Posts about 'Linky Goodness'

Linky Goodness - 3/28/2008

Friday, March 28th, 2008

Have you signed away your right to sue?
Yet another article about how mandatory-arbitration clauses are bad, this time in employment law.

Be it ever so illogical — drop the price of your home, already
We’re not looking to sell our house for a couple of years, at least. I hope that when we do, we’ll be able to accept reality, and price our house to the market.

Do open houses sell houses?
Shill! I really like our Real Estate blog. This entry is on open houses. It’s fun to watch people fighting in the comments.

Should it be free?
Outstanding article on whether software should be free or not. Even if you’re not in the industry, you should read this.

Jason Butler - Twitter
Because it’s important that I have an outlet for 140-character updates on my life through the day. Follow at your own risk.

Linky Goodness - 3/6/2008

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

All hail Universal Hub
Excellent article in the Phoenix about Adam Gaffin and Universal Hub. I’m not stealing all our hyperlocal community ideas from him, but maybe a couple…

12 practical steps for learning to go with the flow
February was a trying month. March has not started much better. I need to learn to go with the flow a little bit more.

Beat the long tail with 1,000 true fans
Incredibly interesting article about how to survive as a creator without having to rely on the blockbuster. Must read.

Linky Goodness - 2/24/2008

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Bank Julius Baer: allegedly money-laundering; unquestionably moronic
Robert X. Cringely expains why attempting to shut down the whistleblower site is the stupidest thing an (allegedly) money-laundering bank would want to do.

Why it’s good to include the tourist hordes in your travel photos
Philip Greenspun shows why including your fellow travelers in your shots can sometimes make them far more interesting.

This week’s TWIT was their best
This week’s episode of “This Week in Tech” was their best. Jason Calacanis and Molly Wood add a ton to the panel, and I hope they become regulars.

Linky Goodness - 2/18/2008

Monday, February 18th, 2008

Wow, I’m way behind on my website postings; impending baby and multiple launches at work are conspiring against me.

Today we did our “stock up on everything you can think of” run to BJs. Now, both freezers are full, and we should be able to live for a couple of weeks without leaving the house when the baby arrives. I’m wracking my brain for other baby-prep tasks I need to do.

Anyway, on to the links…

AngryJournalist.com
Anonymous journalists tell us what they’re angry about today. Quite a bit of inside baseball, but not too different from what I see from time to time in the newsroom.

This is also a good example of what happens to the signal:noise ratio when the social-news hordes descend on a site.

Yet another reason to boycott Best Buy
I have never had a good experience at Best Buy (or their not-at-all-missed competitor Comp USA). They take advantage of the non-technical customers and outright lie when they are caught. I hope that a more activist Congress will reign in some of the corporate excesses.

50 tricks to get you more productive
It’s always good to remind yourself of little ways to keep moving the chains. I’m pretty good about most of these, but I really need to work on a couple of them — especially working on the important things, instead of just the pressing things.

Learn to demo
Good advice from Antonio Rodriguez on how to prep yourself for demoing your product.

Linky Goodness - 12/15/07

Saturday, December 15th, 2007

Bill Keller’s speech
New York Times editor Bill Keller gives an incredibly insightful speech, talking about the future of journalism and newspapers.

Ten steps to close down an open society
A scary checklist — one we’ve almost completed.

Does your customer service just want people to go away?
Seth Godin has a smart idea here: measure your customer service people by the amount the customers buys after the call as opposed to before it.

Talent Wars in Boston
Xconomy does a nice write up of the current state of the technology labor market in Boston. It’s a good time to be a techie on the Red Line.

How to be a consultant
Long, insightful article. I faced many of these same issues back when I was consulting.

Top 10 reasons we deleted your comment
The Times’ City Room blog describes how they handle blog comments. Seems quite reasonable, though some in the comments disagree.

Linky Goodness - 12/1/07

Saturday, December 1st, 2007

The treadmill desk
Shimon Rura has a great article talking about how he set up a treadmill desk. I read my NetNewsWire on the treadmill in the morning, but I’ve never looked at trying to type. I’ll have to see if I can improvise something around this.

Having an iPhone doesn’t qualify you to fly the plane
“Some guy with an IPhone says the weather is good, and wants to know what the real reason is for the delay. Is something wrong with the plane?”

Accident victims face grab for legal winnings
If you are hurt in an accident, you might not be able to get any relief by suing the responsible party. If you win, the insurance company may swoop in and claim the judgment you receive. I can see both sides of this argument, but it still sounds all sorts of wrong.

Misgivings rise with Antarctican tourism
I regret not having been able to see Antarctica while still single and able to travel. In light of the rise in tourism and last week’s sinking of a cruise liner, I worry that it won’t be feasible when we’re ready to travel again.

Rise in holiday call strains mall cops
Nothing heats up the old police blotter quite like the holidays. It must be great fun to break up fights at the mall.

Renting ideas to Fortune 500 companies
Really interesting post from Tim Ferriss about how you can license your ideas to large companies and collect royalties. Beats working, but you have to actually go out and think of useful stuff.

Travel Basics: Moscow
I was trawling our sister site at the International Herald Tribune when I came across their travel blogs, written by the correspondents stationed in each city. The Travel Basics are great primers, not that I’m going to Moscow, or back to Bangkok any time soon.

Fresh pain for the uninsured
Important article from Business Week. Hospitals are outsourcing their collections from the uninsured.

3BR with a mall view
This article about the new condos at the Natick Mall annoyed me in many different ways. This is my favorite quote: “Their $1.6 million, 2,200-square-foot penthouse overlooking JCPenney, the DuGallys said, suits the lifestyle they want for themselves and their Chihuahua, Jasmine.” I always wanted a view of the JCPenney.

The Predatory Lending Association
Outstanding parody site. Ha ha, only serious.

An interview with the author of Programming Collective Intelligence
A highly-readable discussion of a highly-useful book.

Linky Goodness - 11/19/2007

Monday, November 19th, 2007

China’s deadly pollution
The Times has a long investigative piece this morning on China’s growth policies’ impact on the environment, and the growing blowback. The air was ugly when I was there in 2001; I can only imagine how bad it is now.

Walking scores
This is a neat site that calculates the walkability of any location. My long-time Cambridge apartment gets a 100 out of 100 score; everything you need is within walking distance. My current address only gets a 5. Damn suburbs.

The nerd handbook
s/nerd/geek/g, but otherwise pretty close in a lot of ways.

Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s image
Marc Andreessen on how the talent can overthrow the studio system.

Linky Goodness - 11/10/07

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

The very expensive reality of chasing reality TV
I never knew how far people would go for their chance to be on Survivor or Project Runway.

Curt Schilling announces he’s coming back
Hooray for Curt using his blog to break news. Hooray for the Red Sox getting him for one more year.

How to coast your way to a writing career
Paul Boutin with some good advice.

Ten signs of incompetent managers
I don’t think too many of these apply to me, but, of course, I would be the last to know.

Holliston Beavers
It seems that no one wants to save the Holliston beavers. On behalf of my water supply, I don’t really care what happens to them.

Linky Goodness - 10/27/07

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Literary style by the numbers
Steven Johnson — author of Interface Culture, Mind Wide Open and other excellent books — does a quick analysis of sentence length and word complexity for several prominent authors. Interesting conclusions.

The Comcast fiasco
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Passive voice is redeemed for web headings
Interesting! This is what happens when search-engine optimization comes up head to head with principles of good writing.

Programming lessons from Sales — sharpen the saw
I’m always trying to find new ways of looking at old problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but it’s almost always worth the time investment.

I was a pre-teen Glicknick
Tales of Larry Glick with lots of links. (Via Universal Hub)

America’s most important issue for 2008 (with a little bit of salty language)

The lottery industry
BS is also prevalent in the business world, as you can see from this entirely content-free quote:

W. Bruce Turner, the chief executive of Gtech, puts it another way. “Gtech has played a key role in fostering the success enjoyed by lotteries today,” he says. “We have grown to be the world’s leading solutions provider to the lottery industry because we focus on creating the greatest value for our customers, which results in higher returns to the good causes they support.”

Linky Goodness - 10/18/07

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Stop me if you’ve heard this before — I’m going to be better about updating the blog more often. Here’s some linky goodness to get us back on the right track.

ZipSkinny for Holliston
Neat little application giving you a visualization of all the census data for a given zip code. It’s good info; we’ve dropped all the Massachusetts ones into the crawl.

Oh Joy! Breakfast with the boss
How do you manage work/life balance when other people try to schedule you for breakfast or dinner meetings? I’m going to steal the “buy you lunch to pick your brain” responses.

Asking “why” can be dangerous if your father is a professor
Sadie has started asking “Why?” all the time. I’ve started answering her. She may come to regret asking.

Opening night of the Bruce Springsteen tour
Jimmy Guterman gives his thoughts on the opening night of the Bruce Springsteen tour. I went to my one and only Springsteen show in 2002. Geez, over five years ago — hooray for the blog archives!

Tips for making your tech resume less awful
Not relevant for me at the moment, but always good to keep the resume up to date — and not awful.

LEGAL as a programming language?

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Jeremy Zawodny hosts a good comparison of software languages and legalese. Pretty funny for those of us exposed to both worlds each day. Read the comments, too; they add a lot to the conversation.

He goes on to answer the question “Why is LEGAL such a [poor] language?” and finds that, among other problems, “it doesn’t use modern techniques like subroutines or standard libraries.” Doing so would save a ton of time and effort. It’d probably also reduce the lawyer’s income.

As he concludes:

Of course, there is one additional reason that legal documents are so long: Many lawyers are paid by the hour.

Indeed.

Linky Goodness - 7/15/2007

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

We have a ton of stuff going on right now, so I apologize for the lack of linky goodness posting. I’m going to try to get back into a daily routine. We’ll see how long that lasts. Anyway, here we go.

I’m sure you guys can deal
My only power trip at work is that I ban sending bad news by email. If there’s the least chance the recipient will react badly to your message, you need to deliver it in person. Even worse are all the examples up at PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. All the posts are worth reading, but this one is expecially funny. I hate when the servers melt.

Awesome sed reference
If the word ’sed’ means nothing to you, you can safely skip this.

Color palettes from art masterpieces
Really interesting examples of color palettes derived from art masterpieces. I still have my trusty Color Index book, but this is another good way of brainstorming color schemes.

It’s a renter’s market on Cape Cod this summer
Not really an issue for us, but interesting to see the dynamics around that market.

Holliston Triathlon
So, this is what was blocking Norfolk Street last weekend. A five-mile swim, followed by a fifteen-mile bike ride and five-mile run would be a good day’s exercise for anyone. One journalistic note, though: the article doesn’t say who actually won the race.

Linky Goodness - 6/3/2007

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

Practical Toy Storage
We’ve been good about not letting the toys take over the house, avoiding the impression that a Toys ‘r Us has exploded in our family room. Still, there’s always more to learn. This article has several good tips about storing toys and integrating them into the family lifestyle.

Amazing pictures of tiger swimming
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

Yooooouuuuukkkkk
Kevin Youkilis is now also blogging. Anyone who can put together a 20-game hitting streak can do whatever he wants.

Ashland bomb threat
Though near Sadie’s daycare, this didn’t affect her. If you look at the fax that came through, I can kinda see why they interpreted it that way, though.

Linky Goodness - 5/23/2007

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, co-workers and strangers
Very funny pictures of passive-aggressive notes. My general rule of “never send bad news by email” goes double for little pieces of paper.

Tool Snob
Jay’s new site, detailing the latest and greatest in the toolshed. I have a feeling my $19.95 Home Depot power drill will not make the cut.

The right ride
Interactive maps showing safe bike rides in and around Boston. Play around with clicking on the pushpins to get hints about what you need to look out for. The Central Square notes are all spot-on.

Natick Mall beating
Egads.

Inside the monkeysphere
Why we are how we are. And why you yelled at that guy on the Mass Pike this morning.

7 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable
More from the writer of the monkeysphere. Very interesting stuff.

Linky Goodness - 5/20/2007

Sunday, May 20th, 2007

How to deal with Internet trolls
Cory Doctorow outlines some techniques for dealing with bad characters in your online community.

The semantic web is doomed
I have similar frustrations. I don’t state them quite this colorfully, though.

Confessions of an A-list blogger
Steve Pavlina talks about life as a prominent blogger.

Advice to drug seekers from an ER doctor
To all those who make up symptoms to try to score some painkillers: the doctors are actually on to you.

Corporate ipsum
When we’re designing webpages, we often put in “lorem ipsum” text as placeholder for real thinking. In the corporate world, we often insert empty jargon into emails as placeholder for real thinking. This little widget helps.

Tom Peters on the utterly predictable Daimler/Chrysler divorce
“So why oh why oh why oh why do these ‘leading lights of management’ do this [stuff] over and over and over and over?”

Linky Goodness - 5/13/2007

Sunday, May 13th, 2007

Don’t get taken
Clay auto dealerships have been running ads (disclosure: including in the Globe and on Boston.com) touting a site where they share all the “secrets” of car dealerships, reminding me a little of the old Saturn flat-price ads. I think this is a smart strategy, zagging against the common practices of a lowly-regarded industry. I will be interested to see if their “high-road” strategy makes them more money.

Apocrypha panned
Wow, rarely have I seen a Globe restaurant review this critical.

How to program 30-second skip for Comcast DVR
Super-handy. I just programmed my remote, and life is so much better now.

Lostcasts
A very good weekly Lost podcast.

Linky Goodness - 5/7/2007

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Holliston Police Station on track
It’s good to see that the new police station is still on schedule. The police are moving into the old Middle School Flagg building; I’m happy to know that my fifth-grade language arts classroom is not longer just metaphorically a jail cell.

33 ways to improve productivity
Interesting nuggets. I’m a bit of a productivity and GTD geek, so I try to do follow quite a few of these strategies. It doesn’t help put more hours in the day, but it helps get more of the important things done.

The Harry-est towns in America
Once upon a time, I worked briefly on community at Amazon, helping launch the PlanetAll-derived Purchase Circles. Here’s another application of that concept: which towns are buying the most Harry Potter books? Sadly, Holliston did not make the list.

BostonWorks is no more
Our partnership with Monster launched today. Congratulations to everyone involved, though I don’t envy Alan for having to port my old browse by commute code. Sometimes things you wrote five years ago linger on far longer then you expect them to.

Linky Goodness - 4/27/2007

Friday, April 27th, 2007

Battling the bloodsuckers
Bellingham, Medway and Millis are among the towns spraying mosquitos. Apparently the recent heavy rains have made this area a skeeter paradise.

Banned from the Holliston library
Quite the scandal.

Once More with Feeling
I am so sad I missed this: Buffy’s Once More with Feeling sing-along night at Coolidge Corner. Must have been bunnies.

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will
So it goes.

Mark Cuban on commercials for ripoffs
Mavs owner Mark Cuban goes off on the spammy infomercials. I despise all those “work at home and make millions” commercials.

Roger Ebert on his illness
He’s in pretty rough shape, but he will not forgo his own film festival. I miss him on Ebert and Roeper, and hope he gets better soon.

Linky Goodness - 4/17/2007

Monday, April 16th, 2007

A word of advice during a housing slump: Rent
The New York Times crunches the numbers and finds that many would be better off renting than owning right now.

Congress Street vs. Summer Street
I’ve been working at Fort Point Channel (320 Congress Street) for the past couple of years. I’m a little surprised that people are considering either Congress or Summer Street as the next happening neighborhood in town.

ESPN: Can we keep the yelling down?
ESPN has a new ombudsman, and she pulls no punches. WEEI’s endless yelling has dropped my weekly listening from tens of hours to barely tens of minutes.

Pew: Newspaper readers; Daily Show and Colbert Report viewers best informed
Viewers of Fox News and morning news shows bring up the rear.

Linky Goodness - 3/31/2007

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Take the funny and run
Interesting review of how jokes are stolen and recycled in the comedy world. Denis Leary, Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia do not come off well.

Alert waitress at a restaurant
Inspirational story of a waitress who notices a guy slipping something into his date’s drink.

Circuit City fires thousands after deciding they earn too much money
Firing your best salespeople is the best way to grow sales at a dying retailer.

How car dealerships try to rip you off
Another insider report from Consumerist. If you aren’t reading Consumerist each day, you should be.

Entwistle Trial
I snarfed up this domain thinking I’d be able to cover the trial as it was happening. Unfortunately, with so much else going on, I’m not going to be able to do that. So, the domain is up for sale, if anyone wants to make an offer for the good type-in traffic.

Linky Goodness - 3/10/2007

Saturday, March 10th, 2007

A review of the Tufte class
Here is a review of the recent Edward Tufte presentation here in Boston. Jay, Russ, me and several other Abuzzers went to this in 2000. It will change the way you think about presenting information. If you haven’t already, you should buy The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, Visual Explanations and Beautiful Evidence.

The trouble with private police forces
Be very afraid.

How has the Big Dig affected commuting?
My commute from MetroWest to Fort Point has improved greatly. I take the South Boston exit and it drops me 500 feet from my parking garage.

Whose bed is it anyway?
I’m so glad we haven’t had these problems. (Knock on wood).

38 pitches
Curt Schilling blogs.

Do parents make better managers?
Forbes says they do. I just don’t want Sadie to throw this line back at me in a few years: “Those who didn’t mind sacrificing for their children did better in the performance reviews.”

Linky Goodness - 2/20/2007

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

What it’s like to work at Netflix
Interesting account of the factory floors of the new economy. Reminds me of December 1998 when I got an all-expense-paid trip to Delaware to pack books for the holiday rush.

Blogging your debt-reduction
Interesting article from the Sunday Times about how people are getting a handle on their debt by blogging about it.

Balancing protecting art and displaying it
Ugly crowds at the famous museums are destroying the art. Blame the Da Vinci Code.

Burnout rescue for non-profit workers
The Young Nonprofit Professionals Network is starting a Boston chapter to help people in the non-profit fields avoid burnout.

Natick Mall soon to be Natick Collection
With all sorts of new fancypants stores: Nordstroms, Nieman Marcus, Burberry, Betsey Johnson, Anthropologie, Hanna Andersson. Does this mean I need to shop somewhere other than Brooks Brothers?

Linky Goodness - 2/14/2007

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

Up-to-date Iraq casualties
One of the awesome things about working at the Globe is that I have access to people who *really* know how to find information. One of the researchers turned me on to this site, which has up-to-date data and analysis about Iraq casualties.

Fan’s Guide to Spring Training
We put up this interactive guide to Fort Myers a couple of days ago. It’s starting to get some really good contributions from readers, improving it far beyond what we could do ourselves.

Staying Hungry
James Hong, of “Hot or Not,” writes about what he needs to do to keep himself hungry. Will he coast, riding his existing cash cow, or will he blow it up for the chance at something bigger?

In praise of the forgotten broiler
If I’d told you I had an appliance that could brown like a grill, was as convenient as your oven, and cooked most food in less than 10 minutes, you’d buy it. But you don’t need to.

Praise is overrated
Now that Sadie is starting to understand me, I need to be more careful in how I construct my sentences. Takeaway: always praise effort, not ability.

Linky Goodness - 2/4/07

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

Why it is so hard to find backup daycare
We’ve been pretty lucky so far with Sadie. We’ve only had to leave work in the middle of the day a few times in the months she’s been in daycare. I hope that will be even more rare when she goes into the toddler room next month.

The joy of programming
Really nice article on why we program (or write, or paint, or play the violin).

Options on Super Bowl tickets
Interesting article from the Globe about how people bought and sold options on Super Bowl tickets based on the likelihood their team would make it.

Rewrite Windows for $3000
Back when I was consulting more often, I ran into a few clients with unrealistic expectations. This RFP is definitely the best one I’ve seen, though.

Red Sox on TV this year
It’s much harder for us to get to games now, so I’m excited that Fox has released their schedule ahead of time, so that we know which Saturday games are in the afternoon (managable) vs. at night (harder).

Dan Savage on Mary Cheney
Gay parent Dan Savage’s take on the Mary Cheney controversy

Off to the Man Cave
I gotta get me one of these.

Linky Goodness - 1/21/2007

Sunday, January 21st, 2007

Home of the week in Holliston
Downtown, next to St. Mary’s.

My husband is not the boss of me
Sometimes a woman can buy a truck on her own.

Harvard Law School nimrod
I cannot emphasize how much I enjoy reading the Boston Police Department’s blog. Karma can bite you in oh-so-many ways.

How to opt-out of various direct marketing lists
Article from the Times describing how to get off many of the lists. I’m especially excited about not getting any more pre-screened credit card offers. My shredder overheats from the weekly mass-shreddings.

Linky Goodness - 1/19/2007

Friday, January 19th, 2007

Buyers scarce, many condos are for rent
Saw this story coming a mile away. If you want a good deal on a downtown condo, take a look later this year or early 2008. This market won’t come back until 2010. John Keith disagrees.

Horrible intestinal bug going around Boston
The plague monkey hasn’t brought home anything vile for a couple of months. I hope she doesn’t find this beauty.

$225k in Homeland Security dollars coming to Holliston
(Sidenote: Items like this are why I like the way we’re starting to do some regional blogs. This item wouldn’t have made it into the paper, but it’s something people will care about so we still publish it online)

Productivity tricks
Some good ideas in here. At some point I’ll write up a little bit on my own systems.

Danny Sullivan interviews Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera
Techmeme is an incredible resource for anyone in the industry. In this interview, Rivera has some great insights into how he filters the sources and discovers what’s important. I’m always looking to balance the overwhelming flow of incoming information. Techmeme helps a lot.

iPhone Review
The Chicago Sun-Times thinks the iPhone is nearly perfect.

Embezzling

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

We have an interesting story this morning about an accountant who embezzled millions from a Rehoboth small-businessman, resulting in layoffs for the innocent employees.

A cautionary tale for entrepreneurs everywhere.

Linky Goodness - 12/19/06

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006

Wow, I’m a little behind on my linky goodness. Here are some quicky items that caught my eye in the past couple of months.

A baseball player answers his fan mail fifteen years later
A nice story about a former big-leaguer answering letters he’d lost in his garage.

Why getting married kills your social life
Actually, it wasn’t getting married that killed the social life, it was having the baby. It’s hard to go out to social events in Boston when I must pick up Sadie in Ashland by 5:45.

Is your startup ruthless enough?
Greg Linden is one of my favorite fellow ex-Amazon’ers. Here, he talks about how several prominent startups began in shadier parts of the net.

Yahoo Autos Green Center
A good reference for comparing different hybrid vehicles. When I have to trade in my little sports car for a family truckster next year, this will be my guide.

You can learn a lot from a rich girl
Very interesting article about the perils of consumer credit. “How many hours of work will it take you to buy those jeans?”

The Joe board
The community whiteboard is the best place to keep track of the idiotic things your coworkers say.

SmugMug saves with S3
“Storage as a service” is more efficient in many ways than buying the disks. With all apologies to my friends in the storage business, this is the future for entrepreneurs. Some of the startup ideas I’m playing around with are beginning with the assumption that processing power and storage are essentially free. Ignore those constraints and much more becomes possible.

If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball.
Studio 60 has been frustrating, but we’ve kept our season pass. So far.

How to create a pop star
Interesting video about how you can take pretty much anyone off the street, apply a little studio magic, and poof! You have a pop star.

LinkedIn has become essential
Jason Calacanis describes how he’s using LinkedIn to recruit new employees. I actually got this recruiting email (Jason C. and I crossed paths once upon a time, and we are linked on LinkedIn), and though I know no one myself for the position, I did pass it along to a couple of folks.

I used LinkedIn for a couple of my Boston.com positions earlier this year, and had a pretty good response rate, including one outstanding candidate. It’s a good deal, and as Jason C. points out, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than using an executive recruiter. We never got into recruiting as a line of business at PlanetAll, but we did perfect the “Friends of Friends” feature, which has become a core component of LinkedIn and some of the other similar services.

A couple of months of linky goodness

Saturday, October 28th, 2006

Wow, I’ve been a little behind. Here’s some interesting stuff from around the interwebs…

Where do you stand on the global richlist?

World of Warcraft ruined my life?

10 tips for moving from programmer to entrepreneur

Jay Rosen on citizen journalism

Confessions of a business geek

The myth of keeping up

Seduced by snacks? No, not you…

Don’t poke an angry leopard with a stick

Linky Goodness - 8/15/06

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

ArsDigita University, 5 years later
More on ArsDigita here.

Bizarre English metaphors
Entertaining for a couple of minutes.

It’s not smart to impersonate an officer
Just another reason I love reading the Boston Police Department’s blog.

NYT AME Photo answers questions
All sorts of interesting tidbits in this Q&A.

An entertainment sage on the Rocketboom fiasco
New media doesn’t change human nature.

Nine ways the real Navy is unlike Starfleet

Linky Goodness - 7/3/2006

Monday, July 3rd, 2006

Advertising will soon be disrupted
Jeff Jarvis writes about how advertising agencies are soon in for a rude awakening.

Tower over South Station approved
They are going to build a 40-story tower over South Station. Like it’s not bad enough around here already with all the construction. Egads.

10 beautiful women who are way more intellegent than you
I knew about Natalie Portman, but Mira Sorvino?

A declaration of war
I can’t believe that media members are advocating an office of censorship.

Linky Goodness - 5/7/2006

Sunday, May 7th, 2006

Vitamin
Many of the web’s leading lights get together to write a magazine-style site about web design and development. Upon quick review, it seems similar to A List Apart or Boxes and Arrows. The authors make it worth reading, though.

Will your web app make money?
One of the first articles from Vitamin, working through the calculus of running your own web apps.

Massachusetts Politics Coverage
Our news team put together a nice overview of the political season here, including candidate profiles, issue overviews, etc. This should be a good reference throughout the gubernatorial campaign.

Cute Overload
Several pictures each day of cute little baby animals, serving as a little break in NetNewsWire each day.

Steve Jobs in front of the Cupertino city council

This is my first time embedding a video in the page. We’ll see how well this works for everyone.

Linky Goodness - 4/15/06

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

I’m getting back into the habit of stashing linky-goodness links into a working file I have open all day. I hope that will let me post these links a little more regularly.

The truth about interviewing
What it means to really get a job at a major software company. Hint: My 1337 php skillz would not make the grade.

The art of sucking down
Another Guy Kawasaki blog posting, this time about how sometimes the best way to get something down is to actually be nice to the person who can help you.

How to present to geeks
Hint: lighten up on the fluff

Street closings for the marathon
Mac Daniel has started a blog about traffic and commuting around Boston. Here is his notes on road closings for the marathon.

Zillow now has birds-eye views
… and gets just a little bit more addictive.

Linky Goodness - 3/17/06

Friday, March 17th, 2006

I’m going to try to spend a little more time on the linky goodness. I’ve been a little lax in how I’ve been stashing my links and notes, and I want to get back to posting the interesting stuff every couple of days.

To make that happen, I’m just leaving an Emacs window open all day to my linky goodness file. I’m dropping items in as I think of them. We’ll see if this makes a difference in how well I can make this work.

So, here we go.

The art of the board meeting
I’ve been reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog for the past few weeks, and I find it consistently entertaining and informative. Here’s a posting about how to compose a board and run a meeting.

WeSmirch
Memeorandum creator Gabe Rivera applies his secret sauce to celebrity news.

Massachusetts home-buyers turning to auction
If you can’t sell it the normal way, try selling it at auction.

Realtor commission structures under siege
Bradley Inman takes a look. Very interesting comments. (Via the New York Times’ Real Estate blog, the Walk-Through)

Boston Baby doesn’t deliver
This is why we ended up skipping all the baby stores and going to Pottery Barn Kids for our crib and Babies ‘r Us for our glider. I’d love to support small businesses, but sometimes (especially when dealing with the baby) I long for a little ruthless corporate efficiency. P.S., we love our crib and glider. (via Universal Hub)

Philip Greenspun’s Tips for Startup Companies

Why the Edgerrin James deal is a disaster for everyone
“When Arizona inked Edgerrin James to a four-year, $30 million deal Sunday, it marked one of those rare and remarkable meteorological moments when clueless management, disenchanted player, greedy agent and pathetic, delusional franchise all conspire to create the perfect storm of dealmaking.”

How to rattle a college basketball player
Invent a love interest, then pass out the incriminating instant messages before a game. Inventive social engineering.

AskMe: Where’s a good place to get an apartment in Boston these days?
I lived in Central Square from 1998-2005, and it definitely got sketchier over the past couple of years. It’s still reasonably safe, but it’s a little creepy at night. Porter and Davis are less scary.

Interesting reminisces about Will McDonough

Linky Goodness - 2/17/06

Friday, February 17th, 2006

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve given up some linky goodness! Bad blogger.

Ethan Stock: Interesting article on the transactional nature of classifieds, and how layering in social elements won’t get you better results.

Another one from Ethan Stock, freshly added to NetNewsWire: The three types of user-created content. Selfish. Social. Selfless.

The 10 best science-fiction films never made. I don’t think of myself as a sci-fi geek, but I’m far too familiar with the works he describes.

This also reminded me of one of the all-time best quotes:

He inched his way up the corridor as if he would rather be yarding his way down it.

What it’s like to sit in the audience at the Daily Show. She picked a great one to go to, and she got an on-air shoutout from Jon himself.

Previously: What it’s like to be on the Daily Show by Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You.

Mark Hurst: The experience experience

I’m afraid many marketers fall in that last camp, thinking that slapping the latest buzzword on their product somehow makes it more competitive. A friend of mine was accosted this week at the fragrance counter in Bloomingdale’s, asked if he wanted “the Hugo Boss experience.” Not surprisingly, he hurried along downstairs to the men’s section where, wouldn’t you know it, there were no actual sales or service people available to help in his actual customer experience.

And, of course, the silly story of the emailing lawyers.

Linky Goodness - 12/4/05

Sunday, December 4th, 2005

Making Sustainability Sexy
Marketers take a crack at positioning the concept of sustainability, a concept desperately in need of some pithy talking points.

Automatically setting prototypes in Tinderbox
I evangelize Tinderbox every couple of months or so, but this another powerful feature I just found out about that saves me a few minutes every day. Very exciting.

Stocking Stuffer: The Eyelighter
The folks who make Tinderbox also have some really neat gizmos on their site. I bought the eyelighter for A. a few weeks before the baby arrived so that she could easily navigate the house in the dark. It’s really useful.

Saving Serendipity
We spent a lot of time on this at Abuzz. How do give people precisely what they’re looking for while still exposing them to stuff they never even knew they wanted. This is an important read to anyone working in the media or on the web.

Conspicuous Construction
The gilded age returns to Boston.

Linky Goodness - 11/7/05

Monday, November 7th, 2005

I’ve been a bad, bad blogger; I haven’t posted a new edition of “Linky Goodness” in months. Well, here we go. And, even better, I just wrote up a little script to pull my del.icio.us links and post them here. That little hack should help my linky goodness timeliness quotient.

Teaching Babies Sign Language
Eric Meyer talks about the pro’s and con’s of teaching babies to communicate through sign language. We may take a crack at this.

The Secret Life of a Restaurant Critic
What’s it like to be a restaurant critic?

“Ask Metafilter” suggestions for home hacks
If you were designing your home from scratch, what features would you include?

lifehack.org » Fifty Essential Topics on Economics
Interesting economics pieces.

How many MBAs does it take to change the toner? Hire some support people already…
Excellent rant in the Hiring Hub about how business’ lack of support people turns executives into supremely high-paid secretaries.

The Hardest Part of Being a “Indie” Mac Developer
Fellow ex-Abuzz’er Mike Dupuis on the life of an independent Mac developer.

The Zombie Hunters
Really interesting New Yorker article on how bad guys take control of your Windows PC and use it to attack other companies.

Linky Goodness - 8/29/03

Friday, August 29th, 2003

My cousin Taryn Valpey quoted in the Holliston Tab.

Software customer’s bill of rights

Save AmeriCorps.

Bill Gurley on expensing options.

The ad-trafficking perils of a national network of local newspaper sites.

Linky goodness - 7/21/03

Monday, July 21st, 2003

Letters responding to those women banned by Filene’s.

The airline-ization of Broadway pricing.

If you don’t already, you should check out the New York Times Top 25 emailed stories each day; it’s a good barometer for what’s going in the world. Also, top email stories from the Boston Globe, CNN, ESPN, Yahoo.

Don’t forget the Daypop Top 40, blogdex, Technorati Hot Links.

Bruce Schneier’s lead article in this month’s Cryto-Gram is about how to fight stupid security.

The Bank of Yakuza thrives in the land of the 0% interest rate. Wide-spread loansharking menaces Japan.

Amazon.com to allow full-text searching of books.

Charity auction to spend quality time with Gordon Edes at Fenway; proceeds to benefit the North Shore Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer program.

Linky goodness - 7/16/03

Wednesday, July 16th, 2003

Should Michelangelo’s David be restored?

The New Yorker profiles Bill James.

No more junk food in Massachusetts schools?

Filene’s Basement bans sisters for excessive returns and chronic complaining.

Linky goodness - 7/14/03

Monday, July 14th, 2003

Nerdslut — Online Personals: An Unvarnished Plea

For those of you who know what .htaccess is — a guide to good and bad bots.

Fray: Storyblog

Sports Fees - High-schoolers missing out because of high activity fees.

What’s the 00’s version of Say Anything like?

A look at different types of three-pane interfaces.

The life of a realtor.

The nine pillars of successful web teams.

Linky goodness - 7/13/03

Sunday, July 13th, 2003

Analysis of Restless from a Season 7 perspective.

Consumer Web Watch - a new service from Consumer Reports.

National Geographic Photo of the Day feature.

Kodak picture of the day feature.

How Stuff Works Question of the Day feature.

Today’s newspaper front pages.

WebRef.org - many glossaries of useful terms. Example: Glossary of fine arts terms.

Bob Ryan on why the All-Star Game is now just silly.