The US has restarted production of plutonium for nuclear weapons, the LA Times reported (via Detroit News) today.
Because, of course, all the nuclear weapons we already had weren’t enough.
Happy anniversary, Adam
Adam: Brown/Medros Annual Report. Happy anniversary, kids! I think Adam’s been at B-school too long:
Monday marked the first anniversary of the Brown-Medros merger. Although we’ve cut revenues, scaled back expenses, and moved corporate headquarters, we are actively repositioning for growth and expansion and plan to increase headcount by 50% this year.
UserLand digs in on Manila
Ever since Dave went to Harvard, there’s been a flurry of activity around Manila, UserLands’s other blogging product (after Radio), which happens to be the back end of this weblog as well. As a long time customer (and only recently a paying one!) it’s nice to see UserLand paying attention to its other platform.
You can follow their progress on Manila and on Radio on a new website that tracks progress on UserLand’s products from all its employees.
Happy birthday, Al
My father-in-law celebrated his birthday today with us at Szmania’s. I only hope that I can be half as feisty, and in half as good a shape mentally and physically, when I’m an octogenarian-plus. (Yes, my in-laws are in town. A suspension of garden postings is in order, since my mother-in-law, a true pro, is here to straighten us out.)
Banning violent video games in Seattle
The Register: “Washington State to ban sales of violent games to minors.” Retail employees who sell violent games, particularly games featuring violence against women or police officers, will be subject to heavy fines. Guess high schoolers playing Grand Theft Auto is out.
It’ll be interesting to see the enforcement strategy on this one. Could a clerk selling Diablo II to a 17 year old be in violation? (The game has women, albeit demonic women, as bosses—major villains—in at least two dungeons.) Where’s the line? They can’t just profile GTA, unless they want to get sued by the makers of the game.
Adam: Warren Buffet comes to HBS
Adam: “Yesterday was pretty amazing to have Warren Buffett speaking to a packed Burden Auditorium for a very enjoyable 2 hours.” Some excellent quotes from Buffet, including one that proves he’s the Zen master of investing:
On the Economy– “I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I deal with what is knowable and important. Don’t get distracted by the unknowable and the unimportant.”
Words to live by.
Cool hack: making Unix behave better under Mac OS X
O’Reilly Network: Bringing Trash-Awareness to rm. Apple did a pretty good job of making Mac OS X feel like a Mac operating system despite its BSD core, but you can really feel like you’re in another world when you dive into the Terminal. The script described in the article acts as an alias for rm and moves files to the Trash instead of immediately deleting them as rm does. Pretty cool.
George: golf clubs and scattered showers
George is back from his California sojourn and already up to some eBaying: a set of Cleveland golf clubs. Alas, he says that it’s been raining too much in the Boston area to try them out. Heh.
Microsoft devs talk blogging clients
Don Box notes that he and Chris Sells (new at Microsoft as of yesterday) have been discussing blogging infrastructure. They both think that blogging from Word, rather than an HTML editor or InfoPath, is the right way to go. They appear to be discussing how to architect it. Don may not be aware, but there’s some interesting prior art in the Word macros that Simon Fell constructed (using PocketSOAP) to talk to the Manila API or to Radio. I don’t know what API Don’s blogging infrastructure supports, but using a slim SOAP client it should be trivial to send XML message packets from Word.
BTW, there are a ton of Microsoft bloggers blogging about, well, blogging, but also RSS, .NET, web design, and other topics near and dear to my heart. Some of the other interesting guys are Tim Ewald at MSDN, Dare Obasanjo, Chris Anderson, Scott Guthrie… and soon Robert Scoble.
(Man, I oughtta get around to adding a Microsoft department to this blog.)
Eulogies for Nina
Greg writes a eulogy for Nina Simone, who passed away yesterday at 70:
This Is Not the Greatest Post in the World…this is just a tribute — a tribute to Nina Simone, the legendary and fiery-tempered jazz vocalist…you could start anywhere in her catalog and not go wrong. I’m only glad I got to know her work. A roommate hipped me to her when I first moved to Chicago, and I’ve been listening to her ever since.
Eric Olsen at Blogcritics rounds up some great biographical sketches, including one from Salon: “‘To Love Somebody’ was my introduction to Simone, and I’ll never forget the way she berated her musicians during the intro to ‘Revolution.’ She harshly tells them, ‘Hold it! This is louder than usual. Let it groove on its own thing.’ Cool. I thought. This woman can kick butt…”
Boston marathon blog
Intrepid reporters at the Boston Globe reported from the marathon in what they’re calling a “webcast” format but which is almost certainly really a blog, complete with reverse chronology. The reading is pretty boring as blogs go, with just listings of runners’s progress with no color commentary. But it’s a start. Thanks to Doc Searls for the link.
Priceless antiquities lost… in Wales
It appears that looters in Baghdad aren’t the only ones to hold history in contempt. The Guardian reports that the Newport City Council has decided not to attempt to excavate the remains of a unique medieval ship found on the construction site for a new arts center, but is instead proceeding with construction. Complete with battling archaelogical trusts and outraged locals.
Apple: Music to Your Ears?
Following up last week’s non-denial denial of its plans to purchase Universal, it’s interesting to see the reports about next week’s unveiling of Apple “announcements that will be music to your ears.” Could this be Apple’s long awaited music service?
I hope so. I looked at Listen.com and a few others once and went away shaking my head. I can’t use the downloaded file on my iPod? Buh-bye.
Weekend of planting, and other stuff
All griping about being pigeonholed aside, I had a pretty typical weekend—which, here at JHN, means home improvement.
Friday night was the hardest working part. I came home early to investigate an apparent washing machine meltdown. Sure enough, the machine is leaking lubricant out from under the drum and reliably leaving oil spots on part of just about every load. Given that it’s old (i.e. came with the house) and cheap, I think we could probably get a new one for not much more than it would take to repair it. Sigh. Guess we’re off to do some shopping this week.
Anyway, after our washing machine diagnosis, we spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in the garden, digging up the last three garden boxes and planting herbs (three kinds of thyme, savory, marjoram, rosemary, dill, oregano (in its own pot in the garden box), mint (in its own pot on the patio, far away from everything else), and camomile. Basil will wait in our indoor greenhouse until warmer weather comes; ditto parsley and cilantro. Our sage plant survived the winter, and the existing rosemary is positively thriving), Walla Walla onions (which appear to be the Pacific Northwest’s answer to Vidalias), and rhubarb. In the other beds, we have spinach, peas, and fava beans emerging. Our tomato seedlings continue to worry us inside, but with something like 30 seedlings we will probably have a few hardy volunteers to plant before too long.
Saturday, we tore up the turf inside the new bed under the cherry tree, trying not to tear up the cherry’s roots at the same time. We’ll start ground cover in the bed soon, and probably fill in the rest with pea gravel so we don’t have to worry about decaying bark mulch turning the soil too acidic or providing a haven for weeds. We also assembled landscaping ties in our front bed: two ties high to keep dogs from wandering onto the bed and defecating (sadly, a repeat occurrence). Two ties high means we had to fasten them together. I wanted to use steel bracing plates, but the gentleman at Home Depot suggested long landscape tie screws. “Sounds good,” I said. Heh. —Two stripped sockets (5/16″ and 10 mm), one nearly stripped box wrench, and a new drill later, I finally got all but one of them in. I managed to get the last one worked in halfway, but so tightly that I can’t loosen or tighten it any more. I think I’m going to just get a bolt cutter or a file and lop off the part still showing above the wood.
Thus endeth your Houseblog update for today.
What’s in it for me?
Scott Knowles name-checks me in Corporate Blogs Make Personal Connection, talking about how corporations could improve their customer communication by connecting to related blogs:
A hypothetical example: Take Lowe’s, the home improvement store. Why not create an entire section of their website dedicated to stories their customers tell about home improvement? Mom at Home, Creating Home Decor, Jarrett House North and other blogs discussing home improvement projects could be integrated into the Lowe’s site. Not only would Lowe’s engage their customers but will help build their own network of blogs. It’s not a closed system, but capitalizing on an existing one and helping to build upon it. Of course Lowe’s should hop in the game with a couple blogs of their own from their experts.
The advantage to Lowe’s: They not only become associated with their customers, but they become highly entrenched with them. The more they are honestly engaged, the better their brand equity… or brand value.
Huh. So what’s the advantage to me? I’m not sure I’m ready to shill for a home warehouse. And, after all, in addition to being a homeblogger, I’m also a peaceblogger. Wouldn’t Lowe’s think twice about pointing to me?
Maybe I’m just grumpy about being hypothetically co-opted by a home improvement store’s marketing plans. But I think that there are real risks to any corporation that would reach out to include their customers’ words and thoughts in this way. Are they prepared for potential backlash if a customer Googles me and discovers that I’m a slightly left of center liberal who doesn’t think the administration is doing the right thing? Or even that I can’t lay bricks?