Category Archives: Asides
WordCamp Update
So 1 day after the announcement, 104 people have signed up that they're coming to WordCamp and 58 have joined the mailing list. Wow! Thank you, as this has been a huge help in determining what sort of resources we're going to need to pull this thing off. Now the big challenge is finding a venue appropiate for the event, feel free to ping me if you have any ideas.
WordPress Podcast
There is a new WordPress podcast blog, podcasting the various goings-on in the WP world. Subscribed!
Hasselhoff Music Video
This David Hasselhoff music video, Jump in My Car, is a must-watch. There has to have a good story behind it.
Rapunzel
A little Thursday music treat to round out this short holiday week: Rapunzel. Live in Chicago 1998 with the Dave Matthews band. The entire CD is fun, and this track has a particularly good sax solo.
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.
Photographing Fireworks
NY Institute of Photography on photographing fireworks. (A repeat.)
Amazon Grocery
I don’t go to the grocery store much, and when I do it’s usually for toiletries or non-perishables, so Amazon Grocery seemed like a pretty good fit. I’m already a Prime member so everything has free shipping, and I’m pretty comfortable giving money to Amazon these days. For my first test purchase I decided to go for something bulky that would be a pain to walk several blocks with. So the first purchase was some Cottonelle toilet paper. Now there are two immediate problems: first I didn’t realize it was a four-pack. I don’t know if I have enough storage space for that much toilet paper, so I might end up giving some of it to friends. (That’s what friends are for, right?) Second I ordered it on June 18, and it still hasn’t shipped 10 days later. Good thing there was no urgency! My initial experience with Amazon Grocery has been pretty disappointing.
New Publishing Model
Jason Calacanis on the new publishing model.
Bloglines DOS
Bloglines is DOSing blog providers. Every other major crawler implements some sort of per-resolved-IP throttle, why can’t Bloglines? Even if there were a way to opt-out of their hundreds of simultanous crawlers descending on your service, it seems to me the default behavior should be to not be harmful, and then work with large providers on a case-by-case basis to increase the concurrency of requests. We don’t have this problem with any other aggregator or crawler, hosted or non-hosted. Test: freedbacking
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
Lifehacker Poll
Lifehacker readers really like WordPress, right now as I link this WP is at 74.4% with 293 votes in their “best standalone blogging application” poll.
Renting is for Suckers
Misconception: Renting is for Suckers. In Houston the market was such that it seemed silly not to buy. Here in San Francisco real estate is definitely another world, and I plan to rent for a while even though it does limit what you can do with the space in some frustrating ways.
Leviathan Servers
Leviathan toys with Zeus. Part I. A mythic allegory describing what Joyent perceives as an evolution from the Google model of cheap generic boxes running Linux (back) to Sun hardware and software with virtulization, new file systems, and new boxes with dozens of CPUs. A great post, even if you don’t agree with the conclusions. (I’m still on the fence.)
Snakes on a Plane
I think in a few years books will be written about Snakes on a Plane and the fantastic (WP-powered) blog which is following it.
Dodgy Mouse and Keyboard
After several days of mysterious mouse jumps, keys getting “stuck” on the keyboard and repeating over and over, and varioun non-responsiveness of my computer, I was extremely frustrated. I tried moving the wireless reciever five different places, re-compiling synergy, scanning for spyware, etc. Of course everything was fixed by putting new batteries in the wireless mouse and keyboard. Noticing a theme? I should get sponsorship from Energizer.
Become a Better Designer
50 ways to become a better designer, broadly applicable to many walks of life. More than half are directly usable for code wranglers.
At Webvisions in Portland
About a month from now I’ll be speaking at the Webvisions conference in Portland on “Scaling for Your First 100k Users.” The talk will be part tech, part social. It’s a very reasonably priced conference with a lot of great speakers, I think they’re going to sell out soon so if you’re interested in going book soon. It’ll also be my first time in Portland, so I’m looking forward to exploring the area a bit and meeting WP users.
New WordPress Theme Directory
Thomas Silkjær has put together an awesome new WordPress theme directory with uploading, tags, voting, download counters, and more. I hear there is even more on the way.