lifeasdaddy

The most astonishing blog post I have ever read

is this one.

the conundrum of comments - what to do?

Yesterday friend Trevor Cook lamented the personal invective and other undesirable stuff which can be associated with some comments sections on blogs.

As a low-profile blogger on a hard to find street corner I manage to avoid much of that - even though I do have a modest political statement visible in the lower right hand corner of this blog which I knew would one day inevitably draw some adverse comment. 

Today I opened this blog to find an anti-semite dropped by with an example of his intellect. [ It is the third comment down in this comment stream ]Update 18 December 2008:  offensive comment has been deleted.

What to do?  Leave it displayed as testimony that proves my and Nico's points about holocaust deniers, or tip it out as one would any other foul smelling piece of garbage?

I'll render my decision to myself in a couple of days.

UPDATE:  18 December 2008.  Offensive comment has now been deleted.

vote early and vote often

There's a few things being said about voter registration fraud for the upcoming Presidential poll.  Put that in google and see what you get.

On an analogous matter, there's a certain podcast to which I regularly listen.. It's really good.  But one must question the ethics of their producers' emailed appeal to boost their vote in the 2008 People's Choice Podcast Awards.

This is what I've been asked to do:

"Now, we're asking for your votes to win these awards. Please go to podcastawards.com and cast your vote...once per day...between now and November 6, 2008."

Asking me to vote seems OK.

Soliciting my vote seems OK.

 

But to vote "once per day" ?  I have some ethical qualms about that part.

Is there some knowledge falling off the back of the Google truck?

As Doc Searls has noted, bloggers searching for old blog entries on their own blogs are failing to find them via Google search.

Here's how it works.  I'm writing a blog post, and want to incorporate a link to something I previously wrote on my blog on the same topic, but can't remember where or precisely when I wrote it.  I used to be able to find it via a Google search, but not for the past few months.  Doc got around the problem by using Yahoo search.

As Doc says:

The fact that Google fails to find pages that have been sitting in plain sight of its crawlers for long periods of time, while Yahoo finds those same pages, is rather interesting data.

Getty Images' Moodstream: pictures, video and music as you like it.

I was interested to see what some of the world's best photographers caught from the Olympics opening ceremony last night, and day One of competition today so I stopped by at Getty Images to check on their stable's pics.  And I discovered something new and interesting.

They've set up this thing called Moodstream which provides an automated slideshow of photographs, video clips set to music mined from their enormous back catalogue and you can use sliders to choose the stuff displayed according to your mood.  Or the mood you want to create.  There's slidebars to adjust for Happy/Sad, Calm/Lively, Humorous/Serious, Nostalgic/Contemporary, Warm/Cool.

There's a button to select any one of the scenes shown to your own preset mood board - and of course, all images and video area vailable for instant purchase under rights managed provision.

Coolness factor is off the chart.

And the Olympics?  Well, for the latest stuff check out the Getty Images Sports blog here.  And the Getty Images Editorial Sports Events Feed here.

And the Getty Images standard Sports page here.

ADDED:

And from The Big Picture blog, the best of the best of pics about the Opening Ceremony.  Plenty of symmetry.  Perhaps the most charming is the last pic in the series, not even taken near the stadium.

mucking around with the template again

My blog provider, typepad, are offering some limited edition blog templates provided by HP.

I thought I'd try them out, but as with most of the typepad templates, I'm finding the font size too small.

But because it's from HP - well, I just love the brand!

[ One of the consequences is that the layout of old blog posts gets a bit higgledy piggledy.  See how you go ....]

lifeasdaddy - Redesigning the blog's colours, style and fonts.

A few days ago I decided to test out some different looks for this blog page.  I experimented with making a custom designed page within the confines of the Typepad regime, but finally decided  that getting the colours right was a bit hard for me - although I saved my custom designed template in the system.  So I chose one of the pre-designed template themes.  It looked good, although the font size , especially in the right sidebar was quite small and thus difficult to read.  I did that on Sunday or Monday.  Then last night the blog, of its own volition, reverted to the saved custom template. 

I'm doing more experimentation today, so let's see how we go.

lifeasdaddy - Today's podcast review.

What did two-time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion George Foreman dream about when he was a boy?

"...I always dreamed about not a car, not a beautiful home, but enough to eat." 

In this podcast from NPR and the Kitchen Sisters, poor people talk about how the George Foreman Grill is their kitchen.  Often in low-rent unfurnished rooms, they bu a Foreman Grill to cook on.

Then the Kitchen Sisters interview Foreman, and his delight in finding out his grill is helping poor people is just so plain to hear.

Here's the iTunes link:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=156274133&s=143441&i=12732622

Apart from that I've been listening to some pretty good dance music on iTunes this afternoon.

Great tribal house from DJ Anngelica:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=188541623&s=143441&i=13327675

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=188541623&s=143441&i=14008465

And from Radio 538 Dance Department in the Netherlands:

with Paul van Dyk:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=80488920&s=143441&i=18826452

with Scumfrog:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=80488920&s=143441&i=18627023

lifeasdaddy - Recent podcasts I recommend.

I don't really get much time for podcast listening - but here's a roundup of my recent recommendations:

Sound Opinions (Chicago Public Radio) Talks about cover songs.  A couple of very knowledgeable rock music journalists sample and discuss great covers over the past 40 years.  Also has input from phone in listeners.  Includes a lengthy discussion of Isaac Hayes' cover of "By The Time I Get To Pheonix" - which they mention is one of the composer Jimmy Webb's faves.  The Hayes version runs to 19 minutes, and it's briefly sampled on the podcast.

Barnes & Noble's Meet the Writers: Tony Dungy.  Although I do have a long term interest in American sports, I'd never heard of Dungy until I read about his book Quiet Strength on Joe Wikert's blog.  Even just hearing Dungy interviewed here is inspiring - overcoming racism, career setbacks and the death of his son - let alone reading the book.  He does seem quiet.  Not bombastic, not full of himself, although rightly proud of his achievements on and off the gridiron.

HBR Ideacast interview with veteran silicon valley forecaster Paul Saffo.  Saffo talks about his recent Harvard Business Review article about the Six rules for effective forecasting.  He talks plenty of commonsense, which is all too often uncommon in forecasting, and gives some examples of trends and products which seem to the layperson (like me) to have come out of nowhere, but which he indicates were actually quite predictable.  His article is one of the few available free in the current July-August 2007 issue on the HBR website, provided you agree to the normal terms of use.  See here.

HBR Ideacast Preparing for a Pandemic - Interview with Dr. Leonard Marcus and Dr. Barry Dorn.  To paraphrase their findings on preparedness for a Flu Pandemic, the businesses which will be most prepared will be those who recognise their interdependent nature, and who open up the planning to their partners in business.

HBR Ideacast 34 Competing on Analytics - Interview with Tom Davenport and Jeanne Harris.  It's about the numbers.  How to gain a competitive advantage by drilling into the numbers.  Gives some very tasty examples particularly from the insurance industry. 

Times Online: Making globalisation work.  Prof. Joseph Stiglitz talks about globalisation.  Points out the winners, the losers, how it works, where it works well and not, where it is unfair, and his prescription to fix it.  Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel for economics in 2001.

NPR Driveway Moments:  Are computer keyboards dishwasher safe?  Answer seems to be yes, but do not try this at home.

NPR Story Corps: I haven't seen you in 40 years. Ralph Tremonte and Donald Weiss spent their childhoods together in a psychiatric institution.  Here they are reunited 40 years later in New York.  They have a good catch up.  You need to listen closely to capture both sides of the conversation.  Surprisingly uplifting.

There.  That's plenty to listen to.

lifeasdaddy - 55 essential articles every blogger should read.

Matt Huggins has scoured the 'net to bring you these.

[ tip from Joe Wikert ]