RIP Alice. 07:24 pm

i knew it was bad, but i didn't know the record industry was this bad. 01:38 pm

mmmm. we went to ming's for dim sum. while stuffing myself, i realized that i hadn't eaten there since i was working at beyond. 2.5 years is much too long to go without dim sum.

thankfully, the food helped clear up my radioactive headache. well, a little bit. probably the part that was caused by starvation and caffeine withdrawal than the part caused by having radioactive particles injected into my brain. since i do still have lingering pain. why, i'm sure you're wondering, did she starve herself, go without morning coffee and have radioactive stuff put into her brain? well, i was getting a pet scan done. unfortunately, i won't glow in the dark :( 01:04 pm

i'm not quite sure why this is so fascinating. take, for instance, the name jennifer. in the 50's it was the 105th most popular name. in the 60's it was 19th. the 70's 1st. 80's 2nd. and in the 90's it drops back down to 14th. despite being completely useless information, it does explain why there were so many jennifers in my school. via mefi. 12:52 pm

the american melting pot strikes again. this time it's gay culture that's getting sucked in. i wonder how much of this book is based on looking at stereotypes rather than on the reality of how people live. mefi's have extensive comments about it. 11:30 am

i've rediscovered how irritating large companies can be. working on this project has been a good reminder. i've also learned that i hate editing other peoples' code. especially when said jsp code uses hundreds of printlns to display html. argh! 10:58 am

dwarf tossing? via mefi. 10:56 am

i'm actually working on a contract this week and next. woohoo! unfortunately, it means that i won't have continuous access to email. responses may be delayed. 08:53 pm

Fun with spammers is a wonderfully amusing article by michael fraase over at arts & farces. i'm tempted to try it myself. unfortunately, michael is now being threatened with legal action. i'm thinking that reprinting of the article (with michael's permission of course) on several hundred websites would be rather effective. 09:41 am

The Family That Slays Demons Together. i'm not sure whether i find this article cool or really scary. not that i find the parent/child playing together thing surprising, there's a guy i used to play with called rul who plays with his 8 year old son, but the fact that this is being written about in the nytimes. unfortunately, he wrote the article much too early in his diablo experience. level 26 is a newbie, he hasn't even realized that it's all about how good your armor looks. thanks dylan.

it's good to know that the porn industry is still profitable. it does make one think about putting up a fetish site on the side. thanks sanj. 07:42 pm

i was thinking this over some more while cooking dinner, and it occurred to me that the argument for why micro advertising is better than advertising is very similar to the argument for why micro payments are better than subscriptions. no wonder this whole thing irritates me. 07:38 pm

looking at ev's new pyRads site has got me thinking more about textads/micro advertising. the only improvement i see over other web advertising is the ease with which people can place ads. which to me doesn't say that textads are an improvement in advertising. they're merely an improvement in the advertising sales/purchasing system. bottom line, people buy advertising in order to generate income. right now i see four categories of advertisers:

(1) novelty advertisers. the people who think it would be really cool to advertise their weblog/site and are willing to shell out a couple of $ to get their 30 seconds of fame. i can't imagine that they'll continue to do this once the novelty wears off.

(2) donation advertisers. the people who really appreciate the work matt has done with mefi and ev has done with blogger and are willing to donate money to the cause to help them out. the fact that they get an ad to their site is just a bonus. the desire to donate wears off. if it didn't mefi and blogger would never have needed to put up ads, they'd still be living off their donation funds.

(3) test advertisers. these are people who want to test the ad system for their own purposes. their own micro advertising project. curiosity. whatever. it's a cheap way to reverse engineer. it's also a one time deal.

(4) profit advertisers. people who actually want to make money through their advertising. standard run-of-the-mill advertisers who demand a return on their advertising dollars.

there are tons of people over at mefi who are examples of novelty advertisers and even donation advertisers. dansays was kind enough to be an example of both a donation and a test advertiser. profit advertisers can be found in abundance over at google.

so, in a relatively short time, the first three types will drop out. the profit advertisers will be the only ones left. the trouble is, there's no evidence that textads are any more effective than the big, flashy, in-your-face ads. less irritating. yes. easier to block out. yes. more effective. no.

let's see, how does the argument go? because it's not in-your-face then it's not so offensive. and people will notice them more. and be more likely to click on them. in fact, by putting these ads up, the little guy is doing a service to their visitors. they'll 'quietly profit(or at least survive) while strengthening their communities'.

"highly effective", "unobtrusive", "interesting" and "useful" are phrases used to describe micro advertising. i hear the same types of phrases used to describe pop-under ads. "pays a healthy premium", "doesn't overshadow content". i'm sure i remember appreciating the unobtrusiveness of x10's ads and thinking about how highly effective and profitable they'd be for advertisers.

i'd forgotten about tigger who jason and i affectionately named "gimpy". i too have always wondered if giving him back was the right thing to do. 05:21 pm

green screen of death. 04:45 pm

i *finally* found a good set of maps for Hibernia. i was beginning to despair of ever finding my way around daoc. 11:11 am

i've been playing dark age of camelot a lot over the past week. here's a few pages that i need to remember. daoc quests, character builder, camelot vault. 07:19 pm

brad's renamed "a day without weblogs". this year december 1st is World AIDS Day: Link and Think. 11:51 am

meteor storm this weekend. 11:18 am

ouch. excite portal was sold for $10 million. it was bought 2 years ago for $7.8 billion.thanks sanj. 12:00 am

NetSlaves -- What Came Before? finally someone talking about the reality of the economy and the state of i/t jobs. thanks sanj. 10:27 am

i'm in the market for a new rpg. arcanum just isn't cutting it for me. too open-ended. Dark Age of Camelot is getting excellent reviews. 03:42 pm

i had no idea they'd come out with a Male Realdoll. 12:34 pm

quite the halloween costumes. 11:54 am

hee 11:48 am

Laid-Off: A No Nothing Production 03:30 pm

i'd forgotten what the aftermath of a seizure was like. until monday, it had been 3 years since i had one. there's such a strange sense of disconnection with the world. like i'm not quite part of it. not being able to remember anything doesn't help much either. unfortunately, the only thing i can do is wait it out and hope it goes away soon. 11:44 am

i'm free! i just spent the last 8 days in a hospital room at stanford. unable to leave the room. a bunch of wires sprouting from the back of my head. attached by a cable to the wall. needless to say, i'm happy to be home. 05:01 pm