iTunes 7.0.1 is out. The general consensus? Nice try, but keep fixing those bugs. Frankly, Apple's most important software not working for a large majority of users is a joke (unless you compare them with Microsoft where that sort of thing is S.O.P.). 
PZ has reviewed Dawkins' The God Delusion.
I also hope that John Reid doesn't run for PM. For one thing, he uses the word "leadership" far too much.
I so hope that the Senate don't passs HR 2679. Why? Well, Ed Brayton explains.
Diebold says they've got it all in hand. No problems, you know. Or, rather, trust us, there won't be any problems on election day! Totally believable, right?
Got through security with all my limbs and luggage intact. They seem to be going for slightly more covert 'security' rather than overt - they'd rather take a picture of you than get you to take your shoes off.
Non-believers are less likely to support torture than believers. So much for the Moral Argument for the existence of God. Christianity in America - torture is fine, but homosexuality and porn are not. If you want to know why America is fucked up, take a gander at religious belief statistics sometime.
Niall Kennedy has some pictures of the new Google Reader. Very nice.
hCal in OPML 
A little test is required. I've finally sat down and written some UserTalk. It's actually quite taxing to write UserTalk when you are used to the various hacky ways of writing, say, PHP. The UserTalk code I've come up with, though, makes it easy for OPML bloggers to include microformats in their blogs.
I'm planning to finish up a whole bunch of these very soon - but I wanted to test one here.
BarCamp Ireland September 30 2006Webworks, Cork, Ireland
The link you see above is a microformat. It looks fairly normal to you, but it's designed in such a way that a machine can automatically read the details of the event - the URL, the name, starting and finishing date and location.
There are numerous converters for microformats - here is one - and here is a list of many more.
I'm also currently building tools that get microformats from within documents and display them in OPML and RSS formats. I've already built a tag parser - I've got to write myself a function called "getElementsByClassName" before any of the microformats stuff really works - if anyone has already written such a function for PHP5, please drop me a line.
The other great thing with microformats is that they are very easy to style - if you want your events to stand out in your blog, you only have to style the "vevent" class and it's automatically done to all your microformat entries.
Tags: microformats, php5, hcal, opml, usertalk
Calacanis on PodShow
Hmm. The other day on the Gillmor Gang, Jason Calacanis said that Adam Curry is a smart guy.
Today, he says that he reckons VCs are overpricing PodShow. (VentureBeat are also reporting on the story of PodShow's $15m second round funding)
There is only one way you can get these two statements to be coherent: Adam Curry is taking the VCs for a ride. The alternative is that Adam honestly believes that PodShow is worth the valuation it currently has.
What did the initial $8.85 million buy? A frankly horrible website and lots of talk about revolutionising advertising - but very little in the way of results. Oh, and the PodShow Music Network - horribly designed but at least useful.
Here's the thing: PodShow have realised that advertising sucks and that the only way it is going to work is if you have - for want of a better description - user-generated advertising. And so they've put in the EarthLink Ad Challenge where they've asked people to create adverts and submit them.
But then instead of using all of them on the network, they've whittled down the adverts to about three which they are goig to run across the whole network. They don't seem to get the lesson of Kierkegaard and the Rotation Method - that, in the aesthetic stage, one has to keep things new in order to stave off the inevitable boredom of existence.
With regard to advertising, PodShow want to dip their toe in to the user-generated ocean. For it to actually matter, you need to dive right in and start swimming. Otherwise people are going to get as bored with the three spots that are created by the users as with the spot created by the advertiser.
Of course, I might be wrong. To see the alternative view, read Duncan Riley's post on the subject.
I've met Adam, and he's a great guy. But when it comes to PodShow, I'm yet to be convinced that they are doing anything earth-shattering. If the current website is indicative of what they are spending the previous round of funding on, I'd say that the VCs ought to tighten up the purse strings a little.
Connection troubles
Can't get online in my hotel bedroom - the hotel have let me come and use the Business Centre area - and then they'll move me to a room that does have Internet in the morning. I have a long rant about it which I may post if nothing gets done about it tomorrow. It's 2006 - for crying out loud - it shouldn't have to be a battle in order to use the Internet. My room is very nice, but I'm paying a fairly sizeable premium to get an Internet connection. I'm not getting it. Or rather, I get it completely - it's someone else that's failing to get it.
If nothing gets done about it, I'll post the full story - fully marked up, tagged and hReview'd for posterity and Googleability. Yep, give me lots to drink, lots of the niceties that I wouldn't normally have and generally make up the value, inconvenience etc. that is lost by not providing the service which I paid extra for.
