this is sippey.typepad.com

but mom, lawn darts are FUN!

Since Mattel is recalling all those toys with lead, Radar Online does the public a service by recycling their "10 most dangerous playthings of all time" story. Number one on the list? Lawn darts, of course.

merc on wilco

The SJ Merc reviews the Wilco show I saw last weekend. (Via The Standing Room.)

Glenn Kotche ... can take a simple dusty acoustic riff in more directions than perhaps any rock drummer in existence. ... Tweedy's the brains, Cline and guitarist/keyboardist Pat Sansone are the electricity, and bassist John Stirratt is the rock. Keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen is the musical icing. But Kotche is what makes this band go, and it's wonderful to watch.

Hooray for drummers!

merit badge

I must have earned one of these Ikea merit badges by now.

what happened there?

Remember the Google / AOL deal of December 2005? One of the bullet points in the press release was the announcement of "enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met." I'd love to find out what those conditions were, and what so far has prevented them from being met. A boy can still dream of federated AIM, can't he?

itzkoff on gibson

Dave Itzkoff reviews Spook Country:

What initially unites these seemingly unrelated narratives is a theme familiar to Gibson’s work: the novice initiated into an alternative reality he or she never knew existed. But in each of these strands, Gibson is also playing on the word "spook," not just in the slang sense of a spy, but also in the more traditional sense of a ghost — of figures who pass through the world unnoticed and unrecognized, and who are about to find out how empowering anonymity can be.

she taught me everything i needed to know

Stephanie DiMarco, CEO of Advent Software (and my old boss) tells the story of starting, leaving and coming back to the company in the Sunday Times.

Not only was I young, I looked young. It was a challenge to be taken seriously. I was at a trade show when I overheard a competitor talking about Advent. He said, "It’s that little company in California run by that little girl." I wasn’t going to let it get me down. I turned it into an advantage. As the public face of the business, one that people didn’t expect, I was able to surprise a lot of customers. That competitor is no longer in business.

i'm flattered

Andre Torrez has done a brilliant job of adapting the (un)filtered design to notes.torrez.org. Excellent!

more like this

What William Gibson is doing with Spook Country and Pattern Recognition before it feels like what DeLillo was doing with The Names and his other books around that time (pre Libra): presenting the world that's invisible to us but we sense exists alongside ours.

but i don't mean you. i love you.

From the department of self-promotion, Buddy List Zero: action-based instant messaging.

Want to really Get Things Done? Then turn off IM. These are tips on the skills, tools and attitude needed to empty your buddy list -- and then keep it that way.

but mom, math is hard!

Eh, who needs clickthrough rates. From the Facebook Flyer FAQ, the answer to the question "Can I see how many people clicked on my Flyer?"

Unfortunately we can't provide you with a click-through-rate for your Flyer. These rates vary drastically from one Flyer to the next because they depend on the interest that is generated by the ad's content. The value proposition of Flyers is primarily the high volume and localized exposure of your ad, not click through rates.