Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

1. release formerly profitable software for free
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

…to quote a joke from today’s Slashdot thread about news that Google will give away “Blogger Pro” software.

Good old Slashdot loves to poke fun at dot-bomb business models, but a few of us there with longer memories can remember that this business model worked darn well for Microsoft when it set out to kill Netscape’s browser software with its then-much-worse product.

In related news, I did some unscientific “Google research” on various strings about weblogging software:

“I hate xxx” + weblog

xxx = blogger 121

xxx = radio 39

xxx = manila 0

xxx = movable type 0

“I love xxx” + weblog

xxx = blogger 233

xxx = radio 212

xxx = manila 101

xxx = movable type 160

“xxx is down”

xxx = blogger 760

xxx = manila 1

“something is wrong with xxx”

xxx = blogger 27

xxx = radio 0

xxx = manila 0

xxx = movable type 1

“xxx just ate”

xxx = blogger 279

xxx = radio 2

xxx = manila 0

xxx = movable type 0

“xxx sucks”

xxx = blogger 1070

xxx = radio (here I added ‘userland’ to eliminate stuff like “Denver radio sucks”) 136

xxx = manila 45, many of them referring to a city in the Philippines

xxx = movable type 58

If Google had done some similar research, I can’t help wondering if they would have bought Blogger in the first place…

…first you must xxx

xxx

retro games and music

thanks to Simon Willison

I got an email from Dave Winer inviting me to a blogging conference at Harvard. I liked the varied list of speakers–the right-wing Instapundit balanced by Josh Marshall, one of my favorite lefties, and so on. Dave said:

We’re going to talk about how weblogs are used in politics, business, journalism, the law, medicine, engineering and education.

And yet, believe it or not, when you consider that there are at least 200 notable bloggers addressing any one of these topics, the evil elitists of Harvard have invited only about 10 people to address this one-day event. Shocking!

Still, the price tag is $500–more than my blogging budget for the decade. And–sour grapes time–with that price tag, I picture BlogCon as industry-oriented do–aimed at showing the business world how some of our most successful bloggers do things. That isn’t the part of blogging I do anyway.

Now there’s a mini-firestorm in blogworld.

One good result of the hubbub is that Andrew Orlowski has chimed in to praise the bloggers attacking BlogCon. Since this is the first time I’ve ever seen Orlowski express anything but contempt for bloggers, his change of heart must surely be a good thing.

Here is a one-question quiz with no cgi:

Do you remember “your” golden paper stars on the fifth-grade bulletin board?

o Ewwww. No, you cornball elitist, I do not.
o Yes, yes, yes, I admit it, I longed to push my line of golden stars until it was double the length of Jerry Rovner’s!

I’m solidly in the yes, yes, yes category. Well, Miss Marchand’s bulletin board is gone, but online quizzes still feed my inner nerd.

I no longer answer intelligent questions like “What is the scientific name of the Loch Ness monster?”

Instead, I love quizzes that help me figure out if I’m Gryffindor or Ravenclaw–with important questions like “Do you prefer a broadsword to a longbow?” or “Who do you think is sexier, Kirk or Spock?”

Here are a few of my favorite online quizzes:

• “My Little Pony” names and names of porn stars–can you tell which is which? (I got only 2 right out of 12 answers.)
• The Simpsons’ character test by Lexi (I’m Homer, who are you?)
• The Geek Test at fuali.com (I’m only 33% Geek, but I still claim to be 99 and 44/100% nerd.)

Happy quizzing, and if you end up with more golden stars than I did–pulleeeeez don’t tell Miss Marchand!

*Nessiteras rhombopteryx

Did your grade school celebrate Corn Day? Back in the days when a third of American workers lived on farms, many schools did–in classrooms “decorated so as to give joy and impress the thought that the man who raises a good crop of corn is engaged in an exalted work.”

Amity Wilczek shares some gems from “School Lessons on Corn,” a 1914 USDA pamphlet she found in the Harvard stacks, and offers her own answer to their workshop topic “Why I Think Corn and Boys are Similar.”

Hey, look what just happened to one of my favorite weblogs!

Disclosure, not only do I read Dave Winer’s blog but I really like him. And I am very annoyed with the guys out there in blogworld who think they’re sooooo cool when they jerk his chain.

No scripting news–that really sucks. Robert Scoble thinks so too. Patrick Logan thinks so too. Ken of Digital Common Sense thinks so too. If you think so too, please blog it.

If you read Harry Potter–and don’t you?–I’m Hermione. The most exciting stuff I have to say is nerdy or fun stuff I learned and what I thought of it.

That’s why I’m scared as well as inspired by Halley on “life and death bloggers.” I care about the real lives of bloggers I read–but my real life is not what I blog about.

If I blog about good stuff going on in my life, I worry that I sound boastful.
If I blog about stuff that makes me unhappy, I worry that I am whining. If I offer advice–won’t I just sound smug? If I refrain from offering advice, I feel guilty because I’m not trying to help. What a worry wart!

I’m Hermione and I’m also New England. I know lots of people who hug and kiss-kiss their friends, and I really like it when friends do it to me, but I also worry about if I’m doing it right, which probably means I’m not.

I really like kissing my two kids and my husband. I don’t worry if I’m doing it right with them. And I used to like kissing my mother hello and goodbye–she liked it too–but the gesture was so untraditional, so un-New-England, that her dog would start barking fiercely whenever I did it.

And, if you want to know something personal about me, I really, really, really miss my mother, who died just a little bit more than two years ago.

Here’s Kalilily, one of blogdom’s most famous blondes, just back from a magical visit to Maine and posing next to Blogsisters.

I just (finally) read her interview with Frank Paynter. Boy, I’m glad I didn’t read it before he interviewed me–I would have been too intimidated to say yes. She is one red-hot momma.

I love the way Elaine embodies so many different people, often all in the same sentence–mother and sexpot, dreamer and doer, bookworm and witch and warrior and more–for example, when she explains the choice of her nickname:

I came up with combining Kali — for the Lilith-related goddess of death and rebirth — and lily — for Lilith, for “Elaine the fair, Elaine the pure, Elaine the Lilymaide of Astalot.”   And there’s also my affinity for Georgia O’Keefe’s calla lilies.  One of my lovers, the one with whom I went to Paris in the spring, gave me a sterling silver ring with the shape of a calla lily.  It’s the only ring I tend to wear.  So, you see, I just love it when disparate parts of my life weave together like that.  Like a web.  Like the net.

Elaine of Kalilily is much more fun than the chaste and fair maid of Astalot, but I did find a cool page of links to texts and images of Tennyson’s idyll “Lancelot and Elaine.”

Of course the answer to the age old question of what does a Scotsman wear under his kilt is……his shoes.

Steve MacLaughlin, in Frank Paynter’s latest interview

I love Frank Paynter’s interviews because they remind me of questions I didn’t know I had–for example, what would a Scotsman who was a Mormon wear under his kilt? While researching this topic, I learned the answer to another question: “Does a Google search on “Mormon underwear photo” turn up lots of porno?”

The answer to that one is yes.

I don’t share MacLaughlin’s scorn of bloggers-who-blog-about-blogging, but he does say some interesting stuff in the interview:

I believe that there has been less debate over Rousseau’s “The Social Contract” or “Waiting For Godot” by Samuel Beckett than there has been over what blogging is or what it means in some larger social context. History always repeats itself and blogging is the latest iteration of personal journals, which is not a new concept to say the least.

And, as always, Paynter says some really good stuff:

Some bloggers, for example Dave Winer, are unashamed blogging evangelists. Some, like Chris Locke, have extended their personal publishing into blog space. Some, like AKMA, find blogging to be an online community building opportunity….

Paynter’s insights are so unlike the heavy-handed parodies of A-list bloggers John Scoble posted on his site a while ago. To condense its long, unfunny slam at Dave Winer:

10. Print “Dave claims he invented everything.” 
20. Print “Dave thinks he’s sooooo great.” 
30. Goto 10.

It reads like a high-tech version of Limbaugh-does-Clinton. Ugh.

If somebody wanted to parody Winer’s blog, it would be a lot funnier to write something that sounds like Winer’s blog–RSS, Harvard, dinner with friends, what I said last year, how morality should shape software standards. A good parody would have short entries, lots of links, and some funny thumbnail images.

A good parody, like Winer himself, would be fun to read.

Enough poking fun at the world’s multiple genders–but speaking of poking fun, let’s talk about marriage.

I invite blogworlders to chip in with good advice about how two people of happily different genders can coexist. If you think that’s too flimsy a segue–Dan Berlinger of Archipelago is getting married–congratulations, Dan!

To start with, here are four very standard pieces of marriage advice:

Don’t say things in anger that you will later regret.

Remember Han Solo in the garbage compactor, dodging the ricochets of his own bullet? At least the bullet stopped after a few bounces–nobody got hurt thinking about it later.

Marriage is not 50-50, it’s 80-20.

Expect to give 80% and get back 20%. And so will your parner.

What goes around comes around.

In a long marriage, you will be the person your partner knows best–the model for what’s okay and what’s forbidden. If you break promises or sulk for hours–so (eventually) will your partner. If you give little presents or call when you’ll be late coming home–so (eventually) will your partner.

Never go to bed angry.

It’s a lonely feeling to wake up and remember the stupid fight that you both thought was more important than your love for each other.

You can also learn a lot from watching people do really stupid stuff:

“Ann wouldn’t know about that, would you, Ann?”

Ewwww–there’s nothing more painful than watching a couple needle each other in public. Before you take some nasty, “witty” poke at your mate, just remember how ugly you look doing it.

“What did mean Daddy do to you?”

There are about 8 zillion reasons not to compete for your kids’ affection by putting each other down. Teach your kids by example that hurting anyone in the family hurts the whole family unit–and vice versa. You will eventually be very glad your kids learned this.

“I made the coffee, get your own god-damned cup.”

Some days, life is exhausting–that’s not your partner’s fault. You’re more likely to get praise and affection for a cup of tea delivered with a smile than for a whole pot of hand-picked Peruvian organic coffee you snarled about making.

“That’s mine!” “No, it’s mine!”

I knew a couple whose shared nerdy fun of building electric trains turned into a war between two obsessions. They should have remember Dan Berlinger’s fine saying, “Be mindful. Be focused. Be of the moment. Be respectful.”

Come to think of it, maybe Dan is the one who should be giving us advice. Good luck, kids!