Stuffed Seabiscuit!
Seabiscuit stuffed animal! I've added it to my wish list, as it's currently out of stock. But for some reason, it seems like just the thing for my desk, and it can replace this penguin that's sitting atop my monitor right now (not that I don't love Penguin Computing, but I'd prefer a less-branded stuffed animal to watch over me). I also find it funny that the stuffed War Admiral is not out of stock. No one wants a stupid War Admiral! Ha ha.
Teen girl bloggers
I'm looking for some great example sites of teenage girl bloggers for an article I'm writing. I'd like to highlight a mix of styles and topics, both diary-like sites and linky sites. Know of any? Please add suggestions to the comments. And feel free to mention your own, but only if you happen to be a teenage girl blogger. Thanks for you help.
Ask and ye shall get
Ok, for all you wanna-be NYC Jeans Police officers out there, the wait is over. Here is the official NYC Jeans Police Citation [.pdf, 922 KB]. You will see that it's appropriate for any infraction you may witness: bad acid wash, over-sized jeans, low-rise disasters, you name it. Simply print them out and issue as you see fit. And remember, if you get punched in the face after citing someone, it's not our fault. Special shout out to Michael E. who designed the super-excellent citations. Michael, you rock!
At MIT conference
I'm at MIT today for the Emerging Technologies Conference and a reception for the TR100 award. Afternoon panels are kicking off, I skipped the morning to enjoy breakfast and coffee with my mom. Audience is 85% male, if not more. This panel is on wireless technology, and is all male, but I'm not surprised. Hopefully it will be interesting. Also, it's FREEZING in this auditorium. Why oh why do HVAC systems get set at 60? My nails are turning blue!
A favorite shape
Today at work I found out that some people have favorite shapes. One person annouced "hexagon" as his favorite, while another offered, "triangle!" Feeling left out, I've decided "rhombus" will assume the throne of my favorite shapehood.
An exchange about fashion
Walking back from lunch in TriBeCa.
Meg: I don't understand, when did dressing like a prostitute become fashionable?
Mark: I think she *is* a prostitute. Either way, it's not right.
NYC Jeans Police
I'm taking a new job, starting a new organization of which I'll be president and CEO and also first lieutenant, until I can hire others to join my campaign. The mission's goal? Rid the streets of New Yorkers (and tourists) wearing horrible mis-fitting jeans. First offender spotted Saturday afternoon on Bleecker St., where a woman was squeezed into a too-tight pair of pale blue Lee (?) jeans. I let her off with a warning. Shortly thereafter, I spotted another offender: a woman with large hips wearing low-rise dark denim bootcuts. Since the dept. is new, again I issued only a warning. Saturday's third incident: the horrific thong-above-low-rise. Citation and fine were issued, there's simply no warning for that one.
Part of the department's mandate will be education (since I know how hard it is to find a good pair of jeans). We'll produce a "NYC Jean Guide" that's attached to every pair sold in the 5 boroughs, explaining that if you have a middle that hangs over the low rise (front or sides), low rise is not for you! And if you're hippy (and that's pretty much everyone except models and teenage girls), you don't want to wear a cut that accentuates that fact, even if it's the style right now. Eventually we'll grow so powerful, we'll exert our pressure on the fashion industry itself, demanding styles for women of all shapes and sizes, no matter the season or trends. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are not shaped equal, and each is entitled to a great pair of jeans!
Update: someone sent in a .pdf citation for the police to use. [.922 KB]
Java as an SUV
There's a great (and by great I mean "made me laugh a lot while I was waiting for something to compile") Slashdot discussion of a Phillip Greenspun article comparing Java to SUVs. Two excellent insights from /. posters. First a funny one:
Java's not an SUV: SUV's start up instantly! Hahahaha!
And then a very sensible one that no one ever seems to consider when they throw themselves into these irrational fervid discussions of programming languages:
Bad programmers write bad programs regardless of the language.
And it burns...the ring of fire
If you're anywhere near New York City this evening, I don't think you'll want to miss pyrotechnic artist Cai Guo-Qiang's Light Cycle. Beginning at 7:45 PM and set to last nearly five minutes, it's a three stage firework extravaganza with the highlight, "consist[ing] of several halos hovering above the Park with the final halo lingering vertically, 1,000 feet above the Reservoir." So cool, and at the same time, it can be the City's tribute to Johnny Cash. You don't want to miss this.
Me and 99 other people
Today, MIT's Technology Review magazine announced the TR100/2003, their, "third class of 100 innovators 35 or younger whose technologies are poised to make a dramatic impact on our world," and I'm honored to be included in the list for my work with Blogger and weblogs. Here's my profile and here's a list of all winners. An account is required to see the pages (lamely) so use the one I set up, username: meg@megnut.com, password: tr100.
Time travel to SF 2000
Holy cow! Back in August 2000, I linked to three videos that a nice guy named Beto made when he came to visit us at Pyra HQ in San Francisco (in March 2000). Sadly, the links stopped working after some time, the site was gone, and Beto seemed to have disappeared from the web. I kicked myself for not having saved copies of the videos.
But all is not lost, because Beto converted his old analog tape to DV and used iMovie3 to create In the Beginning: A Video on Weblogs History! It's a little hard to hear what we're saying, and we're not really saying anything worth hearing anyway (I sound like an idiot. Is that really my voice? Oh my God, I'm never speaking again! Also, this is when I had blonde hair.) Ego aside, it was magical to watch this and brought back a flood of memories, especially the walk down to our basement offices and the arrival of our first real, rack-mount server.
Watch the video [14 MB, Quicktime 6] and travel back to a time when Blogger had ~50,000 registered users, when the whole application ran on a Dell desktop machine beneath Ev's desk, before Blog*Spot existed, before warblogs, or celebrity bloggers, or MovableType. Travel back to a time when Ev, pb and I dreamt of changing the world with a little app called Blogger.
Remembering Manny
When I was in 9th grade I was crazy about basketball so I took a gym class that was entirely basketball. Unlike other gym classes ("Weight Training" or "Team Sports") which involved a variety of physical activities, "Basketball" was pretty much a full-court 5-on-5 pick-up game every class. I remember the first day changing into my high tops, pulling up my knee socks, and heading out of the girls' locker room, excited to play. As the class came together, my enthusiasm was quickly replaced with intimidation. I was the shortest. I was the youngest. I was certainly the slowest. And I was the only girl in a room full of boys. Why oh why didn't I take one of the other gym classes? I thought.
But I loved basketball too much to chicken out, and we took the court and started playing. I was jostled, elbowed, stepped on, and ignored. I couldn't grab any rebounds and no one passed to me. Pretty soon I took to hanging outside, near the top of the key, alone. No one paid attention to me out there except a lanky sophomore who'd drive the lane and at the last second dish the ball out to me. I had a knack for hitting that outside jumper, especially when I was wide-open.
Soon we developed a nice routine: Manny would drive towards the basket and then, at the last second, pass it back out to me for an easy two. He'd always smile, a great big wide smile, even when I missed. And give me a high-five. And unlike some other people, who share a class with you but pretend not to know you when you pass each other later in the hall, Manny always said "hi" and grinned when we saw each other on campus.
I stopped playing basketball after my freshman year and joined the ski team. Because I was a varsity athlete, I didn't have to take gym, and soon Manny and I drifted down different paths. But I've never forgotten how welcome he made me feel in that class, how he made a fourteen year old girl feel like she had what it takes to be a great ball player.
I wasn't surprised to hear that Manny DelValle moved to New York after college. And I wasn't surprised to hear he became a firefighter. But I didn't hear that until September 12, 2001.
I can still see his smile.
Here come business blogs!
Now that everyone's keen to the blogs (everyone being big M media people), the next wave of articles are beginning to appear. The Washington Post jumps in with, Making Blogs More Than Just What's for Dinner and provides a good look at ways in which businesses can use weblogs. Also there are some quotes from me.
Fresh tomatoes are the best tomatoes
I'm increasingly perplexed by the poor quality of tomatoes when we're in the height (albeit waning days) of tomato season. My lunch today contained tomatoes of such lackluster quality -- mealy and pale pink -- that I was forced to remove them from my sandwich. Which makes me realize that food service companies must not get tomatoes locally, since that would necessitate switching vendors with the timing of the tomato season. Instead the tomatoes must come from a consistent source, probably some farm in California or Mexico, who can reliably offer tomatoes year-round. But what's the point?
This summer I rediscovered the joy of eating a really ripe strawberry in June. I experienced the thrill of the first corn-on-the-cob of the season and the sadness as I bit into my last, knowing that it would be another year before I tasted the sweetness of an ear. Is it worth it to have certain fruits and vegetables year-round when the quality so obviously suffers? Wouldn't it be better to have really delicious tomatoes in a salad or sandwich for a few magic months, and then just let it go? I think of the bad tomatoes, the strawberries in California supermarkets that were large but never very sweet, the Red Delicious that are certainly Red but not Delicious, and realize progress isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, it would mean eating cabbage, apples, and potatoes all winter, but honest, after today's tomato, I think that'd be preferable.
Tuesday quiz
If Friends final season begins September 25, and Ben and JLo are to be married September 14, and Joey Tribbiani's character will be spun off into a new show called Joey after Friends 10th and final season, which event will occur first: Ben and JLo divorce or Joey is cancelled?
Ashcroft at Federal Hall today
From MoveOn.org, there's a demonstration today. I can't seem to find a link to it on their site, so here's the detail from the email they sent. See you there?
WHAT: Demonstration to demand the protection of our basic civil
liberties, and counter Attorney General John Ashcroft, speaking in the
latest installment of his stealth Patriot Act road show.
WHEN: Tuesday, September 9 at 12 noon
WHERE: Federal Hall, 26 Wall Street at Broad Street (next to NYSE)
2/3 or 4/5 to Wall Street or J/Z to Broad Street
Map: http://www.moveon.org/r?469
WHO: New York ACLU (www.nyclu.org), New York City Bill of Rights
Defense Campaign (www.nycbordc.org), United for Peace and Justice
(www.unitedforpeace.org), and 60 other civil liberties organizations.
Beautiful photos
Amazing photos of Antelope Valley, a slot canyon on LeChee Navajo land near Page, Arizona and some others of the American southwest by John Isaac: The American Southwest.
Better late than never
Five or so months ago, Darin from darinsan.com emailed asking if I'd do a little "11 Questions" interview with him. I said, "sure" and then let the message sink to the bottom of my inbox (and by "bottom" I mean it was about 1500 emails above the darkest depths of my inbox, where those scary fish -- with horrible teeth and hangy things in front of their eyes -- live and use bioluminescence to highlight messages that have been there since 9/13/01). Over the weekend, I finally responded and Darin, who inhabits a higher karmic email plane than I, promptly posted my inane replies.
An exciting intern opportunity in NYC
From my friend David at MediaRights comes a great part-time internship opportunity in Manhattan. I was a judge for their Media That Matters film festival and had the privilege of interacting with the great group that is MediaRights. If you apply, tell 'em megnut sent you. Description follows:
MediaRights.org is looking for two good technology interns. We can offer a desk, great co-workers, and lots of strong networking opportunities. MediaRights.org helps filmmakers, activists, librarians and educators create and use social issue documentaries for social change. We also produce a yearly film festival (http://mediathatmattersfest.org/) that streams on-line, is screened across the country and is available on DVD for free (http://mediathatmattersfest.org/dvd). At the end of the month, we're launching a new Web site dedicated to youth media distribution (http://ymdi.org).
Shopping for a new Mac?
Here's an incredible deal from CompUSA reported on dealmac: buy a Mac for $999 or more and have no payments or interest until 2005! Available only at retail stores, according to the link, and arranged through a CompUSA credit card. Still, if you can be responsible about your money and pay the thing off before payments start in March 2005, not only do you get it interest-free, you don't even have to pay for it for more than a year! Baby needs a new pair of 12" PowerBook G4! Well, just one will do. If the 12" came with the 1GHz processor like the 15", I wouldn't even be able to type this post because I'd be on the train uptown to CompUSA this second!
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