blivet 2.0

Audrey is back, she got in about 7:15 pm PDT. Got the mini-van unpacked and things sorted out - what stays in the garage, what needs to be washed. She jumped in the shower a minute ago. Neil Young’s Silver & Gold is playing on the stereo. Life is good.

[CNN] Next generation NASA communications satellite aloft. Once deployed, the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite will become known as TDRS-8. It is the first of three advanced TDRS satellites slated to replenish an existing orbiting fleet, which has provided communications links between spacecraft and ground controllers since 1983.

Mike at LarkFarm points to Conspiracy Net. “A nicely categorized selection of conspiracies for your paranoid pleasure.”

Jeffrey Zeldman notes that Asounding Websites (mentioned yesterday) is a bit overwhelmed by the unexpected popularity. A new hosting arrangement is in the works.

Timothy Paustian at macosxcarbon.EditThisPage.Com: “The carbon version is compiling.” Still a long way from beta - but real, tangible progress for Frontier in Mac OS X.

Dave at Time’s Shadow has also noticed Matt’s Once I noticed I was on fire … It is a taste some may be more predisposed to… Consider that a cautionary note.

Craig points to Minerva - History of Ideas Online, and mentions that we should click on ‘Concepts and Thinkers’. Excellent!

Susan who may resemble the third icon more than her own right now, is tethered to “The B.o.o.k. from Hell”, hence the scream motif. She was kind enough to evoke some musical imagery as she takes the highway exit to editing inferno and mentions a peice of great music, The Hut of Baba Yaga from Mussorgsky’s Picture’s … . Perhaps as a soundtrack for the upcoming made for the web QT movie “When Good Writers Have to Write About Software From Hell”. She also evokes the album Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson (or at least the cover art). Hang in there Susan!

Off to do Archaeology at The Preserve. Today’s agenda: write-up and graphics and statistics oh my!

a favorite jeff beck tune, from his ‘blow by blow’ album. anyway.

history of medicine? civilization? have you perused the three volume series by fernand braudel, entitled ‘the structures of everyday life’? analyses of our world via available numbers and statistics from 15th century to 18th. our resident curmudgeon would love these books. enlightening to a great degree. not for casual reading, however. these books are heavy enough to make a dent in your lap, affecting bowel movements … (grin)

[Zeldman] Astounding Websites

Matt at Once I noticed I was on fire … has got a handle on how rough it is being a visionary savior nowadays. I mean, I can’t explain the stress that comes from making vague predictions and finding acolytes willing to polish the jewel-encrusted blivetmobile in these Nevada summers.

[Reuters] Naked cricketers caught out by British police

[UniSci] History Of Constipation Highlights Medical Exploitation.

“Right now we think bran is good for us because of what scientists are telling us,” he [the author Whorton] says. “If you are eating bran today you can understand why people in the early 20th century reacted the way they did under a barrage of advertising about constipation and autointoxication.”

Whorton focuses on constipation in the United States and Great Britain in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century because the literature was more accessible and because the two countries were rivals at claiming to be the most constipated.

It is a serious study, and to me, points out how these arcs of attitudes persist over generations. I remember a great-Aunt who was just obsessed with everyone’s BMs. Mom! Aunt Julia asked me about my #2 again! Make her stop … Kellog’s Corn Flakes was part of a 19th century ideal in certain circles of activating the bowels and suppressing the libido for maximum health. The more you read about it, the more you see the undercurrents and eddies in our present culture.

Still not sure if this is present today? Two words: High Colonic.

[If You’re Interested …] The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments. via Cam

EditThisPage friends:

View from an Iowa Homestead: You might be a Dutch Calvinist if: Oh, I think the Swedish variety who administered my youth were amateurs, closer to the Norwegian variety Garrison Keillor talks about than the Dutch. Still, 75% strongly applies. Pretty darn true and funny. I’ve watched relatives leave restaurant tips like that when I was a kid.

Susan points out yet another neat thing about Manila. Thanks!

Hey, all you Manila users! Wanna get a retrospective look at what you’ve been up to with your site this month? Check out your Topics list. (the URL takes this form: yoursitename.editthispage.com/discuss/topics) But do it today or tomorrow, cause on July 1, the list goes back to nothing!

Later, she added what sounds like a Graduate Student’s lament:

Uh oh, time to go over copyedits for another chapter. In addition to lots of whimpering, it’s gonna take chocolate and whiskey and profuse foul language to get me through this process. What I want to do is to throw glass objects–hard–against solid surfaces, and listen to the crash-tinkle-tinkle.

John has an excellent list of people who are using weblogs to teach, points to Geoff Allen at Washington State who is teaching UNIX System Administration and using a weblog.

Having recently been through the fires in New Mexico around and at Los Alamos, plus with Brent and Sheila in Seattle, garret noticed a story about the current fire near the Hanford Nuclear Facility. What’s in common? Mr. Plutonium, who is not your friend, coming downstream. So, where’s the next fire … Rocky Flats (Colorado) or the Nevada Test Site? Either way it’s my In-Laws or us. On another completely tangential note (except that it’s on array too) Similar to garret, I use a reel mower. Its quiet, a bit of a workout, and decidedly not a part of the cul-de-sac ethos…

The Hazard Area Revisited theme looks good Al. Hang in there.

random quote from the I guess i’m just in that kind of mood tonight dept.

Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice. via Doc

perhaps I’m tuned into the same angst Dave is …

[India Today] Moon Mission: “In a bid to emerge as a global space power India plans an ambitious lunar launch that will boost its technological capability and ignite popular imagination.” I’m not sure about imagination, but they certainly got my attention. One thing that occurs to me off the top of my head … if India really want to get involved in space travel, I understand some folks are building a Space Station. You could always lend a hand with that instead of doing the ‘India lands on the Moon’ thing. Just a thought. I was led to this story by that demon slashdot.

more from Susan

Why I write in this weblog:

• I can say something in a few short paragraphs and immediately publish it. (computer books = toil for long time before it sees the light of day)
• I do a little writing daily. Naturally some days are better than others. But the dailiness of it is important.
• I get to build a new audience. If you are reading this and you’re not a Brycer, then I’ve succeeded at expanding my “audience” beyond people who use Bryce.

Nicely stated! I don’t write computer books but the whole notion of connecting with other people and writing daily I really like.

[Wherein John VanDyk reveals himself as a hero of mine] John at VFIH talks about story time at Vacation Bible School. It sounds like you’re good at it John. It gets me to thinking how these stories tie us together as a group, because we know the same stories. The Lost Sheep, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Loaves and Fishes, Krishna and the Milkmaids, Draupadi’s hair (I may have misspelled her name from The Mahabarata), the endless variations on the Chinese master of something or other and the ferryman/wandering mendicant/hermit, Hansel and Gretel, Coyote. Here in the US (which probably should read white middle-class Protestant Midwest since that is from whence I spring) many of those stories come from the Old and New Testament, but there also the one’s that are decidedly secular. Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed. Stories of a country in its adolescence and the Industrial Age. I’m not sure that losing some of the ‘triumph over nature’ stories is bad, what I am concerned about is that we’re not replacing the stories we used to tell our children with anything more than stories concocted by the marketplace to sell them crap. I’m sorry, I meant to say worthless crap that can, if unchecked, make them into mindless consumers who harbor the notion that even though the last worthless crap they bought in attempt to fill the void in their soul with material goods (sense objects) didn’t work, this new one will. Perhaps you should use your credit card since its rather expensive. The simple act of telling stories that matter to our children (that’s the encompassing “Our”) can make all the difference in letting them know that they’re part of a larger whole, that they’re part of US and that we, in turn, are part of THEM. We belong to each other. You’re a hero John.

I’m through venting - thanks for listening

[Books Unlimited] 21st century family values. “Infidelity, divorce, stepchildren… is marriage doomed in the 21st century, asks leading American writer Jane Smiley. Or could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?” Thought provoking. thanks for the link garret.

Susan is looking forward to giving her niece A Wrinkle In Time. You’re a good Aunt Susan! She also mentions what I’ve always thought was obvious - if you’re a reader, you never can have too many books!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be released in: [Macro error: Can’t call the script because the name “editThisPageSuite” hasn’t been defined.]

Sorry about the lack of updates, sometimes the non-weblog world intrudes…

meanwhile there’s lots of things to see out there in weblog land. In no particular order and partially ’cause I want to se the icons:

garret
Al
Scripting News
Jonas
Craig
brent

Sheila
John
David
Jeff
Bill

Susan
Ed
Rafe
Andrea |
André
q

Angus
Archipelago |
Dori and Tom |
David |
John |
Dave |
Doc

If I forgot anyone, I apologize

Al writes in Gifts From Beyond:

I’m a little misty right at this moment. And more than a little angry at myself. I had let the legions of Pointy Haired Gumps overide my own personal code of ethics, and denied a dying man some last bit of pleasure and satisfaction. Maybe even caused him some personal pain. And the taste of ashes is in my mouth tonight.

Al, you’re one of the finest people I know … that is a very moving story.

Later: Al’s trying out the ‘Orderly Boxes’ theme - it looks pretty darn good! Suddenly blivet is starting to look long in the tooth …

[Mac] Developer - MRJ Software Download:
Mac OS Runtime for Java (MRJ) 2.2.2 is out.

Six months (and a little…)

Like garret, my six-month EditThisPage anniversary slipped by me unnoticed. My first ETP entry was on December 23,1999.

TidBITS#536/26-Jun-00
=====================

  What happens when well-known open source proponent Eric Raymond
  meets 300 diehard Mac programmers at the annual MacHack developers
  conference: a butting of the heads or a meeting of the minds? Also
  this week, Ron Risley relates his experiences in turning a
  battered PowerBook into a powerful Internet router and server.
  Finally, the Microsoft antitrust trial might go to the Supreme
  Court, and we report which MP3 players are most popular.

Topics:
    MailBITS/26-Jun-00
    Open Source and the Macintosh
    Serving the Internet from a PowerBook 5300

http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-536.html
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2000/TidBITS#536_26-Jun-00.etx

—–

Scripting News: Frontier 6.2 ships. Congratulations!

also at Scripting News: “Mac OS X and Frontier. Tim Paustian is doing the Carbonization project for Frontier 6.2.”

[The Art Newspaper] New law would weaken US ability to keep out loot. Foreign nations would be required to give information to justify their request.

A proposed change in US law would nullify restraints on the trade in stolen and illicitly exported antiquities and would increase archaeological pillage, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) has told the Senate in written comments.

At stake, say critics of the proposed legislation, is the current efficacy of the US Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (CCPIA), enacted by Congress in 1983 to help stem the illicit antiquities trade. The proposal now before the Senate will weaken the CCPIA to the point of “effectively repealing” it, said Marilyn Phelan, a law professor at Texas Tech University, also in written comments opposing the amendment.

The antiquities trade, both domestic and international, is huge. The USA should be acting in intimate cooperation with the international comminity. … thanks for the link garret.

[UniSci] Research-Based Advice On Avoiding Skin Cancer:

Nationally, more than one million new cases of skin cancer will be diagnosed this year. One in five people in this country will develop skin cancer at some time in their life. A University of Michigan dermatologist reminds summer vacationers that frequent self-checks, use of sunscreens and limiting exposure are measures people can take to help protect their skin and possibly save their lives.

I’m out in the sun waaaay too much. Sunblock is cheap, long sleve shirts are preferred, and a broad-brimmed hat is a must. A lot of the old guys back home (mostly farmers in those parts) have skin problems. Ted (who I talked about in regards to my father) goes in every six months or so and has some more incipient skin cancers removed. 20% of us will develop skin cancer! Did I mention that sunblock is cheap?

EditThisPage friends:

I’m late on noticing this comment on the ‘Carbonization’ of Frontier 6.2 at Archipelago News: “I’ve been wondering what a world without Frontier/Pike running natively on Mac would be like, and I wasn’t thrilled with the thought.” I think I was just doing a whistling in the dark thing, “Oh, they’ll do it … la la la.”

I’m remiss in not pointing to this earlier too. Jim at have browser, will travel mentions: “The Subhonker Filter is back!” It’s not too different from favorites at Weblogs.com but I like it.

Jeff, in conjunction with a link about the Miranda warning which was upheld today, linked to The Supreme Court of the United States. Nothing in this is inherently humorus. However, if you’re a little bit punchy (as in Monty Python) and read the URL as it appears on the bottom pane of the browser (whatever that area is called down there) you may find yourself saying, out loud, to the dog and cat - “Oh, do you know my friend Biggus?” supremecourtus? biggus? maybe you had to be there …

On Deciding … Better: Learning to Think: “Three rules to remember: Take time to think. Consider all possibilities. Keep at it.” Thanks for that James.

garret: “the lord of the rings movie is succumbing to marketing, instead of staying true to the story. arwen evenstar, warrior princess indeed.” Aaaaarrrggghhh! I defended the film’s makers a couple of months ago. All other stories are yours. Attempt no interpretation here. (with big apologies to Arthur C. Clarke …) Later: garret is tweaking array’s appearance and he has posted the source to the CSS for his calendar. I still don’t grok CSS, much less javascript - despite Dori and Tom’s book, but I think its for lack of trying.

Dave Rogers (Commander Dave who used to have an extra keyboard for a Newton) writes in today’s Time’s Shadow - Prisoner of Dreams:

So I visit Doc’s and read what he’s written, and I swear to God he was writing to me. There’s sometimes a reason for the titles on these pages. I don’t share many of them, and I don’t want to go into this one, but this was just so cool. Somebody was right, it is all connected. And I am forty-three.

Exactly! I’m 44 by the way, … I believe its more connected than we may be willing to comprehend.

A much awaited Newton keyboard arrives at Al’s. What a great bunch of people … Later: “Assume I am engaged in the conversation: Positive eye contact, leaning forward in my chair with my elbows on my knees and my hands close but not touching, fingers steepled.” LOL! I can see it Al, I can see you doing that! This is from a discusion on ‘listening’ at 2020Hindsight.

Yum! View from Iowa Gumbo.
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Today’s Doc Searls Weblog got me thinking about living my dreams …

[MacHack] Andy Among the Hackers: Day One I love reading Andy Ihnatko’s stuff.

[x86 LINUX] Slackware 7.1 is out of beta. via slashdot

Don’t forget about LinuxPPC for Macintoshes. For instance, the Macintosh customization site ResExcellence is served entirely by a PowerMac 7300/200 running LinuxPPC. Thats about a quater of a million hits a day.

[Mac] Lemkesoft has released version 3.9 of his excellent shareware applcation Graphic Converter. Changes in v. 3.9 include the ability to open and display QuickTime movies and save QT movies to single frame images as well as LuraWave (LWF), FUJI, SNX support and the usual many bug fixes and enhancements. via Version Tracker.

EditThisPage friends: All good people whether they’re currently listed here or not …

garret continues to tell us about their trip, to think about community, and points to Font Aid.

“I’m a Swing Slut”, confesses Susan, without remorse or apology.

You build them over time and they become a part of you. You come to depend on them, playing off of each others strengths and shoring up in the areas where we could use a little help. Then it changes. It always changes. … Al muses on roster changes at the hospital where he works.

Sheila has a picture of a beautiful quilt her grandmother made. The time and effort represented that these formerly ‘utilitarian’ pieces of useable art amazes me. We have several from multiple generations of women on my mother’s side of the family. These sorts of things transcend time and space. We have a baby quilt that (I hope) we will use for our children. It was made by my great-grandmother who died when I was about 10. The thought that this quilt arcs over four generations and has been in the cribs of sleeping Aldrenes, Boyles, and Ragers over something like 90 years pleases me. That’s good continuity.

Frontier 6.2 to be burned beyond recognition: “Many Mac users will be happy to know that we’re working on a “carbonized” version of Frontier 6.2.” Yea!

Had a great time with the Usual Suspects; Kelly, EG, Claudia. Dave, Gene and some other folks. Bocca Burgers˙ for some, patties of dead cow for others, impromptu star-gazing, good music in the house spilling outside, EG and I lying on our backs in the grass remembering fireflies and people back home, Kelly, Dave and I discussing the best way to parse information out of lithic assemblages and how to manage Cultural Resource Management (CRM) firms. </run-on sentence zone>. I haven’t checked to see if the cyber-café in Joshua Tree, CA is still up for sale, but we talked about buying it and running a combination cyber-café, bar, local ISP, CRM company, and shrine to Gram Parsons. Or, maybe not … Good people.
—–

I’ll see you all tomorrow. I’m actually going to walk away from the computer and histograms, contingency tables and who knows what else, and go recreate, be social, and talk to people face to face. I don’t know if you remember the Far Side cartoon of ‘Early vegetarians returning from the hunt’ with a group of spear brandishing hunters bearing a giant carrot on their shoulders into camp. No? Anyway, I’m going to head to Boulder City where Kelly & EG live and rendezvous with a bunch of other Archaes, grad students of the geological and archaeological persuasion, Bluegrass fans, Dead Heads, Buddhists, Pagans, lapsed Catholics, and probably a few who are pretty normal, and we’re going to barbecue, talk, laugh, and have a great time I’m sure. I’ll be the one dragging the giant carrot. OK … just walk away from the computer … NOW

He who hesitates is lost. The last time I did a whois and checked on rager.org and rager.net, they were still available. Today I see that MailBank is sitting on those as well.

Thanks Jeff, I just wanted to be sure … I’m constantly reminded with how easy-going folks are in the weblog community It is a group thing …

You can get a lot of thinking done behind the wheel. garret begins that process of recovering those thoughts and insights and lets us in on a couple of things that he wants to share. Good stuff, thanks …

… how can a metropolitan area retain local flavor and accommodate national chains? is there a way to make high-speed rail service more cost-effective, to eliminate the overabundance of truck traffic on the interstates? the noise in metropolitan areas! my ears ring. on and on … the mind percolates. there has to be a way to modernize, to approach our future with enthusiasm, but with space for the aesthetic, the human, the child.

many things crossed my path. it’d take me a year to get ‘em all sorted and in logical order for presentation. my grandmother gave some tennessee down-home wisdom for keeping bugs off of plants …

Matt reminds me of some things about Cope and Marsh I had forgotten, the gun battles and back stabbing treachery — over fossils. I’m looking for a good general text on Paleontology now. I smell a story being written … What we have around the blivet hacienda is dated: Principles of Paleontology by Raup and Stanley (Freeman 1978), The Practical Paleontologist by Parker (Bernor, editor) (Simon & Schuster 1990), Fossils and the History of Life by Simpson (Scientific American Books 1983) and lots of popular books by Horner, Bakker, Lessem, and others. For the more current stuff there’s the class notes and journal articles, in boxes, filing cabinets, milk crates, and stacks and stacks and stacks. It seems a personal quest, to exemplify a career studying stratigraphy by creating one of your career … God help us when we move. Oh sweet Mother, I forgot about the stuff in the garage. Matt, I’ll have to look further (farther?) for a good text …

I noticed pointers to some good resources at G E N E H A C K:weblog:

A couple bibliography related links, jake, a database of journal names and abbreviations, and dblp, a bibliography database resource. Both culled from recent discussions on the Pybliographer mailing list.

Reading up on Manila and trying things out …

garret and sandra are back: “11 PM: sometimes all you need is one word: HOME.” Glad you folks made it OK. Now get some Sleeeeep.

Audrey is in the land of Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. They were fossil hunters late in the 1800s who were intensively competitive trying to find fossils for the museums they worked for. Interestingly, in 1988 near Big Multi in the NW margin of the Washakie Basin in Wyoming (doing research as an undergrad on Eocene Hyracatherium (a horse ancestor)) she found Cope’s pocket knife. They keep coming up, these things.

">Al teaches fellow nurses by using the Socratic method. I think if something terrible happened and through the haze of shock and pain I saw Al bending over me, I’d know I was in good hands …

Rafe at rc3.org Daily points to Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers.

You’re welcome Matt, but you misunderstand. I think its about all of us, only individually.

More Mars …

[Reuters] Study suggests Mars had salty oceans in past. “Hard on the heels of an announcement that scientists may have found evidence that water still flows to the surface of Mars, geologists said on Friday they had found evidence that, like Earth, Martian oceans were salty.”

Oops, I see that Jeff is linking to the meteorite story and Al is making very similar comments on Angus’s comments. Sorry guys, no toe-stepping intended…

[Reuters] Museum, American Indians agree to share meteorite.

The American Museum of Natural History and an Oregon Indian group signed an agreement on Thursday giving the Indians privileged access to an iron meteorite they revere as a holy object but which the museum regards as a prized exhibit.

Under the agreement ending an ownership dispute, the 15.5-ton Willamette Meteorite will remain in the New York museum, where the metallic rock is the centerpiece of the museum’s new space center.

But members of the Native American group would be allowed to visit it for religious, historical and cultural ceremonies.

Finally, a compromise that may work for both parties.

Angus at Latte on Interplanetary Optimism:

Sometimes I question the wisdom of my fascination with space exploration. The costs are so huge and the risks are tremendous. But the news today of water flowing on the Martian surface and a private individual paying to enter space dispells all worries from my mind. The universe is infinite (or at least it’s really big) and it’s stupidity to think that we should confine ourselves to this one planet.

I’ve had “We must go to the stars” as the top heading with links to the Mars Project on my university web page for a couple of years now. I put it there after I became particularly inspired (yet again) by a Babylon 5 episode. I couldn’t agree more with Angus, finding water on Mars is incredible, just incredible. I can only echo the words of James Lovell (Apollo 13’s Mission Commander), speaking about the Apollo Moon missions - When will we return [to space]? I wish they needed an Archaeologist for the first manned mission, or better yet, a colony. I’ll even start doing sit-ups!

[Reuters] Feathery fossil shows birds aren’t dinosaurs.

The ancient fossil of a little tree-climbing reptile has a frill of feathers that casts doubt on theories that modern-day birds evolved from dinosaurs, scientists said on Thursday. The 220 million-year-old fossil is 75 million years older than the oldest known bird, Archeopteryx, the researchers report in the latest issue of the journal Science. It has what clearly are feathers that almost certainly were used to glide, which means dinosaurs are not the direct ancestors of birds, Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who worked on the study, said. … Terry Jones of Oregon State University, who led the study, said the fossil, named Longisquama insignis, is an archosaur, a reptilian genus that gave rise to dinosaurs, reptiles and birds. But Longisquama lived side-by-side with dinosaurs in the Triassic period.

Now it will get interesting in that part of Vertebrate Paleontology, the public cladistics wars resume after a brief calm from our point of view …

Matthew Rossi at Once I noticed I was on fire, I decided to relax and enjoy the fall muses on Weblogging:

Lately, it seems as though you might as soon admit to consorting with Lucifer as maintaining one of these sites. Everyone’s tired of it, it seems. Everyone’s sick of the link economy, or the cookie cutter nature of 9/10’s of the content of these ‘blogs’ as people have taken to calling them. Everyone wants to get back to the purity of maintaining a site just for them.

Well, not me, baby. Me and my diseased imagination are gonna keep on keeping on till they pry our cold dead fingers away from the keys. Let me bare myself to my limited readership for an instant; I am fully aware of how unique I am, and I like it. I like that I’m smart. I like that I’m erudite. I like that I read and think about what I read and melt my disparate reading into mental alloy. I am, in short, not all that humble about this page, or what it is I do on it. Is it Earth-Shattering? Nope. Does anyone care? Well, a few people do, and they’ve been very nice about it. To everyone who has bothered to come by and send me a nice email, I thank you kindly. Your simple generosity has been appreciated.

But I do not do this for you, and I never did. … I admit it! I consort with Lucifer!

Sorry for the long quote, but hey, I like Matt’s ‘log. fade to Friend of the Devil - Grateful Dead/American Beauty

Later: this is apparently in response to today’s powazek where he bows from the ‘log scene.

EditThisPage friends:

Yesterday Al rhetorically asked “So, what can I do?” and proceeded to enumerate an impressive list of the things that nurses are not only capable of doing but expected to be able to. I suspect Al is pretty damn good at them too. This got me thinking, how much of our (or maybe its just my) perceived lack of occupational mobility is simply failing to consider what we do well at a higher level (’meta-level’ if you will) than what would be ordinarily expressed by our vocation’s terminology? This is somewhat rhetorical because I’ve considered the juggling act I (we) perform as Archaeologists, but could be worth thinking about if or when you consider that leap from where you are perched now. I bet (I’m in Vegas, its required) that you don’t give yourself half the credit you are due. Thanks for bringing that to the fore, Al.

garret does his last post from the road. Our erstwhile correspondent notes that “not many places in the country boast ‘lard sandwiches’ on the menu.” I can’t imagine why. I hope you have the time to take a vacation when you get back.

Katz at [Slashdot] Analysis: The Rise Of Open Media:

Media hotshots and junkies were breathing heavily last week after Salon and CBS.com announced layoffs and APBNews.com had a near-death experience. These and other new media “setbacks” prompted some gleeful, almost poignant predictions that old media might return from the grave. Don’t put any money on it. The media war of the future isn’t between “old” and “new” media, already meaningless terms, but between Open and Closed media.

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