Google Blog: "Sign up for Gmail"

Google Blog: “Sign up for Gmail”

Interesting. Gmail is now open without invitations, but you need a cell phone to sign up as their way of verifying your identity.

TrackBack: A Tragedy in Three Acts

TrackBack: A Tragedy in Three Acts

Oh the geeky hilarity!

Beastie Boys Vocal Tracks

Beastie Boys Vocal Tracks

Official a capella tracks of Beastie Boys songs, for your remixing pleasure. A new one each week.

Zero Sum Clips

I seem to be taking in more paperclips than I’m sending out. This bothers me.

A List Apart

A List Apart

New design for A List Apart, with some new articles for the web-minded.

Daily Show Interview with Steve Carell

If you didn’t see it Monday night, The Daily Show’s interview with Steve Carell was hilarious. One of the best uses of the awkward silence I’ve ever seen. (A little backstory: Carell was a correspondent on the show for years before leaving to do movies.)

A Mostly Self-Serving Post About This Weblog and the Tools I Use to Write It That You Probably Won't Care About

It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve moved my page back to TypePad from Movable Type. The 3.2 version of Movable Type seems to be really cool, but I’m kind of glad that I got away when I did lest I suffer even more temtation to tinker. That’s the difference, really, between the two services. Movable Type is customizable to suit almost any need you can find for it. TypePad’s a little more focused. While I like having a weblog that’s tooled to do exactly what I want it to do, I really just don’t want to make it a priority to do all the tooling that the temptation invites. TypePad gives me most of what I want, and at the moment that’s exactly what I’m in the market for. Also I like working within some constrictions. It really makes me be creative when I want to do something that isn’t quite provided by the package.

So, ta-da, here’s the site on TypePad (but you already knew that). I might play around with the visuals a bit, but, as outlined above, this standard look is pretty good. Instead of cramming everything into TypePad I’ve decided to make use of a bunch of great tools that already do what I want to do better than I could hope for. Links are handled by del.icio.us, and photos by Flickr. The XML feed is coming from FeedBurner. If you know what any of that stuff is, I’m sure it sounds like I’m just spouting off the generic list of trendy web things cool people know about, but they really are nifty services.

Anyway, pretty much I’m happy with the tools I use to put this site together for the few dozen who are nice enough to read it. There are two small things, though, that I wish TypePad supported out of the box:

1. Markdown formatting. Once you learn Markdown, you realize how cumbersome straight HTML is to write. Markdown lets you write in a format you can actually re-read when you’re proofing. When I’m writing a post from home, I use MarsEdit and then convert the text from Markdown to HTML using HumaneText.service. On the road, I use this dingus. I’d love to be able to just write and have TypePad do the translation. I can’t be hard for them to work it in, considering the plug-in version for Movable Type works perfectly, but I’m just not sure they know that the interest is there. (Oh, and SmaryPants, too).
2. FeedBurner support. Not as crucial, but considering Six Apart uses the service for all their own feeds, it’d be nice to have it standard as an option in TypePad. Sure, it’s easy use Advanced Templates to add the FeedBurner link in one’s head, but if I didn’t have to use Advanced Templating for that I’d love to stick to their wonderful standard stuff. Also, I’m still requiring TypeKey authentication of my commenters. I’m sure this is a slight barrier to you, but it saves me from spending lots of time deleting comments that contain nothing but links to adult sites and online casinos. Accounts are free and signup is quick.

Okay, if you’re still reading: flying cats!

Metro Arts and Architecture

Metro Arts and Architecture

Neat piece on the art and architecture of subway stations.

Boing Boing: Pornos rot slower than other magazines

Boing Boing: Pornos rot slower than other magazines

The need for lots of high gloss pages means that Playboy outlasts Newsweek in the landfill.

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory

Ah reductio ad absurdum, my old friend.