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Katrina
If you know you're going to be standing in +100 mph winds in a hurricane, why would you try to do an on-camera report wearing a baseball cap? Put on some googles and a helmet.
That's why I like this guy - Dangerman. In one episode he buys a heavy truck and outfits it to drive into a cyclone.
Miles O'Brien's (CNN) hurricane blog
Work related stuff to check out
A List Apart is all shiny and new. Some new interesting stuff to read. It's pretty under the hood too. I really need to learn what Ruby on Rails is all about.
MochiKit makes JavaScript suck less
Dojo "is an Open Source effort to create a UI toolkit that allows a larger number of web application authors to easily use the rich capabilities of modern browsers."
And some slightly older things I wanted to get to:
How to Feel Good About Your Design Part 1 - Part 2
Department of Dumb Ideas: a wish list "You'd be hard pressed to come up with any idea so stupid or vague that the perfect image wasn't waiting, somewhere in that vast keyword bank, to illuminate. Right?" There's also a link to a pdf with over 200 metaphors for kick start your stock photography shooting brain.
Blogs
My laptop seems to like staying at Apple's repair shop, so I've been a little slow around here. I've got a pile of links that have been building for awhile. Here are some blogs.
Video Killed The Radio Star Anthropologist professor's blog on music television in the eighties. I remember studying that subject back in college too.
Illinois Sierra Club's blog "The policies and politics of protecting Illinois' environment."
Pulp blogs Weblog about blogging.
43 folders productivity/time management/life hack blog.
Some work related links
Ramping Up the Gradient Tool "The Gradient tool is one of the more useful tools in Photoshop and it can be employed for a variety of tasks, ranging from photographic color correction and masking to collage, graphic design, and illustration." From the excellent Layers Magazine. I need to read all the articles on InDesign.
Web Designer's FREElance Toolbox for Windows "The following is a list of unfettered freeware that I have personally reviewed. Time-tested and designer/developer approved, these programs contain no adware and are built on a solid foundation, including a supportive community of users." Recently, when I was setting up a client's machine to be able to make small website changes, I discovered WS_FTP isn't free anymore. This article has a couple of alternate FTP apps (as well as other freeware suggestions for everything from databases to VoIP.
A pocket guide to inspirational sites
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says. "This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005." "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them"
Can Comcast piss me off anymore?
I waited all last week for a bad modem repair (which they never did, since I picked up another one at a garage sale) and dealing with daily morning cable internet outages in my area, along with a marked difference in speed (some geek most have moved in the neighborhood and hogged all the bandwidth), Comcast has pissed me off even more by taking one of the only non-fiction channels I watch off basic cable and added it to digital, which if I wanted it, would almost double my bill (my entire cable/tv bill, not just the tv). Comcast moving Sci Fi Channel to digital service.. I understand if Sc-Fi came to them and said, "we got this great show that everybody loves, so we're doubling or rates." But doesn't Comcast sell advertising? I seem to remember that they do since 20 fucking minutes of ever hour is made up of commercials.
Further more, they called me to tell me this, using a smarmy voiced recording.
I can see some Comcast executive now "Let's piss off every customer we have by calling their cell phones with a recording. It'll be even worse for the customers who are fans of Sci-Fi when we tell them they'll have to pay double what their paying now just so they can watch the two shows they like. Yea, this will be fun." Then the executive is in the recording studio telling the voice talent "no, no, nastier, with more bite, really stick it to them this time!"
The Comcast web site sucks, so I call them, just to see how much it'll be, lowest teir, no movie channels, just a digital box and whatever service I need to get Sci-Fi. Ask ask her to please figure the total with taxes and everything else. The nice lady, slightly flustered by having to do extra math comes back after ten minutes, "120.(and something) total after taxes" Gee, that's not bad, I'm paying almost a hundred now, that's with the internet right? "Oh no, wait a minute" 5 minutes later = "176.something" Fuck that. I'll take one month's bill and buy the DVD sets of the seasons of the two shows I'll miss, and still have enough money to go drink on "Sci-Fi" friday nights.
POSTSCRIPT: I looked again at the web site, and although they don't have the digital box rental fee (and the fee for their useless printed guide which I can't seem to be able to get them to cancel) or the taxes listed, I can't figure out why the service would be more then 70 bucks to upgrade one tier. Perhaps when I have a free hour I'll call them again.
Some knowledge
How to make a camp stove out of a Pepsi can
How to order coffee in Italy "After 10 am, only children and tourists drink cappuccino."
Popularity
How to be heard How to become a popular blog. There's nothing wrong with trying to be popular, but I wish there was more emphasis on becoming a 'successful' blog, not just a popular one.
I know it isn't Stephen's intention here, but the implication is that if a blog doesn't have a readership, it's worthless. If your goal for blogging is to be popular, good luck, go brownnoise the big guys, link to everything Instapundit does, and follow Stephen's guide.
I understand popularity is a large motivation to do this, and I understand that some people do this for the satisfaction of passing on their knowledge, or their politics, or their moral ideas, and you kind of need an audience for that sort of thing. Just don't over look the other benefits to blogging. Just becauses no one reads you (take me for example) doesn't mean there's no reason to read, think about and communicate with all the smart people out here.
Stephen writes: "What you will notice is that, in all successful blogs, there's something in it for the author." Why would you spend countless hours on something you wouldn't get anything from? I'm not talking about advertising revenue, interviews on CNN, or even publicity for your business, I'm talking about what getting something out of the actual act of blogging - reading, thinking, learning, writing, communicating. And getting better at those things by doing them while you blog.
If you learn something every time you blog, you've created a successful blog. Have I learned something as I blogged this? Well, nobody ever said success was easy.