I really like the new CoComment features. I prefer the CoComment RSS to the co.mments.com RSS feed. Now that they track comments made by non-CoCo users, it's now the best in my opinion. 
I have just found that iJot doesn't produce valid OPML in all instances. I opened an OPML file that contained lots of type="link" entries, and wanted to change them to type=RSS entries. Easy enough, but it doesn't change the attributes from url to xmlUrl and doesn't introduce an htmlUrl attribute. Why is this important? Well, I'm putting together a node for Dave's Podcast Directory. I'm manually editing the OPML - it would be useful if the OPML Editor and/or iJot had a converter to turn OPML files that have type="link" links to XML files in to valid type=RSS links (and, obviously, grabbed the htmlUrl). A lot of the iPodder.org OPML files contain type="link" links - if we are going to salvage the directory, we ought to make it as easy as possible for contributors to make the files in to valid OPML.
Talking of Bill, if you ever find yourself in Lewes or Brighton, check out Bill's. It's a pretty good restaurant. They are quite expensive, but really tasty and do really good vegetarian food. I wish they had one in London though. 
Kook of the Week: The UN is going to be blown up! 
Check these guys out. They believe that the United Nations building in Manhattan, NY, will be hit by a nuclear bomb any time between sundown on Tuesday and sundown on Thursday of this week.
They talk about how when this happens, what will follow is a "Kingdom" of God. "just as real as the united kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the kingdom of Saudi Arabia". Wow. You mean that God will take money from sleazy Texan oil barons and have anal sex with the palace butler. The benefits of monarchy are so clear! Bring it on!
Later on in this fantastic doument, they describe how the planet is well-designed for human life: "if the environment is heated up by 3 decrees [papal or Blairite? -ed] it will no longer be able to support human life. This is because the one was designed for the other". Oh, absolutely. So, a loving God sat back while man invented the motor car and the aeroplane and started burning fossil fuels to power them. Gee whiz, call Dr. Behe, this is some Intelligent Design at work! An environment so fragile that three hundred years of industrialisation can set about the end of the world as we know it? Or perhaps it's timed so that the Rapture occurs as we run out of natural resources.
Later on, in the section titled "Technical UN Beast symbolism of Revelation 13" (oh my), the author of this beautiful piece describes how the 2-horned beast is a metaphorical representation of "the US/UK coalition beast" - the US/UK coalition in Iraq obviously. But the US State Department, back in 2003, described a "coalition of the willing" comprising countries like Denmark, Italy, Holland, Australia and many more. I mean, just imagine if the Dutch really were one of the "horns of the beast" - what exactly would they do? "Hey, Christians, we're going to sit around and smoke some green and tolerate you - maybe we might get a bit antsy if you start blowing shit up or stabbing people, but otherwise, it's all good". I mean, when it's an evil plot between Bush and Blair to become the next Satanic force, it's kind of interesting. But when it's Nicaragua and Uzbekistan (countries that most people have difficulty either spelling or pointing out on a map), it doesn't quite sound so scary.
The best bit has to be at the end, though. Look at all the people they've warned. I can just imagine some nutty guy down in some basement faxing FEMA and putting out Google AdWords about the imminent destruction of the UN.
I would just love to be a fly on the wall at the offices of the senators and congressmen and women getting yet another fax about the end of the world. They must get fifty of these a month. Just imagine when (and it's not an if) one of these nutters gets in to office at a serious level.
Give me back my life, Bill
I'm so glad that I don't have to use Windows everyday. I've been using it for about a week as my primary OS, and it's pissing the living fuck out of me. I want to find Bill Gates and wrap Ballmer's guts around the smug git's neck. Windows has killed my productivity for the last week or so. I just want my goddamn MacBook Pro back and I want someone to port Final Fantasy XI to Linux and OS X. Otherwise I'm going postal on the next Microsoft employee I find. I'm not kidding, this shit is ridiculous.
Microsoft have now had a decade since Windows 95 came out, and the OS is still a completely unreliable piece of turd. Oh, and don't say "Vista" to me. I'm not paying to upgrade my machine to Vista. It's going to be the same bullshit that XP has been giving me for the last few years, only it'll mean yet another contribution to the upgrade cycle.
It's great that Scoble and others have got blogs deep in to the heart of the beast. But it's still a god-damn beast, and we all know it. Apple has many flaws, but they actually can build software. They can't build hardware for shit as all the drama with the MacBook Pro proves, but OS X is the best graphical operating system ever built. Everybody knows it.
Apple: for the sake of my sanity, get that damn Macintosh back in my hands ASAP. And then go and hire some folks who know something about hardware. And stop drinking the record company, DRM-infected bullshit. And let your employees blog - not about secrets, obviously - but let them talk about the interesting stuff that is no doubt going on inside Infinite Loop.
As for the Zine or Zing or whatever the fuck it's called - who cares? I bet they are going to try and do it the wrong way. They'll invest in some poncey designer prick who doesn't actually know why the iPod is good, and they'll try and find some "signature branding" crap that mirrors Apple's white headphones gimmick rather than actually realise that the iPod is actually not the issue at all but the interface between the iPod and the computer. I couldn't care what the device looks like - it's in my pocket and the amount of time I spend looking at it is probably less than one minute a day.
The iPod and iTunes combination is the only one that actually works. It lets you listen to something, stop half way through, plug in to your computer and continue listening on there, without having to note down that your time and then forward to it on your computer. That is the one feature that distinguishes the iPod from all the many iPod clones out there. Without that, all of these devices are a worthless piece of junk that can't be used for anything beyond songs. Audiobooks, podcasts etc. are impossible without some kind of remembering of where you are. This is the same technology that we had in tape decks. Then the CD came along and everyone presumed that the old technology was completely worthless (just as some Web 2.0 people think about the desktop), even though almost all old technology still has good ideas in it that need to be salvaged.
So Microsoft are going to fuck it up worse than Apple did. Yawn yawn yawn. Apple are still going to keep their market share because however evil they are, they are less incompetent than everybody else. Microsoft are going to lose their market share because (a) they haven't given people good reasons to switch to Vista and (b) they are going to fuck up their MP3 player. You heard it here first, folks. I'm hoping not to blog much more today - I'm going to do some work, then I'm going to take the dogs for a walk, then I'm going to spend an hour on a game, then I'm going to go and read a book. It's a Sunday, for crying out loud, and I don't want to spend a minute more of it bitching about how crap my Windows machine is.
Philosophy node for Podcast Directory
I've just completed a node for Dave's Podcast Directory. It's an index of philosophy-oriented podcasts. Why? Well, I'm a philosophy student during the (non-summer) day. And because there aren't enough good philosophy podcasts.
I'm fed up with going to podcasting directories and looking for philosophy podcasts to find a whole bunch of pseudo-philosophy podcasts there - hippy-dippy religion and spiritual faff, cheesy motivational speakers and little actual substance.
There's nothing wrong with people using podcasting to spread their religious and spiritual messages, but they do nothing for me, and they'd be giggled at inside academia. If it's going to be worth the attention of the listener, it needs to have a certain amount of rigour. I'd rather people find five really great podcasts than fifty distinctly average podcasts.
I've pulled a few listings from the previous directory's list (indiepodder) and pulled out the stuff that I think doesn't quite pass muster. If you want me to list you in the directory, please ensure that you have "academic rigour".
The OPML file is here and you can have a look at it using Grazr.
Update: Dave has added my node to podcasting.opml.org. Thanks Dave!
