Posts have been kind of slow here of late, for a variety of reasons. A busy private and work life has been a big part. But another is the Google Reader "Share This" capability, which in turn feeds the "Unblogged Bits" sidebar here. A lot of stuff that's kind of interesting, but that I don't have any explicit comment on, ends up over there.

I might start changing that a bit. It's been kind of a lazy crutch, and not necessarily one that all users see (esp. folks who come here through RSS readers who aren't Friends in Google (who see those items, in turn, as Shared items). So if something is more than just passingly interesting, I'll try to make an actual blog post about it.

That's the plan, anyway.

Filed under :: Blogging
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Doing some quick review via Google Analytics. The most popular pages (aside from indexes), hereabouts, based on pageviews:

1. ***Dave :: Comcast DVR and TiVo
2. ***Dave :: The Rules of Jaywalking
3. ***Dave :: Why U.S. Bank sucks, and Margie is marvelous
4. Margie's Kitchen: Flourless Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Ganache
5. ***Dave :: Memos to self: "Colorado Cascade" and "Mile Hi Services"
6. ***Dave :: NYC - <i>Avenue Q</i>
7. ***Dave :: Fine Art
8. Blog of Heroes: LotR: Likes and Dislikes
9. ***Dave :: Obama's speech
10. ***Dave :: Googless
11. ***Dave :: Disney's Magical Express

It's an ... interesting mix.

Filed under :: Blogging
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1. Shamos: Why e-voting paper trails are a bad idea | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com - Are e-voting paper trails actually useful, or desirable? I think what the whole e-voting thang has raised is how secure (or insecure) our voting process is, and what risks we need to take (and which we need to work on reducing).
2. When the Ex Blogs, the Dirtiest Laundry Is Aired - New York Times - I don't know if it's a good thing, or a bad thing, that my divorce from Cheryl was in pre-blogging days.
3. The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure DVD news: Announcement for DC Super Heroes: The Filmation Adventures | TVShowsOnDVD.com - This makes me sooooooo happy! The SAHoA was dearly beloved by me as a child -- esp. for all the non-Superman/Aquaman bits, which is what this DVD set will collect. Glee!
4. BMWSportTouring Forums: Space Shuttle Processing: Rarely seen by the general public - How to assemble a space shuttle for lauch. Cool. (via GeekPress)
5. The Art of the Title Sequence - This looks like an extraordinarily cool site, looking at TV/movie title sequence. Pretty. (via kottke)

Filed under :: Blogging :: Love and Marriage :: Media :: Media - Cartoons :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri :: Science
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Time to clear out the various tabs ...

1. At what point do fanfic and fan websites cross the line from fair use to infringement. A new Harry Potter case may help pin that down.
2. What actually kills you in a crucifixion?
3. Not quite sure what Six Apart's new ad network is supposed to give me that simply including Google Ads doesn't do. Not that Google Ads have netted me any big bucks.
4. Recreating childhood photos.
5. Dora the Carefully-Tailored-by-Committee Explorer. Bruce mentioned this article the other evening. I thought we were past Dora, but since Kaylee loves it, Katherine's gotten back into it, too. And, worse, Go, Diego, Go.
6. Worst baby names. It's almost impossible to come with a name that some kid, somewhere, isn't going to poke fun at, but it's nice to at least make the ffort.
7. How to terminate a Terminator.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Media - Cartoons :: Media - Movies :: Media Moguls :: Parenting :: Potpourri :: Writing and Language
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After a whirlwind three-day-ish tour of New York City, we're back home. I have a ton of pictures to finish labeling -- and, of course, a ton of mail in my in-box. I also have to get my Blackberry fixed or replaced. That latter is the real PitA right now.

More as I get word in edgewise.

Filed under :: Blogging :: My Mobile / PDA :: Travel
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... but Internet connectivity has been ... dicey.

1. Wedding was appropriately and not-unexpectedly faboo. Best Man speech went, I am told, fine. Lovely bride, handsome groom, cute Kaylee, pretty church, nice country club, yummy food, good champagne, fantastic band, all's right with the world.  Pictures and text to follow at some future moment.

2. Down in NYC now at the Belleclaire Hotel, uptown west. 

3. Went to see Avenue Q this afternoon, which was both great fun in its own right and even more fun based on What Happened Next.

4. My Blackberry has locked up beyond my ability to fix it, which is intensely frustrating on multiple levels, not least of which is that I can't post pictures on-the-fly to the blog, making it seem like I've dropped off the face of the Earth. Ugh. And, also, Rrg.

5. Lovely dinner with Margie tonight, both in terms of good food (at Isabella's), and in terms of excellent company (Margie).

More as I get the chance, the inclination, and the connectivity.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Food & Drink - Restaurants :: Media :: Travel
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Never knew I was a risk-taking devil-may-care adventurer, did you, flirting with death with each and every post I throw up here on my blog?

In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop - New York Times 

They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

Basically, the article is about full-time professional bloggers and the high-tech stress (coupled with long hours and a sedentary lifestyle) they go through. Which I suppose is true (despite all the caveats and admitted ignorance the article keeps throwing up before moving onto the next breathless anecdote), but given that I am hardly working myself to death doing blogging, I guess I'm okay. 

I'm just an amateur, not a professional, and I won't try this every waking hour at home ...

Filed under :: Blogging
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I can't believe March is over. Yeesh.

1. Wiki Woman - An article on the Wikipedia wars on both Obama and Clinton's pages.
2. Most Awesomely Bad Military Patches 10 | Danger Room from Wired.com - Tenth in a series of stunningly improper / un-PC / goofy "morale patches" for various military organizations. This page has a list of the previous entries. I don't know whether to be appalled or to giggle or both.
3. Triviagasm: Far Out SciFi Worlds of Sid and Marty Krofft - I loved the Kroft stuff as a kid. Well, some of them. I was a big Bugaloos fan and Lidsville follower, And, of course, Land of the Lost rocked. Most of the others, though, I never got into.
4. Writing for Firefly and Battlestar - From the only person who did both, Jane Espenson.
5. Exchange: HBO's 'John Adams' (Parts 1 and 2) - A discussion between historians about the mini-series. I'm going to revisit this once I've read the whole thing.
6. Commentary: Inside the Twisted Mind of the Security Professional - A Bruce Schneier discussion of how security professionals see things differently -- and why maybe we should (sometimes) do the same.
7. Pulp of the Day - A pulp magazine cover a day -- complete with caption contest. Cool.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Elections 2008 :: Homeland Security :: Media :: Media - TV :: Potpourri
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Business trip was very busy, rewarding, this and that. Flight out there was no problem; flight back was no problem; not much to write about.

Expect normal posting to resume, most likely, tomorrow.

Filed under :: Blogging :: Job Jollies :: Travel
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Or, rather a list of 17 ways to keep from not being bloggable.  This article by Cory Doctorow (BoingBoinger extraordinaire) is not saying how to be worthy of being blogged about, but how to make your online content easy to be blogged about. To summarize:

1. Have a link.
2. Have a permanent link.
3. Have a link for everything.
4. Use real links.
5. Use links that go to pages.
6. Flash sits stink.
7. PDFs stink.
8. Streams stink.
9. Put your URL on your images.
10. Linking policies are ridiculous.
11. Don't worry about "bandwidth stealing."
12. Offer high-res images.
13. Forget the "copyright protection" Javascript.
14. Enough with the legal boilerplate.
15. Let bloggers know how you'd like to be attributed.
16. Creative Commons licensing takes the guesswork out of blogging.
17. Send suggestions by the preferred means.

See the article for fleshing out of the text but -- really, as a blogger myself, most of what Cory writes is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me from blogging about sites sometimes.

Filed under :: Blogging
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