Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Patrick Scoble on the new Macbook laptop. "I was crushed when I saw the price." 

Mike Arrington reports that SearchFox is shutting down.  

Four years ago, the only time we did awards on Scripting News (the flamers got their way), Google was chosen the Best Weblog Utility/Distraction. "Weblogs, which flip their home pages every day, provide a constant source of new stories and perspectives for Google's fantastic robot and ranking engine." 

MarketWatch: "Audible was one of the worst-performing Internet stocks in 2005." 

Engadget is live-blogging the Jobs keynote. 

10:52AM Pacific: "Looks like the keynote is over." 

Steve Jobs: "Something incredibly new: Photocasting. This is Podcasting for photos." 

FlickrRivr "lets Flickr do something very much like podcasting, but with pictures." 

I gotta say based on what I've seen so far they really like podcasting at Apple. You're welcome Steve!  

They like blogs too, iWeb is a blogging tool.  

It's time for me to run a real BitTorrent content system, not mickey-mouse stuff that's good for one or two torrents.  

Essay: Twas the Night Before MacWorld. 

A tough day 

Yesterday was a tough day.

First, something relatively light -- my cellphone provider decided in the middle of the day that I hadn't paid my bill, so my service got disconnected. I didn't know, of course, until I got an email from my lawyer saying he couldn't get through. I checked with my bank's website, the payment had cleared well in advance of the due date, so they were wrong, but it was under $100 so I just paid it again, with my credit card. It's amazing how well that part of the system works these days, within five minutes the phone was working again.

I called back the lawyer, we talked about a depressing situation that of course I can't talk about.

After getting off the phone, I put on my walking shoes and a jacket and as I was on my way out the door, the phone rang. I went back and picked up. It was Dave Jacobs. I asked how he's doing, he said not so good, he has some sad news. With Dave, who's had an incredibly tough life (he's the guy who needed and eventually got the kidney, but that's hardly all he's had to deal with), when he says it's sad news, you sit down, right away.

Someone our age died. He had chest pain, went to the doctor last week, scheduled an angiogram, a very routine procedure these days, developed complications, and died in surgery. I knew the man who died, but his passing is so recent, I don't want to say his name, because I don't want to bring the news to his many friends.

I have such mix of feelings on this, some personal, some about the man, some about Dave. I guess mostly it's the sadness that life is so short, and can be so sweet, and I don't know what to do with that, other than stop and sit and weep.

We don't control anything, the facts tell me. But I want to stop the clock, finish processing all this, before going on. No can do.

A laugh 

Four years ago: "Burning Bird says that Radio 8 isn't the second coming. She's right about that. It's the eighth."