Clint Sharp’s Blog an’ Vlog

Andy Baio of has written an interesting piece, detailing how Wordpress.org is using their high Google PageRank to profit from hidden links using AdSense. I’m not an SEO expert, but I figure if you can glean additional revenue from your site’s popularity to attempt to offset the costs that it would take to get that kind of PageRank, more power to you. It’s Google’s responsibility to fix their search engine, although I do admit what they’ve done is a bit shady. I certainly sympathize with their plight, and I hope this doesn’t taint the image of the software too much, because I love what they’ve done. Unfortunately, I don’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate to pay them for their software, so they’re sort of in a position where they need to get revenue in any way possible. Thus is the plight of open source. It’s hard to give away your work and make a successful business at the same time.

My heart goes out to Wil Wheaton today, who just put his beloved cat Felix down. As my wife so eloquently put, if you have animals, they are members of your family. While it may seem silly, losing an animal is like losing a beloved friend. All our animals are unique and have their own personalities, and no animal is a substitute for them. Wil, I wish the best to you and your family, and I hope the memories of Felix bring smiles to your face for years to come. I know my departed animals still do.

Lawrence Lesssig Says:

An insanely poor editorial by the NYTimes about Grokster.

I tend to agree and disagree at the same time. On one hand, I am firmly in the camp that content creators have the right for their intellectual property to be protected and for them to be compensated for their work. However, I think in the particular case of Grokster, who is merely creating the forum for people to do the copyright infringement, I don’t see how they can be held liable. They have no ability to control the content which is shared on their network. The content creators are prosecuting the wrong parties because it’s easier to go after one entity than thousands.

I mostly take issue with the NY Times saying that the Constitution establishes copyright. It doesn’t, at least not by name. The NY Times says “The founders wrote copyright protections into the Constitution because they believed that they were necessary for progress.” However, the clause of the Constitution which establishes the ability for Congress to create laws such as copyright, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, states “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The Senate’s own website states “Copyright and patent protection of authors and inventors are authorized by this clause, although it uses neither word.” Shame on the NY Times for misappropriating the Constitution. The Constitution is held in high regard by all Americans, and I doubt nearly so many people would rally to the cause of the Copyright Act of 1976.

I suppose as I read more and more blogs (and especially more and more of the popular blogs), it seems that bloggers are mainly interested in blogging. OK, that’s probably a disservice, and I suppose it’s the pot calling the kettle black since I’m blogging about blogging. I guess most blog about their own subjects. It’s just that when you read enough blogs you hear a shitload about blogging. Deborah Branscum has written a somewhat insightful post as to how blogging is like High School titled “High School and the Blogosphere: A Consideration”.

I’d like to add some comments to her thoughts:

1. In high school, girls rule, boys drool. In the blogosphere, boys rule, girls drool.

Perhaps that’s because we can’t see your breasts? Seriously, women’s power in high school is the same afterwards. I don’t think you could possibly be implying that girls in high school were revered for their intellect. If you’re not telling us you’re a woman on your blog, how are we supposed to know? Blog as a man. See if that makes a difference.

2. In high school, it’s jocks vs. nerds. In the blogosphere, it’s wonks vs. nerds.

I’m not sure there was ever a contest like this in high school. Did the dorks, geeks or nerds ever win out over the jocks? I think the only person having this kind of conflict were the nerds, the geeks and the dorks. I think the jocks were just largely oblivious.

3. In high school, there are the popular kids, then everybody else–and it really, really matters. In the blogosphere, there are the popular kids and then everybody else. And so what? We’re adults now and this is blogging, not serious business. (Um, except when it’s serious business.)

I don’t know if this is written from someone who’s not really moved around in business circles or not (EDITED: She’s written for NewsWeek, Fortune and the New York Times, to her credit). This description of the way the high school and the blogosphere works I think could be generalized fairly effectively to the entire world. I only see the blogosphere (I really hate that word, I should come up with something better even if only I use the word) as a microcosm of the real world.

4. In high school, there’s plenty of foul language. In the blogosphere, there’s plenty of foul language.

What the fuck? Why the fuck is this a goddamned issue?

5. In high school, teens can’t wait to enter the real world as independent adults and escape their adolescent misery. In the blogosphere, adults can’t wait to start blogging to escape the real world and its misery.

The grass is always greener. People consistently change careers to find a better one and people switch jobs to find a better job and people switch spouses to find a better one.

Maybe Deborah’s point would have been more insightful but less catchy if she was comparing High School and the blogosphere to the real world. As much as I hated High School, and believe me my life is much improved since then, the real world works much like it. Some people are popular and some aren’t. Luckily, in the real world, as in the blogosphere, it’s often times deserving. Thankfully, unlike High School, It just so happens that I have the upper hand in the real world over the jocks. I feel very sorry for the jocks, as I’d hate to live the rest of my life realizing the best had already passed me by.

In the words of Kyle Brovlowsky, “I’ve learned something today. Film festivals shouldn’t be about what celebrities are going to show up. Film festivals should be about people getting together and watching movies and appreciating art. Film festivals should be about people having a chance getting their movies seen, if only once.” Well, it’s not an exact quote, but it’s close (it’s from the Chef’s Salty Balls episode). I have found the finest independent film of the year, available, on the Internet, for free. Ready?

• The Old Negro Space Program

It’s not for the easily offended. Also, it’s most definitely not SFW without headphones, so beware.

I’ve ordered this T-shirt, as suggested by Tom, my old boss. I think it’s outstanding. The Onion can do no wrong.

So obviously if you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to expound upon the benefits of RSS. If you don’t know what RSS is, I suggest you read up on it and subscribe to an feed aggregator like Bloglines. That’s not really the point though. The point is, even though I’m consistently subscribing to more feeds, sometimes I’m still just finding myself with nothing to read. How depressing! All the stuff I read daily is over at the right on my blogroll, but as I sit here staring at Bloglines, nothing is in bold, meaning I have nothing to read. I’m obviously missing out on someone’s witty and insightful comments out there. Someone tell me what I should be reading but aren’t.

There comes a time in your life when you realize things just aren’t working out anymore. And for Melanie and I, that was tonight. Luckily, it was all fairly easy. All I had to do was setup a second directory, export the wordpress database, replace typhoon_ with mel_, update some inserts into the options table and it was done. In case you’re curious what this has do with the divorce, fooled ya! Basically, we’re just not blogging together anymore. So, I’ve moved all her old posts over to her blog and removed them from here. You can find her musings here.

Shirley Heights, Antigua

Originally uploaded by Coccyx.

So, I’m going to start blogging with more photos, because I think it makes my site look pretty. And since this is one of the pretties photos I’ve taken, I figure this is a pretty good start.

The main point of this post though, is to tell you about Flickr. Flickr rules! Basically, once I got Wordpress up to 1.5 to where xmlrpc wasn’t broken, Flickr now posts directly to the blog without me having to do anything. It also lays things out very pretty, which is nice. Also, a third party user has developed a plugin for Flickr from iPhoto to export photos directly to Flickr! This is badass! This makes photo blogging a brain dead affair. Export from iPhoto to Flickr, and then blog from Flickr to the website. Awesome! I’m going to take a look at the source for the iPhoto exporter and see if I can do something similar for Gallery to eliminate the Flickr dependency, but seriously, it rules. Check it out, it has other cool features like being able to define certain areas of your photos to have mouse overs, so that if you have a group photo you can label who each person is, etc. It also is a big photo-sharing community, which is what I think people are drawn to it for. Personally, I like having the stuff on my own website, but still these guys are rocking. I guess Yahoo got them for a teal at $30 something mil.

This is a common problem. I sit in front of my computer trying to find something to listen to for what seems like hours. I’ve got plenty of music on iTunes, at present, I could listen to music for over 8 days and never listen to the same thing twice (except for all 17 versions of numerous DMB songs courtesy of my husband) It would seem that there should be no problem finding something to suit my mood. It should be a simple process - am I in the mood for something deep and reflective like Elliott Smith or Radiohead…. or something fun and upbeat like John Mellencamp or Three Dog Night? Maybe I want blues like Robert Johnson… or poppy like The Beatles… maybe it’s sunny and The Eagles would be a perfect fit. Sometimes late at night when I’m almost ready to go to bed, surely The Shins would be a better choice than Guns ‘n Roses. Or just maybe, Clint has been out of town and I have an overwhelming urge for some Dave Matthews. See - it shouldn’t be that hard. But it is - as I type this I’m listening to Radiohead’s “Hail to the Thief” and it took me over 10 minutes to make that decision. It might help if I could browse by genre - I know iTunes has this feature but if you’re an itunes user go browse by genre right now and you’ll see what I’m talking about. According to iTunes, the only Alternative Rock music I have is PJ Harvey, Pete Yorn is classified as Punk, and while I agree that Michelle Branch (my husbands, not mine) is pop, I don’t think Mark Knopfler would be too happy to know that he’s stuck there too. In fact, most of my music is placed in no genre - you would think it would be easy to assign Sarah Mclachlan and Aretha Franklin (pop and R&B respectively), but iTunes places them in no category. I know I could assign all the albums appropriate genres but that is too damn much work. So my problem remains. I honestly think that I might just have too much music to choose from. It could also be the way I listen to music. I don’t know what other people do but unless I’m putting on music as background noise to clean or sew or something, I rarely listen to entire albums. If I’m listening to “listen to music” I want to skip around and hear all of my favorites. And yes, I’ve got a million playlists. The problem is that the 25 songs I wanted to listen to yesterday aren’t the same 25 songs I want to listen to today. Sure there are some songs that I’m almost always in the mood to listen to - but the key word is “almost”. There are circumstances under which I just don’t feel like hearing “The Origin of Love” from the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack - I know it’s amazing that anyone could say that. Also I don’t want to go strictly by these playlists because I forget about music I love. I can go months without remembering how much I love Elton John’s “Goodbye” or Radiohead’s “Climbing up the Walls”. So I have limited choices. I can choose to jump around and listen to a bunch of stuff - the downfall being that this requires constant attention and I might forget a song I love. I can choose a playlist, but this is going to end with me skipping a lot of songs because I’m simply not in the mood to listen to Ani Difranco sing “Shy”. Or I can listen to entire albums which is difficult because there are few albums that I truly like every song on them - Radiohead’s “Kid A”, The Beatles “Abbey Road”, Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water”, U2’s “Joshua Tree”, and right now REM’s “Around the Sun” are the only ones I can do it with. Many albums come close and I suppose I could uncheck “No Surprises” on OK Computer and such and have a few more. Actually, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I actually just realized that might be a good solution. Ok, but I know that I’m still going to end up switching albums after the first 3 or 4 songs because what always happens is that track 3 or whatever reminds me of some song I like and I have to listen to right this minute and it does no good to finish whatever I’m listening to right now because now anything short of Jackson Browne singing “The Pretender” is just crap. See, as we speak I remembered how much I like that song and I’m going to have to switch over to it - except that for some reason Jackson Browne always makes me think about Broadway plays so now I think instead I’ll listen to the West Side Story Soundtrack and I ask you - How in the hell can someone who is listening to Radiohead suddenly get a desperate urge to hear “I Feel Pretty”?
I hope I’m alone in this, because if I’m not….. I’m scared for this world.

Mel

My wife made a comment to me the other day during one of our discussions as to what I was going to do. We have these conversations from time to time, usually during one of those short periods that may extend only a week or two, or maybe less, which define the next few years of your life. It happens that now is one of those times, and things may continue as they are for rest of the year or they may change right now. However, all the options before me are not exactly what I would consider great.

The crux of the problem is this: nothing comes without sacrifices. You can be good at a lot of things but, in my observation, you can only be great at one. Rarely do you see an instance where someone achieves notoriety for something they have done where they are also a great husband or a great father, or at least they’re not both simultaneously. I suppose the key to doing something great is to do it and to move on to the next big thing. For some, it’s their next company or their next command or their next office, and for others it’s fatherhood or motherhood or it’s re-committing themselves to their marriage or slipping away into a great retirement.

I seem to try to do everything early and along the way I seem to skip a few important things (like College). I started my career early, I got married early, and now I’m feeling washed up early. Kinda sad to feel washed up at 24 isn’t it? I’m going to miss my goal of making a million by 25, but I’ve accepted that as an impossibility long ago. However, while my wife and I were having our aforementioned conversation, which was about doing another startup, she mentioned that she felt I would always do something great. There’s an inherent problem with this. It’s impossible to have a normal life and attempt to achieve greatness. Something has to give, and the question is, am I, and to a larger extent, is she, willing to sacrifice everything on a chance?

The chance is that a deal will come along, either of my own creation or through a contact, which basically involves leaving a cushy corporate job with good salary and good benefits to take at best an OK salary and OK benefits with the idea that if by the sheer will of you and your co-workers, you can make something out of this thing you’re calling a company and all come out with enough money to either not have to work ever again, or at least not work for quite a while. Obviously, there are a lot of factors which I won’t go into in deciding whether this is a good deal or not, but even with the best qualifications at picking these, there’s a big chance it’s going to end up in failure. Failure could mean at best that you’re out of a job. At worst if could mean you’re out of a job with no savings and lot of debt to go with it. Obviously, this is a significant amount of risk, especially when we’re not exactly the most financially stable couple. However, significant reward doesn’t come without significant risk. It’s certainly a pickle, and the most interesting thing about this decision is that it’s only theoretical at this point. I have no path to greatness even sitting before me at this point.

Part of the lure of the startup isn’t even the monetary gain. It’s just damn fun. If you’re working in a small company trying to make it big, the success of the company is largely in your hands. I feel an overwhelming urge to have more responsibility, even though I may not always be deserving. I have an inherent belief that given that responsibility that I’ll do well, or better yet even shine. I believe that since I’ve been a part of failure that I have learned from my mistakes, and the next time I take a big risk I will succeed. It’s easy to convince yourself of this, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to end up in failure yet again.

So, while this isn’t necessarily a permanent or even imminent decision, I’m feeling a pressure that I’ve placed on myself to make this decision between being good and being great. As most of you know, I’m an incredibly egotisitcal person. I think I’m awesome. I think I’m smart. I think I’m destined to do something great, but I’m realizing as I get older that the chances are slimming. I’m also realizing that some of things I decided to forego were somewhat important to achieving greatness. It’s certainly not impossible but the odds are definitely stacked against me. I’m also missing motivation. I’m a cyclically motivated guy. When something new comes around I’m incredibly motivated to work hard, but when the newness wears off I tend to slack. I suppose no one who achieved greatness didn’t have to overcome adversity, but I think remaining motivated may be something I’ll never be able to overcome.

So the alternative is to be good. I am good at what I do. Without much effort I can continue to be very good, and at the same time I could probably take the extra time that I normally spend goofing off and focus that on being good at other things, like being a good husband (again, we have a motivation issue, but my wife has unique and powerful ways to motivate me when she herself feels motivated to do so ). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about being just good as well, and frankly there’s a lot of pros on that side as well. You can be good at a lot of things, not have to sacrifice much, and live a long, prosperous, and happy life. Some people would feel lucky to have these two options to choose from, and certainly I could live the rest of my life with my wife and hopefully some children, clawing my way to middle management, and hope to impart my legacy on the world through my children or perhaps just spend the rest of my life smelling the roses.

Sometimes I think that I’d be totally content spending the rest of my life working and spending time with my wife. I think being just good would probably be a great life, after all it seems to work for everyone that isn’t written about. However, having made this decision will I also have a life of regret? Regret of passing up my potential? Living with the feeling that I could have been great had I have not chosen the easy path? Is being good good enough?

So it’s come time. In the next month, or the next year, or the next 5 years I’m going to have to decide. I honestly can’t tell you which is better or what I’ll decide. Hopefully I don’t overestimate my talents, and hopefully whatever decision I make will bring me happiness.

Butters “Captain Chaos” Dickens 2004 - 2005

Earlier this week, a tragedy occured. Not a tragedy on the scale of loosing a child (which also happened in my family this week), but a tragedy nonetheless. It may be hard for some to understand why loosing a pet is so upsetting, but let me try to explain. Some of us do not have children, and some have had children and now they are all grown and living independantly. The desire to nurture and protect those who need us is an instinctual and sometimes overwhelming need. So some of us, when circumstances demand it, choose to funnel this energy into a pet. I guess it really does no good to try and explain it - if your pet is a family member, you already know what I’m talking about, if you are petless or your pet is simply a pet, you’ll never understand. My parents, like me, consider their pets members of their family. A few days ago, my parents lost their beloved Butters. He was hit by a car in front of his home. My parents live out in the country and, unfortunately, this is a fairly common occurance. I talked of Butters in a previous post so I think I’ve made it clear just how special he was to my parents. He managed to weasel his way pretty deep into the hearts of those who knew him only briefly. He was truly a magnificent cat. My parents have had many additions to their family over the years. This is mainly due to their living in the country where many people decide to drop carloads of kittens when they are too lazy to find them good homes. I’ve always believed that there is a special place in hell for people who dump animals, and so it follows that there is a special place in heaven for those that pick them up, dry them off, bring them inside and let them stay. I imagine this place in heaven is also heavily populated with all kinds of pets as well - pets that were lucky enough to wander into the yards of people like my parents, and those who weren’t so fortunate. So here’s to Butters - may you rest in peace. No matter what you choose to call heaven, I’m sure that right now Butters is there; napping someplace soft and warm and will wake in a bit to chase a nut or small bit of string. We will miss him.

Melanie

If you know me very well, you know I have designated a larger than advisable portion of my brain as a warehouse for useless pop culture trivia. One of my biggest stockpiles is the Academy Awards. Never argue with me over which movie won which award in which year. I will always win. I even have a list of all the movies that won Best Picture - I place a checkmark next to each movie once I’ve seen it. Someday, I will have seen every movie to win Best Picture - I’ve been working on this since 1993. I could’ve finished years ago, but I like to take my time with this sort of thing. So every year since about 1991 I’ve watched every movie that is nominated for Best Picture before the awards are given out so that I can make my own opinion about which one should win and which one will win. I’m almost always right. I’ve made inaccurate predictions only once. I’ve dissagreed a couple of times, in 1995 I felt that Shawshank Redemption should have won over Forrest Gump, and in 1998 anything else should have won over Titanic - Good Will Hunting, LA Confidential, As Good as it Gets, and Full Monty were all better movies. But this was the first year I not only didn’t agree with the Best Picture Winner, I made the wrong prediction. I correctly predicted all 4 acting categories, both screenplays, film editing, and director. I even agreed with most of them - except actor - I knew Leonardo DiCaprio had no chance, but he deserved the Oscar over Jamie Foxx. I don’t care that Jamie Foxx really couldn’t see during filming - that makes him less deserving - he didn’t have to act blind. Howard Hughes was a much more demanding role. So anyway, Best Picture - I predicted The Aviator. I watched all the nominated films. Finding Neverland is the only one I would probably watch again. It was kind of a weak year. I would probably watch Sideways again if it came on TV, I would not watch Ray again and I probably wouldn’t watch Million Dollar Baby again, I wouldn’t watch the Aviator again only because if I have 3 hours to spare I’ll watch something I haven’t seen before. So Million Dollar Baby won, and I can only assume that this has everything to do with Hollywood’s love affair with Clint Eastwood. I knew Scorsese wouldn’t get the director Oscar, I figured they’d give it to Clint, but I really, really thought The Aviator would end up on top. Don’t get me wrong, Million Dollar Baby was a good movie - Morgan Freeman was great, Clint Eastwood, while playing the same character he’s played for the last decade was still good, and I don’t have the problem with Hillary Swank that my husband does (I really don’t care that she looks like a man - her body looked fantastic in this movie so I didn’t really notice her face), but the story was very predictable and not at all original. It lacked the “wow factor” that most Best Picture winners create. I usually can predict the winner because it’s the movie that when I watch it in the theater I think, “Wow, this is amazing.” Almost all Best Picture nominees are amazing in some regard - it may be a great story, or perfect acting, or a fantastic set - but the winner usually has multiple wow factors. Million Dollar Baby had one wow factor and that was the perfect acting. It had nothing else. The Aviator on the other hand had more. Cate Blanchett won for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn and Leo was nominated for his Howard Hughes, so I think it’s safe to say that the movie was well acted. The sets and costumes were stunning. The story was fascinating, and despite the 2 hour and 40+ minutes runtime, the editing was right on. Everything from the camera shots to the music was impressive. I’m at a loss to explain why this movie was passed over for a very ordinary Million Dollar Baby.

So people wonder why I don’t like getting my hair cut and why I always put it off until my hair is incredibly long and ratty. It mainly has to do with the fact that if I’m forced to go alone, I come out looking like crap. Most of you probably know this about me, but I’m fucking blind. I can’t see. If I take my glasses off, I literally cannot see six inches in front of my face clearly. So, when I’m going to get my hair cut, I have to put absolute faith in my stylist that they won’t screw me over. Today, I came out a little too trusting. I should have known things were going to go badly. Even if I could see. I doubt the lady and I could have communicated very well in English (me not knowing whatever language was her native tongue). So, the result is, I have a lot shorter hair than I was looking for. I present to your before and after photos:

Before:

After:

Let me know what you think, but I’m hating it. Maggie hates it too.