charles miller writes about how AOL journals will have little effect on the world of blogs in general because there are already lots of blogs out there. basically, you only know a blog exists if someone links to them or they link to you - and bad blogs don't get linked to, so if the AOL journals are good then that's good but if they are bad it has little effect on the current Blogosphere. charles also points out that the AOL journals can have nothing but a good effect on currently established AOL communities and is thus good for them. so it's no big deal, relax.#

nat friedman has posted some slides he presented at OLS about Dashboard. they are a nice overview of the architecture and some of the problems that are solved. keen.#

justin wonders if he could "take a vacation from sight" and spent a few days blindfolded or something. i've thought about this very much. i want to live through most disabilities for a while: walk around blinded, not talk, wear large headphones to block noise. i think it would be interesting to see if i could improve my sense in general by spending some time individually exercising them. i have not read much about it, but i seem to recall ascetic yogis doing stuff like this.#

tim bray on the etymology of new curses.#

peter lindberg writes about a new development where he lives and integrates a lot of jane jacobs' ideas, what he says about her book makes me want to go read it. so alas, it's on the list now.#

philip greenspun lost his treo and is considering whether it is a sign that he should jump ship and switch platforms. being an anti-microsoft bigot i would never use a pocketpc product, but if you are already in the microsoft you might as well embrace it.#

brian carnell suggests that when measuring the merit of one scientific study you should look at the author(s) other theories to discern the 'quack factor' - he supplements this suggestion with an example usage.#

dan hon is a charming example of weblog ethics. i've said it before, in relationship to the fishbowl, that i think it's great when people say their wrong because at least they have enough "guts" to say something in the first place, unlike me who doesn't say anything unique and hides behind the supportive shroud of commentary and propagation.#

from game girl advance to slashdot games is a gamers.com teaser of the new game from the creators of Grand Theft Auto: Manhunt. It looks pretty neat, although I haven't played GTA, I like reading about games in general even though I may not ever play them#

joi ito links a post from scoble talking about secrets - how they are made, how they are kept, and some interesting notes on secrets he's been in contact with. i read a book once, called "The Big Book of Secrets" (I think, I'll check the title when I get home) and it talked a lot about corporate secrets (mostly secrets recipes of drinks, alcohols, etc) and magician secrets. it was mostly a discussion from a hobbyist perspective rather than a book targeted at corporate exec's who want to learn about how to make his organization more secretive. i like being privy to secrets. its funny the little things we do, like having lots of fake domains to use if we want to subscribe to mailing lists about things - (ie, what if je@platform-porting.microsoft.com was subscribe to the linux kernel mailing list - or something like that) - scoble and joi have great takes.#

dr. frank tells the story of the lookout party/show he went to/played at the other night. he writes about how most audiences act to solo, acoustic performances and about how one of his song title leads to awkward chanting moments during his sets.#

derek blogs more on gencon. live vicariously like me.#