Oh good lord
Dave is propagating a great idea: putting <link> tags in weblogs pointing to RSS channels. It would be cool if Manila also automatically inserted the iCab <link> tags as well.
Only the Mini-Me could give Winer credit for this idea.
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Dave is propagating a great idea: putting <link> tags in weblogs pointing to RSS channels. It would be cool if Manila also automatically inserted the iCab <link> tags as well.
Only the Mini-Me could give Winer credit for this idea.
From the fertile mind of Mark Pilgrim, an idea for getting RSS aggregators to automatically discover a site's RSS feed by using the link tag in HTML. This site is now using it and you should too. I am also considering taking a shot at something along the lines of the Mozilla sidebar Mark mentions. Good project to learn how to write sidebars, I think. OTOH, why not just write a aggregator that works in the sidebar? That woud be cool...
I got this in email from a friend of mine.
I left Montreal heading toward Quebec city, when I decided to stop at a comfort station. The first stall was occupied, so I went into the second one. I was no sooner seated than I heard a voice from the next stall:
"Hi, how are you doing?"
Well, I am not the type to chat with strangers in highway comfort stations, and I really don't know quite what possessed me, but anyway, I answered, a little embarrassed:
"Not bad."
And the stranger said: "And, what are you up to?"
Talk about your dumb questions! I was really beginning to think this was too weird! So I said:
"Well, just like you I'm driving east."
Then, I heard the stranger, all upset, say, "Look, I'll call you back, there's some idiot in the next stall answering all the questions I am asking you."
DaveNet : Edward Cone: A Personal Look at Blogging
You'll note that nowhere in the introductory gush is it mentioned that Ed Cone just happens to be using Radio for his weblog. Disclosing interests indeed. Such a foolish hypocrite.
Well, usually where I have lunch there isn't an 802.11 connection around. If there were, I'd seriously consider blogging it pretty close to live.
Do this at lunch with me and go home with a keyboard full of Diet Coke. With lemon. Real lemon.
And also for Mark: Happy Half-Birthday.
Per diveintomark, I took his tip and am now syndicating this blog in RSS 1.0. Hope it don't blow up. :)
Keith Teare received a letter from Microsoft, which he published on his weblog, which among other things, demands that he stop publishing his weblog.
No, actually it demands that he stop violating his NDA and mouthing off about his bad gambling instincts in public. Nowhere do I see a demand to cease publishing a weblog. I doubt that poor suffering (and now gagged) Keith Teare would be such a cause for DW if Mr Teare wasn't editing his blog with Radio.
I have read Teare's blog over and over again, and as much as I hate to agree with MS on anything, I have to say they are not out of bounds here. Keith Teare bet that he would not get Microshafted. He bet that he would be able to do with RealNames what other companies had tried and failed to do: partner with Microsoft and survive. It didn't work. Sorry, I feel bad, they're reprehensible. Get over it. You bet and lost. Act like an adult. My 4-year-old shows more restraint than this.
OK, where's greyduck? I hope to God this is not more Verisign sloppiness of the Leslie Harpold variety.
BTW, these are just ideas. You can comment if you want, send me an email. Please try to self-filter the stop energy. Thanks.
In other words, please just agree with me and flatter me and everything will be fine. Disagree and prepare for incoming bigtime tantrum.
Jason Kottke nails it:
Real-time blogging is next-to-useless stenography, but there's some good value in near real-time reflections on current happenings
It occurs to me that the natural conclusion of all this real-time blogging stuff is a conference room full of people, not talking, all logged in to the same chat room. Then at the end of the session they all get on their Segways and head for the bathroom.
1. What shampoo do you use? Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap. That's it.
2. Do you use conditioner? What kind? No. See #1.
3. When was the last time you got your hair cut? Last Saturday.
4. What styling products do you use? Is a comb a styling product?
5. What's your worst hair-related experience? When my soon-to-be-mother-in-law was chasing me with a pair of scissors at my wedding, attempting to cut off my halfway-down-my-back ponytail.
Sigh. Scripting News:
This took me all of five seconds. What a dork.
From CamWorld: There seems to be an entire posting tradition among the "web design" crowd about design ripoffs, where some fairly obscure site scrapes the design of some equally obscure-except-among-the-obscurantist-experimental-design-crowd site. I can see how it may be somewhat annoying, but for the most part, who gives a shit? Get over it already.
I got an email from Marriott Rewards telling me how I can win 100000 rewards points "when you or a loved one become a resident." Whoo-hoo. Put Mom in the home, get a free weekend (breakfast not included)
It then goes on to say "Enjoy a free subscription to Marriott Senior Living Today, our e-newsletter." Featuring exciting articles like "Did You Know Your Child Got a Hundred Grand Rewards Points for Putting You in Here?"
Well, here's some way cool visionary future journalism from Doc Searls blogging the O'Reilly ET conference in real time:
I missed some stuff while I was trying to GET THE FUCKING CONNECTION TO FUCKING WORK.
Damn, this is good. What's next? "I missed some stuff because THIS HUGE HONKING BOIL ON MY ASS ITCHES."
Exchange with the woman who brought me breakfast this am at St Lukes (minor heart procedure, I am fine):
Me: Do you have any soymilk?
Her: (Considers this a minute) no. Don't you want breakfast?
Me: Yes, but I'm a vegan. No milk.
Her: What's a vegan?
Me: I don't eat any sort of animal products.
Her: You mean you don't eat breakfast?
It's a terrific bookstore, but does anybody else occasionally find PowellsBooks.news to be just a shade too twee? I understand, it's part of the whole bookish slightly but not requiring medication eccentric giving your computer a name kind of air, but this is just a trifle too too:
An errant Wiffle ball rolls onto the stage; the newsletter umpire calls time. Text will resume as soon as conditions permit.
If anything needs a genug, kitty, this does.
By the time the Times has their article, it will all be old news.
But it might be smarter and more objective, and it'll be forthright about its conflicts of interest. Going by this, the main value-add in blogged news is its time to market and nothing else. I often find myself reading news online and then looking forward to the more in-depth take in the Times the next day. This could just stem from the perennial Kaliforn-YUH belief that shiny superficial New! is just the total bitchin' best, lack of substance be damned.
Even so, I had to talk with Adam on the phone before I would run the piece and attach my credibility to his. Adam didn't mind, in fact it made him happy. He said "You're fact-checking." That is what I was doing. I had to do the equivalent of look my friend in the eye and ask, bluntly, "Is this real?"
Well, at least now we know what his credibility's worth. They think this is fact-checking? Thank God they're not lawyers:
"well, your honor, he couldn't have done it, because I asked him if he did, and he said no."
Next week: unicorns exist; Adam Curry, that Dutch paragon, says so.
Nope, it ain't an Us vs.Them thing.
Oh, there's an editorial process, but it's just so revolutionary and advanced that your undeveloped journalistic brains cannot perceive it! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ha ha ha ha!
Eeep.
Update: I was able to fix the problem by booting to a DOS prompt and copying over MSVCRT.DLL from my work machine. Whee. I still hate ActiveState - why the hell were they uninstalling system files with no notice? Why can't their damn installer upgrade Python? What's all this MSI crap? Are they just MS shills? And I still hate Microsoft. I saw the Steve Ballmer "Monkey boy dance" today. I was waiting for the embolism, I can tell you.
The jobsearch spammers, a small yet oddly insistent spammer subset (resumerabbit my ass), are coming up with some clever ploys. I got this today.
From: MeganSullivan@NYCmail.com
Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 03:13:21
Subject: Thanks for Submitting your resume
Thanks for submitting your resume; unfortunately I don't have any positions
that currently match your background. I have been getting a lot of resumes
submitted that I don't have positions for so I have done some research
on alternative resources that might help you in your job search. Don't
worry if you don't want to receive any more recommendations this is a 1
time only deal unless you submit your resume again. Here is the current
site that I have heard people getting good results from, you should check
it out, free links to recruiters and Job Boards and other job seeker resources.
www.simpleResumePost.com plus they can post your resume to 100 Job Boards
which will definitely help you in your job search.
Good luck, I will hang on to your resume in case I get any open positions
that match your skills. The market looks like it is starting to pick up
a little so check back with me in a couple of months.
Megan Sullivan
NYC Manpower
I posted this as a comment over at greyduck.net, but I'll post it here too:
I decided to upgrade ActiveState Python this am to the newest version. Since their MSI-based installers don't detect old versions and offer to upgrade you, I uninstalled the old version first. It did the usual progress bar hookie-dookie, and then (this being Windows) said "We have to reboot to complete the (un)installation. Reboot now?" I said yes. Machine reboots, Win98 begins loading, NAV starts loading. NAV puts up a dialog box saying "A system file, MSVCRT.DLL, was not found." Well, look harder then. The login dialog comes up. Thinking "uh-oh," I type in login and password.
Machine responds "Can't find MSVCRT.DLL."
Followed by "EXPLORER.EXE cannot run. Reinstall Windows."
I hate ActiveState. I hate Microsoft.
DaveNet : How To Start a Weblog (For Professional Journalists)
or, How to Back Off When You May Be Alienating a Potential Market.
This in particular caught my attention:
It's been cast as an Us versus Them thing, and that's incorrect. It's a new style of writing, made possible by the Web, and by the advancement of software.
I find this statement hard to accept when DW and UserLand themselves have been guilty of encouraging this attitude: look at this, out of John Robb, UserLand's bad cop:
This isn't Us vs Them? No, all that railing and whining about BigPubs and editing and such and integrity isn't all antagonistic. It seems to me that this change in attitude took place at about the time that the sweetheart lock-in deal with what might be the Biggest of all BigPubs took place. As for integrity, every piece out of anyone at UserLand that is at all concerned with weblogs should feature a large bold disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: UserLand sells Radio Userland, a popular weblogging software package.
This is how it works in, yes, I'll say it, Real Journalism; when the NYT even mentions a tv station they have a stake in, the article features such a disclaimer.
No context, no people just know, no "we're a SmallCo." No. Up front. Or otherwise you have no integrity at all. I mean, Jesus. Dave Winer sells weblogging software. He stands to directly profit from the proliferation of weblogs. How in any way does this make him an objective source on weblogging? He may have domain knowledge, but anything he says is colored by this integral conflict of interest. This is like listening to BigOil on conservation practices, I'll listen to your viewpoint, but by no means am I going to consider it definitive, or even preferable to the "media."
As a matter of fact, I'd say that the tech press may be even more subject to this sort of cronyism: what the hell is John Markoff doing having a social dinner with Dave Winer? How can he then claim to cover UserLand objectively? When Dan Gillmor was using UserLand products to write his weblog on the Merc's site, how could he then be an objective reporter where UserLand was concerned? DW complained bitterly when Giilmor was moved to different software, because he'd just lost a journalist advertising his software for him, which is mind-boggling. It's as though Bic complained in public when Maureen Dowd started using a Parker Jotter.
Not everyone has the short memory that UserLand so cynically counts on.
Via diveintomark: Yet someone else gets bit (and ultimately finds a solution) by the Mozilla and CSS file type nit. This is what you get for not doing Google searches. LOL.
Yahoo Shopping: Kwick Lock Pick - never call a locksmith again
Are they getting so desperate that they've started to take ads like this? What's next, guns?
is complete. MT just keeps getting better and better. New Google API functionality in this version. I am going to be dealing with that soon, oh yes. More and more geeks I respect are switching to it. You ought to too.
of an MT mod pinging both weblogs.com and blo.gs. Never too much publicity, right? Kudos to philringnalda.com for the hack. This is apparently going into MT soon, though. May already be there.
Update Slight edit, new test
Nick Denton gets it right. All those overdriven 20-somethings sleeping under the desk, living at the office, no outside lives, and what did it get them? A tanked economy. Can we finally drop the sexist (it's macho as all hell, and if you don't get that, you have serious problems) cowboy bullshit, and start acting as though human life exists? I'm telling you, no more than 40% of that 120 hours gets spent doing more than online banking, IMing, etc etc.
on the Lou Reed sighting yesterday. L informs me that all limos have license plates that start with 9. It's a convention or something. Is this true?
See the article for details. Link to it in your blog.
OK, they line up right now. Whew. Now I won't have to tell the story about how I left Chelsea Market to go get a snack and saw Lou Reed peering out the back window of a black limo with New Jersey (ick) plates "9MUSIC." He's starting to look like one of the apes in "2001."
I hate to admit this, but I'm only making this entry to get the columns on the right to line up correctly again. Maybe this is something I should fix.
Yikes, I just posted this and checked it and it's almost right. I need a longer entry. Geez, this is really embarrassing. Well, maybe not. What about those little tiny cartoons the New Yorker (hey, I can link that! a real weblog entry!) sticks in the columns? Those little doodly things that appear to be just filler? Those drive my father crazy, because they "HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SURROUNDING STORY!" Um, ok.
Anyway, 2 other New Yorker things:
1. When I went to put in the link, I checked, as I always do, to make sure that the link is newyorker.com and not thenewyorker.com, which I always find myself wanting to use, since it's colloquially how I've always referred to the magazine. thenewyorker.com is oocupied by one of those "helpful new york resources" sites, which isn't and doesn't appear to have been updated since mid-March. Not very helpful.
2. When this week's issue of The New Yorker (see?) arrived, D took one look at the cover (if you're reading this this week (posterity!), you can see it in the upper right-hand corner of the home page,) which I had thought was sort of skeevy-looking (unless you're one of those heroin-wasted types, I guess) and said "Eeeeeeuuuuuwww! This kissing is gross!" I like this guy's art, he reminds me of an artist from the early days of Art Spiegelman's Raw, though of course I can't remember his name now (the artist in Raw, not Art Spiegelman, or the New Yorker cover artist (Istvan Banyai), obviously), but there's something disturbing about some of his stuff. Anyway, I have independent corroboration.
OK, I think I can stop now.
On Tues, I went with D on a class field trip to the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. Really great place. The parents weren't allowed into the children's adventure garden (something about overcrowding rules, which I guess makes sense but what's the point of bringing the parents along then?) so I went for a walk on the Forest Edge Trail. Just beautiful; almost deserted. It lead to an overlook at the edge of a grove of hemlocks above a waterfall. I only got to wander for a short time before going back to meet D for lunch and watch him clamber over a huge rock (his teacher later nervously said "Daniel, we saw you on top of that big rock. Everyone was saying how high it was.") but we want to go back with the family. I took some pics in the woods, I'll try to post them later.
Doodly-doodly-doot-do-do Do-doot-do-doot-do-DOO-DOO.
Hartford cracks down on frozen dairy. And about time too.