You've got to rearrange, who you are into who you want to be. And then sha na na a lot.
In the beginning was Geocities, then Blogger, then Movable Type. Now I think it's time to move on. Since I've upgraded to the latest version of MT I've been frustrated. There used to be a much more active community around MT, one that would answer your questions. There used to be plugins that made MT jump through hoops. There used to be decent documentation. Now I find that the forums aren't useful, I can't find plugins to do what I want, when I find them I can't get plugins to work, and much of the time I've spent on the documentation site has caused me to lose what little hair I still possess. (There's lots of legacy documentation still up there, and plenty more that's just plain inadequate.)
In short, I think it's time for a change. Plus, it's always good to learn something new. It seems that my main options are Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla. Here's what I'm looking for:
1) Can handle the import of 4700+ entries, nearly 10,000 comments, with associated categories, subcategories, and tags.
2) Can handle a multi-author blog.
3) Can replicate my permalink structure (fortunately my current system is "future-proof" so hopefully not a big deal.)
4) Will be useful to learn.
5) Easy to use for authors.
Any thoughts, Ishbapublic?
posted this | this entry's link | 3 comments
| Content Management Systems | Drupal | Joomla | Movable Type | Wordpress
What? What?! What?!? Does the word "duh" mean anything to you?
Please, Hollywood, try to use some original ideas. Like, say, board games.
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | Joss Whedon
Wayne's Worst Export, David Brooks, is trying to bring on the Snark in his review of Simon Schama's book, but in so dismissing it as a "Brilliant Book" (that's sarcasm!) he manages to perfectly describe his own jejeunery:
Some people collect stamps, and others butterflies, but I have a thing for Brilliant Books. The Brilliant Book is the sort of book written by a big thinker who comes to capture the American spirit while armed only with his own brilliance.He usually comes during an election year so he can observe the spectacle of the campaign and peer into the nation's exposed soul. He visits the stationsof officially prescribed American exotica. He will enjoya moment of soulful rapture at a black church. He will venture out to an evangelical megachurch (and combine condescension with self-congratulationby bravely announcing to the world that these people are more human than you'd think). He will swing by and be brilliant in rambunctious Texas. He'll be brilliant in the farm belt, brilliant in Las Vegas, reverential in Selma and profound in Malibu.
Along the way, his writing will outstrip his reportage. And as his inability to come up with anything new to say about this country builds, his prose will grow more complex, emotive, gothic, desperate, overheated and nebulous until finally, about two-thirds of the way through, there will be a prose-poem of pure meaninglessness as his brilliance finally breaks loose from the tethers of observation and oozes across the page in a great, gopping goo of pure pretension.
These are the moments we Brilliant Book aficionados live for.
Well, then, you just keep on writing them, Mr. Brooks.
posted this | this entry's link | 3 comments
New Yorkers have some very specific needs when it comes to a commuter bag: durability, comfort, and professionalism. The traditional briefcase might look good in the board room, but that fine Corinthian leather is just going to get scratched on the train or the sidewalk. The ubiquitous nylon messenger bag is durable enough, and you can get away with it at the office, but if you're carrying a heavy load (say, your laptop) your shoulders will feel it. (Besides, it's not good to walk around with your weight unevenly distributed.) A backpack will be comfortable on that one-hour-standing-on-the-train commute, but you'll look like you just came from Freshman English class.
I saw an ideal solution at Tumi -- a backpack that converts to a briefcase. Unfortunately, I don't have $350 to blow. (They make a cheaper one in their T-Tech line but it's still $225, and it's uglier, and it screams "computer bag"). There's a line of similar convertible bags at BBG which at $100 are far cheaper (found on Cool Tools, where you really must read this "pedantic" review of the $530 William Gibson Aviator Bag and ensuing flame war against Bruce Sterling, the new curator there).
But I really like the bag I picked up at the MOMA Design Store: the Lexon Challenger Backpack. It's well made and well designed. As a backpack it's comfortable -- I carried 16 lbs of gear around Manhattan yesterday and my shoulders feel fine. (There's a chest compression strap if you need it.) It's got two main compartments (one with a padded laptop section) and three front pockets. Inside are pen loops and a card holder and a change purse and a carabiner hook so you can squirrel things away properly. I especially like the top corner pocket, which is great for a cell phone stash (or any other gear you want quick access to.)
When you've arrived and are ready to attend your meeting, you just unclip the back straps and slip them inside a zippered compartment. A handle slides out of the top. Now you've got a briefcase. The bag is neutral gray, and most importantly, doesn't have patches, logos, or dingbats on it, other than a subtle black branding box.
And it's only $100. (Less if you're a MOMA member.) Strangely, MOMA isn't marketing the bag's main feature, that it converts from a backpack to a laptop. Update your ad copy, guys!
posted this | this entry's link | 2 comments | Bags | Essential Tools | Reviews
The Media ask the important questions: "What kind of man orders a cheeseburger without ketchup but Dijon mustard?". Debbie sent this over...
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | Condiments | Fox News | The Media
Yesterday Michelle Obama stopped by the Corporation for National and Community Service as part of her whistle-stop tour of the federal agencies. My father was among those standing behind her at the event, to honor his 40 years of government service. Here's the picture that ran in the AP story:
Fortunately, you can actually see him (all the way on the left, in back) in the agency press release photo:
He got to meet her and everything. Congratulations, Pa!
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | Michelle Obama
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. And check out this great customizable Mother's Day video -- which is, also, a very clever bit of political viral marketing.
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | Mother's Day | Political Ads | Viral Advertising
Douglas Rushkoff is excerpting his upcoming book Life Inc. How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back over on BoingBoing. Apparently, we're neighbors -- he lives about five blocks away. And, like many before him, he finds the Slope (and the almighty Park Slope Parents listserv) to be indicative of What's Wrong With The World:
Park Slope, Brooklyn, is just a microcosm of the slippery slope upon which so many of us are finding ourselves these days. We live in a landscape tilted toward a set of behaviors and a way of making choices that go against our own better judgment, as well as our collective self-interest. Instead of collaborating with each other to ensure the best prospects for us all, we pursue short-term advantages over seemingly fixed resources through which we can compete more effectively against one another. In short, instead of acting like people, we act like corporations. When faced with a local mugging, the community of Park Slope first thought to protect its brand instead of its people.
First David Brooks and Wayne PA, now Rushkoff and Park Slope -- will the pundits never leave my neighborhoods alone?
But seriously, it looks like an interesting book on corporatism in modern life.
posted this | this entry's link | speak your mind | Douglas Rushkoff | Park Slope
Announcement: you can follow Ishbadiddle on Twitter and get handy links to the latest posts.
The University of Minnesota researchers who run movielens (collaborative filtering for movies) have an interesting twist on tagging:
Dubbed "Tag Expression," this new approach to tagging will add more feeling to your tags. When you add a tag, you now have the option of specifying if the tag represents something that you like about the movie or something that you dislike about the movie.
Here's what it looks like:
You'll have to imagine the AJAXy drag and drop. Size here indicates tag frequency for that movie, and color indicates collective mood. The redder the tag, the more the users dislike that aspect of the movie; the bluer the better.
A ways back I thought there should be two kinds of tags -- "left-handed" tags that were subjective, and "right-handed" tags that were objective. (Yes, sort of like whuffie.) So, for example "Sean Connery" and "Science-Fiction" and "giant floating head" might be right-handed tags for Zardoz, while "fantastically bad" and "LSD substitute" would be a left-handed tag. But I think I like this method better, since it adds the dimension of feeling.
Incidentally, while tagging a movie I ran across one referring to the Bechdel Test for films, which goes as follows:
The strip popularized what is now known as the Bechdel test, also known as the Bechdel/Wallace test, the Bechdel rule, or Bechdel's law. Bechdel credits her friend Liz Wallace for the test, which appears in a 1985 strip entitled "The Rule", in which a character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
- It has to have at least two women in it,
- Who talk to each other,
- About something besides a man.
There is, of course, a blog dedicated to the test. Our regular readers will, of course, have already noted that Bechdel Test follows Stigler's law of eponymy.
| Collaborative Filtering | Movielens | Semantic Web | Tagging | Tags
