Damn!

We found a house we really wanted and somebody outbid us at the last minute. Oh well, back to the drawing board. So to speak.

The Children Are The Future

A high-frequency sound emitting device called The Mosquito is a freakish new invention designed to annoy teenagers.

The device, called the Mosquito ("It's small and annoying," Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.

The results were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenage spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one.

Umm, Yes I Can Hear You Now

These things are huge! We hiked around Año Nuevo this morning and got up close and personal with wild multi-ton elephant seals. Yikes!

House Hunting

I've got this week off work so we've been house hunting. We're looking in the Berkeley area and including cities and towns that Berkeley borders. Surprisingly we found a really affordable little house near a BART station that's in great condition. It's small so it's more like an apartment with a yard but still--it's a house! I could actually walk around in white loafers and pretend I'm Bob Vila circa 1980 and talk about which walls need to come out and what kind of caulking to use around the tub.

Xanga, Google, Odeo

I work at some funny-sounding companies. Maybe it's because my name is Biz.

Updated BlogThis!

Blogger updated BlogThis! today. Nice!

Finally

Amazon Hosting Author Blogs

PlayAway: Digital Self-Playing Audio Books

These self-playing audio books are weird and interesting. I spotted them in Borders a few days ago. It seems crazy to folks who have ipods but I could see lots of people buying these if they are priced right.

TIME: Best Television Series of 2005

TIME picks Battlestar Galactica as best of 2005: "Most of you probably think this entry has got to be a joke. The rest of you have actually watched the show. " This show is damn good. I watched every episode. Little things like the way the spaceships look like they were actually photographed in the wild with the camera struggling to keep them in frame and detailed subplots that are really the whole point of the show. Good stuff.

Ringtones Everywhere

(If you show up at someone's house, ring their doorbell, and hear a midi version of "Who Let The Dogs Out," then you can blame me for posting this idea.)

The ringtone industry is huge. People love their ringtones. So why not make them work on even more stuff than just phones? There's lots of stuff that makes little noises or chimes that could instead play ringtones.

Things That Could Play Ringtones

• Doorbell
• Alarm Clock
• Kitchen Timer
• Microwave
• Toaster Oven
• Non-Mobile Phone
• Washer
• Dryer
• Car Horn
• Seat Belt Alert

Some of those ideas are crazy but I'll bet a toaster oven or kitchen timer would stand out from the pack if it could play a ringtone. And it would good for a laugh if "Crash Into Me" started playing to remind folks to buckle up when they got into my Toyota.

MakeZine.com: More from Dean Kamen

Kamen on dropping out of college: "I think that school systems are really good at telling people how to do 'okay' in the world. That is what their curriculum is about. That is what their institutional capability is about. That is what the people who run them are about."

Hello?

"Yes, we have no bananas."

Another List of Ten Items from Ev

Evhead: The Social Media Top 10. Top tens are going off!

Wikipedia Entry for Xanga

"Xanga is a Web site that provides users with weblog or 'blog' hosting. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc., and is based in New York City, USA. Users of Xanga are referred to as 'Xangans'. With over 31 million worldwide users, it is one of the most popular online blogging sites. As of 20 December 2005, Alexa Internet rated Xanga the 20th most popular English-language website, and the 41st most popular website in the world."

Commuter Bike—That's What I Want

This is the kind of bike I want to get. I have a bike now but I'm not pleased with it. If I got something like this or even this very one (the limited edition tangerine color is pretty cool) it would fit in the apartment better, fit on public transportation easier, and it would be good for teaching Livia how to ride a bike. (She never learned. Crazy!)

Santa Blogger

Its All About the Hamiltons

Google Answers: How much did Yahoo pay for del.icio.us? (Via del.icio.us/case)

Wikipedia: Editing He-Man

Via del.icio.us/mathowie.

Hello-deo

Bad quality sound 'cause I'm using my built in laptop mic from the couch but who gives. It's casual.

Kayaking

We had scheduled for this morning a five-hour kayaking lesson in Half Moon Bay but when we showed up at 9am we discovered that our instructor had skipped town and was currently on a bender in Mexico. We'll have to reschedule the lesson but we ended up getting out on the water anyway. The guy in charge let us take a different kind of kayak out on the bay and we paddled around for an hour or so. It was fun.

He Invented the World Wide Web

Tim Berners-Lee: "So this is for all the people who have been saying I ought to have a blog."

Dial M for Mobile

The new m.gmail.com means I can do my email from my treo which is great when I'm on the caltrain. I'll add that to my Yahoo! News and Bloglines Mobile. If only there were an m.blogger.com, then I'd be all set. Although, I could use mail-to-blogger. Ideally, I'd just have a blogthis! on my phone.

See What People Are Saying About Any Web Page

Blogger Web Comments for Firefox: "Blogger Web Comments for Firefox is an extension that makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about a page you're viewing in Firefox and even make your own blog post about it, all without leaving the page you're on. "

I should have titled this post "See What Bloggers Are Saying About Any Web Page." It's interesting to note that this isn't just called "Google Web Comments." I mean, it doesn't have to be *just* from blogs but it certainly works that way.

Galactic Headquarters: New Mexico, USA

Virgin Galactic: "At press conferences in London and New Mexico, officials from Virgin Galactic and from the State of New Mexico announced that they had reached an historic agreement which will see the building of a $200m spaceport in the southern part of the state on a 27 square mile area of state land."

Dunstan, Beware

Dunstan is not quite sure of my strange American ways. It would not have been cool for me remove his still-beating heart at such a fancy vegan restaurant so I backed off.

Jack and Crystal

We had our Odeo company party in the back room of Millennium last night and a good time was had by all.

Here's to our future selves.

Shh—It's A Secret

Through mysterious means I somehow acquired into my own personal possession one copy of the Post Secret art book and it's way nicer than I expected.

It's a beautiful hardcover and the layouts are strikingly bold in such a way that the artwork really comes alive. The blog is great but it's nice to have this ink-on-paper artifact to leaf through with a cup of coffee. Reminds me of that Chip Kidd Batman book I used to have. Whatever happened to that?

A list of online games.

Screwed

Oh man, I got screwed by llor.nu. Last night I had $20k and a fancy hotel. Just now I logged in to see how much cash my hotel earned me overnight and I'm down to $5k and no hotel. What happened? Oh, wait. It says my name is John. Maybe if I walk away now and give it some time things will settle.

Manage Your OPML File

Opmlmanager.com: "Opmlmanager is an online webservice that makes maintaining your own opml-file very easy. This opml-file can be a file that is part of a distributed directory, like the ipodder directory, a subscriptionlist, a readinglist, a file you use for taskable.com, etc."

Yahoo Acquires Del.icio.us

del.icio.us: y.ah.oo!

Genna's Debut

My friend Genna's writing debut on HOPE and FAITH will air this Tuesday, Dec. 13th at 8:30pm on ABC. She's really funny so even if you've never heard of that show, you should TiVo it or find a way to check it out.

Festive AdWords sidebar seperator

Donald Watson, founder of veganism, RIP.

A Christmas Gory

The Onion

Rest Of U2 Perfectly Fine With Africans Starving

Scripting News: 12/7/2005

Dave stumbled across photos of the Palo Alto riot that I found myself in the midst of while walking my dog this summer. It was a "take back the streets" rally gone wrong.

Researchers Discover That Dogs Laugh

ABC News: Sounds of Dog's 'Laugh' Calms Other Pooches: "They say the long, loud pant is the sound of a dog laughing, and it has a direct impact on the behavior of other dogs."

Xanga History via Internet Archive

• November 1999: "We are currently testing the alpha launch of our product." (Let's launch a web company!)
• March 2000: "Home Portals allow you to manage, review, and publish your weblinks online." (Home Portal? Eew!)
• August 2000: "Xanga is the easiest way to build an affiliate store." (WTF!?)
• October 2000: "Publish reviews of your favorite products, links, and news articles." (Self publishing is mad fun.)
• January 2001: "It's called Weblogging, and you're going to love it." (That's the ticket!)
• December 2005: "Xanga is a community of online diaries and journals." (More than 21 million strong.)

Firefly Mobile

The Mobile Phone for Mobile Kids: "The fun, glowing phone designed from a kid's point-of-view. With just 5 keys, Firefly phones keep kids conected to the people who matter most. With lights, sounds, colors, and animation, Firefly phones keep it fun."

CSS Technique for creating worn looking type.

The New Odeo

We just launched the new Odeo site which includes free Create tools for everyone. Here's the official Odeo Blog post, a welcome message to new users, and a podcast by Noah, Ev, and myself.

We're super jazzed about this release because Odeo is really starting to take shape now. Easy audio recording together with casual privacy is good stuff.

Mini Pre-Fab

Modern Shed is a new kind of outdoor room.