The past two days I’ve been at WordCamp San Francisco and the presentations have been amazing. For the first time ever for San Francisco we’ve had a really fantastic live video stream going from both rooms. It’s a pretty economical way to get all of the content of the conference without the cost of coming to San Francisco. We even had someone streaming from Pakistan! My talk on the State of the Word, will be tomorrow at 11 AM PST so get a ticket on the WordCamp SF site.

Greg Palast

Saw an interesting speech by Greg Palast today, in which he made a lot of very strong assertions about a number of issues, most notably of the 2000 presidential elections. He is not as much as a wack as I expected him to be going in, but I’m going to reserve further judgment until I read his new book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. I did get to have a brief but informative conversation with him after everything about his time “undercover” with Milton Friedman and situation in Venezuela, which he called the most badly reported story since Vietnam. He seemed like a very nice guy, despite his inflammatory views and writing. Check out some of the articles on his site if you’d like more background.

Spring Break

Well technically spring break started for me yesterday at 2:30, but today is my first full day off. I’ve got some fun stuff planned for this week, but it’s a little difficult since it seems everyone has a different week off for spring break this year. I’m going to try and get all the work out of the way at the beginning of the week so the rest I can relax (and head out of town). The Jason Moran concert tonight and Sarah’s party should get it off to a nice start.

Panels Tomorrow

Just a reminder, I have two panels tomorrow, one at 10 AM in room 17AB (Blog Software Showdown) and one at 5 PM in room 15 (Open Source Infrastructure). I’ll try to record them for blogging later, but the quality will be about the same as the keynote recording.

When Kara Goldin started putting fruit in her water 10 years ago, she had no idea that she had stumbled upon a business idea that would eventually lead to the creation of a new category in the beverage industry, grow to a 40 million dollar company, and help her lose over 25 pounds in the process.

Cool interview with Kara Goldin, the founder of Hint Water, which I drink 3-4 of a day and is also an Audrey company.

Saddest Music

Jeffrey on the new Glassdog and the web. Happy ninth birthday. HTML wasn’t easy enough, and it isn’t getting any easier. Blogs aren’t anything special, they’re just a function of software that makes it easy to maintain content. Compare the usability of the top 3 blog packages with the top 3 “content management systems.” Blogging software is the simplest mechanism for “In-depth explorations of every imaginable topic.” That’s the revolution.

One Word

Derek Featherstone: One Word: ImPressive. “OK, I admit it. I’m on the WordPress bandwagon.” When did we become a bandwagon? Derek outlines several reasons why he chose WordPress, including its syntax, templates, and learnability. He has a nice clean design over there as well. Congrats and welcome to the family. 🙂

Pope Changes Rosary

From Christine: I was a little shocked when I first read this but after reading the articles I feel better about it. The Yahoo article presented the information strangely, highlighting a string of statistics and records, and I got the impression it sounded like the Pope is trying to make a name for himself.

I think the NYTimes article portrays things more accurately, and more importantly it also said what the changes would be, which I didn’t get from the first article. For more information you can go straight to the source, or here are some quotes that detail the changes

CNN—Until now the Rosary’s five joyful mysteries were recited on Mondays and Thursdays, the five sorrowful mysteries on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the five glorious mysteries on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The five new mysteries will be used on Saturdays, according to reports quoted by The Associated Press.

ABC—The rosary beads, which Catholics use to keep track of the prayers, will not change. The rosary will still consist of a cross and about 60 beads since only one set of mysteries is contemplated at a time and usually on different days of the week.

Irish Times—The Rosary developed in the Middle Ages from the Psalter of Mary, which consisted of 150 Avés (Hail Marys) said by those who did not have time to recite the psalms in full. Avés took the place of psalms and became a symbol of roses which the faithful wished to offer to Mary. This later became the Rosary.

Sante Fe—Each set of mysteries is dedicated to five particular episodes in the life of Jesus. According to the rosary Web site, the five episodes in the luminous mysteries will be the baptism in the Jordan River, the temptation in the desert, the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the transfiguration, and the triumphant entry into Jerusalem.