Here’s a cool little game you can play: NLOS Cannon Game.

The NLOS (which stands for Non Line of Sight) Cannon is the US Army’s next generation of 155mm self-propelled howitzer. If you don’t know how big a 155 is, just suffice to say it makes a BIG boom! Here’s a pic of the cannon being test fired:

The NLOS Cannon has several advantages over the currently fielded self propelled howizters:

• Reduced crew - only 2 are needed to operate the vehicle.
• Increased Rate of Fire.
• The gun is automated.
• Weighs 18 tons, which is about half or a third of other vehicles it would replace.
• Quickly switch ammo types on a round by round basis, so it could fire 1 high explosive, followed by smoke, followed by an illumination round, for example.
• Networked for quick response fire support.

Anyways, the game is fun; I actually completed all 15 levels on the 3rd try. It’s free and there’s no ads, so give it a shot (no pun intended)!

Well, I saw that I had an ever-so-small pickup in traffic on my real estate directory, with some hits on the submit page. So I decided to login to the admin panel to see if anyone submitted sites or not, even though I haven’t ‘officially’ launched the site, nor am I nearly close to being done with design, features, etc.

To my surprise, I actually had two submissions, one for an actual realtor, and another for Property Hogs, a real estate portal. I’m sure that sumission came from the DP forums, as I mentioned my site in a thread there. Not a big deal, but I was pleased to see that someone submitted.

Unfortunately, I had to also delete two links, one for a skin care site, and another for gift baskets, both MFA (Made For Adsense) sites.

Sigh.

John Chow emailed me today (he emails me every day) and let me know that the Pepperjam Network launched today. John’s got a great review of their offering, so I’ll let you head over there to see what’s what, but here’s a few tidbits:

• They’re attempting to fill in the gaps left by existing affiliate networks - poor communication and transparency - with tools such as live chat and an info-packed interface.
• They’ve launched with over 100 merchants such as Blockbuster and SEOmoz Premium.
• Inc. Magazine recognized them as one of the fastest growing privately held businesses two years in a row.
• They have their own affiliate program that pays out $7 per approved signup.

They look really promising. I’ve signed up, so I’ll hopefully be able to check them out (need to be approved). If you want to skip the John Chow review, you could go straight to Pepperjam’s Blog or just sign up.

It looks like yet another Page Rank update has ocurred in the past couple days - did you get the PR you wanted?

If not, you could always buy links. Why? Because they work!

Of course, you should know by now that Page Rank doesn’t matter.

I’m not sure where to file this - odd stuff, bad stuff, or fun stuff (or maybe just stuff?), but twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents marry each other, not knowing they were related.

They were separated shortly after birth and adopted by different sets of parents, and they were never told they were twins. They found out they were related after they were married, at which point they were granted an annulment.

Although the marriage ended, I don’t think the jokes will.

I stumbled on this blog today, and he’s got a countdown counter in his sidebar that I thought was pretty funny. George Bush Countdown: The End of an Error:

Live countdown on the site. Only 374 days, 21 hours, 2 minutes and 10 seconds remaining! 9 seconds, 8 seconds, 7 seconds…well, you get the idea.

The Beta version of PHPlinkdirectory 3.3 has been released. So far, the comments have been positive, and a few people have installed the beta (check the thread for details). This is a beta release, so there may be some bugs. Apparently, the full version will be released in a few weeks, so established directories may want to hold off until the full release. The beta release also gives developers and designers a chance to generate templates and mods.

This version incorporates several features that I was looking for for my real estate directory, like google maps and user submitted articles. This looks to be like a good release!

Joe was the first and only one who wished me a happy (belated) birthday, so the least I could do is link to this funny he made up - save money with online degrees (sorry, no link - looks like he made some website changes):

iGuides.org ran a contest for the Best Directory of the Year 2007, and have just announced the winners:

• 1st: Dirjournal.com $150 prize and bragging rights as Best Directory of the Year 2007
• 2nd: AuthorityDirectory.com $100 prize
• 3rd: Zorg-Directory.com  2 domain names and cpanel hosting for a year

Those are some very nice directories, so I think the winners were well chosen (even though mikey bribed his way into winning a prize ). I think there’s a lot to learn from these directory owners and the directories they operate.

What exactly were the contest criteria?

Design (Template) and Development (Script) of Directory

Quality and Original Content

Strength of Directory (Back Links, Popularity, Search Engine Friendly)

Any additional useful and extra Mods in the Directory

User Friendly Directory

Well Categorized

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to iGuides for the contest!

Yeah, you read that right.

I was poking around the Carnival of Debt Reduction over at the No Credit Needed Blog today, and found some interesting tidbits. Via Debt Free Revolution and the Great Credit Card Debate, I found My Dollar Plan, who has almost a quarter of a million dollars in credit card debt.

Yowzah! Is she crazy? Why so much?

Madison (My Dollar Plan) uses 0% introductory credit card offers to launder her credit card debt, or what’s known as credit card arbitrage. For example, instead of getting a car loan at x% interest, she puts it on a 0% credit card and saves money on the interest. Instead of paying down a credit card balance, she puts it in savings and earns money. She makes and saves almost $12,000 a year doing this! When the introductory offer is over, she launders the money (my term) with a new 0% credit card offer.

Quite an interesting idea, although I don’t recommend it for most people. I think the average person has enough trouble handling their debts and credit cards that they don’t need to juggle 89 credit card accounts like Madison does. You’d be better off following some of the strategies and tips on the blogs in the Carnival. However, I have used 0%/low APR intro offers myself in the past, and this post actually prompts me to think it may be time to do it again. The trick is to not use this as an excuse to take on more debt, but to save money on the interest payments and (usually) lower your overall debt. Although Madison is using it to NOT lower her overall debt (she does pay just over the minimum payment due on the cards each month), she’s keeping a tight watch over this strategy and using it to make/save thousands of dollars a year.

Think hard before using this strategy. Chances are, if you’re bad with credit cards in the first place, you’ll be even worse with this approach!