. I passed with flying colors! I'm excited! Now all that stands between me and academic immortality is a dissertation. Whoo hoo!

Instead, I just figured out what is going to happen on the final episode of ER, and I just had to share. A giant meteor will strike Chicago killing everyone except the staff of County General. But just when viewers start thinking Abby, Morris, Neela, and Uncle Jesse's character (Yeah, I hate his character so much I choose not to remember his name), they'll all develop surprising complications and will horribly pass away spewing blood from their throats. Then Dr. Ross and Nurse Carol will return to the smoking crater to fondly remember them. Maybe Ike's / Doc Magoos will survive too.

Yes, producer John Wells told the Hartford Courant the ER will go on, but if tonight's episode is any indication, I don't believe him. I've never been a fan of Dr. Pratt but he deserved a better demise than walking away from an ambulance explosion only to completely bleed out from his mouth. Ewwww!

I stopped watching ER after being a loyal fan for at least 10 years last season because I'm a fan of logical, realistic character development and that hasn't happened on ER for some time. Instead, the writers rely on heavy doses of Deus Ex Machina so they can create drama by screwing over the main characters as soon as it seems their lives are in order.

I think the trend started with Dr. Green and has kind of snowballed since then. Wikipedia's "notable cast departures" list demonstrates the phenomenon. How many boyfriends has Neela lost? At least two (well, I guess the Shane West character just had both his legs chopped off by a speeding truck!) by my count. They also killed off Morris' girlfriend, Dr. Carter's baby. I thought for sure that Abby and Kovach's baby was next, but no, he just hangs on long enough to drive Abby back to the drink.

Heck, who knows, I'm probably not getting it all right, but who can keep it all straight. I wonder what the writer's outlines look like. I'm betting there's lots of red ink.

So what does this have to do with the Internet? Not much really. I tried to find a bunch of other bloggers whining about the episode like me, but you'd be surprised how many pages about real hospitals come up with you do a Google search for "ER deaths". I'm just so frustrated that I had to vent. But maybe in my perfect online world, someone will hear me. Fans will unite to teach John Wells and his hacks a lesson, and there will be a satisfying series finale. Or maybe I'll just join my wife and watch Gray's Anatomy.

Emily, I hate to tell you this, but your blog is messed up. Ever since you added that Nick and Nora's playlist deal, your blog doesn't load correctly. The links are way at the end, your posts are centered and the pictures are all skewampus. What you hadn't noticed? You mean it looks fine on your end? So why am I having problems then?

And that question gets us to the heart of today's discussion - the browser you use can make a difference, and there are so many out there, it's hard to know which one to choose. Google made the picture even muddier Sept. 2 when it released Chrome free to the general public. I don't feel I'm expert enough about the Internet or programming to give you a definitive statement about which on is best. I can refer you to this cool, slightly geek article from Computer World, and I can give you my opinion about which browser I use, and why, even if it causes some of my favorite sites to load funny. And I can tell you what I know about the other contenders, even two Computer World doesn't mention.

First, I use Firefox, a neat and free little utility from Mozilla. I like it because it's fast, I think it looks cool, and it has tons of add-ons, including one that sings, "Stop! Hammer Time!" whenever I hit the stop button. I hit it sometimes for fun when Merilee is down in our basement office with me, just to see her jump. What makes add-ons possible and what I probably like best about Firefox is it's "organic," according to the folks at Mozilla. What this means is the code that makes Firefox run is available to anyone who wants to play with it and improve it. Open-source software, such as Firefox, is what made the Internet possible. The first browser, Mosaic - open source. The building blocks of site management, Apache - open source. If you don't believe me, just read Tom Friedman's book The World is Flat.

I know for most Internet users and readers of this blog, open source doesn't matter. My using Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer, which in my book is the antithesis of open source, isn't really going to make much difference either. But it makes me feel a little bit more connected to guys like Tim Berners-Lee and Mark Andreessen, pioneers who made the Internet what it is today without thinking about profits or fame or world domination. I was glad to see Berners-Lee is connected to a new citizen journalism venture that received a Knight grant.

I still have Internet Explorer and Safari installed on my computer. There are a few pages, such as the university's remote access to the statistics software package, that I can only use IE for. Up until the last update, Firefox often stalled on Blackboard, the platform the university uses to help instructors like me manage classes online. I keep Safari around mostly for nostalgia. It makes me feel like I'm not using dumb old Windows XP, which is a little odd because I've installed Firefox on my Mac too.

There are other open source browsers out there too. First, there's Flock, which builds off of Firefox and helps users connect to social networks and their blogs better by integrating them right into the browser. Next, there's Opera, which isn't open source but is consistently rated the fastest browser

I've got to admit both look pretty cool, but I'm going to stick with Firefox. It's worth it for me to put up with an occasionally garbled blog, and let's be honest, Firefox works pretty well too. That's how I convinced my wife to use it - well, that and making it the default browser. I can't make Firefox everyone's default browser, though, so I hope my words here will suffice.

So I need a little help from the family members that read my blog. It seems you have gotten me in a bit of trouble with my mother. I appreciate that you are reading my and my wife's blogs. I am so excited to hear about how you love our pictures, but please don't tell my mom about them! She already feels disconnected enough from us, and it seriously doesn't help when you let her know about all the funny pictures you are seeing on this crazy little thing she barely understands called the Internet.

Of course, I'm joking, but only partially. My mom, with a slight quiver in her voice, asked me on the phone the other day to send her some pictures. Her birthday is coming up so this is easily accomplished, and honestly, it's something I shouldn't need an excuse to do. I know I need to connect more with her. I know she feels lonely sometimes.

But this also made me realize that as powerful as the Internet is as a medium to connect people across vast distances, it doesn't work for everyone. In fact, in all my preaching about creating Web pages that actually mirror what their audiences are looking for, I failed to remember that some audiences actually want a good old hard copy photograph they can place on their mantle (or at least on top of the DVD player they never use).

Someone asked me the other day what I think the future would look like for the news in five years. I confidently replied, "Oh, it's going to be all about the Internet." But I couldn't completely rule out some kind of print product either. People, like my mom, will probably still want their newspaper and the news media will need to provide it. In fact, I think there are more people out there like my mom than we in the business realize. I might even be one of them. While I spend a lot of time online, I hate whipping out my laptop in a sandwich shop. I'd much rather grab a USA Today from a free rack. And I'm definitely not going to compute waiting in the doctor's office or in line at the bank. Even if I had a handy, small Internet appliance like an iPhone, I'm still not sure I would. My mother taught me that's just rude.

So Mom, the pictures are on the way. In fact, we used the Internet to order prints and have them shipped right to your door. But be sure to remind me again, because it helps me remember how important you are in my life, and how I need to stay connected to people like you if I really am going to change the world with information.