From Blog to Book

BlogBinders wants to help you turn your blog into a bound book. Nice idea. I wonder if anyone has tried it yet?

Ev's Roof

I got to ride in an elevator and everything today when we had brunch at Ev and Sara's. And there was soymilk and computers and a special padded room that they let me go in—the mirror in that room opens to a secret dimension of darkness; which is scary.

Miles Jay Shellen, Entrepreneur

Congratulations are in order for the Shellen clan who have employed the age-old tactic of giving their baby a rich-man's name as a way of guaranteeing success. Good work!

Don't Feel So Good

I'm sick today and I had the good sense to work from home. It's the kind of sick when your spine, skin, and hair feels creepy and yucky. However, I have confidence that I will defeat the sickness over the weekend.

You've Been Flickr'd

I Flickr'd Finck while on stage at The Blog Business Summit. Some would call that rude. Others would be celebrating the fact that they associated themselves with me and didn't have their reputation permanently tarnished.

A9 YP IS OK

Amazon's Yellow Pages which I've never really used before is now unbelievably cool. They compiled a huge index of street level photos by mounting digital cameras on trucks and hooking them up to GPS. So let's say you want to find a dentist in San Francisco. Look that up on Amazon and then see a picture of the front of the building. That's my dentist and I'm going there today. Seeing what the place looks like makes a huge difference.

Now maybe Craigslist will start hooking into this for their apartment listings—that would make things a lot easier.

Blog Business Summit

I've been to BlogOn, a Jupiter Media Weblog thing, and a couple of BloggerCons but this blogging conference was the best of them. There were a few things that went askew, but hey, I was there.

Seriously

Jen Garrett on men who wear fanny packs:

Either use a man purse, carry less crap, or get a girlfriend.

I'll add one more alternative which is pretty much what I do. Wear a rumpled, Columbo-style raincoat with lots of pockets no matter how hot it is. You'll be uncomfortable (and look bad) but at least you're not wearing a fanny pack. My friend Steve carries around a 35mm camera case—filled with everything but a camera. It's a faux man-purse. That's tricky.

Alas, Alias

My friend Greg is directing one of my most favorite-ist shows, Alias, this week. However, I am heading to Seattle tomorrow which is in the wrong direction as far as a visit to the set is concerned. Nevertheless, I have a plan. I will simply pretend that my trip to Seattle is some kind of top-secret mission involving microfiche and exotic hairpieces. If you must know, I'm heading to Seattle for a Blogging Summit—but that doesn't mean potential danger isn't looming around every corner. I may trip, cramp up, or my soup could be too hot for my liking. Too hot I say! You just never know, that is what I'm trying to convey. There is danger everywhere. Danger and intrigue.

This Is Snowboarding

Snowboarding all day yesterday gave me an excellent chance to reaquaint myself with snow—intimately.

What A Week

This week is a big conference and I'm attending some of it. Then, on Thursday morning I'm heading up to Tahoe for some snowboarding. Do I snowboard? I did last year. This time, I am aware in advance that in order to get to the top of the mountain I am required to ride in a willy-wonka style trolly car to the sky. I have prepared the necessary preparations. And yes, I am bringing lots of sandwiches in case I end up trapped in ravine.

Update #1: I just made four sandwiches and wrapped them in foil.

Update #2: Speaking of sandwiches, what's with this?

Blogging The System

According to this news article, bloggers in Iran are not just being blocked from their blogging services of choice but also arrested and tortured.

"Their arrest was publicized," she added. "Everybody knew about it. And then they came out. They had their lamentations, their statements of regret."

But, Ms. Farhi says, the released prisoners told a former vice-president, who is a blogger, that authorities tortured them.

I knew blogspot was being blocked in Iran and China but I didn't know Iranian authorities were arresting bloggers. I think they will be unpleasantly surprised when they discover this only creates more blogs, more blogging services, and more political ranting from an unhappy public.

A Little Break

Keeping your servers in a weightless environment makes web services fast as well as "hip." It's not cheap though. So upgrade to Flickr Pro while it's still 30% off. They're gonna jack that price way up when the first cylon attack ravages their space-based colo facility.

Sneaking into The Future

During a three hour conversation with a friend back east today I said something like "How about those Titan photos?" He didn't know what I was talking about and it occured to me that lots of people probably don't even know about the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan. What I'm trying to say here folks is that we can look at photos from an alien world. That's pretty futuristic.

Yeah, I know it's only a moon and not technically a world but try telling that to the giant methane-drinking humaphants who live there. For those of you who are not scientifically in-the-know, a humaphant is a giant human-like elephant type creature with lots of blubber that lives on very cold moon worlds near Saturn. Come on people, read the news.

Zak

The New York Times > Scenes From a Space Thriller: "Zak Miller, 12, watched with rapt attention. His mother, Dawn Miller, had awakened the family at 3:45 a.m. to drive in from Maywood, N.J. 'He's planning on becoming a theoretical astrophysicist,' she said. 'This is like, his thing.'

Zak couldn't get enough of the images. 'This is the first time we've ever managed to see the surface of Titan,' he said, but refused to jump to conclusions. 'I observe the data, understand it and then think about what it might be,' he said. His analysis would probably be complete, he noted, by the time he got home."

Now Shipping

Google Mini: "The Google Mini can provide search for up to 50,000 documents, and it supports over 220 different file types. The price includes 1 year of full customer support, software updates, and replacement coverage." Order a few up from the Google Store and tell them Biz Stone sent you.

Found

Look at Me is a collection of found photos that were either lost, forgotten, or thrown away. The images are now nameless without connection to the people they show, or the photographer who took them.

Ballots in Iraq Are Being Sold

Baghdad Burning: "Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold."

Macworld 2005 Blogger Lunch

Here's a picture of me sitting next to Anil Dash having lunch yesterday. I am so white that Jay Allen could not capture my image. That's pretty white.

Go See Genna!

My friend Genna wrote and stars in A Touch of Vegas: "Trudy Lee is a perennially perky belter and former Barbizon model with big hair and an even bigger personality. Mustachioed Trent is the flamboyantly foppish man with whom Trudy shares a non-consummated monogamous Christian-based love." The funny starts January 20 at Dominion NY Lounge & Theatre on 428 Lafayette Street in Manhattan. Go see the show and laugh your deal off!

Macworld 2005

I took some time out of work today to see Steve Jobs' keynote and saw him introduce the new Mac Mini, the iPod Shuffle, and a whole bunch of new software. Afterwards I joked around with Robin Williams—we made fun of the president of Sony Corp (the poor sap) and then I went to a blogger's lunch. I want me one of them $99 iPods! Good stuff.

Using My Camphone on The 101

I won an essay contest in fifth grade. It was about bicycle safety. As you can see from this photo, I have obviously grown reckless. At lease I wasn't audioblogging again.

Homework

This Waterstone's employee recently got blog-canned. Folks, this sort of thing is getting out of hand. Sure, there's this: The Bloggers' Rights Blog. But there's also this: How Not To Get Fired Because of Your Blog. For more reading on this subject please refer to Chapter Two of my new book, Who Let the Blogs Out?—specifically the section beginning on page 83 titled: Blogging off the Company Pier.

Livy's Shoes

I took this picture of Livy's shoes (with her feet inside 'em) at Golden Gate Park last summer. I like it.

Another Memo

Due to overwhelming demand People's Weekly World Newspaper Online is temporarily only serving the following article: Memo reveals Bush OKd torture.

A Gift

Grant Shellen made some music and posted it on his blog. My favorite one of these three is 121404. You know how the beginning part of a song gets you all psyched up to hear the rest? 121404 is like that the whole way through. Here's a link to the mp3: 121404.

Luminescent Strip

This is some kind of fancy art exhibit that Caterina went to. It looks like futuristic typography. (People in the future are mad sophisticated.)

Six Apart to buy Live Journal

There doesn't seem to be any official statement yet but Om Malik says Six Apart is buying Live Journal in a mix of stock and cash. That's sounds like some splashy news in the blogosphere!

Our Clocks Work

Jen Garrett is scrooging out on the New Year: "Let's face it: It's the worst, most suckiest, utterly ridiculous half-second holiday we have. What the hell are we celebrating? Yay, our clocks work and managed to once again to mark midnight?" Can she ba-humbug an entire decade? Are we allowed to do that?

Investigative

Jason Kottke has a mole deep inside Google that he is using to bring down 60 Minutes! He says he knows of someone who works here who bought a Porsche. I know about someone here who has a Toyota station wagon with a big rusty dent on the passenger side from when his girlfriend tried to park in the garage and also no more washer fluid left in the squirty thingy that he uses to clean the windsheild—but I can't reveal my sources.

Macworld Blogger Lunch

Nice, Shellen made some lunch plans for us. Let's do this thing.

The Face of Blogger Support

Mai took a picture of her tv because a bunch of Googlers (many of them on the Blogger team) were on 60 Minutes last night. I worked from home that day but as you can see from this screen capture, the CBS camera man was sitting in my chair.

Chilled Pippie

Pippie went in the fridge. That wacky cat.

Preshrunk - A Blog About T-Shirts

Preshrunk: "Hey kids! Welcome to Preshrunk. Preshrunk is a weblog that has a fascination with t-shirts and hoodies. If it covers your torso, we'll probably cover it." Dude. Nice.

Chinese Cars

Reuters.com: "Their goal, together with state-owned Chinese partner Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., is to import up to 250,000 Chinese-made cars annually beginning in 2007, the report said."

Curried Away

Curry may keep Alzheimer's at bay: "A spice used for thousands of years, curry, may be a powerful new weapon in fighting Alzheimer's Disease, researchers said." Turmeric (Curcuma longa, also known as tumeric or curcumin) is more effective in stopping the protein fragments that mess you up. Nice, I love curry.