A little birdie just told

A little birdie just told me that I'll be speaking at Web Builder in September--see you there?

And in The Night the

And in The Night the Lights Went Out in Wi-Fi, Glenn Fleishman beats my deadline with ease. Thanks for the info, Glenn!

I've previously blogged the rubber

I've previously blogged the rubber Escher lizard pieces, but Cory Doctorow pointed out that they're also available as paving stones. Very cool.

And speaking of Cory, just because people keep asking me: Yes, I have read his piece My Blog, My Outboard Brain. Yes, it does sound very much like an expanded version of this site's About page. Yes, it does sound like it could have been called "My Blog, My Backup Brain." But you know what? It's not like these are particularly novel or original thoughts, so it's no big deal. Although I am patting myself on the back for grabbing the domain name three years ago.

Quote of the day:There are

Quote of the day:

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.

One more time, for those

One more time, for those who need it: one of the things that's coolest about weblogs is that I can read Robert X. Cringely's "Running Interference: There's a Big Threat to 802.11b Networking, Yet Nobody Seems to Care -- Here's Why" and know that Glenn Fleishman's 802.11b Networking News will tell me if there's more than one side to the story. And within 24 hours, too, I'll bet.

Lots of other bloggers have

Lots of other bloggers have linked to the Gauss Rifle, but what's even cooler is the domain itself, Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids. This could come in handy for a kid who's coming up on a summer vacation.

I just realized that I

I just realized that I hadn't mentioned that there's a new issue up at Wise-Women.org. There's plenty of good stuff, but I really recommend Miraz Jordan's Getting Started with Cascading Style Sheets. Enjoy!

From Slate: Is [White House

From Slate: Is [White House Chief of Staff] Andy Card an Idiot? He sure ain't no Leo McGarry.

A Moron's Guide to Toast.

A Moron's Guide to Toast. Quite weird.

I'm sure by now you've

I'm sure by now you've read the one about the Kenyan Cows, right?

My irony meter is now working overtime. Let's say that the cows are traded for beads, and the beads are given to the Manhattanites. Now, given that the island was originally bought for a bunch of beads from the naive natives, could the Kenyans be seen as buying the island back?

And even if you've read other pieces on this story, check out the one I linked to above, if only for the sake of the "cow puppies."

I tend to not upgrade

I tend to not upgrade apps or OS's until there's some good reason to. Consequently, I'm still on OS X 10.1.3. Silk may be enough reason for me to move to 10.1.5.

Silk enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.1.5 in all Carbon applications. This means antialiased text in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, and many others. Why wait for developers to update their Carbon applications when you can get the silky smooth text everywhere, right now? And of course, Silk is completely free!

Via Forwarding Address: OS X.

For those of you who

For those of you who (based on yesterday's post) have sent me email asking if I'm feeling better, the answer is yes, thank you. Now, if the question was, "Do you feel fine?," well, that might take another day or two.

Follow-ups to the below piece:

Follow-ups to the below piece:

• Having re-read the weblogs.com TOS, I agree that it doesn't say anything about Userland selling advertising on Userland-hosted blogs.
  
• The HTMMOTI piece (linked to below) did mention hosting companies selling advertising on hosted blogs, and in a highly positive fashion. Having re-read the piece, I still maintain that it's a description of how Userland then planned on making money.
  
• Given that, I assumed that Userland had, at some point, notified those people with Userland-hosted sites that that was their plan. The TOS would have been the obvious place for it.
  
• If that was the plan, and they never gave people official notice, that was dumb. If that wasn't the plan, well, that was dumb, too. Dave had just given a talk to major world leaders on how to make money on the web--why not use his own idea?
  
• My personal take on this is that I thought that Dave had a pretty good business plan. Lots of smart people thought that money could be made off banner ads. The idea of making money both on the front end (selling ads on sites) and on the back end (by selling the software that drove the sites) was quite workable by any standard, and positively brilliant compared to most VC-backed dot com business plans.

Dave says now that running ads on Userland-hosted blogs wasn't the plan. If he'd like an apology from me because I publicly assumed that he had a workable business model, all he has to do is ask.

Doc says: 1) I don't

Doc says:

1) I don't blog for money; 2) I don't want to ever think of this blog as an "environment" for advertising, or anything other than writing and links; and 3) No reader has ever asked me to put advertising on this page.


That last reason is enough for me. This blog will be neither crumb nor slice in anybody's media pie.

Ummm... Doc? Go re-read Dave's piece on How to Make Money on the Internet, particularly where he says:

As you get to know your community, stars will emerge. Give them space on your home page and run ads on their sites.

And then re-read the TOS you agreed to when you set up your weblogs.com site.


Dave does not currently run ads on your site. Dave may never run ads on your site. But, assuming that you agreed to the standard weblogs.com TOS, Dave holds the right to do so, and you have no recourse so long as you use Userland's software on Userland's hardware.

I have to say, this

I have to say, this site looks oddly familiar...

On board a cruise ship,

On board a cruise ship, it's unnerving the way that you're constantly rocking from side to side, and sometimes from front to back. This morning in the shower, I had to hold on to the wall to keep from falling over. And right now, I can feel the constant rocking back and forth making me slightly nauseated.

There's just one problem: I'm not on board a ship, and haven't been since yesterday morning.

My current suspects for this condition are:

1. a reaction to being on dry land, and therefore the symptoms will go away in the next day or two
2. the possibility that the headaches I've also been having are due to some combination of sinus and/or inner ear problems
3. California's been having a lot of really small earthquakes over the last 24 hours

Whichever the option, I'm going to take it easy for a day or two, I think.

If you check out the

If you check out the fine print, you'll see a mention of MacMania II--woo hoo! Save the date, folks, and start saving your pennies now.

Man, I just hate it

Man, I just hate it when I agree with Maureen Dowd.