Get your tickets early 

Wouldn't it save a lot of coyness and pretending to form up the presidential-VP tickets early? Not right now, maybe, but a few primaries in, when things start to shape up, what if Hillary and Obama announced their ticket? Takes the drama out of the convention, but that's become almost ceremonial anyway. They spend the time on planning policy and getting ready for the general election that they would have spent running against each other.

RWC podcast player podcast 

Listened to the Calacanis beta 7 podcast, a conversation among Jason, Dave and Peter Rojas about features and feasibility of a new kind of podcast player. So fun to think about these guys doing something like that. I know my Brian character wants one and wants to work on it. Brian would buy one even if he couldn't afford it. I probably wouldn't if it wasn't in my budget; I'm cheap about stuff like that and curb my desire for gadgets, almost every day, seriously.

Couple thoughts: Jason drew an analogy from the player to an art car at Burning Man. I was thinking maybe it's more like a Bill Blass Lincoln, or Elizabeth Taylor jewelry, if they go the route of specifying a platform and letting others make the thing. That would be like how the Origami came about, right?

I'm not grasping how you'd shoot podcasts using RSS. Not doubting it, just don't understand.

Live on Cnet 

Cool that Cnet is livestreaming the press conference about James Kim's status. Hope he's OK. Seems unlikely given that he's on foot since Saturday, hate to say, but it's a miracle the mom and babies were OK, so let's keep hoping.

Hierarchies - Chapter 7 

(Continued from chapter 6 | Archive)

OK, let's see what we got, Meg said to herself as she settled in at her computer the morning after dining and exploring with Brian.

It was barely the next day. She had fallen into the habit of waking at around 4 a.m. and couldn't break out of the rhythm, partly because she kind of liked it. If dawn felt like a really new day, then pre-dawn was brand spanking new and fresh.

Opening Gtalk, Meg noticed Brian was online and active. I'll wait until he pings me, she decided. I want to write down some notes about all this weirdness and see if I can pull some of it together.

She reached her mouse for the Word icon, then, on a whim, opened the OPML Editor instead. Brian had made her try it because it was a Dave Winer invention -- and because he knew her penchant for brainsterbating (Meg's term for brainstorming alone). He was convinced she would come to love putting ideas into an outliner. She hadn't warmed to it yet, but she couldn't say she had given it much of a chance yet.

Also, there was that remark from the fictional Charlie Eppes about replying in OPML, still a puzzler. Meg and Brian both intended to talk about that last night, but somehow didn't get to it. Maybe while she was in the editor she would get an idea of what that it might be all about.

How will I organize this, she asked herself while opening a new outline file. Be straightforward. Make a main node called "What happened" and list what happened in a list under it.

Almost in spite of herself, and almost before she realized it, Meg started enjoying the task, making subcategories under "What happened" like "At the Other Building" and "In Google," each with its own list and with links to the results page URL and to the local text file.

Pretty cool. Wonder how I can beep Brian in here. You're supposed to be able to collab--

Oh. That's what Charlie meant. I bet that's it. Where the hell is it? The collaboration part.

(More coming in chapter 7, probably not tonight, but it's possible)

Triple-duty tricks in Drupal's book module 

Just realized that the printable version of my story archive would be suitable for consumption on e-book readers or mobile devices. It would be a good way to follow the story if you like having something to read on a train or in a waiting room -- just bookmark the printable page, knowing it gets appended to (and refined) twice a week or so.

I like Drupal, not so well as my beloved Expression Engine, which I use at work, but I do like it quite a bit.

Damn. Got that dueling iframes thing going on again. That proves it's not Grazr causing it this time. Seems to help -- sometimes? all the time? -- if I give the new iframe a name.