Category: General

“No matter how crappy a library’s relationship with a print publisher might be, the publisher couldn’t force them to destroy the books in their collections after 26 checkouts.” – Cory Docotorw

Today’s meeting free. I’ve blocked off the entire day to work on 1 thing. A little voice told me to hit play on my All Too Much Joy playlist. Perfect.

If I hit the milestone early, I think I’ll pull UHF off the Netflix.

My favorite lyric from today’s TMJ all discography listening session comes from “You Can’t Die from a Broken Heart” off the “The Its” album.

“You might even forgive me some day / But some day’s too far away / To hold us together today”

“Developers are familiar with the idea of bugs that never get fixed. They’re called features.” – Dave Winer

Oh sure – I’ve 3 Large Strongspaces backing up all my websites and working files nightly. I’ve also got a 2TB Western Digital drive pulling nightly backups from all the computers in the house. Plus, a couple portable drives for the road.

To that mix, I’ve added a SentrySafe Fire-Safe Waterproof Data Storage Chest with a 1TB Western Digital portable drive.

The interior of the SentrySafe is about 5″ square – perfect size for the Western Digital drive. Actually – it should fit about 6 of these drives as time goes on.

A couple quick edits to my backup script and the new safe drive is part of the mix.

I feel safer already.

“Martin Van Buren was a big part of OK’s initial takeoff”

“Van Buren’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1840 is regarded by etymologists as instrumental in the popularization of the word ‘OK’. In the context of the campaign, the initialism was used as a nickname for Van Buren and stood for ‘Old Kinderhook,’ which was a reference to Van Buren’s birthplace.”

Despite the reminders when my sideburns get to long – the 8th president and I are not related.

Oh sure – he lost his 2nd term – but his campaign lives on in everyday speech? I’d count that as a success.

Too bad about the successors. :/

“your comments may be used in advertising or exploited in some other way we haven’t figured out yet”

“The internet is for humans…
We are always saying that, but the only file we generate is one full of additional information for the searchbots: robots.txt. Then why not doing one for ourselves?”

More good stuff from Derek Sivers

I’ve been working with the Star Tribune on a number of very exciting new projects.

The first of these project is an ebook version of Pinecone Passions -the short romance story written by the Star Tribune community for Valentines day, 2011.

It’s now available in the Amazon Kindle store for $2.99 – with other ebook stores coming soon.

Pinecone Passions in Amazon’s Kindle store

Users insights can’t predict future demand…
User-centered processes stifles creativity…
User focus makes companies miss out on disruptive innovations…
User-led design leads to sameness…. – Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen.

“Relying on these application files for our precious words is a mistake. Standards and preferences change. What your computer can understand today, it may not tomorrow.”

I’ve got a shelf full of backed-up work that is essentially useless because the applications, file formats, and technologies I used to create the work no longer exists.

What value is an archive if it’s not usable years later?