Over at Scripting News, Dave Winer notes, “Congratulations, you made it to the shortest day of the year. They all get longer from this point on.”
Archive | Personal
The occasional personal note
Derek Slater, CopyFighter
Joho the Blog posts “[Berkman] Derek Slater. Derek, the first Student Fellow at the Berkman Center, is giving a lunch time talk. He’s leaving next month to work for the EFF.org. He’s going to talk about the study he just released, written with Mike McGuire of the Gartner Group. The key findings: 1. People like talking about the music they listen to. They want to make recommendations, sometimes by sharing the music. 2. We should embrace consumers wanting to share their tastes in these ways because it’s good for both business and culture. But (Derek says) we shouldn’t think of music sharing only as the sharing of…
Thank a veteran today
A few months ago, I was chatting with a buddy about my military service. Out of the blue, “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for serving.” I’d never heard it put so well. Thank a veteran today.
EU Says No To Software Patents
Slashdot reports EU Says No To Software Patents. “Moggie68 writes “European parliament has struck down the proposal for a directive that would have brought US-style software patents into EU.”
This sounds good. From my layman’s point of view, I think patents are not healthy in the software industry. Others disagree, and I’ll try to dig up some links to post here, comments I’ve seen that patents may in fact be to the advantage of Open Source. At the least, this is a rejection of a proposal that the European Parliament legal subcommittee had rejected, and was mired in parliamentary moves to resurrect. Let’s hope that the EU can find a rational and legitimate way to choose patents or not, and not a means as slipshod as that used here.
How about signing your credit card "Help I’ve been abducted by aliens!"
(Fun Stuff) Credit Card fun. Do they really look at your signature? One fellow’s research into variations. Link from Hentzenwerke Intergalactic
Wind Chill of fifty degrees below zero!
WIND CHILL WARNING – Merrimack (New Hampshire). …THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS ISSUED A WIND CHILL WARNING FOR ALL OF WEASTERN AND SOUTHERN MAINE AND ALL BUT SOUTHWEST NEW HAMPSHIRE TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY…
Issued At: 2004-01-13T08:35:00
Expired At: 2004-01-13T16:00:00
Issuing Weather Forecast Office Homepage: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/gyx/ [New Hampshire: Current Watches, Warnings and Advisories for New Hampshire Issued by the National Weather Service]
THE COMBINATION OF STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS AND WELL BELOW ZERO TEMPERATURES WILL ALLOW WIND CHILLS TO FALL TO EXTREMELY DANGEROUS VALUES OF 30 TO 50 BELOW ZERO BY LATER TONIGHT AND CONTINUE THROUGH WEDNESDAY.
Ow! Stay warm, folks!
Fight clutter: store it better — or throw it away!
Michelle Slatalla writes a great column at the [New York Times: Technology page on Clutter Combat: Containing the Enemy. “Enough containers are available on the Web to help tame the clutter in any closet.”
There is, however, another solution. With support and encouragement from Laura, I’ve spent the past month cleaning out all of the cruft that accumulated in an old office, in preparation for moving in with new furniture and a new iMac. While it was challenging at first, and there’s still a small ton of paper to shred (I can’t believe how many pieces of paper have my SSN on them!), major progress has been made, and the place is actually looking pretty good!