Note to future self: If you’re behind a SOCKS5 proxy for DNS lookups, your machine will ignore the local HOSTS file, and you’ll need to make host/IP modifications on the machine you’re proxying through instead.
Category Archives: Asides
Twenty-four
Every year my birthday sneaks up on me, and this was no exception. After the lull of the holidays and the whirlwind first few days of the year, I am now officially 24. This is the sixth year I’ve celebrated with you guys on this blog, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23. This year should be interesting because many of the things I started 2–5 years ago are just now starting to come to fruition. I’m also hoping there will be some big changes on photomatt.net, including possibly a change in domain name. I’ll post more on that as it develops though. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
Wikia Search
Wikia Search is pretty darn cool. Not sure what I was expecting, I guess I assumed that search would be much harder than doing a wiki. The “Visvo” index seems good enough for daily search use. Their social networking stuff is clean too, here’s my profile — please add me as a friend! (I hope those links work post-alpha.) If they can pull off an open source ranking algorithm… that’s pretty exciting.
Starbucks Cheer Chain
At Starbucks people have been starting “cheer chains” where they pay extra money to pick up the coffee of the person behind them in the drive-thru. Some have gone 2 solid hours. The blogger is cynical, but some of the comments are from baristas that work at Starbucks. I want to believe.
Falling Snow Script
I’ve been looking around for a good falling snow script, as I’m a sucker for cheesy holiday javascript, but everything seems to be from the era of Netscape 6. I even found one on my own domain, but it doesn’t seem to work in Firefox. So where’s the state-of-the-art snow script for web 2.0? Time is running out!
Entertainment Gathering
Even though I swore off conferences for the rest of the year, I’m going to be making one final exception for the Entertainment Gathering in Los Angeles, which will be going on December 2-4. I’ll be going outside my normal role and attending as the official blogger for the conference, covering all aspects of the sessions, speakers, and attendees armed with a laptop and camera. If it sounds like your cup of tea, I think there are a handful of seats left.
Metcalfe’s Law and Social Networks
Metcalfe’s Law Recurses Down the Long Tail of Social Networks, written by Bob Metcalfe himself. (The title is tongue-in-cheek.)
Amazon Grocery Update
Remember the TP Amazon Grocery order I blogged about before? Here’s how it ended up. Don’t think I’ll use Amazon Grocery again. I went to Safeway yesterday.
dot info
Some days don't you want to just blacklist all of .info? More spam there than anything else except maybe .com or .be, and certainly a higher percentage than any other top-level domain.
Vista Jump
I'm installing Windows Vista on my laptop. Wish me luck. I got a free DVD at Gnomedex, so figured why not? Update: Upgrade failed (froze), going to try a clean install.
Darwin on Web 2.0
Darwin on Web 2.0: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin
MySQL Counters
Check out this cool INSERT ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE feature in MySQL 4.1. This will make some logging code I have much easier and cleaner than it currently is.
Web 2.0 Band
I’m going to start a Web 2.0 band, thinking about calling it “The Standards.” Any other name ideas? Hat tip: Glenda.
Web 2.0 Myths
Om writes on The Myth, Reality & Future of Web 2.0 in a great article, and also takes a dig at my lack of Indian gastronomic experimentation.
To Ireland
I’m on my way back to Cork, Ireland once again to join the inimitable Donncha for his wedding. Posting may be light for a few days, or it may get heavier. One never knows.
Boston Herald
Dave Cohen wrote in that the Boston Herald is using WP for their Red Sox blog. Digging around it looks like they have quite a few blogs going.
General Comments
For the funding post, if you have any questions post them there, and if you have any general comments post them here.
Dell vs. Sun
The Sun Doesn’t Shine for Me, or why Dell is kicking Sun’s butt. I can attest to a similar experience, except that I gave up long before Jason did.
Features Don’t Matter
Why Features Don’t Matter Anymore. I think similar things when I hear “But CMS X has hundreds more features than Y! Why don’t we have more users?”
Bray on PHP
Tim Bray wonders about PHP. Answer: Worse is better. Applications evolve when (and if) they need to.