Thursday, March 13, 2003
The Road to Oz
Guess Dave isn't in Kansas any more.
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
Blogflocking in Toronto tonight
Okay, Brent Ashley just set up a blog gathering venue here in Toronto, real close to Tucows, where I'm hanging out (with Ross, among others) right now. The location: Academy of the Spherical Arts near King & Dufferin in the Liberty district (near the Exhibition, I'm told).
Here's a cool link that will help you find it (note the map link in there). Here's the GeoURL, which is new to me. Interesting.
I'll shoot to be there between 5:30 and 6. We (whoever we are) can take it from there.
We've gotten a start on the phone by talking about (in Canadian, aboot) Feedster. Interesting. Done by Scott Johnson.
Fantosmic
If you're near Baltimore, treat yourself to Fanto: A Mysterious Vaudeville featuring newborn puppets and misled clowns. Directed (and more) by Colette Searls.
Talk about persistence
I just discovered that Phil Salin, a friend who died in '94 or so, had some interesting thoughts about why patents and software don't mix.
Wanna see some of my old work as a PR guy? Here's some of what my old firm did with Phil's company in '89. Here's more about the company.
Klings's Korollaries
Suits and Geeks is Arnold Kling's latest, and a complement to World of Ends.
Arnold lists Five Clues for Geeks:
- Intermediaries add value
- Property is not evil
- Computer animation is not a killer application
- Bashing Microsoft does not make you smart
- Markets are not exploitative
Lots to talk about there.
A question
So I've been talking to some companies here in Toronto, and a question has comed up for which I don't have a ready answer:
What companies blog?
Specifically, what companies maintain corporate blogs, either as home pages or as main features of their Web sites? I'm not in the best position to check, but maybe ya'll can help a little. It would be a good list to come up with in any case (if there isn't one already).
[Later...] Some answers have been coming in:
PingID (Andre, Eric, Bryan). The one example that came to my own mind.
Macromedia has a bunch (see the list on the left) of blogging executives (e.g. Kevin Lynch, who writes helpfully about working at the company, among other things). Its site also has lots of product forums.
Jupiter Research, which links every analyst's weblog (there are eleven) from the home page. (Or do they? Now I can't seem to find the page with all those links. I just had it... hmm.) Jupiter also hosts ClickZ Weblog Business Strategies, a conference held in Boston this June. Dave, David and other leading local bloggers will speak there. (How about more links in the brochure pages, hmm?)
Groove (though Ray seems to be awol... hope he gets back into the groove, pun intended).
Starpoint (the home page is a blog).
Immunexa, which hasn't had a post since last November.
Antactica, via Tim Bray's blog.
Still a pretty short list. Brings up Cluetrain thoughts about corporate voice and all that.
Possibly related: A speech from a couple years back.
Other good news
When I got back to my hotel room last night, the bellman had just deliverd my missing bag. It had been retained by Canadian Customs and delivered, oddly, by Fedex.
And the laptop has only crashed once this morning. I still miss the days when I could open a shell, run an uptime command and see that it's been going for weeks without a reboot. But the way things have been going lately, ten minutes is a miracle I can put to good use.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
My mother is 90 years young today. She was born on March 13, 1913 into a Swedish family on the North Dakota prairie during the reign of Taft the Large.
Lots of people have issues with their mothers. I'm not one of them. When I woke up a few minutes ago, the first song in my mind was Paul Simon's Loves me Like a Rock. The second was Greg Brown's Cheapest Kind, which I heard once on A Prairie Home Companion. The chorus has stuck in my mind ever since:
But the love, the love, the loveIt was not the cheapest kindIt was rich as, rich as rich as, rich asAny you could ever find
Mom has always been, and contintues to be, the richest source of love I have ever known. She's a human pipeline, running straight from God.
She's also smart as a whip, funny as a tickle and uncomplicated as a bowling ball. Her laugh can lift the darkest spirit.
As a kid she was so smart they put her ahead one grade. Friends called her "The Walking Dictionary." A couple years ago she heard me mention Google, and said "A Googol is an infinitely large number." That wasn't exactly right (it's a one followed by a hundred zeroes), but close enough. When my sister and I were kids she taught school (mostly third grade) in Maywood, New Jersey, our home town. She started teaching when she was eighteen in a one-room schoolhouse in North Dakota. Between those years she lived an adventurous life. Met my father (another adventurer) in Alaska during World War II.
We'll be throwing her a big party in North Carolina in a couple of weeks. Can't wait to be there.
[Later...] Mom just told me on the phone that she wasn't put ahead a grade, but rather put in first grade at age five. "My mother couldn't stand having me at home any more. I was too smart. But so were a bunch of other kids." Her best friend, Agatha, was one of those kids. They're still in touch. Mom has always called Agatha by her nickname, which is (no kidding) "Boogie."