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2005 June 26

The Big Blue e Chest for Dean Hachamovitch

Pre-Gnomedex Interview with Dave Winer

Dave Winer demonstrated his new OPML Outliner from the stage during the opening keynote at Gnomedex 2005 kicking things off Morning Coffee Notes style. A few days prior to Gnomedex, Chris and Ponzi chatted with Dave about the event, RSS, podcasting and the now widely discussed Microsoft announcement of RSS in Longhorn. During the conversation, Dave suggested even Chris wasn’t aware of every announcement planned for Gnomedex and I’m inclined to think Dave was correct. If you liked the story of Chris and Ponzi meeting, more is revealed during this chat as the discussion shifts to public display of affection, nail polish remover, inflatable people and the Seattle Public Library

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Gnomenclature 2005

If you missed my opening presentation for Gnomedex 5.0, here are
the words – with the audio transcript forthcoming.

Scobull /n/ – 1. Loose
wire; 2. The ability to assert that co-workers should be fired without the fear
of being fired for saying so; 3. Unbridled geek energy.

Wi-FUD /n/ – 1.
The belief that wireless Internet access is evil and should not be used in
conjunction with any public gathering; 2. Wi-Fi without a power
strip.

Aggragavator /n/ – 1. A faulty news reader; 2. An overzealous
syndication evangelist.

Googie /n/ – 1. Google supporter; 2. Any
application built upon Google's APIs; 3. The cookie on the tin that didn't get
fully baked.

Quackback /n/ – 1. A facetious trackback; 2. The title of
Howard The Duck's blog, should he ever get one; 3. Trackbacking an entry and
quoting it out of context.

Fraudcast /n/ – 1. An interesting podcast that
issues only three episodes before its originator gets bored and moves on to
something else; 2. Any content on an airline's business
channel.

Arressess /n/ – 1. Mythical orange-colored creature, having been
best described as a cross between Abe Vigoda and toe cheese; allegedly
befriended by Opie Emmell. 2. Natural enemy of Aurdeyeff.

Canterize /v/ -
1. To interrupt, enthusiastically; 2. The opposite of decanterize, wherein all
social relevance is stripped from a Web site.

Bitchtorrent /n/ – 1. The
act of automatically dismissing any competing data transmission protocol before
it even sees the light of day; 2. A malfunctioning download.

Slashdork
/n/ – 1. One who comments just to comment, adding nothing new, interesting, or
relevant to a thread; 2. One who adds an obligatory link to their page and then
asks for a reciprocal one.

Swuck /n/ – 1. Conference swag that gets
thrown away in your hotel room, unworthy of returning home with
you.

Firefoxy /adj/ – 1. We're not sure what this means, but it's bound
to get a lot of attention since we used the word
“Firefox.”

Rubelicious /adj/ – 1. The feeling of being a
PR hotshot; 2. Cool enough to click.

Curry-Q /n/ – 1. An old hairstyle
you wish you never had, especially when it was once shared on cable TV; 2.
Falafel stand dessert staple.

Technoerrati /n/ – 1. A paritcular feed
entry that shows up more than once. Again. And again. And again.

Waki /n/
- 1. A digital commons supported by illiterate contributors with rudimentary
editing skills; 2. Vigilante history.

Winerd – /n/ – 1. Any individual
who reads Scripting News first thing in the morning – before brushing their
teeth as well as while brushing their teeth.

Samedycation /n/ – 1. Any
new standard that replaces an existing non-standard standard that's already been
adopted as a standard, regardless of its non-standard
nature.

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Smarter Cards

It ocurred to me, as I ordered the 27 billionth grande iced six-pump vanilla
latte with whipped cream for Ponzi, that Starbucks is wasting everybody's
time. They've got these gift cards that hold money on 'em, but why not also
include the person's favorite drink(s), too? I mean, wouldn't it be much
easier to walk up to the counter, swipe the card, and not have to worry
about the cashier screwing up the drink order? We order the same thing every
single day – why not swipe a card and let its holder verify the order instead of
having to take thirteen breaths before finishing the ingredient list for
their liquid concoction(s)?

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Gnomedex 5.0 changed my life – deeply. It was finally the conference I had always envisioned it to be, thanks to the help of all of my closest friends who made everything possible (I'll start the official list once I fully recover). Ponzi, you are a wonderful business partner, and I'm very lucky to have you in my life. After dinner last night, discussion with a couple of very close friends brought me to reflect upon where I actually fit into this universe of ideas. This morning, I initated sweeping changes to the way my personal blog looks and works. First, 95% of the ads have been eliminated. Second, anonymous comments have been turned off completely. Third, I've swapped my handwriting font for a cleaner one. Fourth, I hope that's just the beginning.

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