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my site
projects
weblogs
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2005-02-22
New Project: Okay, it will take me some time to seed some links, but I have set up a thingie called birthfilter.com for discussion of birth (& breastfeeding and whatnot) links and so forth. I haven't publicized anything yet because I haven't seeded it with enough links yet.
And even when I *do* publicize it, it will be very mutedly. Either it will catch on, or it won't. Guess I'll find out!
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rants
the net
weblogs
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2002-07-25
I seem to have caused a bit of a stir: Goodness, gracious me.
There's a metatalk thread about the policies of allowing or not allowing new users to register at metafilter.
I posted that I thought that whatever the site's policy is, it should be explicit. Apparently some people disagree. Maybe. I dunno. I don't speak for them. I speak for me. :)
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weblogs
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2002-06-11
Interesting NYTimes piece: They write about a so-called "rift" in the blogging world, heh.
I've hardly been reading any weblogs lately, since I've been so busy with real-world stuff, but this piece seemed quite interesting.
Ya know, the usual backbiting and infighting when something new is deemed to be "cool", and people argue over who is most responsible for its rise. Goodness gracious me, everyone's so quick to claim credit, aren't they?
Silly people.
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weblogs
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2002-04-05
Nother nifty blog: Lagniappe is about science, business, and culture. Lots of stuff about medicine, it looks like so far. Cool!
Here's a quote I just found that I really like:
As for the second reason, really big discoveries usually start out as an odd or irritating thing you can't explain. Many people ignore these, and that's usually the thing to do if you're trying to get something else done. But it's also the thing to do if you never want to win a Nobel. Hitting the right anomalous result, realizing it for what it is, and having the nerve and tenacity to follow up on it are the things the really great scientists do. It's what Pasteur meant by fortune favoring the prepared mind.
This one's ripe to add to my regular rotation.
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my site
weblogs
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2002-03-21
Welcome to MovableType... None of the Above has been migrated to Movabletype as of today; Horizon has been retired.
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weblogs
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2002-03-21
Nother webloggish-thing: John Scalzi's Whatever comes out a couple/few times a week, so I suppose it falls into the broad definition of "weblog". Hey, it's called "Whatever", so I can put it into whatever category I want, right? I wandered there from a discussion at metafilter about a controversial Ted Rall political cartoon (he made fun of money and attention-grubbing WTC widows). Scalzi, who's a friend of his, wrote a defense of Rall, which I thought made a lot of sense, and which I agreed with quite a bit. I read (and liked) some more of Scalzi's stuff, including his hints and tips for sending him hate mail (and an update to that advice). It seems his defense of Ted Rall pissed off quite a few people, heh.
He's also got a long piece with some utterly useless writing advice (his words - his title, in fact!) that I haven't gotten around to reading yet, but it looks interesting. So anyway, seems like a good source of more good writing. I'll add him to the left column when I get around to it.
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weblogs
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2002-02-24
I found another one:
that is, another cool weblog. This one's called onfocus and was pointed out to me by Aaron of Glob of Nubblets. Pretty moon picture if you go look there soon.
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my site
weblogs
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2002-02-18
I redid the weblog list:
In the left column there, I went through and moved some things around, deleted a few that were 404 (or that I never read), and added some new ones. Ahh, I look forward to some new juicy reading! :)
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weblogs
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2002-02-09
Yet another good one:
I happened across the weblog Synthetic Zero recently, and I like it quite a bit so far. Perhaps I should add it to my regular rotation. (Speaking of which, my list o blogs is well overdue for an edit...)
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weblogs
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2002-01-31
Far afield.
Lo, I have wandered and I have many windows open. I started with my usual read of David Chess's weblog, where he mentioned that he had happened upon a spiffy weblog called The Obvious?. I started reading there, and ended up with a whole bunch of other links which I have yet to explore (no guarantees of reading satisfaction expressed or implied). Here are my currently open windows:
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good
weblogs
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2001-08-28
I came upon this excellent weblog:
via Hack the Planet the other day, and I was just... sucked in. Sometimes that happens. First of all, there are just tons of gems of wisdom and insight embedded within, plus the thing is formatted in such an odd way that really works well. Paragraphs are all five lines long, and every line ends with the end of a sentence. Sounds bizarre, but it took me awhile to even notice, it seems so natural. Entries are sometimes webloggish (and/or journalish), and sometimes fiction written about a fascinating collection of characters the author has dreamed up. There are too many great things to quote, so I'll just spew forth some of the ones that stood out to me at the moment: Say I think of three gimmicks A, B, and C. Now what?
By themselves they seem too random to be meaningful.
Alone none of them make a story, even in a sequence.
But, then you let them find some organic interrelation.
With the right fit, they suddenly highlight each other.
Three flat ideas can turn into a gnarly web in 3D space.
...
Basically, originality is almost completely a total crock.
Even the patterns in content reorganization are the same.
Novelty is about the subtle things in idea rearrangements.
...Anything semantically complex must work with old ideas.
I mean, jeez, there is nothing new under the sun, right?
Personally, what I like most is surprise with consistency.
Following rules and finding strange places is very fun.
Go, and find your own treasures there. (Or not, if it doesn't suit you. Whatever.)
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weblogs
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2001-06-21
Well okay, more like journals:
but you get the idea: Randomly Ever After and tight science.
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weblogs
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2001-06-20
A few new (to me) weblogs:
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good
weblogs
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2001-06-07
I've been catching up:
on one of my favorite weblogs, Follow Me Here, and I've found lots of good stuff (as usual), some of which I shall note here:
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weblogs
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2001-05-03
Another one for the list:
when I get around to editing it, that is: geegaw.
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weblogs
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2001-04-04
Lo, I have been so neglectful...
But I do have a couple of new weblogs to mention, both by a fellow named Andy Roberts:
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weblogs
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2001-02-26
So who's the lucky guy?
Lily Tao of Girlhacker has announced that she's engaged. Cool! The only thing is, I'm wondering who the heck she's engaged to. She didn't mention who it was specifically. I dunno if it's obvious to the rest of the world, but I'm certainly confused. Well, good for her (and him, whoever he is) !!!
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weblogs
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2001-02-16
Nother weblog:
the null device
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good
weblogs
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2001-02-13
I edited my preferences at metafilter:
And now they have a big box where you can write a bit about your name and what it means to you, and yadda yadda yadda. So I started writing, and it turned into a bit of an essay, but I really like it. So go check it out, if you like. And if you have any comments on it, please share them in the box o doom there on the left. Thanks.
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good
weblogs
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2001-01-31
EOD is back:
That is, the weblog An Entirely Other Day. It was gone for awhile due to family emergency stuff, and I lamented its disappearance. This is the first entry from its return, explaining a bit about the hiatus. I'd quote some, but it's all good and all hangs together, so go read it. All I can say is, preach on, Brother Greg.
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random thoughts
weblogs
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2001-01-31
How big of a jerk am I?
Okay, so when I sent in my entry for my weblog to the SXSW web competition, they sent me a note saying I'd be eligible for a discounted ticket into the Interactive conference. I waited. I heard nothing. So I decided to volunteer and get a free pass instead of paying out the nose for a ticket. I signed up for FIFTY hours to get a certain kind of pass, about a week and a half ago. Then, they send me a note saying "Oh, your weblog sucks so you won't get an award, but you can get up to five tickets to the conference for a mere $135 apiece" (paraphrased). Hmm, thinks I. This would end up making my volunteer work worth something a little over two bucks an hour. Hmm. Well, you can probably imagine what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy a ticket and tell the volunteer people that I'm sorry. And I feel a bit like a jerk, but seriously it would require me to use up too darn many days off for the conference PLUS the volunteering - more vacation days than I've earned to date. Which means when I quit, my pay would be docked. Hmm, I don't like that. Plus I wouldn't have much time to schmooze and see the panels I want to see, and so on. They only recently released the specific schedules (info I didn't have when I had to sign up for specific volunteer shifts). And in a way it's their own dang fault for not telling me what kind of discount I could get *before* the volunteer call. But I know I'm just rationalizing - I *do* feel like a jerk. A bit. They have plenty of volunteers, really. It's just tough because I hate it when I duck out of things. And in this case I know several of the crew chiefs whose teams I volunteered for personally (they used to work here, and one of them still does). But I think they'll understand. Sigh. So... it looks like they're going to have some cool stuff at the conference, and I'd like to meet other webloggers & cool internet people (at the conference as well as at parties). Maybe it won't be so great, but at least I'll be able to see what it's like. And get this: Scott McCloud is going to be there. Oh, I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy! He's one of my absolute favorite authors of all time. His book Understanding Comics is absolutely stunning - every time I read it I gain another deeper level of understanding. He touches on the history of comics, semiotics, icons, panel-to-panel transitions (types, how they work, how they're used differently in Japan vs. the U.S.), and on and on. It's fabulous. And his sequel, Reinventing Comics, is great as well, as is his online work. So... if you're a person who wants to come to SXSW, and you need a cheap ticket, I might be able to help you out. If you're one of the first three persons who asks, that is. (Tickets 4 & 5 are reserved for me & a pal). Technically you'd uh, have to be part of my uh, web company or something, such as it is :). (read: very loosely organized). And I would definitely prefer you to send the money for your ticket before I have to hand over the cash to the SXSW people. I have to make the order by February 9th, so that's the drop-dead date if you're still thinking about it. Let me know, the sooner the better...
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body
good
weblogs
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2001-01-23
I'm such a slowpoke:
I contributed this story to the Lesion Legion section of almostcool.org in December, and I forgot to mention it here. Doh! Anyway, it's about this nasty dog-bite scar I got about five years ago. Go read it if you wish, I think it's pretty good. Some of the other stories were pretty interesting as well. Almostcool.org is run by Aaron, the same brilliant fellow who does the excellent Come To My Senses weblog that I like so much. He's got a bunch of other interesting stuff there, too - check it out!
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my site
rants
weblogs
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2001-01-19
Gee, I seem to have started a flamewar:
Well, the lovely lady I sent my nastygram to yesterday sent me a reply. I dare not quote even one word of it, of course, because she might sue me. She even said something about how she *could* sue me, because her law firm has an office in Texas, in the email, and then below claimed to be joking. I don't really feel like taking the risk, though. So, she also tracked down my site and my weblog, and apparently wrote about it in her weblog too. Now I'm getting nastygrams from her readers, too! Lovely. So.... #1 is from a fellow who uses the following epithets towards me and my rant (directly and obliquely): - loser
- "look like a real idiot"
- lacking credibility
- obnoxious
- lacking class
- not intelligible
- "a spoiled kid throwing a tantrum"
- pathetic
Gee, nice tone! Makes what I wrote to her look darn mild. This writer also tells me that it was not appropriate for me to bring her kid into my little rant. Heh. Ooooookay. I thought it was pretty benign, and I didn't say anything except "cute kid" in the email that I sent directly to her. She had to sleuth and find my weblog to read the other comments, which she presumably did willingly (I didn't give her the address). But anyway, we'll return to this topic later, since evidently it's okay to bring in *my mother* and the status of the cleanliness of her house into this whole thing, at least according to another of this illustrious lady's readers. #2 comes from someone who thinks that it's not the lack of Pepsi that caused me to write my rant, but rather lack of Prozac. Oh, dearie me. I hate Prozac, haven't touched the stuff in years. Zoloft is another story, but I am also weaning myself off of that at the same time as I'm reducing my caffeine level to something more reasonable. But I surmise that this person was attempting to insult me by suggesting that my mental state was not normal. Sorry, didn't work - I *know* my mental state isn't quite normal, and I'm not stigmatized by the idea of taking an SSRI. This person goes on to explain what a wonderful person the copyright lady is, and how she's done so much for people who don't want their artwork & stuff stolen from their sites. Okay, that's great! Good for all of ya. Nothing wrong with that. I don't really see how that has anything to do with me being annoyed with the attitude expressed in her forbidding even "imitation" of anything at her site(s), though. I saw something that annoyed me, and I told the source why I felt it seemed unreasonable and unfriendly to me, and why I wouldn't visit her sites in the future. But apparently this makes me some kind of demon worthy of any kind of insult that people care to sling at me. Let us continue with more of #2. I am accused of jealousy (uh, in yer dreams), of attacking her "out of the blue" (um, isn't any feedback on any website, positive or negative, from "out of the blue" by definition unless you already know the person?) (and isn't this author's email attacking *ME* "out of the blue"?), and a suggestion is made that I may be in for "tons" of email defending the copyright lady. I'm sure my employer will be happy with the stress on the email system if it really amounts to "tons" (since bits don't weigh anything, how many messages is that, anyway?). I would just like to suggest that sending me "tons" of mail at my work address is something that is likely to make IBM upset. At you. So I would suggest using one of my other addresses. I'm also told that I'm missing out on her lovely websites (okay, whatever, somehow I'll get over it by reading the other billion or so pages on the web), that I'm a sad individual (this is true sometimes - I do suffer from blue moods at times, don't we all?), I should be ashamed of myself, and I have "no heart, no shame and certainly no conscience". The icing on the cake is that this person then chastises me for even *mentioning* her son. This is quite ironic, given the "p.s." to the message, wherein the author proceeds to deride me for the appearance of the room in one of the pictures on my site. It is suggested that I clean up the house before taking pictures, that there's "crap" all over the place, and other comments including apparent incredulous horror that there are liquor bottles on the mantle, and so on. That's my mother's house. It was messy because she's been dealing with breast cancer for the past couple of years - chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, the works. She didn't have the strength to tidy things up to someone else's arbitrary specifications, especially when they're just looking for something to insult. You talk about stooping low, about inappropriate attacks? I call this *way* out of line. I'd like to see the status of the house of the person who wrote me this after *she* had a horrible, debilitating, years-long fight against cancer, and ended up so weak for a time that she couldn't even retrieve her own mail. No, that's not true. I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, even someone who was rude to me. I would just hope that she would realize how out of line those comments were. And how they didn't succeed - you didn't make me feel bad, you just made me realize how uncool people can be when they're looking for *anything* to insult someone about. Personally, I think this is worse than my nastygram, but I figure each person can decide for themselves. Oh yeah, and those *are* liquor bottles on the mantle. It's wine, given as a gift to my mother. I fail to see how it's worthy of derision for any reason. Maybe I'm just stupid? I never thought the choice of where I stood when I asked my mother to take that pic of me would have such ramifications... heh, what a crazy world we live in. Let's move on to message #3... in which I am called "moronic", and offered this highly ironic advice: Didn't anyone ever tell you that sometimes it is best to just hit the back button if you see something on a website that you don't like? Advice which apparently does not apply to the author of this missive. I am also called "a very unhappy person" (which is true sometimes), and this person seems to think I put the nastygram up on my weblog "proudly...like a badge", and that this is "mentally sick". Uh, I put up all kinds of stuff here, whatever's going on in my life, what I think, see, etc. Some of it I'm genuinely proud of, but other stuff is just stuff, and I don't typically make a clear distinction between the two. Interpretation is left up to the reader. And further on: Also, you wrote that you hope that her baby learns how to share. That is the one that really made me want to hurl. That's right, *how dare I* hope that someone's child learn how to share - what a horrible monstrous person I am to even *think* such a thing, and write it down no less, where people can actually *read* it! If I were truly possessing a black heart, I might also state that it would be nice for any given child to grow up to be generous, or kind-hearted, or loving, or healthy, or smart. But I dare not, for fear of the Hell that would be unleashed by such clear violations of What Is Right. The next bit of the letter is: Listen, smartass, you should worry about how your own little girl is going to turn out, especially with a person like you for a mother. Oh my. For the record, I worry each and every day how she's going to turn out. That's part of my job as her mother - to continually worry and consider and make choices and watch carefully to see how she's doing, adjusting what I do as appropriate to keep her on the right course. Apparently this person thinks I am likely not to be a very good mother - this is my interpretation of these words. Well, history will tell, won't it? Personally, I think I do a rather good job, overall, though I certainly have my bad days, my days of little patience, and times when I am just not sure what to do. It's a tough job. The letter concludes with a request for me to "get a life". No thanks, already got one! That's it for now. Anyway, you get the idea of how people will react to such a thing. I confess I am surprised, though not very. What I find almost amusing is the level of hypocrisy - I am decried for daring to have a difference of opinion and expressing it in a snide, snotty way (I freely admit to this attitude), and the decriers proceed to level bitter personal attacks against me for my crime, far worse than anything *I* did when I suggested that I hoped the copyright lady's son would learn to share when he grew up (unlike his mommy). But so it is. Make up your mind yourself - am I a cretinous lunatic bitch? Or am I a person who expresses her opinion and who is sometimes snotty, especially when I'm withdrawing from caffeine? And please, please, pretty please - don't email this lady. Cause it will all come down on *my* head, probably, and I've already got enough email to deal with as it is. Unless of course you think that she's wonderful and I'm a mentally defective loser, in which case I think she'd probably be glad to get your message, so go for it.
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weblogs
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2001-01-18
Yet more weblogs:
I'm wandering far afield today.
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weblogs
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2001-01-10
Some more weblogs:
I came across these recently:
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weblogs
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2000-12-14
Weblog = format:
I just made this entry at metafilter: I like the idea that the definition of "weblog" is of a *format*, and doesn't imply anything about the content. At least, it makes the most useful sense to me that way. It's somewhat futile to attempt to put weblogs into categories or classifications of "type", since there will always be some that will cross any boundaries that you try to put up. Of course, there *are* various weblogs out there that specifically declare themselves to be of a certain type (such as news, personal, journal, or interesting links), and follow their own definitions with great fidelity. But that's the point - they define *themselves* as being "of a type" (well, the authors do the defining). It's not something you can impose from outside. You can attempt a crude description for your own classification purposes, but that's about as far as you'll get. And there will always be folks like me, whose weblog entries change character by the day, if not the hour or even the minute. It all depends on what I feel like writing about at a given moment. Or, another way of putting it is: I never add an entry to the same type of weblog twice.
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weblogs
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2000-12-13
It's been a while:
since I blogged another weblog, but here's one. It's called Hack the Planet, and the guy lives in Austin. Spiffo...
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my site
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2000-12-08
As the Brady Bunch sing:
"When it's time to change, you've got to re-ar-range!" That is, I have rearranged my list of weblogs in the left-hand column, placing my more favorite ones further up, and my less favorite or often-viewed ones further down. Please, don't anyone get your feelings hurt or anything. They are not in strict most-fave to least-fave order, just in general zones of favoriteness. Frankly, my opinion on what's my favorite changes from day to day and even hour to hour, so it can only ever be a rough approximation anyway. I also made a separate section for discussion sites, since they have the whole discussion paradigm in common and it made sense to me.
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weblogs
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2000-10-16
Weblogs are...
Weblogs are a grown-up version of Show and Tell. -Me
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weblogs
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2000-10-05
Added a few more weblogs:
To the other weblogs list at the left, starting with Plurp (very good, an associate of and recommended by David Chess).
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weblogs
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2000-09-22
5 weblogs by one guy:
David Gentle has not one but several weblogs, which I don't have time to read right now but I want to check into later.
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weblogs
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2000-09-18
I like this:
Slumberland. It's a weblog.
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weblogs
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2000-09-11
Darwinism, determinism, and sex differences:
from a biologist, via Genehack. Pretty nifty.'Genetic determinism' fosters the notion that, if genes are part of the causal process, then in order to change outcomes you've got to tweak the genes -- you've got to alter that one particular cause. That's a very odd idea. There's no reason why you can't intervene at any part of the causal process, no reason why genes should take precedence....Post-modernism and its stable-mates -- they're obviously all complete balderdash, not to be taken seriously intellectually. But as a social scourge they have to be taken very seriously.
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weblogs
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2000-09-08
Yet another good one:
I hadn't previously read glassdog, but I like it.
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weblogs
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2000-09-07
A very nice piece on weblogs:
Which I found the link to on David Chess's weblog. I haven't read her stuff before, but I now want to check out the rest of her site, given the quality of this piece she wrote: weblogs: a history and perspective.In this quoted bit, she writes about what happens to a weblogger: As he enunciates his opinions daily, this new awareness of his inner life may develop into a trust in his own perspective. His own reactions--to a poem, to other people, and, yes, to the media--will carry more weight with him. Accustomed to expressing his thoughts on his website, he will be able to more fully articulate his opinions to himself and others. He will become impatient with waiting to see what others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with his inner voice instead. Ideally, he will become less reflexive and more reflective, and find his own opinions and ideas worthy of serious consideration.
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family
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2000-09-06
David Chess is back from vacation:
And I'm really glad, because I was missing his weblog. I think I would have to say that it's my favorite, or way up there, at any rate. In his new material, he linked to this sheet he wrote, in which he wonders about the idea that childhood is perhaps Really What It's All About: I'm coming gradually to think, or to feel, that children are basically it. That the important part of what humanity does is what it does, what it is, when it is children. That once you're, say, 16 or 18 years old, you're done with the important part, and now you're just part of the infrastructure, doing law enforcement and writing and technology and health-care and bricklaying and procreation so that the next generation of the important people, the children, will have a good time. Fascinating concept, maybe he's onto something?
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humor
weblogs
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2000-09-06
Torrez made me laugh today:
I like his honesty piece. Perhaps I should write one of my own? Hmmm. It would be an interesting exercise, wouldn't it? Which reminds me, I need to do an About page.
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weblogs
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2000-08-30
Yet another one:
Lo, It's frytopia.
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weblogs
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2000-08-30
Yet another one I like:
sevencrabrangoon. Especially (DEAD LINK) this entry and (DEAD LINK) this entry. Oh yeah, and (DEAD LINK) this one too. There is something more noble out there than marketing. Marketing should be called what it really is. It's not about matching up buyers with sellers, or making my life more efficient. It's about lying. A con game. Getting people to buy crappy shit they don't need. There has got to be something more. There has to be. I need to believe in it. Something that remains pure and un-co-opted.
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weblogs
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2000-08-30
I like this one:
So I will add the Torrez.org weblog to the list of ones I read a lot. So there.
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weblogs
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2000-08-25
Looks like a good weblog:
But of course I'll have to read more to decide how often I want to read it: caterina.net.
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weblogs
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2000-07-28
Weblog quality:
Daniel and I were talking about what annoys and gratifies in the realm of weblog links, and he came up with a pithy summary (when I whined about how I hate links/entries where there's no context): "The text of a weblog entry should convey its information with or without the actual link. The link should provide greater detail, not the only detail." Yeah, what he said! I will continue to avoid weblogs that bug me, and partake of those that I find have value whether or not I choose to follow the link (and which give me enough information to make a decent decision about whether or not following the link is worth my while). The trouble is that some, like metafilter, are a hodge-podge mix of good entries and terrible ones. Oh well.
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