Okay, I love what Gina and pt do - who doesn’t? Jake and I have been kicking an idea around for a while, and I think we’re ready to unleash it. Nothing revolutionary, mind you - just an idea that might (or might not) work.

We’re Doing It - a DIY/GTD group blog that anybody can join at any time. Sign up, post a draft immediately, and never post again for all we care (or continue to post, if you get enough cross-promotional or search engine traffic from the coverage).

So, let’s just see if this “wisdom of crowds” thingy works - and not just for geeks!

The Science Channel aired “First on the Moon- The Untold Story” this afternoon, and it’s full of holes - according to the Bad Ass astronomer, Phil Plait, and his NASA nerd friend, David Morrison. I really wanted to believe that Apollo 11 astronauts saw a UFO, but according to David at NASA:

I just talked to Buzz Aldrin on the phone, and he notes that the quotations were taken out of context and did not convey the intended meaning. After the Apollo 11 crew verified that the object they were seeing was not the SIVB upper stage, which was about 6000 miles away at that time, they concluded that they were probably seeing one of the panels from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage. These panels were not tracked from Earth and were likely much closer to the Apollo spacecraft.

Dr. Phil… er, the good Bad Astronomy guy says there’s more unexplainable to explain:

As another quick example, they also talked about flashes of light that the astronauts saw in their eyes - these turned out to be subatomic particles (really, atomic nuclei) from space interacting with the fluid in their eyes. This is fairly well understood now. The show implies - it even comes right out and says - we don’t understand this phenomenon, which isn’t true.

TV shows need to be more like blogs, ya know? In the sense that real scientists could have swept in and commented on where that program went wrong. Instead, we’ll have people out there believing that many of the “facts” presented in the show were researched and documented appropriately. Where is there a (single) Web site on which viewers could easily fact-check programming like this?!

Does anybody out there use Google’s Hello? Hello!? Yeah, Hello - the photo-sharing IM service that integrates seamlessly with Picasa and Google’s Blogger service. Here’s the problem I have with Hello: none of my friends use it. My real question is: why isn’t Picasa pushing people to use Google Talk, instead - and why isn’t Google Talk incorporating Hello technology? Argh.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be sold on the Office 2007 Ribbon interface. It’s different - almost too different. I know they said it was supposed to increase productivity, but to me it just increased screen clutter. Today, I heard that the Office 2007 Ribbon [is] To Be Tweaked:

The Ribbon, a new top-of-the-window feature in most of the suite’s applications — including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — takes up too much space, say many beta users and reviewers . In response, the next Office 2007 update, a so-called Technical Refresh (TR), will include changes to the Ribbon. Although an undocumented - or at least unpublicized - Ctrl-F1 key combination has “collapsed” the Ribbon since the very first beta to provide more viewing and working space for documents, Microsoft program manger Jensen Harris has outlined new ways that the feature will be called in future versions.

YES! By doing this, they’ve made the Ribbon UI truly digestable. Taking the Minimized Ribbon to the Max - watch the video to see what I mean. They’re really moving the ideas of menus forward, and I really wish the rest of Windows (and Microsoft) software would follow suit. Collapsing the Ribbon was an AWESOME idea. Now, as far as charging for Office betas is concerned - that was pure stupid.

No, I didn’t go to BlogHer - for a few good reasons. It has nothing to do with me being a “him,” though. Largely, I stayed at home for Ponzi’s benefit. I didn’t want to take away from her experience at the event, as the BlogHer conference is ultimately about women in blogging - and she’s a woman who blogs. If I went, I’d do nothing more than (inadvertently) impose my own perspectives on the experience. I really believe she had a chance to learn more without me there.

Ponzi started blogging after watching me do it for a while - but she’s not a geek. I often drag her (term used loosely) to tech-centric events that she doesn’t care much about. BlogHer is a chance for her to mix and mingle with people who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe technology - and yes, those kinds of people really do exist! She’s a very independent thinker, and I have no doubt she’ll come home with several useful ideas and fun stories.

“Gnomedex” is starting to appear in a few BlogHer posts - a couple of them related to how Ponzi and I handle sponsors. Microsoft’s Conference Marketing, Part 2 and Definitely Femtastic should take a look at Microsoft Rewrote the “Rulesâ€Â? of Conference Sponsorship. It’s not easy to do a conference - but I must congratulate the entire BlogHer crew for pulling it off. I’ll be picking up Ponzi from the airport at Midnight tonight.

Conspiracy theorists are atwitter with the news that Dave Winer will be stepping away from the blogosphere in a mere matter of months. Some groups claim that Dave wants to live out the REST of his days making SOAP in Montana, while others feel that Dave (himself) is an alien and will soon be flying back to his home planet, Skroob.

Thousands of online hate groups have issued letters of resignation, finding their purpose to exist “completely nullified” by Dave’s decision. And what will happen with Scripting.com? It will become a live outline of Winer’s impending screenplay, some say. Close friends organized an intervention, but none of them could tear themselves away from their respective news aggregators in time to actually confront Dave.

Other Winer conspiracies include (but are not necessarily limited to) Dave: being pregnant and full-term not long after his retirement begins; wanting to shave his beard without causing other bloggers to grow theirs out of spite; hoping to become the world’s first software developer to enter [and win] the Iditarod.

Source: Scripting News
Domain: DaveWinery.com

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News organizations tend to delivering information in a top down fashion. Someone on the editorial teams makes the executive decision about the days news, the news gets produced, and is ultimately sent out into the world. The Internet has quietly chipped away at this idea for over a decade, with blogging bringing incrementally faster change in the process. Recently a few companies are emerging with the intent to rethink the way news becomes news. Instead of a top down approach, companies are getting some or all of the news direct from the readers, allowing the readers to generate or submit stories and then filter the “best stuff” to the top through various voting mechanisms. Newsvine is one of the companies engaged in this new news, publishing reader submitted stories side-by-side with Associated Press stories from the wire. This gives reasonably equal footing to both pro journalists and amatuer newshounds who actively seek out stories a daily basis. Even if you aren’t seeking new stories, you can comment on anything submitted. If you’re creating original material, you might even get paid for your writing, via an advertising revenue split with Newsvine. Chris recently spoke with Mike Davidson, CEO of Newsvine, about how Newsvine is changing the way people consume news, how active participation in a community builds loyalty, and about the slightly controversial move by Jason Calacanis of AOL in hand-picking contributors from community sites like Newsvine to come work for him on Netscape.com.

From Eisenhower’s farewell speech…

Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

…and…

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

…followed immediately thereafter by…

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Keep in mind that Eisenhower was a five-star general, folks.

Oh, just press play…

…yeah, I can’t wait.

I remember watching this press conference a couple of years ago, but if you haven’t seen The Disclosure Project - I’d like to get your take. “This 2 hour video is a distillation of over 120 hours of video interviews made by Dr Greer. Dozens of highly credible military and government witnesses discuss UFO events and projects they have worked on, with introductory and overview commentary by Dr. Greer. The video is divided into sections and is an excellent item to have and show to others, to get a full understanding of what the Project is about. It is more informative to see this video prior to seeing the May 9th Press Conference video.”

Google Video has both witness DVDs: Disc 1 and Disc 2. I know that my friend, Phil Plaitt, doesn’t believe it’s happened - but I’m looking for every reason to believe. Are every single one of these guys (recorded for this project) crazy? Are they all insane? Are they all in cahoots? I think we’re on the cusp of learning the truth…

• Secrecy Risks: what are the global risks if we do nothing
• Human Witness Testimony: dozens of witness testimonies that are real and shouldn’t be ignored.
• Witness testimony to nuclear weapons that were sent into space and destroyed by UFOs.
• Astronaut and Satellite Related Testimonials
• Craft and Body Retrieval of Extraterrestrial Origin
• Secrecy Examined: how it works through the unacknowledged special access projects and compartmentalization. i.e. How some members of our Governments are kept in the dark.
• The Secrecy behind Space Based Weapons: its lethal implications.
• Threats and Ridicule: suffered by those wishing to disclose the truth.
• Why the Secrecy: and why it is no longer necessary.

Is Paul Hellyer a complete nutcase? If only one of the world’s UFO sightings were real, that makes me 100% sure that I want to know more. I’m looking for a reason to believe.

I twisted Gordon’s arm to get it, but here’s an exclusive coupons to get Registry Booster for only $19.95:

• Registry Booster - 20% off Uniblue RegistryBooster using coupon code GETRB20% (Posted on 4/2/08 and Expires on 6/30/08)
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Residual files, unused and undeleted drivers, and corrupt or bad entries in registry settings will quickly litter even the newest of computers. The result? Frequent error messages, slow start-ups, declining and poor performance and registry integrity, unstable and frequent application errors and crashes, and, at times, even an inability to start Windows.

If you’re looking for something that’s 100% effective in cleaning the Windows registry, you’re likely looking going to spend about $129. On what? Mac OS X.

Long Tail important thing. Thag must grok idea to make idea work. It say that markets conversations. Wait, no - that cluetrain. Long Tail claim there new marketplace at end of rainbow. Blog believe rainbow exist, but nobody else care.

Long ago, before Internet, Anderson man had long tail on body. Got tired of lug tail everywhere, so put online for auction. Caveman in Iowa bought cheap. Gomesaur came, want Anderson tail - but Anderson no have. Gomesaur attack Anderson, say Long Tail no exist.

Anderson kill Gomesaur with it own long tail. Gomesaur go extinct. Indiana Jones dig up long tail bone in next sequel. It make good movie.

Source: The Long Tail
Domain: WongTail.com

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Put your word/prhase on Rent My Chest before it’s taken by somebody else. You gotta like testimonials like Linda’s:

I’ve been waiting for someone to come up with a fun, unique spin on the “sell a word” craze… I just bought AFFILIATES… Checking out Alexa I already see a huge spike in traffic and the new word cloud upgrade just launched. I’ll give Chris a little plug - go check it out, it’s pretty cool!

Sweet. My chest drives traffic!

Long overdue: an OEM’s worst nightmare. Jeff Jarvis oughta love it, but I doubt Dell will. Nothing illegal here:

The PC De-Crapifier is designed to remove a specific list unwanted software in an unattended fashion. Before running, the user may select exactly what software should be removed. Currently, it is targeted for use on most Dell machines; however it will theoretically run on anything that has the software listed below…

Hey Dell - if you really *ARE* listening, and you really *DO* believe in your own marketing hype, why don’t you put some truth behind the new “Designed For You” campaign? Ya know, offer a HUGE CHECKBOX next to the “Install software that doesn’t ship natively with Microsoft Windows” option and have it unchecked by default. First, you have to make that option available. Second, you could call it… “Really, Truly Designed For You.” Welcome to the blogosphere!

“When Google was a Stanford research project, it was nicknamed BackRub because the technology checks backlinks to determine a site’s importance.”