twittering into oblivion, in the dense information jungle

Friends May Be the Best Guide Through the Noise - New York Times -- Good piece here on how we are, all of us, each others' clipping services. Now we all have additional pairs of eyes and ears constantly at work someplace out there, and somebody is paying attention for us when we're not.

Think of all the other brains yours is slaved off to, in this online community. Try not to hyperventilate. Don't be afraid. We're all moving in generally the same direction, with parallel purposes, and probably whether we want to or not. The question then becomes, How do you opt out, and continue to live according to your purpose? What comprises grave, soul-killing sin in this new age? Having accepted membership and responsibility in the online community, having given and taken, can you turn away?

the decline of mediocrity

A Farewell Note From a Departing Yahoo - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog#comment-105418#comment-105418 -- I got such a kick out of the thread following the writer's column that I just had to draw your attention to it, and link to it. Here's the kickoff comment, and it gets better as everybody else chimes in (I came in myself after #38.):

Yahoo is on its last legs. And good riddance. While the internet is now turning into what it was invitable it would become–nothing but a forum for junky business and illiterate bloggers–yahoo has contributed to the rapid decline of mediocrity that is the hallmark of the United States of stupid people. The transition to News Corp would be a final decline into the abyss of nothingness from which it will,hopefully, never recover. Google is slighter better, but promotes the same mediocrity. It was a great shame that the internet was not,
and is not, confined only to academics, and only serious ones at that. Mediocrity is the hall mark of the United States, and the internet has helped the American populace to decline to the last stages of degradiation of all that was beautiful, intellectual and moral. If there were a god, it would have designed the internet because of its ability to turn a slightly literate populace a into totally brain dead sub-human blob of shivering jelley.

— Posted by jake moons

e24 Transcription | Web 2.0 Transcription Service

e24 Transcription Web 2.0 Transcription Service -- Somehow, when they offer to transcribe our podcasts with the advertisement "All transcriptions are down by Human and not by machines," my enthusiasm wanes.

Timothy Leary, '42: Flashbacks from Mount Saint James

College of the Holy Cross Holy Cross Magazine -- This Timothy Leary retrospective piece just appeared in our alumni magazine; I guess I had more of a heritage than I knew when I matriculated at HC in 1964. Had I known what a tough act I had to follow, I would have tried harder, or at least been more irrationally exuberant. Hoya!

don't forget this month's SKYPE special

While I'm thinking of telephone service, don't forget to take advantage of the $14.95 Skype-out service, which will go up in price at the end of this month.

Unlimited Calling gives you a full year of unlimited calls to anyone, on any phone, within the US and Canada for just US$14.95.(US$29.95 after January 31st 2007)
Use SkypeOut to call anyone, anywhere in the world. Just buy Skype Credit to pay low per-minute rates. The credits are deducted as you make your SkypeOut calls.
With the unlimited you get:12 months of unlimited calls to any phone in the US and Canada - right from your computer. More than an hour of international calls*.
Over $50 in coupons to get a Motorola headset, Netgear WiFi phone, and a Polycom speakerphone.

free at last, the final cleansing

Today, I threw out my old AT&T Yellow Pages and AT&T White Pages, dated July 2006. We don't appear in them any more and haven't used AT&T since our last major altercation with them, stretching from the summer through the fall of 2005, during which time we transitioned to Vonage. We've cut our bill by 2/3rds, even including the cost of the Time-Warner cable service to carry the VoIP line--it used to be in the area of $350 monthly. We kept one of our old numbers, the back line, but lost our main business line in the switch--AT&T got nasty and/or grossly inefficient, and we couldn't transfer a number we'd had for business purposes since the mid-1980s.

temporary link to BFD at MTB

George has run into a service problem with GoDaddy--follow the link to have an alternate path to Brewed Fresh Daily until George straightens out what shouldn't have to be straightened out in the first place.

Sorry. GoDaddy.com has screwed up my registration. Please help me spread the word that you can get to BFD using this link until further notice.

Yesterday, the domain was parked, but no one I know did it. Here’s a copy of the info from their page:

WHOIS Underlying Registry Data:

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: BREWEDFRESHDAILY.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: PARK11.SECURESERVER.NET
Name Server: PARK12.SECURESERVER.NET
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 03-jan-2007
Creation Date: 28-feb-2003
Expiration Date: 28-feb-2007
I was on the phone with them this morning, to no avail. The guy I’m hosting with told me that he’s heard of several similar incidents with GoDaddy over the past few months.

FYI, if you still have an MTB Network Ad, you might want to replace the domain name with the IP address. Contact me for details if you need help with that.

Filed under: Opinion by — George Nemeth @ 10:19 am

internet retail sets new mark

I wanted to share this article from Crain's Investment News; things are shifting fast.

'Confident clickers' make for record sales
By Aaron Siegel
December 29, 2006

Online retail spending topped the $100 billion mark for the first time ever this year, according to a report released by digital research firm comScore Networks Inc.

"Online sales continued to show strong growth during the last week before Christmas when procrastinators were clicking with confidence," said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, in a statement.

- Advertisement -Consumers spent $23.11 billion, or 26% more online during the 56 days leading up to Dec. 26 this year, compared to $18.28 billion during the year-ago period, the Reston, Va.-based firm said.

In the week leading up to the Christmas holiday, shoppers spent $2.25 billion, or 38%, compared to $1.64 billion last year.

The survey also noted that traditional "brick and mortar" stores posted the biggest percentage gains in capturing online sales.