My friend Dylan was picking the movies and music that he thought defined him. I suggested it was impossible to do that, but he shot back that it was simple, and quickly defined “Jack-ness” for me, like so… Errol Morris Woody Allen Home Movies Freeway A Boy and His Dog Iron Maiden and of course Gone in 60 Seconds

Back when Usenet was relevant, top-posting was evil. In mailing lists it still is to some degree. However, when you and I are emailing each other, top-posting is perfectly fine. In fact, it’s preferred. This cute but misguided example is often used to demonstrate just how awful top-posting is… A: No Q: Should I include quotations after my reply? If someone else wrote the “Q:” part I get it. Trouble is, 99.

Jakob says that… Blog postings will always be commodity content: there’s a limit to the value you can provide with a short comment on somebody else’s comments. Such postings are good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they’re definitely easy to write. But they don’t build sustainable value. Maybe if Mr. Nielson had a blog he’d still be part of the conversation – and relevant.

Went to install the Pownce desktop client, which is an Adobe AIR app. Cool right? And like all AIR apps, I’m presented with the following… Adobe’s working on this, right? For crying out loud, it’s going to be hard enough getting folks to install a runtime. What we don’t need is every app displaying a run-away-everyone’s-going-to-die!!! dialog like the one above to make matters worse.

Everyone (well, maybe not *everyone*) is comparing Pownce (from Kevin “Mr. Lucky” Rose) with Twitter. That’s wrong, Pownce actually competes with Tumblr. Of course without an API of any sort (yet) Pownce is pretty much a non-starter.

Scoble, in this Fast Company piece… It’s too early to say who will win. But the loser is obvious: If your competitor builds a more interactive site than yours, customers will flee to the “flashier” foe. Since when? Never, that’s when.

So DHH thinks all web apps should be built using XHTML/CSS/Javascript. On the other hand, Adobe thinks that all web apps should be built using Flex/AIR/etc. They’re both right wrong.

I weighed 193.4 pounds at 9:00am this morning. I know this because I have a scale in my office. A pretty good one I think, and today, it read 193.4. That of course can’t be right, because last Thursday it said 190.2 and I’ve run at least a mile every day since then. I got back on the treadmill because if you run every day you’ll lose weight, right? A mile isn’t very far, but dammit it’s *something*!

One of my favorite photos of my dad. He’s a little older now, but still, and always, the best. Happy Father’s Day dad!

I’ve wanted a guitar for something like 25 years now. Only recently have I considered actually buying one. Today, I did. I wanted what many of my heroes played – a Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul or SG. Turns out all of the “real” ones are just way too damn expensive. Instead I “settled” for an Epiphone Less Paul Standard. It’s the affordable version of the Les Paul and I’ll certainly not know the difference.

I’ve ranted against *all* HTML email for years. Lots of people agree with me – many don’t. Lately, I’ve eased up a bit because I’ve actually gotten a few that didn’t totally suck. Then, this… Forget I said anything, HTML email sucks again.

I’m nowhere near the level of a whisky snob but I sure do love a good single malt. My current favorite is Aberlour a’bunadh. It’s a cask strength whisky, meaning no water is added before bottling, leaving a powerful 59.6% alcohol content. Sipping is required. Cask strength also leaves the decision of how much water to add, if any, up to the drinker. I add about a half teaspoon per dram.