October 15, 2005
October 14, 2005
A comment on comments
well i turned blogger comments on. i didn't like them. i switched to haloscan. I didn't back up my template. my sidebar is screwed.
If anyone has a lovely template for me, now would be the time for a quick re-design, considering i blew away all my nice little links in the sidebar. they'll be back soon--including the blogroll.
I the meantime, oh please tell me you like the new comments, courtesy of halo scan, courtesy of Tony Pierce, who admirably can use grammar as a verb.
in other news, Gonzo Engaged, who turned 4 today, is looking smashing!
If anyone has a lovely template for me, now would be the time for a quick re-design, considering i blew away all my nice little links in the sidebar. they'll be back soon--including the blogroll.
I the meantime, oh please tell me you like the new comments, courtesy of halo scan, courtesy of Tony Pierce, who admirably can use grammar as a verb.
in other news, Gonzo Engaged, who turned 4 today, is looking smashing!
The road to aggression
FUCK YOU!
Someone said that to me today, and told me to put it on my goddam blog.
I decided to oblige.
Someone said that to me today, and told me to put it on my goddam blog.
I decided to oblige.
October 13, 2005
Respect to Hossien Sharifi
I have used YACCS as my commeting utility on this and other blogs since 2001. In all of that time, when other blog tools were sucking at comments and letting in spammers or not offering comments at all or forcing you to develop 'black lists,' YACCS performed like a champ.
Hossein has rocked this house multiple times, never charging a dime. I don't know what his business model is--I don't know him at all--but if he's like the good folks who have been around here for a while, he didn't have a business mmodel when he started playing with comments. He was curious. He was already passionate about running a data-driven conversation platform.
Unfortunately, of late, YACCS has been throwing too many errors for me to keep up with on this blog. I get emails from folks who say, "why'd you take your comments down!" I've never taken my comments down, but sometimes YACCS has to go hurl and then it comes right back. In the mean time, it makes the blog take a LONG TIME to load. Too long.
When Blogger finally incorporated a commenting utility in this tool a year or so ago, I stuck with YACCS. I have four years of the most meaningful conversation of my life sitting in Hossein's database(s). I was not moved to switch.
But today I've turned on Blogger comments. What I want is for someone to buy YACCS and pay Hossein $2-$5 million like Dave Winer, because Hossein has also offered an incredibly valuable, free service and has never said a nasty word or pontificated or complained or jumped up and down. And he's provided what I think is the most reliable comment utilities in blogging for the longest time. Comment spam? I don't get any with YACCS.
So, in the mean time, while I wait to see how long it takes Hossein to get YACCS cooperating again or putting a few million dollars in the bank, I've saved the line in my template that lets me put YACCS back in. Hossein, I'm not leaving--I'm just taking a break and hoping you get rich. Keep my conversations safe.
THANKS,
respect.
jeneane
Hossein has rocked this house multiple times, never charging a dime. I don't know what his business model is--I don't know him at all--but if he's like the good folks who have been around here for a while, he didn't have a business mmodel when he started playing with comments. He was curious. He was already passionate about running a data-driven conversation platform.
Unfortunately, of late, YACCS has been throwing too many errors for me to keep up with on this blog. I get emails from folks who say, "why'd you take your comments down!" I've never taken my comments down, but sometimes YACCS has to go hurl and then it comes right back. In the mean time, it makes the blog take a LONG TIME to load. Too long.
When Blogger finally incorporated a commenting utility in this tool a year or so ago, I stuck with YACCS. I have four years of the most meaningful conversation of my life sitting in Hossein's database(s). I was not moved to switch.
But today I've turned on Blogger comments. What I want is for someone to buy YACCS and pay Hossein $2-$5 million like Dave Winer, because Hossein has also offered an incredibly valuable, free service and has never said a nasty word or pontificated or complained or jumped up and down. And he's provided what I think is the most reliable comment utilities in blogging for the longest time. Comment spam? I don't get any with YACCS.
So, in the mean time, while I wait to see how long it takes Hossein to get YACCS cooperating again or putting a few million dollars in the bank, I've saved the line in my template that lets me put YACCS back in. Hossein, I'm not leaving--I'm just taking a break and hoping you get rich. Keep my conversations safe.
THANKS,
respect.
jeneane
I just said "Scatology" over the Georgia radio airwaves and now I feel like Dooce.
Kevin, Grayson and I were on Atlanta's progressive station 89.3 WRFG this morning to talk about blogging and blogging, blogging and politics, blogging and business, and like that. Our nearby Florida neighbor Josh Hallett also called in to the show.
I've never done a radio interview before: Big Surprise. So when the phone rang and it was the radio station, I was of course Blogging in my bed...errr...I mean doing investigative reporting. Thank the Lord that Kevin and Grayson were on to make blogging legit, because I think I just took the topic down a nasty -- albeit well deserved -- path.
You see, I was finishing up my interpretation of the scatology memo from President Bush, exhibit A below.
Being progressive 'thinking with their own minds' kind of folks, the talk-show host and Grayson were in the studio actually looking at our blogs as we talked about them -- CLUED -- and so the clever and funny host, Mr. Monroe, asks me to talk about this Bush memo thing--> "Tell me, Jeneane, what you think the memo says...."
And I say, well, I don't think I can say that word on the air.
Here's the deal: Progressive radio really does rock better than conservative radio because indeed you can say scatology! And so I did. And then I said my only doubt on what the P.S. actually says is that I don't think the President knows a word with that many syllables.
So now you know the story about how I had to say Scatology on the radio and why I feel like Dooce because things like that only happen to Dooce.
Okay then. Paul, my business partner, will be glad to know that I plugged The Content Factor and Scatology on the same radio show. How many people have that opportunity?
The next time I'm asked about what blogging has to do with business, I will relate this anecdote.
I've never done a radio interview before: Big Surprise. So when the phone rang and it was the radio station, I was of course Blogging in my bed...errr...I mean doing investigative reporting. Thank the Lord that Kevin and Grayson were on to make blogging legit, because I think I just took the topic down a nasty -- albeit well deserved -- path.
You see, I was finishing up my interpretation of the scatology memo from President Bush, exhibit A below.
Being progressive 'thinking with their own minds' kind of folks, the talk-show host and Grayson were in the studio actually looking at our blogs as we talked about them -- CLUED -- and so the clever and funny host, Mr. Monroe, asks me to talk about this Bush memo thing--> "Tell me, Jeneane, what you think the memo says...."
And I say, well, I don't think I can say that word on the air.
Here's the deal: Progressive radio really does rock better than conservative radio because indeed you can say scatology! And so I did. And then I said my only doubt on what the P.S. actually says is that I don't think the President knows a word with that many syllables.
So now you know the story about how I had to say Scatology on the radio and why I feel like Dooce because things like that only happen to Dooce.
Okay then. Paul, my business partner, will be glad to know that I plugged The Content Factor and Scatology on the same radio show. How many people have that opportunity?
The next time I'm asked about what blogging has to do with business, I will relate this anecdote.
The Scat Singer
I'm going to ask you all again: Does the memo below from the Leader of the Free World (and freer by the day, I might add, if I were a nutjob neocon) to Supreme Court Justice Nominee Harriett Miers not advise said candidate to refrain from PUBLIC SCATOLOGY in the future.Okay--I'm willing to take future google hits from freaks looking for pictures. The least you can do is tell me, no. No, dumb ass, it doesn't say that. President Bush wrote: "P.S. No more public _____________."
Let's review what ____________ might be.
No more public scientology?
No more public scaffolding?
No more public scat singing?
Help me out here.
...tap tap tap... waiting....
No music with this one.
Excuse me, but does that p.s. say: "No more public scatology?"
Okay I thought so.
Cool.
Okay.
I mean, I was just trying to be sure.
October 12, 2005
passive aggressive dentist woman
I have to come clean about some stuff here. Number one, as you know, well, some of you, I have no dental insurance. Like most merikans, that went away with my 9-9 job a couple of years back. So, when I was eating some air about a year ago, and my bottom left molar decided to collapse, I had to get a crown.
They call em crowns because the cost like $340,033,000.22, or they might as well cost that much since coming up with a grand out of pocket was about as likely as coming up with the $340 million.
Well, my dentist was nice enough to work out payment arrangements. I always like when they do that--and back during Web 1.0 I was even careful to make those payments. But then I learned during Web 1.0 that no one really meant all those good things they promised in return for working hard, so I realized that meant I could take my time paying off my creditors.
Which brings us back to the bitch at the dentist's office.
My crown fell off two weeks ago when I dared to bite into a milky way--we're talking the snack-size square which is 93-percent soft center--and me being in a client meeting did what you would do: I showed it to everyone.
That notwithstanding: After that I stopped by the dentist, to find he has a new receptionist, Ms. Bitcherella.
I show her my crown and I tell her jeez since I've only had it on like 10 months, can't she just stick it on there herself for me, like if I put my face through that little sliding window she can give it a good shove, and I can be on my way?
Well no, of course SHE has other ideas, like looking up my account balance so she could shame me.
Funny thing is, RageBoy was on the phone the whole time because I was jabbering to him on the drive back and I said, hold on, I have to see about my crown, and took him inside.
So Ms. Bitcherella fires up her PC and begins to show me, with more disdain than I rightly deserve, that I still owe $200 on my account, which had been at $1,200.
I am jubilent--that means I've paid off like $1,000 ! This is the best news I've had in weeks! I point at the screen and say: "Isn't that great--look how much I've paid you!"
But she sees it differently and keeps reminding me that I'm a useless deadbeat with teeth she could take back if she wanted to.
I hear RB laughing out of my phone's earhole. She stares at my cellphone. I think she thinks I'm up to something.
I'm all like: Please, understand here, I have paid you a lot of money--I'm good for the rest.
She's all like: We have a communication problem.
In the end I scheduled an appointment and left. In the car RB was wheezing: "That was like listening to two completely different conversations going on simultaneously. You're all about: 'look how good i did!' and she's all about 'you're a fucking looser.' HA HA HA!"
And I'm all "HA HAHA HAHAHAHHAAA!"
fastforward.
I had to call Bitcherella back to move the appointment when a client meeting came up.
She told me this was my last chance--she can't keep rescheduling the doctor's time this way.
I said if she wanted that balance, I had to take client meetings when I could: I have to bill to pay her. AND I told her I didn't like her attitude.
She told me she wasn't trying to give me an attitude but it was clear that I didn't want to pay the balance and that I should come in and get my crown fixed either way. Somehow she has this mock concern going on for me all of a sudden, and so I look over my shoulder to make sure she's not at my house.
I told her I'd think about it.
Then I said okay, Thursday, but don't think I'm giving you any money.
The moral of the story: I think I have them on the run.
They call em crowns because the cost like $340,033,000.22, or they might as well cost that much since coming up with a grand out of pocket was about as likely as coming up with the $340 million.
Well, my dentist was nice enough to work out payment arrangements. I always like when they do that--and back during Web 1.0 I was even careful to make those payments. But then I learned during Web 1.0 that no one really meant all those good things they promised in return for working hard, so I realized that meant I could take my time paying off my creditors.
Which brings us back to the bitch at the dentist's office.
My crown fell off two weeks ago when I dared to bite into a milky way--we're talking the snack-size square which is 93-percent soft center--and me being in a client meeting did what you would do: I showed it to everyone.
That notwithstanding: After that I stopped by the dentist, to find he has a new receptionist, Ms. Bitcherella.
I show her my crown and I tell her jeez since I've only had it on like 10 months, can't she just stick it on there herself for me, like if I put my face through that little sliding window she can give it a good shove, and I can be on my way?
Well no, of course SHE has other ideas, like looking up my account balance so she could shame me.
Funny thing is, RageBoy was on the phone the whole time because I was jabbering to him on the drive back and I said, hold on, I have to see about my crown, and took him inside.
So Ms. Bitcherella fires up her PC and begins to show me, with more disdain than I rightly deserve, that I still owe $200 on my account, which had been at $1,200.
I am jubilent--that means I've paid off like $1,000 ! This is the best news I've had in weeks! I point at the screen and say: "Isn't that great--look how much I've paid you!"
But she sees it differently and keeps reminding me that I'm a useless deadbeat with teeth she could take back if she wanted to.
I hear RB laughing out of my phone's earhole. She stares at my cellphone. I think she thinks I'm up to something.
I'm all like: Please, understand here, I have paid you a lot of money--I'm good for the rest.
She's all like: We have a communication problem.
In the end I scheduled an appointment and left. In the car RB was wheezing: "That was like listening to two completely different conversations going on simultaneously. You're all about: 'look how good i did!' and she's all about 'you're a fucking looser.' HA HA HA!"
And I'm all "HA HAHA HAHAHAHHAAA!"
fastforward.
I had to call Bitcherella back to move the appointment when a client meeting came up.
She told me this was my last chance--she can't keep rescheduling the doctor's time this way.
I said if she wanted that balance, I had to take client meetings when I could: I have to bill to pay her. AND I told her I didn't like her attitude.
She told me she wasn't trying to give me an attitude but it was clear that I didn't want to pay the balance and that I should come in and get my crown fixed either way. Somehow she has this mock concern going on for me all of a sudden, and so I look over my shoulder to make sure she's not at my house.
I told her I'd think about it.
Then I said okay, Thursday, but don't think I'm giving you any money.
The moral of the story: I think I have them on the run.
buy coastal
If you're in NY, you better catch up with tony pierce on monday night, because it would be so stupid not to.
Chuck's Take on
Chuck Tanowitz takes on the noble task of defining just WHO is a journalist - or who a journalist is -- or maybe it's whom. Or really, maybe it's WHAT. All of which is made more difficult, he points out, by legal differences, even among states...
Chuck is right to look closely at the qualifiers. In the legal arena--which this debate seems destined for--lawyers will have a blast arguing. And whether you take the angle of who's a source and who's shielded, or who's writing and who's funding them, it really comes down to truth and facts.
But truth and facts in the online world are not always easily discernible. What if I disclaim, say in every other post, "That story I posted 20 minutes ago? It might not have been all true." Because we can play with the truth here--serious journalists or entertainent journalists. AND we can also TELL the truth more easily by uncovering falsehoods that are hard to find elsewhere (ala rathergate).
We can claim to play with the truth. Or we can not make such claim. We can be a card-carrying journalist and anonymous all at once. And if our ISP gets hauled into court, can we make like Tony Pierce and point to his top-level blog disclaimer: Nothing in here is true?
I would.
But you know all of it is.
And none of it is.
One subtle but huge difference is that we are not part of a corporation: We don't have the cost of print, ink, paper, advertising, distribution, sales--just some of the dollar realities that make accuracy important in offline, hardline news, where corrections can cost $ as well as credibility.
Does that make us more frivolous with the facts? I'm probably guilty of that.
So there.
Luckily though, when we write in a space that is, as either Doc or David once said, inherently self-correcting. That means, over time, the facts have an opporunity to take care of themselves.
Read Chuck's And Part 2 he discusses burying the shield for once and for all, calling a source a source:
...How does New York define a journalist?
A "professional journalist" is...one who, for gain or livelihood, is engaged in gathering, preparing, collecting, writing, editing, filming, taping or photographing of news intended for a newspaper, magazine, news agency, press association or wire service or other professional medium or agency which has as one of its regular functions the processing and researching of news intended for dissemination to the public; such person shall be someone performing said function either as a regular employee or as one otherwise professionally affiliated for gain or livelihood with such medium of communication.
There are a number of interesting qualifiers here. My favorite is as someone who provides information "for gain or livelihood..." in other words, you have to make money doing this. How many bloggers out there make nothing for their work but do it for the love of writing or finding things out? What if one of these finds themselves with a “source” who provides some sensitive information? Could this person duck behind the shield?
Chuck is right to look closely at the qualifiers. In the legal arena--which this debate seems destined for--lawyers will have a blast arguing. And whether you take the angle of who's a source and who's shielded, or who's writing and who's funding them, it really comes down to truth and facts.
But truth and facts in the online world are not always easily discernible. What if I disclaim, say in every other post, "That story I posted 20 minutes ago? It might not have been all true." Because we can play with the truth here--serious journalists or entertainent journalists. AND we can also TELL the truth more easily by uncovering falsehoods that are hard to find elsewhere (ala rathergate).
We can claim to play with the truth. Or we can not make such claim. We can be a card-carrying journalist and anonymous all at once. And if our ISP gets hauled into court, can we make like Tony Pierce and point to his top-level blog disclaimer: Nothing in here is true?
I would.
But you know all of it is.
And none of it is.
One subtle but huge difference is that we are not part of a corporation: We don't have the cost of print, ink, paper, advertising, distribution, sales--just some of the dollar realities that make accuracy important in offline, hardline news, where corrections can cost $ as well as credibility.
Does that make us more frivolous with the facts? I'm probably guilty of that.
So there.
Luckily though, when we write in a space that is, as either Doc or David once said, inherently self-correcting. That means, over time, the facts have an opporunity to take care of themselves.
Read Chuck's And Part 2 he discusses burying the shield for once and for all, calling a source a source:
I think we should bury the shield. Yes, a journalist's most key asset is the ability to gain information, especially information that may otherwise be hidden. But, remember that any source generally has a reason for talking, and that reason is often far from altruistic.
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