Category: Pointless Ramblings

Roz Savage

Posted on by Nimgimli

Have you heard about Roz Savage? She’s single-handedly rowing across the pacific. She’s already done the Atlantic!

http://www.rozsavage.com/blog/

She’s holed up in her cabin while a storm is smacking her around. She’s got a satellite ‘net connection/phone, and solar panels to charge stuff. Leo Laporte hooked her up with an iPod full of audiobooks. 🙂 Normally she rows 15-16 hours/day.

No support vessel. Just a woman in a 16’ rowboat out in the Pacific. Fascinating stuff.

Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C.

Posted on by Nimgimli

Divers trained in archaeology discovered a marble bust of an aging Caesar in the Rhone River that France’s Culture Ministry said Tuesday could be the oldest known.

The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 B.C. Divers uncovered the Caesar bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone near the town of Arles – founded by Caesar.

Divers find Caesar bust that may date to 46 B.C.

A note to all web journalists

Posted on by Nimgimli

Warning, incoming rant.

I was reading an article at an online magazine today and noticed a glaring and really embarrassing typo where one of the editors had just (inadvertently) dissed his own product. So being a nice guy, I figured I’d point that out to them. Turns out contacting the editors of this “magazine” isn’t easy.

Here’s how my thought process went:

1) I’ll leave my feedback as a comment

  • I have to register or sign in to comment? Annoying
  • Oh, they support openid, I’ll use that!
  • Wait, they post my openid as my name if I use openid? That’s insane. Skip that.

2) I’ll email the author then. Click on his name.

  • OK here’s a profile, what’s his email address? Not listed. Yes, I know it’ll get you spam but you’re setting yourselves up as journalists. Being contactable is part of that process.
  • OK click on Contacts
  • OK here’s a contact email address. I’ll click that.
  • Oops, it isn’t a link. Highlight and copy it then
  • Nope, they used an image so I can’t cut and paste the email address

So finally I type out the email address and send them an email, but not to tell them about the typo. Rather, to tell them how this process was so frustrating that I’m unsubscribing from their RSS feed and won’t give them my eyeballs again.

We’re talking about a site with advertising on it, so my page views = revenue for them. If you want to put on your journalist suit and collect an income from my visits, then you damned well better treat me, the reader, as a customer. Yes, I understand spam is a huge problem. But its part of the cost of doing business if you’re going to set yourself up as a business, which the ads tell me these people are (that opinion is bolstered by the name and format of the site).

OK, end of rant. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about such things but, well, I do. And I can’t be the only one!

A counter to over-protective parents

Posted on by Nimgimli

This lady is my new hero:

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone | The New York Sun

My friends and I often spend time talking about what life was like when we were kids; how we’d run around unsupervised and how none of us died, y’know? We didn’t have “play dates,” we just shouted “I’m going over to Billy’s!” as we tore out the door. These days I just wonder when kids have a chance to be kids? Henry Jenkins has suggested that kids are so drawn to video games these days because those are the only places they can go to, y’know, get away from the parental units and be themselves, so to speak. That makes sense to me.

Now I should state that I have no kids, so to a certain extent, talk is cheap for me.

Anyway, Lenore Skenazy, the author of the article above, has started a blog called FreeRange Kids. How about that for a blog title!!? I love it.