Friday, August 27, 2004

Former Lt Governor of Texas Ben Barnes explains that he helped George Bush get out of serving in Vietnam.  

I'm pooped, but I'm going to get some coffee in me, and get caught up on the RNC community site. There have been lots of requests for sites to be included. At this time I'm only going to include sites written by people who are actually covering the RNC from inside the convention. I may, if there's time, do a special page aggregating sites that are covering the RNC from outside. BTW, two buses left Madison today for NYC carrying protestors. Just like the good old days!  

If your site is not included, and it should be, please read the instructions carefully, and then post a comment with the four bits of info. Thanks.  

Rogers Cadenhead on weblog hosting. "All existing weblogs will be hosted for free, as long as they've been updated at least once in 2004." 

More pictures from Madison, this time the house I shared with nine other roommates. It was a magic place, and it's more or less unchanged. 437 West Wilson Street. The only major change I could see is that the garden, where my Wisconsin-bred roommates planted all kinds of vegetables, is grown over. It's been 26 years. Given enough time, bright-eyed young grad students turn into old farts, and lovingly tended gardens become forests.  

Movie taken on the patio behind the Union on Lake Mendota. 

Still pictures from an early morning walking tour of the UW campus in Madison. One thing I learned, in a really stark way, I totally overestimate the quality of my memory. I drove past a place I used to live while I was watching for it carefully. A place I walked to and drove to hundreds of times. Totally missed it. I also remembered Madison being dirtier and poorer than it is. Memories of opinions. Perhaps my point of view then was more priviledged somehow, or my tolerance for grunge has gone up. Anyway some of my memories of this place were sweet and are not going away. I remember loving my work like I never have since. And I remember walking home late at night in sub-zero temperatures, full of enthusiasm for life, to a bed already warmed by a 19-year old girl I was in love with. It was a sweet life, but one filled with puzzles. I lived two blocks from the minor league baseball stadium. Why didn't I ever go to a game? (I think their name was the Muskies.) State St is still there, and the Parthenon is too. I drank coffee on the patio behind the Union watching the boats on the lake. But my memory is so incomplete. I could drive right by the Computer Science building and not recognize it. (I did.) 

Reminder to self. Next time in Madison stay at the Edgewater. 

Trivia. Locals have affectionate names for the two local papers. The Crap Times, and the Wisconsin State Urinal. They're both owned by the same company. Wisconsites have a cornball sense of humor. Makes sense because the state makes a lot of corn.  

Don Park's weblog is two years old today. Happy! 

On this day five years ago, I stated my vision for RSS which contains a simple explanation why RSS is different from CDF. RSS files are expected to change several times a day. CDF describes a site structure that changes rarely if ever. Perhaps that would be useful if it had been followed-through-on by Microsoft (it wasn't). But that's different from RSS which flows news through a fixed point, something you can subscribe to.  

MIT student: "Your blog's comments section continues to amaze. It's like some kind of zoo, but with idiots instead of exotic animals." 

Zawodny discusses the difference betw feed search and regular search.  

Jay Rosen: "There are jittery people in the networks, trying not to be the cause of anything." 

Jessica The Librarian talks about merging weblogs and file management. I think the extra bit you need is an organization-level search engine.