Scott Kurtz does it again

From the PvP blog:

Many of you have heard of the hit comic strip Megatokyo, but how many of you know that the strip was originally created by a team. Rodney Caston, aka largo, was the original writer of Megatokyo before Fred Gallagher, aka Piro, took the strip over full time.

Rodney is local to the Dallas Fort Worth area. He's a good friend. Wek keep in touch but don't see each other as often as we should. Such is the way of adult life, I guess. That's something I need to correct.

Anyway, I just got news that Rodney and his wife, Ruby, are expecting their first child. So everbody lift a virtual mug and join me in toast! Congrats guys, we're all extremely happy for you.

Luckily, this is one of Rodney's creations that Fred can't steal out from under him.

Oh yeah...I went there.

Ha!

(Yes, I remember when Rodney left. That was when Megatokyo stopped being funny.)

LiveJournal is down, down, down!

Our data center (Internap) lost all its power, including redundant backup power, for some unknown reason. (unknown to me, at least) We're currently dealing with bringing our 100+ servers back online. Not fun. We're not happy about this. Sorry... :-/ More details later.

That's all well and good, but I was in the mood to port all my friends' blogs into del.icio.us! I can't do that when the majority of them are unavailable!

Obviously my inconvenience far outweighs that of the technicians who have to hastily fix this, and the bloggers whose blogs are down. ;>

Technoramble

Yesterday I teased you all with hints about how I was going to shift to WordPress, and how I was going to use my 1337 5|<|11z (oh lord, I've lost the ability to write in l337) to port over the comments. I'm sure you all assumed that meant I was going to get right on that...and to be honest, so did I!

Instead, however, I have found myself messing with something else. Two things, actually: del.icio.us and Technorati.

(I know, I know, I am an old fogey, behind the times, etc. I've already indicated that I'm not on the cutting edge ;P)

Cory Doctorow linked to a guy named Matt who'd written up a bookmarklet for Technorati that allows you to insert their new del.icio.us-and-flickr-esque "tags" into blog posts, thereby connecting your blog to other blogs discussing the same subject. I found this intriguing and went to check it out, but I actually ended up veering off into the realms of del.icio.us first.

"A place for all my links? That I can access anywhere and use to create a links page for my website? That's just what I need," I breathed, astonished. And so I spent some time sticking some of the links on my sidebar in there, and all of the webcomics I currently read. It was fun assigning tags to all of them! I tried to pick a lot of different tags that were descriptive but not too specific (although I couldn't resist putting "fhqwgads" in as a tag for homestarrunner.com). I also checked when items in my list were also on other people's lists, and copied some of their tags.

I haven't decided yet how I want to categorize the items I currently keep in my blogroll under "Friends" and "Interesting People", because del.icio.us requires one-word tags. I could, for example, use "myfriends" and "interestingpeople", but those have less of a chance of being used by others, and the point of the tag system is to interconnect. I'm pondering just calling them all "blogs" and not worrying about differentiating my friends from the people I think are cool. Or I could call them all "blogs", but then add another tag, "friends", to my friends. I'm still thinking about it. My main goal will be to have tags I can use to organize how they display on my website; there have to be some that are exclusive to a category, otherwise the entire system falls apart.

You are perfectly free to take a look at my list if you want. It resides here.

After I got done with the webcomics, I poked around del.icio.us for awhile, looking at the new entries. Following a couple of links, I ended up back at Technorati, where I created an account for myself and claimed my blog. Then I searched for "conversations" involving my journal, fully expecting to find the usual list of me, Brooke, and Luke (the only three people I've ever seen link to me).

To my surprise and delight, I discovered that my blog was added to someone's blogroll just five days ago...and it's right under Language Log in her list. What estimable company!

My link benefactor is a woman calling herself "the Divine Miss Em". (If the url is to be believed, her name is Emily Mann.) I haven't gone spelunking in her archives just yet, but a cursory scan of her front page leads me to believe that she journals a lot like I do, with brief posts to point out things that interest her, and then slightly longer ones discussing her life. (This may, in fact, be the default blog format; I don't know. I do know, however, that some people do it with style, and some people do not. Emily Mann has style.)

I'm not sure if I'm going to start using Technorati tags in my posts or not. I don't want to do it the way the aforementioned Matt of Oddiophile does it (a bunch of words stuck at the end of the post) because I think that looks stupid (no offense). Instead, I would probably stick them into the meat of my post, so they'd be contextual. This process would presumably be made easier by Matt's bookmarklet, but it would still be more of a chore than just, oh, I don't know, writing a post, and clicking "Publish Post", and being done with it. (I could create a new blog template with an area specifically for Technorati tags, that would be off to the side or small and unobtrusive. If that ends up being the best solution, then I'll do it, because I'm going to have to redo my template anyway to shift to WordPress.) As a point of interest, here's a bookmarklet that will search any word anywhere on Technorati. This is sort of good and sort of not, because if you're using this bookmarklet it means you aren't following a "tag"-ed link in someone's post. You have access to content, but only if people are actually using the tags. And such a bookmarklet makes tags seem unnecessary. You see?

The third site that is constantly mentioned alongside del.icio.us is Flickr, a photo site with tags for sorting and such. I have to say that I like the tag system; it's decentralized and self-correcting (people who want their pictures to be found in searches will strive to make their tags match their content and match the tags of similar content). However, I haven't given Flickr a try yet, and I'm not really ready to do so just yet. I think I've had enough new technology for one day. Or week...

Speaking of technology, though, I want to mention that WordPress is awesome. In the settings, you can assign latitude and longitude to your posts. That would be perfect for a travelogue! But, of course, I'd need a GPS system first.

Anyway, I promise I will get working on that WordPress thing soon. I'm very eager to find out if my theory will pan out. If I can't import the comments, I can easily imagine myself copying them over manually, like I did the last two times I changed commenting systems. I do not relish the prospect, but I refuse to lose the comments.

Ariel Sharon is stupid

From Yahoo! News:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will refuse to meet Mahmoud Abbas until the new Palestinian leader moves against militant groups behind an attack that killed six Israelis in Gaza, Sharon's spokesman said on Friday.

"Israel is severing all planned contacts with the Palestinians on all levels, from security to government leadership," spokesman Assaf Shariv said, a day after the assault that defied Abbas's calls for non-violence.

"Everything is canceled until they take steps against terror, so we can see there is not only talk but also action. Abbas knows who carried out the attack, so he will be the one to stop them. It's very easy," he said.

Oh, yeah, that's great. Being an asshole about it is sure to get Abbas to want to work with you.

Jesus, Sharon. There's a time for strongarming, but this is obviously not it. Get over yourself, get off your damn high horse, and work for fucking peace already.

Ancient silk weaving methods revived

This is a really cool story at Asahi about Kikuo Morimoto, the man who revived the ancient Cambodian ikat method of silk weaving.

Soon after he started out in his native Kyoto to learn the art of yuzen--traditional silk dyeing for kimono--Morimoto turned his interest to Southeast Asian fabrics.

Eventually, he moved to Thailand where he worked within the local textile industry. The memory of his first glimpse of ikat has never left him. The fabric seemed to be alive, he says.

Ikat is created using silk threads that are individually dyed and woven in intricate patterns. It requires a precise technique that can only be done by hand.

But after the dark ages of Pol Pot--when Cambodians were forced to wear nothing but black--and the ensuing civil war, there remained only a hint of the ancient silk fabrics the Khmer people had spent centuries developing.

Determined to revive the art in a way that could also benefit the people of Cambodia, Morimoto moved to Phnom Penh and set up the Institute for Khmer Traditional Textiles.

I'd love to see some of this type of fabric :)

More on Dave Barry

Mark Liberman, linguistics icon for our time, throws his two cents in on the matter of Dave Barry's apparent retirement.

Dave Barry, linguist

Please use the right word

The English teacher in me will have a conniption if you don't.

Today, Cory Doctorow appends the following to his post about a new Technorati feature:

(Disclaimer: I am an advisor to Technorati)

Now, Cory, really. You are not disclaiming your statement. Here, I'll be pompous and quote dictionary.com:

dis.claim.er (ds-klmr)
n.

1. A repudiation or denial of responsibility or connection.
2. Law. A renunciation of one's right or claim.

What you are doing, Cory, is disclosing your affiliation.

dis.clo.sure (d-sklzhr)
n.

1. The act or process of revealing or uncovering.
2. Something uncovered; a revelation.

disclosure

The submission of facts and details concerning a situation or business operation. In general, security exchanges and the SEC require firms to disclose to the investment community the facts concerning issues that will affect the firms' stock prices. Disclosure is also required when firms file for public offerings. See also full disclosure.

You see, the correct word makes all the difference!

Well, this is big

From Queen of Wands. This intro is very Websnarky, so I may as well add a phrase like "Click the thumbnail for full-size Holy Shit", or something.

Well.

All I can say is, I wonder if Kestrel will "consider a different type of relationship".

Actually, that's not all I can say.

I figured Angela loved Kestrel, or at least had a hugeass crush on her. I guess I should have expected it to come out in the story eventually. Now that it's here, though, I can't help but feel enormous amounts of trepidation.

How is this going to turn out, and what is it going to say about human sexuality? If Aeire is too light with the subject, it will seem trite (and perhaps fanserviceish), but if she goes too deep, it will just be overblown and silly.

It's difficult...and since it resonates quite a bit to me personally, I'm going to be very disappointed if it isn't done well.

Dave Barry quits

On January 2, Dave Barry announced in his column that he's quitting, at least for now.

I actually don't read him regularly, but I love checking every now and then and finding new stuff. But I really feel this change more as...well, as a change, to something I've become accustomed to. It's like when Walter Kronkite retired (not that I remember that...), or, hell, when Clinton's terms ended--I'd gotten used to him! Change can be good, but it is always at least a little scary. I guess we humans are a pretty complacent bunch.

Slate has a nice "elegy" for Dave Barry.

Little people shortage (it's impossible not to make a pun!)

This story has already made its way around the blogs, but I wanted to note it for posterity...because of the following quote:

"It's very difficult to employ persons of restricted growth when, as our producer Phil Collinson says, 'Bloody Gringotts and The Chocolate Factory are filming at the same time,'" Doctor Who's executive producer Russell T. Davies told the site.

Gringotts and the Chocolate Factory! Bloody Gringotts and the Chocolate Factory!

Come on, Warwick--surely you know someone you could send over to help them out. (Maybe we could pull Kenny Baker out of that trash can for a few weeks...)

A couple of cool things

1) Here is some sheet music for Super Mario Bros. and its sequels!

2) Gabe at Penny Arcade has grown a rapier wit.

So I guess G4-TechTV is dropping the TechTV part of their name. Apparently they thought it gave them undeserved credibility.

And finally, I'd like to note that after 3 or so days of avoiding it, I've finally plowed through my feeds at Bloglines. The News Aggregates alone had almost reached 100 unread posts...

Nice day, isn't it?

"What's that it says in Revelations?" Wanda asked today at work. "'You will be unable to tell the difference in the seasons'?"

So yeah, it's like, 80°.

In January.

Apparently that's strange even for Augusta.

Weirdness is occurring elsewhere, too...it's so warm in Russia that bears aren't even hibernating properly, while Venice's waterways are too dry for boating.

While I'm sure this has more to do with global climate change than it does with the tsunami-inflicting earthquakes, it has been calculated that the quakes changed the Earth's orbit. Of course,

Dr. Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., said all earthquakes have some affect on Earth's rotation. It's just they are usually barely noticeable.

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said.

The world's pretty resilient, in other words. (The more important question is whether or not humans are.)

Budgeted: 1353 Eaten: 314 Burned: 229 Remaining: 1268

...yeah, I guess I can eat something else.

Wi-Fi! $5/hr laptop rental! Low-fat smoothie! I feel so cool.

Yes, I went to R. Gabriel's after work. I got paid today, so I went by the bank to deposit my check, and the R. Gabriel's is right next door, so I figured, what the heck?

(By the way, it's fun to go to an ATM on a bicycle. Fun, I tell you! I actually tried to go inside, but they didn't seem to have an ATM in there...)

So here I am, blogging from a coffeehouse. The only thing wrong with this picture is that I should be using my own laptop, and I should also be leeching power from all the outlets for my cell phone and the iPod I don't own. Alas, I'm not quite on the digital edge.

I biked a little ways down Martinez Boulevard to get here, then had to cut across crazy early afternoon Washington Road traffic. That wasn't supremely bright on my part; next time I'll just go with my instincts and cross at Baston to the sidewalk. :>

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to consider this smoothie my lunch, or if I want to beg the baristas to make me a sandwich. At $6.50, it's not an extraordinarily appealing choice...plus I'm already paying to use this laptop! So I will probably hold off until I get home and have a chance to evaluate my calories. I presume this smoothie has something like 170 calories in it, which means I could eat something else, but to be honest I'm not sure. I should ask the baristas.

By the way, I love the word "barista"...

Oh, and also by the way, I figured out why the comments aren't displaying the date of the post, just the time. It's because my blog posts are set to display the time only, and no other information. I did that for stylistic reasons; I thought it would look stupid to have the date right above the date. But you know, having the dates displayed on the comments would be worth it.

Of course, I may be shifting to WordPress anyway, so all this could be moot!

I like it here at R. Gabriel's. I'm sitting at one of the tall tables at the window. My legs are about a foot and a half off the floor. I'm short!

Sometime, I should come here with my laptop and sit on one of those nice leather couches...

I just noticed that they have one of the 2go-Box "Win $500" racks, and they cut out three of the "Win $500" parts from the cards and taped them to the front :D Good advertising! I wonder if anyone has taken the bait.

The sun is right on me. It feels nice, though it's making this LCD screen difficult to see.

Speaking of this laptop, I was told that it belonged to the owner, and one day he got mad at it and threw it across the room. This explains why the screen decides to go completely bonkers every now and then. To make it work again, you have to hit it.

Very hardcore.

;>

Berry Berry Smoothies are teh yum.

I'm beginning to realize that I really have nothing to say. I think I feel self-conscious because I'm blogging from a coffeeshop.

I always used to think it would be cool to come down here to work on writing. Curled up in one of those couches, or hunched over a table, a smoothie (or hot cocoa, or something) at my side. Somehow, I felt like that would add legitimacy to what I was doing.

I wonder. All it seems to be doing right now is making me ramble.

Ack, brain freeze...!

It's getting easier, rather than harder

I biked this morning too. It seemed that my mind was convinced that there was no other option. In fact, I woke up at 5 till 5, looked at the clock, and was about to get automatically out of bed when Sean stirred and snuggled into me. I decided to give him those five minutes, and got up when the alarm jolted me out of the pleasant snooze.

Using a backpack really helps, and I can bring so much stuff with me. Today I brought a package that I need to ship; I haven't decided if I'm going to bike over to the post office, or just let it go out with the company mail. There really aren't any shoulders on Martinez that I can think of, so I might not want to chance it. Besides, if I don't feel like backtracking to Baston, I'd have to go up Bobby Jones to get home, and I don't know if I'm quite that brave yet :>

In any case, the weather was great--I didn't need a jacket, and it wasn't foggy like yesterday, so I was very comfortable and had good visibility even in the dark. I was expecting to have a tough time, given the workouts my legs have been getting all week, but surprisingly the trip didn't bother me really. I'm getting adept at shifting gears to make it easier on myself, which helps, but I think I'm also benefiting from the fact that I've been biking for awhile. Hopefully this continued bike commute will build up my cardiovascular system!

I ended up leaving a little later than I have been, at something like 6:30, so I got here at 6:55. Just on time! I'm not sure I want to cut it that close in the future.

The reason I was late in getting started is that I started writing a post that will go up a little later today (hopefully) about the adventure I had yesterday trying to export these Blogger posts into WordPress. I've hit quite a snag with it, but I think I can figure out how to solve it, assuming I can modify some php code. (High school Pascal, don't fail me now!) Anyway, wait for that post with baited breath, because it's going to be awesome :>