Monthly Archives: May 2008

For the first time in his life Rahn met someone even more obsessed with finding the Grail than he was. Indeed, so confident was Himmler of finding the Grail that he’d already prepared a castle – Wewelsburg in Westphalia – for its arrival. In the basement, surrounded by busts of prominent Nazis, was an empty plinth where the Grail would go.

The original Indiana Jones: Otto Rahn and the temple of doom. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Home Advertising

May 25, 2008QuoteMatt

Apparently advertisers who take the tour have been known to drool ovr the opportunities of putting recipes on the kitchen counter and apparel recommendations in the closet. It will come true — advertisers abhor blank space like nature abhors a vacuum.

The home of the future?, Rob Norman

WordPress Party!

May 24, 2008AsidesEvents, WordPressMatt

Celebrate WordPress’ 5th this Tuesday in San Francisco. (Possibly other places?) Details on Upcoming or Facebook.

Health.com Switches

May 20, 2008AsidesWordPress, health, vip, wordpress.comMatt

Health.com switches from Typepad to WordPress and adds two main WP-powered sections to their site. Check out their new site, great design too.

Usability Testing

May 20, 2008AsidesMatt

We’re doing some usability tests in New York City, want to join?

Graffiti Animation

May 20, 2008VideoMatt

YouTube – MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU. Hat tip: Clay Shirky.

WordPress + mod_auth_mysql

May 19, 2008AsidesWordPress, apache, phpass, single sign onMatt

mod_auth_mysql and phpass, a new patch that allows Apache authentication (for Subversion, Trac, enterprise integration systems) to work with the new WordPress secure password storage.

Don’t Check Your Valuables

May 15, 2008KarmaLifeMatt

Another lesson learned the hard way — on the flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco on US Airways my baggage was delayed, and then when it arrived the following morning all my camera equipment was missing. Since I had just been to Italy I was carrying more than usual. The toll ended up being:

Nikon D3
Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF
Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
Leica M8
Leica 50mm f/1.0 Noctilux
Cards, cases, etc.

I’ve traveled so many times with things in my suitcase I just don’t think about it anymore, literally over a hundred trips over the last 4-5 years. This has shaken me a lot more than the incident a few weeks ago and I’m probably not going to check any electronics anymore. Jon Udell had something similar happen and found a story about packing a starter pistol to get your baggage treated differently. (Hat tip: Lloyd.)

Since relating this story a few other people have told me they’ve had things stolen when leaving Philadelphia specifically, it sounds like there might be a serious problem there, one that warrants investigation. US Airways is just sending me through the “lost luggage” form, so I doubt anything will change or happen. Be extra careful if you travel through there.

12 Signs

May 15, 2008AsidesHumorMatt

12 Signs That The Recession Has Hit The Internet.

WP-based Bookings

May 14, 2008QuoteMatt

StayPress is a collection of plugins that will turn a standard vanilla installation of WordPress or WordPress MU into a property management and bookings system.

Introducing StayPress.

Milan Day Three

May 12, 2008GalleryMatt

A bit of sightseeing. Milan at sunset.

Continue reading Milan Day Three →

Community Tagging

May 11, 2008AsidesMatt

I’m testing out a new community tagging feature, you should see a form to add people tags on photo pages now. Try it out, particularly on the Milan/WordCamp galleries – day one and day two. Proposed tags go into a moderation queue, so they’ll show up after they’re approved.