I missed this article on the Google/Pyra deal a while back: Only Connect: The Google-Pyra Deal. It's got a quote from me and talks a little about the Lafayette Project as well.

I've posted my keynote from the 2003 Midwestern Conference on Film, Language, and Literature. It's a 250 KB PowerPoint document entitled, "The Weblog Revolution: How technology and amateurs are changing the way we communicate." My slides tend to be pretty bland and don't cover a lot of the talk, but I guess you'll get the gist, if you're interested. I'll try to get an HTML version online later today, but for now I'm just going to go listen to some other people speak for a while. I'm happy to have it over with!

Update: Here's the HTML version. It's generated straight from PowerPoint, so it's pretty ugly, but you, again, will get the idea of the presentation.

Coming to you live from LGA via the Sidekick, with not much to say except I wanted to try this out and airport CNN is driving me crazy. It is so full of non-news and rife with "supposedly" and "maybe" and "perhaps". Also too omnipresent is the American smile while reporting about things like the "bunker buster," one of America's largest bombs. Yippee! I'll be happy when this bout of travel is complete and I can never watch CNN again.

Huh, weird. This didn't actually publish properly, hence its late arrival. But it did post to MT. Must be something odd with MT, the Sidekick, and page reloading? Any one?

Alas, shortly after I arrived in Arizona a pox fell upon the web server and it was down and out for a couple of days, allowing none of the exciting reporting from the road that I'd thought about providing. It came back up in time for me to spend a disconnected day on the plane flying back to New York City, because that's how these things work.

During a conversation at PC Forum about the difficulties of using technology, especially as it related to configuring email clients, this thought occurred to me: why can't my email client just ask me, "What address would you like to use?" and then look up the POP or IMAP info from the MX record and save it? Why does it make me type it in, espcially if I have an active Internet connection? It could say, "What address do you want:" and then "What's the username:" and "What's the password:" and then it'd be done. Even the most novice user should be able to do that. Of course, that still leaves the user to enter his/her SMTP info, but that's a problem to solve for another day…

Update: this sounds like it won't work, more later. Flying to Chicago now.

Still in the throes of sickness (bronchitis is my guess but dr. was unavailable to confirm for me before my departure, maybe it's the Consumption!), I've travelled to the warm, dry climate of Scottsdale, AZ to partake of the cure. That cure being PC Forum, though I'm sure the 85° will also help my coughing. Once again I'm reminded of two things: 1) I'm an idiot, I didn't bring my camera; 2) I love the desert, and the soaring orange mountains that ring the city. I wish I could stay for a week and do some hiking. I think I've got some desert rat in me.

A weblog from Baghdad called Where is Raed? writing about the war. Related: Is the Baghdad Blogger for real? [via Scripting.com]

The Age (from Australia) mentions megnut in this week's Blogon column. If you're coming to the site after reading the article, welcome! For those interested in seeing the article in its orignal form, here's a scan of it [172k] nicely sent in by Ben H. Thanks Ben!

Doc and Dave have produced World of Ends: What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else. It is an excellent attempt to explain what the Internet really is, why it works, and what it means for our behavior. They summarize the World of Ends very nicely with 10 points, ending with "Some mistakes we can stop making already." Amen, brothers.

2002: Mom's Google cooking.

2003: Google hack Cookin' With Google.

Update: My mom posts that in fact, it isn't a ripoff and that Tara Calishain of Research Buzz contacted her for permission. And that my mom will be credited for Google cooking in the upcoming
Google Hacks book. Might I add that it would clear up confusion if she were also credited on the site?