Saturday, August 10, 2002
Trellix And Blawgers?
It's too early to tell of course, but Trellix might turn out to be an attractive alternative for non-techy business types who yearn to answer the call of the blog. [Via Ev] The press release discussing Trellix's on-board blogging plans touts giving "builders of all technical abilities the power of a blog and the features and flexibility of a web site." And Dan Bricklin's vision is provocative:
I'm excited because finally I'll be able to tell people who want to blog that they can just go to some URL, sign up, and create their blog and associated pages without my help. There's no installing anything. There's no asking me for help in making their web site look the way they'd like. There's no asking me to make the "About Me" page. If they want "www.theirname.com" they can do it (if the service provider allows). They can do it all themselves. (Well, they probably will still ask me to take their picture with my digital camera...) This is not just ease of first setting up, but also ease of getting all the way that most people need and want. As a usability guy, and lover of the blog phenomenon, this gets me very excited.While it may prove too basic and limited for someone who's an old hand at building and running Web sites, for someone like me of only, ahem, modest technological acumen, well it gets me excited too. Personally though, I'd like to see the final results emulating on a larger scale what b!X is doing with his Spartaneity Project, rather than simply bolting a weblog component onto Tripod, etc. More reflections on the potential of Trellix are in this thread on Blogroots [via Dave Winer], where Anil Dash notes how cumbersome it is for "users to pick a hosting company, pick a blogging company, pay a fee to each, and then perform the integration work by hand," and MisterMorgan has this to say: "Blogger's UI is just so darn good people are willing to add bits to it piecemeal--a blogrolling tool here, a comment system there--but it would drive me nuts after a while to keep track of all those logins and different admin interfaces."
posted by Denise at 2:05 PM
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Friday, August 09, 2002
More Re Science, Explained
(An oldie but a goodie.) Martin Sargent elucidates the finer technological points of Big Mouth Billy Bass. [Via TechTV] See also Marsette Vona on "How to make a talking fish say what you want," and Am I Annoying (while it does not appear possible to vote on whether Billy is annoying -- how fleeting, fame -- The Coelacanth is fair game: "Occupation: Fish").
--Later: Jeremy, via Fishrush
posted by Denise at 1:20 PM
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Can Juries Handle Patent Issues?
"The United States is the only country that has a jury decide patent dispute. . . many outside the United States find this 'laughably quaint.'" [Patent Fight Brings Science Into Courtroom, via Law.Com] My personal take on this is juries and courts can and do understand even the most esoteric of issues, as long as the attorneys understand them, and are skilled and diligent enough to translate their understanding in a straightforward way.
posted by Denise at 1:14 PM
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Thursday, August 08, 2002
Gift It Up
The Shagmart is open. "Shoplifters will be prosecuted."
posted by Denise at 3:11 PM
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Getting To Know Them
posted by Denise at 10:55 AM
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All Wet
These two are close relatives of the manta ray I met last Sunday somewhere right about here, many thanks to Byrd and Kim with Ed Robinson's. Plenty of gray sharks too, hanging out over here. Forbes, with a straight face, calls scuba diving one of "The World's Most Dangerous Sports," right up there with base jumping, street luging, bull riding and big wave surfing (uh, ok, guess I'll be throwing myself off the top of tall buildings any day now). For yet more aquatic sensationalism, it's tough to beat Celebrity Shark Week starting this Sunday on the Discovery Channel (join Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath and others as you "watch great whites on TV, and track attacks online," and play the "Ring of Death game").
posted by Denise at 6:52 AM
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Wednesday, August 07, 2002
"What A Great Way To Have Fun With Your Friends"
Plenty of chances to decorate the family car with fake bullet holes: for less than a buck on eBay, or grab the "rapid fire" model from Bullet-Holes.com. Psst -- real thing, free, right here, no shipping delays. (See also The Los Angeles River Tour.)
posted by Denise at 5:12 PM
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Blawg Ring
JCA has set up a Blawg Ring! Three members and growing. This should make the B(lawg) P(atrol)'s work a piece of cake. They've been admirably diligent lately, so stay tuned for lots of blawg updates here soon (this weekend). Dave Winer likes where this is going, and so do I:
It seems we're just about at the tipping point for lawyer-bloggers. I'm getting a sense that if we have a legal question that's appropriate to ask in public, it's likely one of the lawyers will answer it, at weblog-speed, which is fast. They also write well. Here's an example [Bill Altreuter]. "The Bronx is where I spent a great deal of the formative years in my professional life; it is a place apart in a lot of ways, a little banana republic in New York City." He tells a good story. I feel a kinship with the kind of lawyer who writes in public.
posted by Denise at 2:01 PM
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Real And Make Believe
Coming soon to Orange County, CA: Pretend City, a Children's Museum where kids run the commerce, transportation and press. Spotted this morning in Orange County, CA: Ralphs grocery store offers scaled-down, child-sized shopping carts. The kids need no longer sneak the Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch into your cart; they've got their own.
posted by Denise at 12:41 PM
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100 Aker Royalty
Amy Wallace has a wonderful article in this month's Los Angeles Magazine, titled Lawyers, Tiggers & Bears, Oh My! It chronicles the royalty battle between Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, who owns the U.S. and Canadian merchandising, radio and television rights to Winnie-the-Pooh, and Disney, and it does so in a style that would make A.A. Milne proud: "The Thistly Thicket in which Woozles who practice entertainment law reside is even smaller and more insular than Pooh Corner." A worthy expotition.
posted by Denise at 12:02 PM
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Tuesday, August 06, 2002
Stupid Link Tricks
Don't Link To Us highlights Web sites with less than progressive linking policies: "The Linking Policy for Don't Link to Us! precludes us from requesting permission to link to a site, and compels us to link directly to the targeted page (i.e., a 'deep link') rather than to a site's home page." [Via Daypop Top 40]
posted by Denise at 3:52 PM
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Discrimination Settlement
A case I have been working on for some time, together with Jim Martin and George Schiavelli of my office, has recently settled. Our client was Jeff Abraham, who through his company Technical Resources provides professional placement services for individuals and businesses in the semiconductor industry. Jeff has fought a long battle that centered on his submission of employment candidates for a semiconductor plant in Eugene, Oregon. More about Jeff, his case and its resolution is reported here in Eugene's Register-Guard.
posted by Denise at 2:13 PM
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Monday, August 05, 2002
Why Vacations Suck, Continued
I see that Dr. Weinberger captured the downside of vacations in his July 30 post. You also have to unpack (which I am officially putting off by posting this "hey"), and make sure the Leaning Tower of Inbox misses your less hardy appendages when office re-entry prompts gravity to do its thing.
Concerning gravity, it's hard to say which weighed more: the dive gear I slogged along, or the books and magazines. Both were well used. Here are some worthy reads from within the depths of my luggage:
God's Debris. Ernie recommended this awhile back. Like brain surgery in book form. Or perhaps quaaludes. I can't decide if I'm more surprised this is the same Scott Adams who writes Dilbert, or that he pulls this off in roughly 130 pages. (Ooh, Ernie's been busy while I've been gone, can't wait to catch up.) If you like this book, you might also like The Holy Man (no, you have not mistakenly stumbled on the Amazon site) -- a little less explosive, but also good fodder for contemplating life, the universe and everything.
Geek Love. This strange novel about a carnival couple and the offspring of their home-brewed genetic engineering gets increasingly compelling as it goes on. Eerie juxtaposition to your standard vacation beach scene.
Why Software Is So Bad, by Charles C. Mann in Technology Review. Unfortunately, the full article is not available free at the site, but the crux is that products liability for software is screaming down the tracks into the station with no brakes (think Silver Streak).
Did not even check email while I was gone. Those ComputoDerm patches really seem to work!
posted by Denise at 11:34 PM
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Unless otherwise expressly stated, all original material of whatever nature created by Denise M. Howell and included in the Bag and Baggage weblog and any related pages, including the weblog's archives, is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
