Teach Yourself Movable Type in 24 Hours
Teach Yourself Movable Type in 24 Hours. Had to look at the URL about 4 times to verify that this wasn’t a joke page
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Entries for October 2003
Does Google (and other companies that scrape
Does Google (and other companies that scrape sites) violate the terms of many weblogs’ Creative Commons licenses?. Or for that matter, plain old copyright notices?
The second Virtual Book Tour is off and running
The second Virtual Book Tour is off and running. The book is Screening Party by Dennis Hensley
Frozen caveman president
A Talk of the Town piece by Andy Borowitz in the latest New Yorker pointed to this AP story on George Bush’s news consumption habits:
Bush said he insulates himself from the “opinions” that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories. “I appreciate people’s opinions, but I’m more interested in news,” the president said. “And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world.”
I think in order to find someone with less perspective on the world, you’d have to look to Papua New Guinea for a member of one of the last remaining Stone Age tribes.
Comedian
This isn’t the most interesting or insightful documentary I’ve seen, but comedians can’t help being funny.
TypePad is out of beta and officially
TypePad is out of beta and officially live. Congrats to Ben, Mena, Anil, and the rest of the team.
Secretary
Maggie Gyllenhaal talks about her role in Secretary with Nerve in an interview called Spanking the Flunky.
The first rule of Google AdSense is, don’t talk about Google AdSense
Have you noticed that Google is acting more and more like a stupid marketing/advertising company lately? It’s one of the side effects of not really being a search engine company and seems to fly in the face of Sergey Brin’s Google rule #1: “Don’t be evil”.
According to this post on Russell Beattie’s site, Google recently changed their Terms and Conditions to prohibit criticism of their AdSense “service” terms and conditions on participating sites. Yuck. This move follows Russell’s analysis of the AdSense T&C as a result of Erik Thauvin’s removal from the program.
Since when is Google providing a service by paying people for advertising placed on their sites? This seems backwards; people are providing a service by placing the Google’s ads on their sites. Google has every right to place whatever limits they wish on people who use their “service”, but terminating said service without recourse when money is potentially owed by Google *and then* not allowing any site using Google AdSense (which may eventually include media sites like Salon, NY Times, MetaFilter, Slashdot, and even kottke.org) to comment on the Terms and Conditions that brought about the termination is just plain bad (evil?) and should give serious pause to anyone considering using any Google service.
You Google employees out there in weblog land, take a look at these links and see if it’s worth taking this issue to someone internally who can do something about it. I might run into Larry Page at a retreat next weekend…we’ll see what he thinks about it.
Update: Lest you think I’m aimlessly Google-bashing here, Cory Doctorow’s comments on this matter sum up my feelings very well:
But that doesn’t mean that they should get a free ride. Google wants to be a company that makes money wihtout being evil, and I support that goal! Being not-evil is good, and so’s making some dough. But part of being not-evil is that you have to incur liability over and above that which your counsel recommends as the safest path — just as a shop-owner can’t reasonably ask all her customers to submit to a strip-search to contain shoplifting liability, Google shouldn’t ask all its users to submit to an unreasonable restriction on their speech in order to contain the spread of negative information about its service.
Derek Powazek got the boot from AdSense for “inappropriate clicks” as did Kathy Shaidle. Kathy writes:
When I complained [about the ads that were showing up on the site], they explained: my blog, which deals with religion, politics and other non-dinner-table topics, was ‘potentially negative’. I asked (on the blog) if there was gonna be a 0th Amendment drawn up to protect ‘potentially negative’ speech.
We back and forth’d a bit, my readers complained to them on my behalf, but Google wanted me to go through my archives, delete everything I’d ever said about them, good and bad, then republish. You can guess my response.
Jimmy Fallon and his fans
I was just at the Barnes and Noble on 48th & 5th. Jimmy Fallon and his sister were there signing copies of their new book, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist’s Guide to Life. As I browsed through a couple of magazines, I noticed three girls standing in the bargain books aisle. Well, everyone in the store noticed them standing there because one of them was crying and shrieking uncontrollably and her two friends were taking turns calming her down or revving her up.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe Jimmy Fallon kissed me!!”
“I know!!!”
[They all scream.]
“I’m never going to wash this cheek again.”
[Sobbing intensifies. The girl is alternating between trying to regain her composure and going completely bats with the crying. She’s having a hard time standing.]
This goes on for a minute or two. Then a woman, dressed to the nines and obviously a lifelong New York resident, annoyed that these silly girls are between her and whatever purchases she wants to make, pushes by them while loudly announcing to the rest of the store, “my God, I don’t understand what the big deal is, seeing some guy and then crying like a baby, yelling, and blocking the aisle. I hate this fucking store.”
Sounds like the terms of service for Google’s AdSense suck
Sounds like the terms of service for Google’s AdSense suck. Google is paying for *our* services…we should be able to dictate the terms, not them
Phone Booth
The film in general seemed thrown together, but Colin Farrell was surprisingly good.
The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, and Body Language Cues
The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs, and Body Language Cues.
Your Dock, if you please
Giles Turnbull wrote a fun piece for O’Reilly showcasing the Docks of some OS X users. This is my Dock (well, as of last week…the one on my new Powerbook looks a bit different now). What does yours look like? Post a screenshot to your site and paste a link (and description if you’d like) to it in the comments.
iTunes usage methods, how people listen to
iTunes usage methods, how people listen to music on their Macs.
Louis Menand on citations, Word, and The
Louis Menand on citations, Word, and The Chicago Manual of Style for The New Yorker.
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