Philonoist.net

At the end of last semester, I had a giant tub of books I’d read through my four years at Olin. I didn’t want to schlep them anymore: they weren’t going to fit in my new apartment, they weighed about sixty pounds, and what was the point? I had already read these books: they were of little use to me.

How wrong I was.

From The Freakonomics Blog, I fell upon Swaptree, a book/CD/DVD/Video game swapping site. The interface is well done, the ability to add books is smart (though not as smart as Olinbuster, Sean) and there’s a plethora of books out there. Two hours after quickly adding a few books I don’t want anymore (I tried to list Washington’s Spies, but no one wanted it. Damn!) I had completed one trade and had another pending. I’ve always wanted to read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat, and now I’m only paying the shipping for The Tipping Point (which, astute Oliners will note, was given to me by the college last year.)

It’s not for everyone, or every book: I wouldn’t trade my copy of Paper Prototyping for anything. But if you don’t mind trading used book for used book, and not having a static library, check it out.

Now I kinda wish I still had that big tub of books….

Swaptree

Technorati Tags: Swaptree

I’m late to the whole analytics game (thanks for opening my eyes, Boris), but I’m curious as to who reads my blog. I’m a little sick of the stat spam clogging up my hoster’s stat package, and a combo of Feedburner* and Statcounter should be more than enough crunching to fuel me.

What really interests me is the “Read more…” tag. Now that the recent WordPress upgrade now supports enforces it when you write the tag into your post, I’m sorely tempted to use it to get folks to click-through to my site. Not that I have ads or revenue here, but just to gauge of reader activities. (In other words, StatCounter and FeedBurner are driving my content decisions, and not the other way around. I want to track what you do. No different than anyone else out there.)

I’m not sure readers want to click through, especially those folks using GReader. My own GReader habit tends towards reading posts in GReader (except for Salon and NYTimes, which are of high enough interest to get me to show the original.) I know for a fact that I read xkcd and alwaysBeta substantially more than User Friendly and free Economist.com articles simply because the former are reader friendly and the latter are not. I’ll star and save an interesting looking post that requires a jump for later consumption, but I’m not likely to go and read it. For me, GReading is a strictly in the moment thing: once I close Google Reader, any and all posts I’ve digested go the way of the buffalo.

If I understand correctly, the idea behind the more tag and summaries is to be nice to users: keep the small posts reader-accessible and the longer ones well-summarized and behind a jump. So, for now, I think I’ll keep the “more” tag out of my posts, unless I hear strongly otherwise.

What do you think? Should blogs include “more” tags in their RSS feeds?


PS: You’d be my hero if you read this on the old blogware feed and change to the feedburner one.

Technorati Tags: Google Reader, FeedBurner, StatCounter

I’m not one to immediately jump on the cool-web-demo bandwagon, but the folks over at the DGP of UToronto have come up with a pretty interesting (cough Apple-like cough) design for interacting with a desktop.

It’s eye-candy with a purpose for the most part. The most meaningful interactions would be the size-increase and tack-up for important documents. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve scanned through the desktop icons looking for a scan of my tax-form or my application pdf and been frustrated when I group deleted it. But, uh, you might want to rename “Drag’N'Cross”. It sounds like a bad Powerball Z move or something.

Finally, how about a trash/recycle bin widget? Crumple something up and throw it into the bin. If you want to look for something in the bin, either go grab the top item, or dump out the bin and scatter-sort. Now that would be sweet.

And don’t miss the hilarious “hip-hop” video. Wacky.

Technorati Tags: design, web, 3D

Can somebody enlighten me on the “fiction” tag on LibraryThing? Is there any point at all? Animal Farm is fiction? Really? Talking pigs and you have to tag it as fiction?

For all it’s coolness, LibraryThing is filled with these worthless tags: DaVinci Code is a “Mystery” or “Thriller”, something I could have gotten from the jacket cover or the amazon.com description. I guess for a book I’ve never heard of, like Forsyth’s Avenger, it’s nice to have some meaningful tags. But then again, 3 people have rated Avenger. I’m not likely to read a book that only three people have read.

I suppose I’m missing the point of LibraryThing. Where’s the incentive for me to add books? So I can remember them later? Actually, I’ve got a nice physical space for that: my bookshelf. Do I add books so that I may measure my intellectual prowess compared to other book-readers? Sorry, I’m not really into that. I like books based on the ideas inside them, not the number on my shelf, and I’ve never been big on name-dropping for giggles. (After all, I’m not a philosophy major, so I don’t have to name-drop.)

I certainly understand rating books, a la Netflix, for recommendations. But for the life of me, I can’t understand tagging them with anything more than if (and when) I finished it, if I enjoyed it (unnecessary because of the rating system), and if I recommend it (meaningful since I may like a book, but wouldn’t always recommend it. Maybe recommended-for-genre-fans or the like.)

In short, stupid, worthless tags does not a good web2.0 make.

Technorati Tags: worthless, tagging, librarything, web2.0

Oh, forgot to mention, for all the Firefox bloggers out there, I’m trying out Performancing, a pretty cool in-browser blogging tool. Works for WordPress definitely, looks like MT people are having problems. Also does cool del.icio.us bookmarking for free! (But who uses that anymore?)

Even does Technorati tags (with the appropriate WordPress extension)

Technorati Tags: web, firefox

Hit me with the horns! I’m not wasting time with feeling good about myself, just hook me up with the bad traits.

http://kevan.org/nohari?name=ilikemuffins

Oh, the hotness. Just upgraded (and thanks to DreamHost, it couldn’t have been easier). Also, as an extra bonus, changed the site template from one off-the-shelf to another. Huzzah!

Previously, I wrote a short piece called Experiment. Here is Gizoogle’s version:

Late night. Jizzle n’ shit. Good jizzazz, tha kind wit tha sweet sounds of a muted trumpet play’n in front of a upright piano . Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos. The sounds of tha sett’n keep’n it real yo. Conditioned air falls across mah face, up mah nose, into mah insides, become one wit mah be’n. Motherfucka fliznick rizzy off tha windshield lazily, tha fleet’n marriage of drop n glass destroyed by tha steady rhythm of tha blade, cutt’n through tha darkness with my hoes on my side, and my strap on my back. The road winds around tha bend cuz its a pimp thang. It’s cuz its a pimp thang. late . Real niggas recognize the realness.: too late fo` such a trip like this. Eyes droop, close, open to increase tha peace! Re-focus . Hollaz to the East Side. Jizzy cracka more air blast’n into mah face. Wizzle a difference a day makes . The road straight from long beach nigga. A sea of oily bliznack. Wet wit condensizzle perspirizzle animation, but not enough ta remove tha slick mess of a hundred, a thousand, a million million ridez before me cuz its a pimp thang. My shiznip rolls wit tha hills, pitches in tizzy ta tha steady beat of Thelonious Mizzay of Jizzy Coltrane. Chill as I take you on a trip. We move ta tha measured score, mah shiznip n I, march’n forth while men in smoky rooms n jazz bars play they songs n bitchez wit husky voices sing sadly of bitch pizzy. Destinizzle . Hollaz to the East Side. The 24-hour-supizzle a warehizouse of bright light n empty aisles. Anchor tha ship, chizneck fo` motherfucka realize that it’s too late fo` even mugga ta be out with the gangsta shit that keeps ya hangin. Step out. Lock n we out. Purposizzles wizzay cuz I’m fresh out the pen. Man wit K-I-Double-Tizzy litta leaves store, too embarrassed ta look at me. Who buys K-I-Double-Tizzy gangsta at 1 AM? Aisle 1. Aisle 2 and my money on my mind. 3 fo’ real. 4 . Im a bad boy wit a lotta hos. A-ha in tha hood! Aisle 5. Remind S-to-tha-izzelf thizzay in future, oil is stored in Aisle 5. Wizzy kind? Unclear. Vegetable wit da big Bo$$ Dogg. Canola fo’ sheezy. Olive. Olive? No. Not olive . Keep the party crackin while I’m steady rappin’. And thiznen there were two. Vegetable. Canola but real niggaz don’t give a fuck. Canola fo gettin yo pimp on. Vegetable. Fizzle a coin in tha dogg pound. Pick a pusha. If a train leaves Vegetable at 45 miles per hour, n a train leaves Canola… What is tha difference between oil anyways? Bizzy label. Green label . You’se a flea and I’m the big dogg. Does oil go bad? Oil is oil cuz I’m fresh out the pen. Vegetable cheapa. Think `bout purpose of said oil. Two bottles of vegetable like this and like that and like this and uh. Checkout. Sciznan. Beep. Scizzay with the S-N-double-O-P. Beep. Five even with my forty-fo’ mag. Hizzalf a sawbuck fo all my homies in the pen. A Lincoln. The bill crizzisp. Immaculate. As I hand over tha money, I am too embarrased ta look at tha cahsia. Who buys vegetable oil at 1:05 AM? Purposizzle walk. Life now gang bangin’ cuz this is how we do it. Be kiznind, pleaze rewind fo’ real. Every action has an equal n opposite . Keep the party crackin while I’m steady rappin’. Unlock so bow down to the bow wow. Step in. Raise tha anchor, Gangsta Coltrane yaba daba dizzle! We lurch forward, mackin’ up steam on our return voyage, bizzy from tha briny depths fizzle whiznich we came ridin’ in mah double R. We is alone on tha dark roads in tha vast nothingness of Suburbia in all flavas. As tha nizzay claims us, mah S-H-to-tha-izzip n I, we embrace Her, engirth Her, n we is Ha. Relax, cus I’m bout to take my respect.

A few people have mentioned Pandora around, and after checking it out, I’ve got to give them props (and most likely $36 when my free trial ends.) It’s good stuff, and I think my favorite part is breaking down an artist or song into little keywords like “subtle vocals, tonal melodies, etc.”

Wackiness definitely ensues when you cross two unrelated artists. I popped in Thelonious Monk and Franz Ferdinand. The Hank Mobley/John Coltrane track that’s playing now is frickin’ sweet. For serious. I must own this.

A side note: 85-year-old guys who stop in the middle of the intersection because they’re lost should not be allowed to drive. Ever. (I plan on being dead long before 85, or in the home. A message to my future grandkids, who will undoubtedly read this in 2060: Do us all a favor. Put the pillow over Grandpa’s face. If anyone asks you why, blame the Communists on TV. I’m sure that will still work.)

My mom just called me from the ER back home since such an elderly gentleman did such a thing, even though the light was green. Naturally, he’s driving a Lincoln Land-Tank(TM). Guess who’s car gets totalled AND who goes to the ER AND who gets the ticket? That’s right. Mom. Guy could have been going backwards and foaming from the mouth and my mom would have still gotten the ticket.

I had a few hours to kill (i.e. I wanted to put off my Comp Arch homework as long as possible) so I downloaded Opera (now free) and Konfabulator (also free). Of the two, I know that I’ll end up using Konfabulator way more than I’ll use Opera. Personally, I think it’s extremely tough to move from one browser to another, especially when you’ve spent who-knows-how-many hours tweaking it like I’ve done with Firefox. I love my setup, and the few little gripes I have are so minor, it’s not worth spending more time tweaking a new browser. I’ll download the new IE when it comes out, because there are still sites out there that insist on IE-only surfing, but I don’t think I’ll get to know Opera at all.

Konfabulator, on the other hand, is worthy of the hit in performance it takes up. One, it’s suuuper pretty. I love how everything just fades in and out, has custom colors, etc. And some of the stuff is useful. The basic calendar alone is worth the free price. Getting information without opening a web browser is really nice. And, like my favorite part of Firefox, if you need something extra, download it and run it. That’s it. No messy add-on packages. Good stuff.