Charles Teague has a review of a recent Wilco show in Seattle, with a video to boot. I saw Wilco not long after Uncle Tupelo split up, and Jeff Tweedy got pissed because people kept hollering out for Uncle Tupelo songs sung by Jay Farrar. I like Wilco. I really like Son Volt. I freakin’ loved Uncle Tupelo.
Here’s a cool blog: A Soviet Poster a Day.
The List Universe has a list (naturally) of 15 great science fiction books. Good list, with one of the greatest books ever written at number 2. I’d have to add Lucifer’s Hammer and Hyperion to that list. Mike seems to agree about Hyperion.
Nobody took me up on my offer to break down the math behind partial RSS feeds for me, but thanks to EchoDitto Labs, I saw a (weak) explanation from the Freakonomics Blog. Like South Filthy said in the excellent song Sandra Lynn’s Blues, like most things it came down to money. Let me state my position on partial feeds: My internet reading time is not designed to make you money. It’s designed to get me information in an aggregated and efficient manner. So unless you write a whole lot better than everyone else who writes about similar stuff, your partial feeds will not force me to click over to your web site. Rather, they will cause me to unsubscribe from your blog. It’s way past time to drag advertisers to the RSS model.
InstaBloke on turning lurkers into commenters. I don’t have the secret formula, but one thing that helps is for bloggers to participate responsively in the comments to their blog posts- to make every post like a mini-message board. Ed Bott is really good at that- people who comment there get a lot of value in return via Ed’s participation.
I don’t know much about it, but based on this post by Louis Gray, Ballhype looks pretty cool.
One of my favorite bloggers and new Alaska resident, OmegaMom, had a little scare recently. Many years ago, a friend of mine experienced Pericarditis in the middle of the night. We thought she was having a heart attack and called an ambulance too. It’s pretty scary stuff when it’s happening. I’m really glad OmegaMom is OK and am looking forward to reading more about her Alaskan adventure.
I enjoy Rick Mahn’s happiness posts. This one would be very high on my personal happiness list.
Way to represent Miss my home state.
Susan Getgood has a good read on advertising on blogs. Warner asks a darn good question about advertising on blogs (and elsewhere). There must be a segment of the population who click on ads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to make up for the rest of us who do everything within our power to avoid them.
Don Dodge Sam Donaldsons Mark Cuban. He could have stopped after 6 words: “It is an attention grabbing headline.” Saying something that everyone uses all day every day (such as Microsoft Office or the internet) is dead is dead and unoriginal. Am I the only one who gets the irony of a blogger saying that something regular people actually use is “dead”? Jay Neely has a good read on the so-called death of this and that.
A belated happy birthday to Shel Israel. He has a great post about living life. Excellent advice we should all take to heart.
Newsome.Org 