Que es?
The Weblog of Brett Singer. Bringing the world what it needs most - a blog.

Note: Sorry about all of the 'hot deals' entries (someone referred to this blog as CorporateShill.com).
The deals and things are being fed into Multineedia.com. We will soon move the deals category over to Multineedia so you don't have to read it, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Flickr Problm

Lucas say:
Thinking: Flickr and Last.fm are both popular and heavyweight. Web 2.0 applications are supposed to expose very little (visible) functionality so that they can do one thing well. Flickr and Last.fm, in contrast, never saw a doodad they didn't like. What's going on here?

For what it's worth, I tried setting up a Flickr account and it didn't work because my email client (Eudora, not exactly something nobody uses) couldn't read their HTML mail link. The message said to email a certain address if there was a problem with the link. I did. This was 2 or 3 months ago. No response. Not saying this is the end of the world of course, but it's worth noting that Webjay, though more complex, doesn't have problems like that. Why should something as dumb as an HTML mail message render a popular web app unusable to me? I could re-register and use a different email address, but then I would have to pick a new username, since mine is trapped in Flickr Limbo (or Lmbo). Clearly, this is low on the list of things that are real problems in this world. But maybe the surface simplicity masks a larger and potentially problematic complexity.

(Caveat: I am not a programmer, so take those comments for what they are, which is just my comments.)

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World's Easiest Wiki

Installed Wiki! today and it was verrry easy to do. I had started trying to install Kwiki via CPAN and that was NOT easy. Granted, I'm not a programmer, but I'm comfortable with the command line. Next time something says 'type this and CPAN will install everything for you, you can just sit back and relax!', I will not believe it.

Anyway, Wiki! is cool. Sets up new 'nodes' (editable pages, really) just by typing the name of the page. Kept it private by password protecting the directory. Fairly simple, but most of all, I installed it and had it running in less than an hour (except for some random fiddling). Thank you Sourceforge.

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Smells Like Booty
On this page, a lo-fi rendering of Smells Like Booty, a mash-up of Nirvana and Destiny's Child. I don't think it's the whole thing. I can't find the full version right now. There needs to be a directory site for mash-ups.

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Whose tragedy is it anyway?

From an Indian news site, a different take on the tsunami:

Now that we have seen the bloated bodies, eard tales of deaths and destruction, and listened to experts on television talk about tectonic plates, earthquakes and tsunamis, and how they differ from tidal waves, it may be time to reflect on the conduct of the media during the past few days.

Then there's this lovely story about a guy who tried to sell tsunamirelief.com on eBay for $50K after asking the woman who registered it to give it to him for free. That site is up, weirdly enough.

Also, the vaguely offensive (now that the tragedy has happened, they should probably update this page, although I doubt anyone has noticed) Welcome to Tsunami! page from the Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. This, btw, is the first match on Google. This proves that their index trumps whatever editorial control they have (well, 'proves' is a bit strong), since they have a link to this page right on Google.com.

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Foul language on AOL?
Yes, the title of this page is 'Fuck Me'. Isn't AOL the family ISP? Oh right, they're also the number one tool for IM Cybersex.

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My First Home Page
The My First Home Page section of AOL Hometown has some... well, first home pages. I'm trying to be nice.

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