Really really slow Wordpress query

This query shows up all the time in my slow logs, and I'm just confused about how WP can have such slow queries in it?

SELECT DISTINCT *
FROM wp_posts
WHERE 1 =1
AND post_date_gmt <= '2005-07-07 13:07:51'
AND (
post_status = "S"
)
AND post_status != "w"
GROUP BY wp_posts.ID
ORDER BY post_date DESC
LIMIT 0 , 40

I have a clean WP 2.0.3 install, with no plugings.

The above query regularly takes 100s of seconds to run! Although a regular run when the db is fast seems rather fast (0.0022s). It may be that the query gets slow because of other reasons.

When I run an explain, mysql uses the post_status key, but reports under extra:

Using where; Using temporary; Using filesort

Not so good I believe?

Perhaps comment spam?

IA and coding

Robert Rodriguez: Hollywood hacker - WebJillion: "Robert Rodriguez. Dude made an award-winning movie for $7,000, bucked Hollywood in favor of his own one-man studio at his home in Austin, Texas and overall just really embodies the start-up, bootstrap, whatever-you-want-to-call-it work ethic that I try my best to stay true to.
[...]
“… you have to learn how to be technical, because if you can be creative and technical, you’ll be onstoppable … That’s why I started being my own film crew … When you’re self-sufficient, you’re scary. You don’t need anybody.â€?

Even though information architecture is what I'm really good at, I'm spending a lot of time becoming a much better coder these days. And the quote above shows why. If you are can build stuff, without having to hire people, you're way ahead already. Years of possibilities!

Pimp my ride!

The leopard was real furry, but also kinda nasty, because of the exposure to weather I suppose.

Tagclouds for comparing

Interesting use of small tagclouds for comparing: Topics | Dries Buytaert

San Fransisco

This is south of Sanfran, it's really very very beautiful. We rented a car to go south for a day, and I'm happy we did it, the almost-desert vegetation next to the sea is amazing.

Blip video gets digged, blip "doesn't break a sweat"

Blip Blog: "We’re holding strong at blip. Our servers are handling the incredible amount of traffic — hundreds of thousands of viewers coming all at once to one video — without breaking a sweat. We aren’t breaking a sweat. The video is up, blip.tv is up, everyone’s blip.tv videos are up. We’ve passed the Digg test. Where do we go from here?
[...]
P.P.S: I should mention that dealing with the “Digg Effectâ€? did require the application of our high traffic contingency measures. These measures take a few minutes to kick in, but once they kick in they let us scale to the moon."

loadedpun » Making a case for the personal vlog

loadedpun » Making a case for the personal vlog: "CNN is the latest network station to enter the fray in online video entertainment, offering up six original content shows this week. The three major networks have already added video podcast shows for aggregators such as itunes as well as some cellphones. Will independent web content makers be able to compete with these big budget offerings?

While some content makers have made shows that offer quality entertainment not previously seen in television programming (Ask a Ninja, Ze Frank and Chasing Windmills being among them) many are attempting to follow Rocketboom’s internet success with talk/news shows that mimic the network formats. Time will tell if they can break into a genre now inundated with big names and brands. My opinion? It’s time to get out of the television business and try something different."

Hear hear.

A very good point. The window for independents to make tv-like videoblogs might be closing as the tv players are jumping in. And that might be a good thing. Videoblogging was never meant to be another television.

Rosenfeld Media - Search Analytics for your Site: Why do search analytics continue to be so rarely used?

Rosenfeld Media - Search Analytics for your Site: Why do search analytics continue to be so rarely used?

A very good question indeed. I think it's simply that there's no good software available, software that incorporates some guidance on how to use it.

SomeInspirationFromThePast

The film of tomorrow (Quicktime)

ion solo (experimental)

ion solo (experimental) is one of the most exciting developments in videoblogging. It's an open source java app that plays rss feeds with videos in a beautiful, full screen UI. Check it out!

My vloggercon keynote: how values get embedded in technology.

I was very honored to be asked to give the vloggercon keynote this year. And even though I was pretty nervous and forgot a few bits (it's a BIG room!), I was very happy with how the talk came out. It was important. I talked about technology and values, and how now is the time to get it right or mess it up. I think some of it hit home with everyone, in the following days, values in technology (what a social-science geeky concept!) was talked about again and again. Here's the speech that I wrote beforehand (not exactly what I said but hey). The brilliant Truffaut quote that Anne gave me is at the bottom. The vision. There’s a vision people have been having for a long time now, and my instance of that vision was something like this: I’m on my couch, and I’m watching the Simpsons, and then I switch to a videoblogger in Colombia who has an interesting show that I like. And that videoblogger has an unmediated, strong voice, they don’t have to ask anyone permission to make this show, it’s not expensive; they do it for the love of it. It’s a simple vision, and probably some of you have had something like it. We might have eaten similar mushrooms. In any case. We need tech and culture. I believe that the way to make this vision happen is a mix of technology and culture. The technology ecology consists of the internet plus some software and websites, plus some hardware to get things on your TV or device. We also need a culture (“a set of learned beliefs, values and behaviors the way of life shared by the members of a society.â€?), a culture in which people feel that they can have a voice and an audience. A culture of openness, of unmediated voices. People have had this vision for a long time, and now, again, we’ve come to a time in history, a window, in which we have a chance to make this happen. If we don’t make this happen, video on the internet will still happen, the technology is getting there, but without the culture, it will consist of downloading tv-shows for $1.99, and watching funny clips of dogs on skateboards, and that’s scary. Those are the things that BigMedia wants us to do. Those are the things that fit with their values and business models. That’s the stuff that will happen regardless of what we do. Tech and culture co-evolve. There’s one point I want to make today. The technology and the culture of videoblogging co-evolve. So the practices and believes that you have are shaped in part by the technology that’s available to you, and the technology that’s being created like crazy these days is shaped by the practices and believes you hold. Beginnings. Beginnings are delicate times, and maybe this is the beginning of an important change in how video, the most powerful medium we know, is used. Video is different from text. It’s emotional. What we watch shouldn’t just be controlled by corporations. Beginnings are times when you set a direction, and the direction is set by how values are embedded in technology, in business models, in the whole ecosystem. To put it simply, this is what I think: we have an opportunity here. A dream, a vision. But it might not happen. The technology alone won’t take us there. Technological determinism There is an idea that’s called “technological determinismâ€?, which says that a technology, like the internet, will evolve in a certain way, regardless. It’s kind of inconspicuously popular in our thinking, but it is wrong. Technology will evolve differently depending on the culture and the values that influence it. For example, Japan is not “aheadâ€? of the US in their use of technology, they’ve just chosen a different technological path, with different priorities. Technology and culture evolve together. Very practically: if you tell technology creators what you want and don’t want, they’ll adopt some of that. And at the same time, some of the subtle details of the technology that they create will affect the culture that grows around it. For example: a lot of new video websites are geared towards popular content. They show popular stuff on the homepage. The people who go there are subtly suggested that popularity is what matters. But it’s not what matters to me. Or maybe to you. For me, it’s about real voices. So why not make a website that puts independent voices on the homepage, instead of the most popular content? It’s harder, but doable. But you need to know your values for that. The startups will listen. Everyone has something that drives them. The technology creators are mostly interested in cool stuff. And their bosses are mostly interested in making money. What it comes down to is: you need to tell the technology creators about your values. And they’ll listen to you, because they need you. And then they’ll embed some of those values in the tools. At some level, the startups know that they need you. They know that each of you is a pioneer. That each of you speaks with the voice of a million future customers. That’s why they do focus groups, and user testing, and just generally try to please you. Because if you don’t use their products, they loose. That’s an opportunity. You *can* influence the technology, and that technology will in turn influence thousands of future people. Right now, they are listening. Especially startups, they listen hard. Know your values. So it’s important to know what your values are, and how they get embedded in the technology. I can’t tell you what your values are, that’s a conversation everyone needs to have with themselves and others. For me, it’s about voices. Giving people the sense that they have the ability to speak with their own voice, without having to ask permission, or without having to compete for “popularityâ€?, or without the fear that what they say will be taken down, which leads to self censorship. And with the knowledge that others can listen to this, freely. That they don’t need lots of cash or influence to speak. Examples. So how do values get embedded in technology? Things like RSS are not neutral. They give power to users, and take it away from big companies. Blogs, too, they give you a personal platform that is not censured by anyone, hopefully. How we categorize things often really matters: ratings are a good example: I think they’re useless. Your highly rated blog may be useless to me, so why add ratings all over the place? Ratings suggest that popularity is what is important, and I don’t agree with that. Ownership is very important to support real voices. Can someone take my video down? And also, can I make money from my video, or will someone else profit from it? Creative Commons is doing a great job there. Formats, how portable are they, what can you do with them? Microformats give us an opportunity to easily create metadata that is spread easily. We can email companies about these things, and talk about them publicly. Flash is popular right now for watching video in the browser, but you can’t watch Flash video on your iPod, and it’s problematic for syndication. Linking. It really annoys me that iTunes doesn’t link you back to the site where the video was created. Businessmodels are under our review too. You want me to make a video for you for the chance to make 500$? And sign away all rights? I don’t think so. Those are just a few examples of how our values can help shape the technology and marketplace. And once we do that, in turn, the technology and the marketplace will shape the actions and values of millions to come after us. And we can call out companies. Say, kudos to Google for adopting mediaRSS, a format created by rival Yahoo. Kudos to Yahoo for adding a “video blogâ€? category to their new video site. When a company does something in a market this young, they’ll listen to what we have to say. We don’t have to be a mob. We can be intelligent about it. I’m not saying, crucify companies. Just email them about the values they are embedding in their technologies. Blog about it. The thing to realize is: these companies are scared of us. They depend on us. They need us, and we don’t need them. So now is the time to really push for our values, stand up every day and say what we believe. This way, we’ll influence the technologies, and this in turn will influence the millions that will come after us. Recap. So let me say it one more time: The technology and the culture of videoblogging co-evolve. And we have an opportunity, now, to embed values in the technology that will in turn influence millions of people down the line. This window of opportunity will close in a few years, or less. We can choose: 10 years down the line, a world full of skating dogs, and 1.99$ Simpsons downloads. Or, all that, AND a world of independent voices using this medium. Now is the time to stand up for our values. Finally, remember that vision? People have been having it. We have a chance to make it happen now. I would like to read something by Francois Truffaut, published in Arts magazine, May 1957, 49 years ago. Thanks to Anne Walk for this one.

â€?The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them: it may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation…and it will be enjoyable because it will be true and new…The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.â€?

Thank you.

The embarrasment economy

Forget the attention economy! The videoblogging mailing list has plans to start the embarrasment economy.

Videobloggers *do* have all the fun, by the way.

"Kenyatta and Dina...Don't Don't you want me?"

Videobloggers have all the fun. Unique kenyatta styling. Baby.

Watch movie

Original post, from vloggercon.blip.tv (beta):

Kenyatta definately added some of his own styling to this 80's tune while Dina added back up vocals and some movement on the stage. It was fun watching thanks you two.

(Via Mefeedia)

Vloggercon: Where everyone's the media &#124; CNET News.com

Vloggercon: Where everyone's the media | CNET News.com: "The sold-out conference, which has attracted more than 350 people from around the globe, kicked off Saturday with a speech from video blogging, or "vlogging" pioneer Peter Van Dijck.

Van Dijck described his vision of a future in which you can sit on your sofa watching "The Simpsons" and then switch the channel to an uncensored video blog from China. But it won't get there, he said, unless people encourage models that aren't based on popularity.
Click here to Play

Video: A spotlight on Vloggercon 2006
CNET News.com's Michelle Meyers delves into the world of video blogging.

We don't want it where "everyone is just watching funny stuff and downloading TV shows," Van Dijck said. "I think we can do more."

That's right!

undertheradar

At the Undertheradar conference, I had 6 minutes to show off Mefeedia, but I made the obvious mistake and didn't explain the core features (subscribing to feeds) well. The Google guy in the jury did say something like that he liked the design (undesign) the best of the sites presented, so that was fun ;)

Mysql brain teaser: a simple query checks all rows

I've seen this in many queries on many tables that take this form. It baffles me. Are you good enough at mysql to figure this brainteaser out? Coz I'm (still) not.

EXPLAIN SELECT *
FROM `video`
ORDER BY id
LIMIT 0 , 30

(id is the primary key, it might also be another index, makes no difference in this case.)

With an explain, I get:
key: primary (this is used to order it)
rows: 309973 (mysql estimates it needs to go over *all* the rows in the table).

So if I interpret this correctly, mysql needs to go over all rows for this query? That's crazytalk!

Any ideas? Maybe mysql doesn't *really* go over all those rows, it just thinks it needs to? I don't know anymore...

Why Google is actually right with this excel/word stuff

A lot of bloggers are saying the excel/word replacment strategy of Google must have some secret purpose. Not. They forget about 1 simple thing.

First, of course, the majority of people who use excel and word don't need any advanced features.

What they do need is an easy way to store everything in one place. Office hasn't solved that problem. Almost every small organization I talk to has an unsatisfactory, frustrating solution to where they keep their files. Mostly stuff just gets emailed around a lot.

That is the problem GoogleOffice can solve in 1 stroke. A basic Word and Excel is enough. And if it's stored in 1 place (no more duplicates! No more version control nightmares. No sotware to by and install.), that's enough motivation for 50% of all Office users to switch in the next 5 years.

Central storage, no software to install, basic features. And of course compatibility with Office.

It's really that simple. Which small group with limited means would *not* adopt this? I know all of the ones I know would. It's cheap. It's easy to maintain. And it solves a *real* problem that they *all* struggle with right now.

new laptop

I have my new laptop, and the program's I'm installing are in order, Firefox, M$ Office, Visio, putty, CutePDF, iTunes, Skype. So far.

Tech Confidential Blog: Adaptive Path and Sierra Ventures forge partnership

Tech Confidential Blog: Adaptive Path and Sierra Ventures forge partnership: "Adaptive Path, the cutting-edge Internet consulting and design firm that has helped define Web 2.0, said today it has agreed to provide Sierra Ventures' portfolio companies with consulting services in exchange for equity. The two firms have not consummated any deals yet but anticipate that Adaptive Path will work with three to four of Sierra's portfolio companies per year.

For Adaptive Path, it provides them with the upside that they lack working on an hourly basis. After watching former clients such as the Flickr founders go on to riches via a sale to Yahoo!, Adaptive Path is willing to take the risk that equity provides in exchange for the potential reward. It also builds upon the entrepreneurial experience they gained building blog analytic tool Measure Map and then selling it to Google earlier this month."

mysql fixes

I had a query something like this returning many duplicate rows:

SELECT entries.permalink, video.id, ... FROM entries, entries2video, video WHERE entries.feedid = '1' AND entries.id = entries2video.entryid AND video.id = entries2video.videoid ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT

It turns out the fix was pretty easy: instead of "order by id", make it "order by entries.id" (which makes more sense). I am not sure why, but this fixed the problem of returning duplicate rows.

MySpace and Deleting Online Predators Act (with Henry Jenkins)

Henry Jenkins and Danah Boyd published a full email interview about MySpace and such. They encourage sharing, so here is my remix of that:

What is MySpace?

Danah: "When youth login, their first task is typically to check messages in order to see who has written them. While email is still used to communicate with adults and authorities, MySpace is the primary asynchronous communication tool for teens.

After checking personal messages, youth check friend additions, bulletin board posts, event announcements and new blog posts by friends. They visit their friends’ pages to see new photos or check out each other’s comments.

The vast majority of social network site use amongst youth does not involve surfing to strangers’ profiles, but engaging more locally with known friends and acquaintances.

[...] these sites give youth a space to hang out amongst friends and peers, share cultural artifacts (like links to funny websites, comments about TV shows) and work out an image of how they see themselves."

What is the controversy over MySpace?

Henry: "Much of the controversy has come not as a result of anything new that MySpace and the other social software sites contribute to teen culture but simply from the fact that adults can no longer hide their eyes to aspects of youth culture in America that have been there all along."

Q: What do 'social networking software programs' provide participants? What's their down side?

danah: "By giving youth access to a public of their peers, MySpace provides a fertile ground for identity development and cultural integration. As youth transition from childhood, they seek out public environments to make sense of culture, social status and how they fit into the world. Interacting with strangers helps them understand who they are and communities of interest allow them to explore ideas and values. Although youth are able to socialize privately with one another in the homes of friends, most are not allowed to spend time hanging out in public, unaccompanied by parents or adults."

Q: What educational use might/does MySpace or other social network software have?

Henry: "Teachers are discovering that students take their assignments more seriously and write better if they are producing work which will reach a larger public rather than simply sit on the teacher's desk."

Q: The proposed bill appears to offer protection to minors from online predators, by limiting their mutual access. Is predation a real danger with MySpace?

Danah: "Statistically speaking, kids are more at risk at a church picnic or a boy scout outing than they are when they go on MySpace. Less than .01% of all youth abductions nationwide are stranger abductions and as far as we know, no stranger abduction has occurred because of social network services.
[...]
The fear of predators has regularly been touted as a reason to restrict youth from both physical and digital publics. Yet, as Barry Glassner notes in The Culture of Fear, predators help distract us from more statistically significant molesters. Youth are at far greater risk of abuse in their homes and in the homes of their friends than they ever are in digital or physical publics."

Q: You have said elsewhere (and several years ago) that virtual gaming experiences of today are analogous to the unfettered play in the backyards of the 1950s -- very core & essential experiences. Have social networking like MySpace or games or other new media technology become core experiences now?

Henry: "As I suggested above, most parents understand their children's experiences in the context of their memories of their own early years. For the baby boom generation, those defining experiences involved playing in backyards and vacant lots within suburban neighborhoods, socializing with their friends at the local teen hangout, and participating within a social realm which was constrained by the people who went to your local school.

All of that is changing. Contemporary children and youth enjoy far less physical mobility, have less time outside of adult control, and have fewer physical places to hang out with their friends.

Much of this activity is being brought online. What teens are doing online is no better and no worse than what previous generations of teens did when their parents weren't looking.

The difference is that as these activities are being digitized, they are also being brought into public view.

Video games bring the fantasy lives of young boys into the family room and parents are shocked by what they are seeing. Social networks give adults a way to access their teens’ social and romantic lives and they are startled by their desire to break free from restraints or act older than their age. Parents are experiencing this as a loss of control but in fact, adults have greater control over these aspects of their children's lives than ever before."

Google outbids Microsoft for Dell bundling deal, sez WSJ - Engadget

And after Yahoo and eBay made a deal to work together (Paypal and Skype will be all over Yahoo, and Yahoo ads all over eBay), Google today announces a deal with HP, outbiddig Microsoft for a LOT of money: Google will be the default homepage on all Dell computers for the next three years, and they'll come with Google Desktop installed too. Take that M$.

Still, an expensive buy (supposedly a billion dollars?) to get something that Microsoft pretty much still owns by default: the browser and the desktop.

JungleDisk - Reliable online storage powered by Amazon S3™

JungleDisk uses Amazon's S3 and is free to use (you just pay Amazon for storage). Very promising for storing all your fotos and stuff.

Is there an easy way/tool/software to connect to a mysql database and visualize the tables in it nicely so I can print them out and work through them? I've been downloading and trying software, but nothing works so far.

Any suggestions in the comments very welcome! Thanks.

Yahoo, eBay to join forces in partnership

The fight between Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and eBay continues (and Amazon I guess, a lot of people forget about them). Now Yahoo, eBay join forces in partnership. Makes total sense.

Have Money Will Vlog

Have Money Will Vlog is a new initiative to try to get money for videoblogging projects. The guys are still trying to work out the best model, but since they launched today, any since money pledged will be used for good causes only, go leave them a few bucks! Be a good guy, do it!

Blip tv supports windows movie maker

The blip.tv guys are some of the most clued in video technology guys around. Sure, blip.tv is no youTube, but thank god for that. They have a much brighter future. They did it again today, and launched a "very unofficial" Windows Movie Maker plugin.

It worked perfectly for me, here's the movie.

Super easy!

Windows Movie Maker comes pre-installed on every Windows XP computer (it's in the accessories folder in your programs), and for simple movies it's actually quite nice. The plugin is a download and it installs in about 12 seconds (yes, I timed it). I don't know how they did it, but the site mentions "Blip.tv support in Windows Movie Maker is not endorsed in any way by Microsoft".

This will make me from a lazyvlogger (who doesn't post often) perhaps into an active vlogger. It's really cool. Add blip's cross-post to your blog functionality, and you got a 1-click winner.

Here's a screenshot:

"dhlovelife - emergency episode!"

Darryl Hanna is turning out to be one of the most "real" videoblogging voices of the famous people that are trying it out, she's really rocking. This video is great coz it's about an important issue, a local garden about to be closed. Check it and share it!

Watch movie (Quicktime, 4.1 min, 13.8 MB)

Original post, from daryl hannah's love life:

(Via Mefeedia)

florecitaPlastika - Florecita Plastika

florecitaPlastika - Florecita Plastika: "An online experiment with words and images by Eliyahoo Cohen Talgam."

When I was in Laos, I sprained my ankle badly, and the village doctors tried to heal it by calling out to the spirits. Maria made a great video: thevillagedoctors.mov (video/quicktime Object)

"KANJI VIDEO 2 COLOURS": Learn Japanese. I really like these earning videos. If I were learning Japanese, I'd put them all on my iPod. Bu I'm not. But if I was! So there.

Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.8 min, 7.3 MB)

Original post, from Learn Japanese:

It's video time again and this week we are studying numbers. This video was created by the multi talented Mr Stan Fairbank. If you liked this video then check out Kanji videos 1, Makiko's self intro, Drinking with Beb, What's your favorite word ? days of the week and the famous ALT Rap ! You can also see a veritable cornucopia of videos relating to life in Japan and more at our sister site News From The Other Side.Yoroshiku very much !

(Via Mefeedia)

"Eye CandyEye Candy". Pretty cool and nasty. Happy tree friends is Eeeeuiiiw!

The ad in front of the movie didn't bother me, maybe coz it's a cartoon too.

Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.1 min, 8.8 MB)

Original post, from Happy Tree Friends:

Candy can be very, very dangerous for your eyesight!

(Via Mefeedia)

"Brouhaha": a cool cut of some recent discussions in the vlogosphere about a post where someone was looking for a "hottie" to host a videoblog show. We not like this attitude.

Watch movie (Quicktime, 2.6 min, 15.3 MB)

Original post, from Bottom Union:

In case it's not obvious enough, all of this is taken completely out of context. You can view the videos in their original context here: No Practice, Byte Me, Ryanedit, RichardBF, Nurse2be, Shooting Full Force, and MsKitka.

(Via Mefeedia)

Gmail - We media follow-up

The We Media people insisted on my feedback, so I wrote them this:

I was dissapointed with the conference because of the way it was set
up. Instead of having people who truly understand "we media" on the
stage, it was filled with representatives of old media. The
discussions on the stage staid on the surface. A good example was the
section about citizen media: it was illustrated not by a true citizen
media video, but by a video from the BBC. A video that totally
misunderstood what citizen media is.

The "assasin" section was cringe-worthy. Invite a blogger to your table! The whole conference felt patronizing to anyone in "we media". We got to sit in the back, and listen to old media people who didn't really get that: we don't need them! They need us.

I won't come back unless we media is on the stage, not old media's interpretation of we media.

Oh, and please don't invite people just for their star power. Richard Dreyfuss's section was irrelevant.

We have a world to change, and I don't have time to be the token blogger at a conference that makes us the "audience" and old media the
"voice". It's the other way round.

It's harsh criticism, but this is how I felt.

Yahoo! launched its most significant homepage redesign ever today.

loadedpun » Mashup control issues: a great post on issues of control in mashups. These are the kinds of conversations we need to be having.

CARS Video Podcast: the upcoming Pixar movie Cars now has a videoblog. King Kong did it too (first? don't remember..).

"en chile ya hace frío". It's cold in Chile!

Watch movie

Original post, from puritito tomate tv:

[48 segundos; 3,6 mb]Etiquetas: gasco, chile, frío, pepa, vlogs, videoblogging, vlogging

(Via Mefeedia)

PCD Music Lounge Fan Club Release

This is supposed to appeal to teens?

PCD Music Lounge Fan Club Release: "We are creating a nice, safe place for music fans to hang out, chat, dance, make friends, and generally have fun. Remember, when you are in The Lounge, you are in a public social environment."

How... nice!

Joi Ito's Web: Visa Waiver form is YOUR responsibility

Joi Ito's Web: Visa Waiver form is YOUR responsibility!

I use the visa waiver too, and I didn't know that. US immigration are the scariest in the world.

Flash to jump beyond the browser &#124; CNET News.com

Flash to jump beyond the browser.

Interesting. Adobe (=Macromedia) is developing a kind of "Flash browser" that we can build internet applications with that will, as one of its great features, manage offline-online usage, ie. you can use it while offline *and* while online. Competition: lots, but also XUL, the technology that Firefox and also Songbird, an iTunes clone use.

This could become an interesting space, but right now, I would bet on XUL over Flash, simply because it is already there and is slowly being proven/tested in real life apps.

A good movie overview of what's new in Drupal:

4.7-whats-new.mov (video/quicktime Object)

blog-speak vs. press-speak

Mapping a path for the 3D Web - page 2 | CNET News.com. I do prefer blog-speak over press-speak, generally.

In blog-speak: "It was pretty boring although the people were interesting. I was so relieved when we got to see an actual demo instead of boring pie-in-the-sky conversations. And the food was good."

Press-speak: "During one break in the schedule Saturday, two members of the team producing Croquet, an open-source software platform designed for creating collaborative, multiple-user online applications, showed off their software. And as word spread about the demo, nearly everyone in attendance suddenly scrambled to watch.

Quickly, about 30 people gathered in a tight semi-circle around the two Croquet team members as they showed off the software's ability to let people move in and out of rich virtual spaces easily and with little of the lag and complicated user-interface of virtual worlds like "Second Life."

The demonstration was one of the highlights of a day filled with engrossing conversations, but short on tangible progress toward the road map everyone had come to create.

To some, the format of the event presented hard challenges to achieving the stated goals. But some felt that organizers had gotten it right."

Morph-The Media Center conversation: so why doesn't the wemedia blog mention any of the dissapointment felt in the blogosphere about the conference?

The Obvious?: Oh I soooo know that feeling ....

The Obvious?: Oh I soooo know that feeling ....: "As I had feared, it was a complete waste of time. I'm sorry, I'm never normally this critical of a conference - particularly as I know first hand how much damned hard work it takes to put one on - but it was unexpurgated garbage. I had thought it might turn into 'MeTooMedia', but it went one step further than that and became 'TheyMedia'. Instead of progressing the conversation, or even bringing it up to date, the BBC managed to thrust us into a timewarp and take us back at least two, maybe three years.

.....

All in all, the day was very insular and introspective, with a lot of people appearing to think that they are doing very well, thankyouverymuch, without the input of anyone who knows what they're talking about. By the end of the day, I was beyond my usual state of British reserve and just about ready to spit feathers. I'm used to people not getting it, remember - I do this stuff for a living so I have plenty of experience of people talking out of their arse. But this conference brought me to a new level of frustration."

I was extremely frustrated that day as well. With such a fabulous/famous cast of people, how can you put on such a horrible conference? I actually walked out the first day, I just couldn't take it anymore. The second day was a bit better, but I had to leave early to catch a flight.

wemedia

WorldNetDaily: Arab airline hijacks kids of 'South Park'

2006 White House Correspondents Dinner with Stephen Colbert - Google Video

2006 White House Correspondents Dinner with Stephen Colbert - Google Video. You *have* to watch this video. It's quite funny.

This Blog Sits at the: The problem of partial ethnography

Whenever I blog like 5 posts of another blog in a row, it means I've discovered an interesting new one: "I met a guy last Saturday night and he asked for my phone number and, like, things were going well at the bar, so I give him my phone number and he puts me right into his phone and was like, hey, that's ,that's, that's pretty quick and then he asked me if I wanted his number and I was like yeah do you want to put it down on a business card or something. I mean I'm a lady! Who thinks of jumping right into my phone. I got to take this as a process. If we call, if we have some sort of thing going."

[The ad shows the Nokia 8801 and the line:] Nokia: It's your life in there

"It's like my cell phone is precious, it's precious territory."

This Blog Sits at the: Bloggers vs. the old media (are they panicking yet?)

This Blog Sits at the: Bloggers vs. the old media (are they panicking yet?): "In the early days of regime transition, the incumbent (aka New York Times, Wall Street Journal) treats the new challenger (aka bloggers) with a certain high handed indifference. If acknowledgment occurs at all, it comes with a patronizing pat on the head, as in "Hey, aren’t the newcomers charmingly amateur? Welcome to the party. Now, run along and get me a drink." More often, bloggers are not acknowledged. They just don't matter."

Which is exactly what I felt at WeMedia last week, although there are also the ones that *do* get it and they are entusiastic and willing.

This Blog Sits at the:: "The Marketing Science Institute meetings on ethnography are
now over."

Some good insights in ethnography in a business setting.

"But as it stands, almost all the b-school academics who care to teach this stuff were in the room [John Sherry (Notre Dame), Eric Arnould, Linda Price (Arizona), Lisa Penaloza (Colorado), Craig Thompson (Wisconsin) and Rob Kozinets (York and MIT)] and this is not a good sign."

And this one: "One of the real challenges that remains stands at the border between outward research and inward process. Some corporate cultures have a hard time bringing the ethnographic insight fully in-house."

Now Go read the whole thing.