Yeah, a straight-up ego/vanity post. I’m off from work today, the first day of a five-day weekend. How’s everyone else’s day going? :)
Category: Blogging
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Happy birthday to me!
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Why I’ll never be an A-list blogger…
At least according to this Newsweek article on the subject:
In order to crack into the upper strata, you have to post frequently to stay on the fickle radar of this ADD-infested crowd. You have to link prodigiously to other blogs, increasing your profile and increasing the chances for inbound links. And you must hold strong opinions about what you’re writing about—passion is required in a good blog.
Heh.
Interesting article, if a little odd-sided and basic. More interesting to me is that it’s an honest acknowledgement of the dichotomy between the “haves” and the “have-nots” of the blogging world: all too often I’ve seen many of these same A-listers deny there is any such hierarchy. That’s bullshit, of course. I hardly need to point that out. I’ve never been able to figure out why they do that, though.
And what’s up with this?
“If you’re into blogs to make money, you’re into it for the wrong reasons,” says Searls. “Do you ask your back porch what its business plan is?”
Not only does this notion seem quaintly naive, I have to wonder why Doc Searls—of all people, given his background as one of the original Cluetrain authors—is dictating the reasons for people to be blogging. Jeez, get off the high horse. If someone’s into blogs to make money, that’s as legitimate as someone who’s blogging their lives for a few family and friends.
(And speaking of Cluetrain, I’ve got to get this off my chest: I recently read The Cluetrain Manifesto, and while I generally found the core ideas and first couple of essays to be good, mostly it’s overrated. Blasphemy! Yes, overrated; one of the things that really bugged me about the last half is that none of it seemed relevant to, well, the real world, and instead just came off as another business book where the rich guys are preaching their brand of success to that percentage of the upper middle class who are office workers for some big corporation.)
Anyway, the article was via Scoble. Let’s see if I get some link love!
:)
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Cartoon skeletons
This is cool yet random and kind of freaky at the same time: Skeletal Systems of Cartoon Characters.
Animation was the format of choice for children’s television in the 1960s, a decade in which children’s programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.
I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.
I like Charlie Brown’s skeleton a lot, but nothing there is quite as alien and disturbing as Buttercup’s (the Powerpuff Girl) skeleton. And this is cool: “Twenty-two of these are currently on show at Stumptown Coffee/Belmont in Portland, Oregon the month of December 2004.” I wish I had time to see them since we’re in Portland right now, but oh well.
Via Boing Boing.
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Book on blogging via blogs…
Now this is interesting… Robert Scoble announces he’s writing a book on blogging… all on a blog. Well, to be fair, he’s co-writing it, but his plans are, write the book online, on a blog, and then sell the publishing rights on ebay. Wow.
Q: Why should I buy the book if the entire thing is going to be done online?
A: Easy. You shouldn’t. But you should tell your friends to buy it. We’re figuring that for every blog reader there are three friends out there who don’t know anything about blogs and don’t want to read a book on a computer screen. So, if we give away 100,000 copies (not an unreasonable number because we had more that many show up on Channel 9 in just the first two days in business and Firefox has given away, what, seven million copies of Firefox so far in just a few weeks) that we’ll get a few sales from your friends. So, the people who help us write the book and hype it up get it for free, but their friends have to pay. Plus, if the book is actually good maybe some of you will want it on your bookshelves to show you support good stuff.
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Clusterballoon
This is too insane not to link to: Ballooning into the Sky. This guy actually ties himself to a bunch of balloons and flies around. I smell a Darwin award!
Via Slashdot.
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Pink Powdered Soap
I was thinking last night (during our blogger thing at McMenamins) that if McMenamins really wants to capture the feel of a school, they should fill the soap dispensers in the bathrooms with that pink powdered soap I remember using in grade school.
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Bloggers at McMenamins
Looks like this Thursday the 18th will be the next Bend/Central Oregon Bloggers get-together, at the new McMenamins Grand Opening at the Old St. Francis School. We (my wife will be joining us this time) should be there sometime between six and seven o’clock, but I don’t know where we’ll be meeting anybody, as it might be kind of crazy.
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One
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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First snow of the season
Just looked out the window here at work and saw that it’s snowing. As far as I know, this marks the first snow of the season for Bend.
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No, I’m not dead
I guess I’d better blog something before people think I’m dead. Well, not totally: I’ve been posting to The Brew Site, so it’s not a total wash.
So let’s see, what to blog about… this looks interesting: National Novel Writing Month. Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I’ve almost half toyed with the idea of doing this. Almost.
Quick post over! Nothing more to see here. Move on about your business…