01/09 When I was younger I used to admire Ayn Rand — I really love her major novels although I haven’t looked at them in years. You know how you remember a novel to be great, but upon looking at it again 20 years later, you just don’t know what you saw in it? So, as I say, I remember really loving her major novels, but, thismakes me think again: > The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Why? Because the money is not the government’s to give. From the Ayn Rand Institute. Link.

01/04 Folksonomies – Collaborative Classification — There has been a lot of traffic on this new meme “Folksonomies”. This Slashdot bithas many of the important links in it, and I can’t say that I’ve read all of it, so what I am describing below may be old hat. I am thinking that while Folksonomi...

01/04 Read this — Grady Booch is one of the luminaries of our field. Take a look at this postand tell me that it isn’t amazing and touching to see people revealing a personal side which one otherwise probably never would see.

01/03 Elephants are cool! — I just finished watching “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” which had some really cool scenes with these warrior elephants. So here is a case of life immitating art: * Two elephants clear debris in Indonesia’s tsunami-hit city of Banda Aceh January 3, 2005. Eight days on, hungry and sick survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami are waiting for food and medicine in growing desperation as a multinational aid operation tries to reach remote towns ravaged by the waves. (Beawiharta/Reuters)*

01/03 Suckered again by Microsoft? — I’ve been using Microsoft Money ** (their personal finance package) for years now (after having switched from Quicken probably 5 years ago.) I really like it, for what it is. In January of each of the last few years it seems, I shell out another $60 for the latest “upgrade”**, install it, and i...

01/02 Incredibly cool visualizations — In the realm of interesting visualizations, check this oneout. It’s a Chess game where the computer’s ‘thought process’ is displayed as it figures out the next move. Via “Bad Magic Number” who said “It’s quite an interesting cross between art, programming and chess. “

01/01 GMail – Part 3 — Continuing thinking about GMail and what Google really is up to. From the Department of Unintended Consequences (via Paul Kleppner): **… somebody has created a Windows file system extension so that you can use your 1gb GMail account as a remote file system! It’s a crazy hack. But it makes me t...

12/31 What is the difference between a blog and a newsgroup? — Recently in a conversation I was asked to comment on what really was the big difference between a blog and a newsgroup. After all they are both a reverse chronological list of postings, right? My answer, maybe obvious, is this: a newsgroup is (typically) focused on a certain subject matt...

12/27 “Pure Entrepreneurship” article in tbe Boston Globe — “Pure Entrepeneurs”, according to this article in the Boston Globe, ***… are loopy and obsessed. They have a vision of the future, and while others are casting their lines into ...

12/26 Seeing the other side of someone — Adam Bossworth is a guy who I’ve written about before, in a very technical context. He’s well known in techie circles for many important accomplishments and contributions. It is nice to see him writingabout a totally other side of him, the side that you of course always knew had to exist, and yet in his tech industry persona would probably never ever come up. It’s easy to agree with what he is saying.

12/25 For every question there is someone who is interested in studying it — Yes I have to admit it’s something that I too have wondered about, and now, there’s a study about it. It just struck me as amusing (click on the map to enlarge it) p.s.: Merry Christmas!

12/24 Is Sarah McLachlan is Video Podcasting? — On her site, [World On Fire, Sarah McLachlan](http:...

12/23 Gmail, Part Deux: Strategy — So what might GMail’s strategy be? I listened to a wonderful Podcast with Georges Harik all about GMail and some of the thinking about it. If you are interested in GMail, it’s a worthwhile listen. I noticed that Geor...

12/22 Free Coffee and Bad Marketing — First the punchline: go to this link, fill out a short questionaire, and receive a $15 Starbucks gift card in the mail, no questions asked. But hurry, because I wouldn’t be surprised if that offer evaporates quickly. Here is one of those cool “**internet effe...

12/20 Boston Globe on PodCasting — The BostonGlobe writes an insightful article about Podcsating (note: the link will turn stale tomorrow, but I will try and update it if I can find the article elsewhere on the web.) > “If Internet-based weblogs turned everyone into a potential newspaper columnist, and digital cameras let them become photojournalists, podcasting is promising to let everyone with a microphone and a computer become a radio commentator.”

12/19 Coding as Writing — If you read this blog at all, you know that I’ve been working on a piece of software (BlogBridge) which at this point I am pretty excited about, even though I don’t know where it will go or end up. I was recently interviewed about my work by [Scott Kirsner](http://www.b...

12/18 Lightbulb about Podcasting (“Some stuff I just figured out”) — I attended a Podcasting meeting at Berkmana couple of days ago(see “The Berkman Choir”for some silliness) and came back, as often happe...

12/17 Great Movie: Osama — No it’s not about Osama Bin Laden (UBL) but about a little girl called Osama, living in Taliban Kabul. I didn’t see it in the theatres but got the DVD out. Highly recommended. Review.

12/14 Heard of GMail? — There are many interesting things about GMail, so this is either going to be a long post or one of a series. First things first: GMail is now my primary email provider. Yes, you heard that right. It’s free, does a great job with spam and I can continue to use Out...

12/14 My social theory of blogging — We all love reading blogs (right?), and some of us even use their valuable time writing blogs. In my evangelism of blogging, a common question is “Why?.” Why would you spend your time writing, for a small (for most of us) mostly anonymous audience, for free? Well I have a (lower-case “t”) th...