Quote

A great friend sent me this quote today. Makes me feel a little bit better about the way I act with my friends:

"There is no diversion so pleasant as the verbal dueling of two friends
who have wit and who are mentally in tune with one another. Wit is a
dangerous weapon for any man to carry about in the world, it sometimes
goes off at inappropriate moments, its mere presence is assumed by the
timid to carry a threat to themselves. It can only be produced with
safety when the combatants are well matched and trust one another."

Playazon.com: Welcome to the Burning Man Gift Shop

Playazon.com: Welcome to the Burning Man Gift Shop
hahahahaha...this is an AWESOME parody. AWESOME!

Sauce

Dine | San Francisco Bay Guardian
Guardian review of Sauce. The first two paragraphs make you believe that it is going to be an absolutely HORRID review. Anything but that...prety damn good!

Northwest Herald - Online

Hot Dogs and Buns in a truce.
Whew. Sooooooo relieved that they solved this problem.

New Meme?

Will this pix start a new meme??

Prediction

I predict that del.icio.us will continue to grow. They will slowly add developers...most technical, though a couple of statisticians and social phd's will creep into the mix. Google will purchase del.icio.us. In addition to their DMOZ categorization, they will add the del.icio.us taxonomy. A maturation process will occur as the general public begins to use the system; spammers work the system and then are rebuffed. Google drops support for DMOZ as the categorization does not make sense any longer.

And Esther Dyson gets richer by living on the bleeding edge of trends. :)

Party

So...my Burning Man camp, the Deep End, is having our annual fundraiser this weekend. I would love for everyone to come...it is going to be a wild time. The theme of the event is Porn Star Prom -- wear your dandiest!!

Party Flier

Jenna Bush - a photoset on Flickr

Jenna Bush - a photoset on Flickr
Hope I don't get in trouble for this one...but wow! Couldn't resist putting this up.

Richard Feynman

Guardian Unlimited | Life | 'This is how science is done'

Richard Feynman won the nobel prize in physics in 1965. He was on the Manhattan Project. He worked at Los Alamos. He was a profressor. He was regarded as one of the smartest men in the world.

More importantly, he studied humanity. He loved. He had a sense of humor. He cared about education. He played the bongos.

His daughter has published many of the letters that she found years after his death. Many are thought provoking; many are funny. I was enjoying my read of them when I came across the following letter: a letter post-mortum to his wife. I cried. A bunch. This is absolutely beautiful.

D'Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart ... It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and what I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector.

Can't I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the 'idea-woman' and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn't have worried.

Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want to stand there.

I'll bet that you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I — I don't understand it, for I have met many girls ... and I don't want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead,

Rich.

PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address.

Happy Star Wars day

May this movie be with you. Hahahahahaha!

Greasemonkey

mozdev.org - greasemonkey: index
I have to say, Greasemonkey is one of the best additions to browsing that I have seen in a very, very long time. Websites become a start to the user experience, not the user experience. Don't think the layout is correct on a website? Fix it. Don't think they provide enough usability? Fix it. Like to include searches from other sites? Add it.

Simon Wilson has a great article on the impact and etiquette of greasemonkey.

I have been preaching about the power of open api's to allow people to build their own experiences on the web -- flickr has great examples of this. Companies that publish api's on the net can allow users to add to their service while holding key parts of the puzzle together, ensuring that consumers continue to use their service.

For example, Flickr provides tools to put your pictures on your own website, not yours. They also opened the api to allow people to generate their own apps on top of flickr. However, they still manage the data and the pictures. Users continually go back to the service to publish new pictures, add friends, browse others pictures. The opening of their system did not limit the users or pages that were browsed - it increases them.

Imagine if Friendster, back when everyone was hot about them, created widgets that showed friends and allowed you to link to friends blogs from their own blog. Imagine if they had an open api that allowed you to browse friends and pull down testimonials. Imagine if testimonials and comments on your blog could be tied together through that api.

I would offer that friendster would still be used by those of us who are tired of it. Instead of a place that I have to go to read and browse, which now is a hassle (and hence why I don't -- well, that and I have a girlfriend), Friendster would manage the relationships between people -- which is what it was intended to do. The standard links on the sidebars of blogs would be replaced with a service managed by friendster. Users would consistently go back to add friends, remove friends, look for additional contacts. It would be an AMAZING service -- one that I would probably use again.

Wow..started with Greasemonkey and ended up speaking about the possibility of companies opening their doors and empowering users. Guess that is my mindset lately!

Great

Free Online Graph Paper / Grid Paper PDFs
How come I had to buy graphing paper soooo often when I was young. Kids these days have it sooooo easy.

Narnia

I need to read the Adventures of Narnia again so that I am prepared for this at Christmas.

Alan Meckler: FTD.Com For Flowers Ruined My Weekend

Alan Meckler: FTD.Com For Flowers Ruined My Weekend
You know you are a bit fucked when a CEO starts complaining about your business on his blog. If you rely on customers searching through Google to find you, they may find this post first!

You're fucked!

Couple of notes

It is amazing how introverted I feel at times. I read so many things, consumer so much information, and think constantly. However, I don't share my thoughts or my rationale. I don't contribute to the conversation externally as much as I do internally. What amazes me even more is the way that I learn from others. I seem to have lost my critical analysis skills - I don't really hold extremely strong opinions anymore.

Perhaps I never did have them! I think back through my history and look at the leaders I have followed. Most are very outspoken. Most are incredible visionaries. Most paint incredible pictures of the future and enroll others to fulfill that dream. I remember distinctly episodes where I stood up for my own vision and felt brutally beat down.

But that beating down was not really a beating down; it was passionate debate. But the episodes never seemed to end with agreement or great resolve. We left the moment with me feeling beat in trying to build an idea, only to find that the other party came back much later with responses about how I affected their vision and how much they include my thoughts in their future.

So...through this rambling, perhaps I am just learning how to remain confident in my visions and beliefs and continue to improve in my communication skills. I do have a lot of value to add to the people and conversations around me.

Things to work on: Listening skills, memory, and taking chances.

How to fold a fitted sheet - for Christian!

This is specifically for Christian, the only person I know who is anal enough to care! How to fold a fitted sheet

The devil reincarnated

This is truly the devil reincarnated into a flash file. ABSOLUTE HELL! But you can't stop. You won't stop.