Saddest Music

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

Personal

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. 🙂

New Feedster

Apple

The new Feedster is out and seems to be a world better in terms of speed and reliability. The new system is certainly influenced by Technorati (or is it vice versa? I don’t know.) in everything from “claiming” blogs down to the waiting image. They’ve got some neat services. You can read Scott’s entry on the launch, complete with a picture of a cat. Looks good, but that is the most horrid permalink I have ever seen on a blog. Is that s9y default? Update: And thank goodness they took the beta label off! I hope this is a trend. Update 2: It doesn’t play with IE 5 Mac though.

Pope Changes Rosary

Personal

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.

Andrew Nacin, lead developer of WordPress, just finished a talk at Loopconf, where he talked about a series of related WordPress security fixes that spanned two years, with the final fix included into WordPress core under the guise of Emoji support.

Post Status has a good look at some of the really deep security work that has been going on in WordPress lately. There will always be more problems, but we’re getting to the point where the problems (and the fixes) are often quite subtle.