How to frustrate a geekette:

How to frustrate a geekette: Jason Kottke has some info on his site about the Amazon Recommends program, and how he's using JavaScript to parse it and display it (with help from a friend). Says I, looks like something that I should look into.

No dice. I can't find any info on this anywhere on Amazon's site. Yes, I'm an associate member, but I can't find anything under their associate program called "Amazon Recommends," or even anything that sounds vaguely like what Jason's talking about.

And to make it even more frustrating, Jason originally griped about how what he really wanted was bestseller lists, and I was able to find that, just not the list that he's using. Grrr.

Brooke says my five favorite

Brooke says my five favorite words.

Oh man.... Tale of the

Oh man.... Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout. (Via Camworld)

Robert Scoble writes about communities

Robert Scoble writes about communities and off-topic posts, and is trying to figure out what to do. In response, Glenn Fleishman writes about his experiences moderating a GoLive list.

I ran into the same situation a while back, running the Wise-Women mailing list. You get a few hundred web developers together, and occasionally someone is going to go off-topic. Some people love this with a passion. Some people hate this with a passion.

What do you do to try to make both groups happy? I started the WW-Talk list, which is where all off-topic posts from the WW list are supposed to go. The folks who hate the off-topic posts are happy to police the list (polite requests to "please take this to the talk list" are almost always sufficient), and those who love having a place for free-for-all banter appreciate that there's a place for it.

My new iBook arrived today,

My new iBook arrived today, and it's sweet. It came with an Airport card, a DVD drive, and 128 Mb of RAM; I've already got more RAM on the way. It also came with both Mac OS 9.1 and Mac OS X 10.0.3 already installed.

Now it's time to sell the old iBook; it's the original 300 MHz blueberry model, with 96 Mb of RAM and an Airport card. It's running OS 9.1. It'll come to you in the original box. Buyer pays shipping, and payment should be via PayPal or a money order. To sweeten the deal, I'll throw in your choice of one of the following software packages: Adobe GoLive 5; Macromedia Flash 4; or Macromedia Dreamweaver 3/Fireworks 3 Studio. All of these are shrink-wrapped, NFR copies. Best offer of $800 or more, which is what comparable computers are going for on eBay, gets it.

Bill of Outside Counsel linked

Bill of Outside Counsel linked here. I linked back. Bill noticed the link, and wrote an incredibly sweet review of this site (look under May 28). If you're ever on this side of the country, we'd love to have dinner with you, too.


While I'm thinking about traveling, I should probably make a note of where we'll be over the next few months:

• June 25-29: JavaScript Intensive at Lynda.com (Ojai, CA). Week-long, hands-on training.
  
• July 17-20: Macworld Expo NY, including JavaScript Bootcamp, a full-day workshop on JavaScript.
  
• August 13-20: GeekCruises' Script Scape. Learn about JavaScript while cruising Alaska's Inside Passage.
  
• September 24-28: JavaScript Intensive at Lynda.com (Ojai, CA)

Jean, have you seen CaptainMary.com?

Jean, have you seen CaptainMary.com?

I just ran across Bad

I just ran across Bad Astronomy, which has some great reviews of astronomy in movies and TV. It includes an excellent debunking of the hoax proponents in Fox's Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?

Here's an interesting article from

Here's an interesting article from the NYT: Authors Go Directly to Reader With Marketing. I've got to do some thinking as to how this approach could be adapted for the kinds of books we do.

Looking for something to do

Looking for something to do in the next hour or two? Come join me on IRC chat, as part of Linux.com's "Author Talks" Series. Location: #live on irc.openprojects.net, from noon to 1 pm Pacific today. See you there!