Great Video, Great Cause: This is one of the best music videos I have ever seen. Led by the great Shane MacGowan. Recognize the guitar player near the end?
Speaking of Spam: Answer me this- what is a bigger spam-fest, fax machines or trackbacks? Spam killed fax machines for me (I unplugged the one in my study years ago). 90% of the trackbacks I get are spam. That’s a pity, as trackbacks were the blog version of a handshake.
In honor of the (mostly) success of my WordPress assault, I think it’s time for an Evening Reading post.
What Dwight Said: “In this battle between giants, readers will be collateral damage.” Amen. Books are the new IM. Everybody wanted to control the channel, and eventually people just gave up and moved on.
Meanwhile: Scoble displays his love (and hype-susceptibility) by burning his eBook in the name of Apple-love.
Forget Book Fights: JooJoo fights are where it’s at. I want to interview someone who is buying a JooJoo, and ask one 3-letter question.
Speaking of Tablets: Why do I have a lurking feeling that Dell is now working on a iPad competitor to be sold in third world countries?
WordPress Question: I need an iPhone app. What’s better WordPress or WordPress 2?
Speaking of IM: Is there really a market for this? Seriously, who really relies on IM? I really want to know.
WordPress Tip: Very timely advice. I am fighting a losing battle trying to get my WP permalinks to be the same as my 1600 or so imported-from-Blogger ones.
Yes, But: So do all ads. I work hard to have an ad-free existence. I record all my TV shows. I listen to radio via XM (until I can get Pandora in my truck). I have ad-blockers installed in Firefox.
The Deleted World: Here’s a site that helps delete social networking accounts. It ought to have a function to search via email address, etc. so you can find ones you want to delete.
The Day the Music (Label) Died: If this is right, there’s just depression and acceptance to go. In 7 years, there will be no record labels, the way we currently think of record labels. Not a moment too soon.
Bizarre Headline of the Year: Yahoo Tech says that Microsoft is courting the-get this- “Macintosh business crowd” by making Outlook for Macs. Other than some graphic design industries, do any businesses actually use Macs? They are more expensive and most employees would have no idea how to use them. If someone wanted to make a hilarious reality show, they should replace PCs with Macs in some big corporate office and then film the ensuing chaos.
Incomplete Wish List Department: I agree with the things on PC World’s iTunes 9 wish list, but I strongly disagree with what’s not on it. Like a completely new interface. And folders. At this point I would support a constitutional amendment requiring that every software application have folders.
Jargon Smackdown Department: I love this quote from Harry McCracken: “In the end, there are really no such thing as netbooks-there are just notebooks in various sizes with different specs at different price points.” Amen.
Speaking of Dell: Am I the only one who thinks Dell’s entire lineup of desktops are butt-ugly? Every time I visit the Dell site and look at computers, I can’t get past the photos. I’d pay $100 to interview the person who decided those cases were anything less than heinous.
Advertising Nonsense Department: Harry McCracken asks what if all web ads were blocked, and gives us 10 possible results. He forgot number 11: Companies would have to create business plans that actually make sense. Without going into an economics/philosophy lecture, let me just say that (a) advertising cannot support an entire economy, because if there is nothing to sell, there is nothing to advertise, (b) our economic shift from manufacturing to largely a financial/service economy coincided with the economic mess we are now struggling with, and (c) when you don’t produce or provide something that people will pay for, you don’t have a business. Paywalls will not work. You cannot go backwards from free, unless you are a drug dealer.
Friendfeed Facebook Thing: I would write something about it, except I don’t really care about it. Yawn.
Fitly Physical: DrugMonkey writes a good read on the so-called myth about exercise. I average over 90 minutes a day on the treadmill, and I can tell you from personal experience that I am one hell of a lot fitter than I was when I thought I was exercising hard by doing a measly 3 miles a day. On a related note, Dr. Isis explores how much water you really need when exercising. The photo alone would have made that the best blog post of the day.
Lack of Privacy Department: Now you can opt-out of Google’s plan to control everything about you. Here‘s a good story.
Getting Ripped: MakeUseOf has a great primer on how to rip a CD, and get the track names right.
I Tweet Dead People: Lance Ulanoff has a list of 6 dead people he’d follow on Twitter. Here are mine:
1. John Lennon. Watch just a little of Imagine and you’ll see that he was a very smart and thoughtful dude. 2. Robert Heinlein. I don’t love all of his books, but I love a lot of them. 3. Shel Silverstein. He was really good at a lot of the things I like. 4. Jesus. So I could find out where he was for those 17 years. And see if this is really him. 5. Townes Van Zandt. He was one of the greatest story tellers ever, both on stage and off. 6. Becky Newsome. My mom, just because she was cool and I miss her. And that would mean she finally learned how to use a computer.
What the World Needs is More Ringtones: And you can help. Make and share your own ringtone with Make Own Ringtone. Here’s one I made from my song Dreams of McKenzie. I thought ringtones had to be in some special file format?
I’ve been pre-occupied with working out and feeding my The Wire jones, so my blogging has suffered, much to the dismay of millions. But I’m back, so let’s get caught up.
Crow Department: I argued that it would never happen, but I have almost completely surrendered to Google. Between Search, Reader, News, Maps, Voice and Docs, most of my life resides in Google. If they could take a mulligan and buy Flickr, they’d have all of me. Well, that and figure out a way to do tracked changes in Docs. The first cloud app that does that will win the online document game. If you want to pile some Google apps onto your Firefox navbar, GButts can hook you up. I’m not ready to wear the colors to that extent yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time. I’m pretty skeptical about the Chrome OS, but history has taught me not to underestimate Google.
Joy Division: The whole social networking obsession bores me to tears. You know what’s not boring? This, for one thing. I wish I could do something that cool for my kids. I mean, seriously, how awesome is that? I am deeply fond of the entire Omega clan. Granny J is a Jedi. Dote on, Obi-Wan.
Put Me in Coach: Like most writers, I have a series of Google Alerts that notify me when someone mentions my blog, articles, etc. Lately, updates from an unrelated blog have been showing up in those alerts (blog posts mentioning Newsome, etc.). I’m pulling hard for Team Newsome. If you have a spare prayer, karma, meditation or good wish, please send it their way.
Side B, Track 4: About every month or so, Penelope Trunk knocks a post out of the park, and only about half of them are about this. Her recent post on self-discipline is a must-read.
Bad Combo: You can count on me to aggressively hate on any undertaking by which some egghead takes it upon himself or herself to tell us who the cool people are. Add that grade school nonsense to the now almost completely irrelevant Technorati, and you have a recipe for slumber.
How to Get a Free Kindle: Be the first one to ask me, in person, for mine if this happens. Dudes, don’t charge me a fortune and then toss ads at me. Seriously.
And While I’m Capitulating: I have to admit, I’ve reconnected with a lot of old friends via Facebook. It still feels a little juvenile to me, but I can’t argue with the results. My page is here.
Consumer Wire: I love it when some tech-savvy consumer punks a company like this. Take the camera away, and you probably get a form letter and a coupon for $10 off an oil change.
Violets are Blue: If you want to send a subtle flora message that almost no one will get, here’s how.
Mike Morgan Department: A long time ago, I mentioned in the hall at my office that I thought the whole-world-underwater thing in Waterworld was scientifically inaccurate. The next day, my buddy Mike Morgan gave me a photocopied article that proved I was right. This was way before Dave Winer invented the internet (but after he invented the printing press). Later, Mike and I wondered if those bags of water you see at restaurants really repel flies. Here’s a semi-explanation that sort of indicates they might. A little.
The 2nd Best Day: The best day of the week is Sunday, because there’s a new True Blood. The second best day is when you read that there is a new installment of There Will Be Brawl. Episode 6 is out. Just because some of you are too lazy to go watch these masterpieces, I’m going to embed this episode, to give you a little sample.
Extreme Irony:This is funnier than the Onion. The epic irony is that the only cat in the world who actually makes a living blogging is the cat who tells you how to make a living blogging.
Department of Music: The Avett Brothers have a new album coming out on August 11, 2009. Here’s the title track. Excellent.
Department of Video: What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich like me? Has he taken any time to show you what you need to live. . .
Our last dog before Lucky Dog was a good boy. His name was Virgil. His full name was Virgil Caine Newsome.
Email Reduction Department: If people would read these sites first, I would get 3-4 less emails a day.
iPhonery: There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the upcoming release of the iPhone 3G S. It looks like ATT has sold all of its pre-order inventory. A guy at the local Apple store told me today that they have sold a ton of pre-orders, and that next Friday will be a crazy day. Apple has an excellent compilation of “how-tos” for the world’s greatest phone. That link is a mandatory bookmark for all iPhone users. Postage is a neat-looking iPhone app that lets you create and email postcards, but then you have to print them to put them on the fridge. Photogene looks promising, though I haven’t tried it yet.
Sneaking in the Kid’s Room: Everyone knows that I have very mixed feelings about Facebook. When I spend time there, I feel like I’m sneaking into the kids’ rooms. It is, however, the only way to interact with a lot of people who don’t have a presence on the greater web. What I’m trying to say is that, yes, when the opportunity presented itself, I capitulated to a vanity URL (facebook.com/newsome).
Wild Life Department: Back in the early 70′s, my mom and I saw a black squirrel in the woods by the road. It was one of those things you never forget.
The End of the World as We Read It: OmegaMom has a good run-down of some post-apocalyptic science fiction. That’s my favorite sub-genre. I’m currently reading and enjoying the Pelbar Cycle books. Here’s a pretty good, but incomplete, reading list to get you started.
Sirius XM Deathwatch: So now they are going to jack up the monthly rates even more? Fat chance. My Sirius XM connection is down to a single, stretched thread, thanks to the increasing costs, and the better options via Pandora and Slacker Radio.
I’m a Frayed Knot: Everyone should know how to tie some basic knots. Here’s a wallet card. Or for those hip like me, an Evernote card. Speaking of wallets, here’s a very interesting iPhone app to keep barcodes from all your affiliation cards. I try to stay unaffiliated, but I have gathered a couple of grocery cards along the way.
One Sentence Movie Reviews: I have recently watched (links to Netflix; 5-point scale): Taken (4)- very good action flick, with great appeal for dads. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (3)- definite chick-flick characteristics, but I liked the music element and that both the main characters were really good kids (Kat Dennings is a lovely young lady; and I noticed when researching this post at IMDB, 22 years old today; happy birthday!). Gran Torino (3)- overacting and the unnecessary verbalization of the obvious makes a great concept only a pretty good movie (nice ride, though). The Dark Knight (3.5)- I avoided this one for a long time because of the Ledger over-hype, but it and he were both excellent, particularly until the last half-hour or so. The Wrestler (4)- I loved it, Mickey Rourke was excellent and, seriously, could Marisa Tomei be any hotter without spontaneously combusting? Slumdog Millionaire (incomplete)- I had really high expectations for this one, but I just couldn’t get into it, and didn’t finish it before my on-demand time limit expired.
Blessings: I am so glad the fracking digital conversion is over. It was the most over-discussed, non-event since Y2K. And, no, I really don’t care if someone (or even 880,000 someones) ignored the deluge of public service notices and screen crawls and is somehow surprised that his ancient television not in any way suddenly quit working. Technology helps those who help themselves, and all that.
Shaken, Not Stirred (but We Can All Realize Our Dreams)
>: I have reached Level 30 in Spymaster, which is as high as you can currently go. As I noted the other day, it’s a good start, but the game needs a lot more depth. Follow me if you’re a spy, and I will follow you back (as long as you have a legitimate, non-MLM, non-unintentionally-Deep Thoughts-like Twitter account). I’d rather be spammed a thousand times on Twitter than see another absurd to the point of self-parody, uplifting, self-affirmation post. And while I’m at it, do people really think blasting regurgitated quotes ads value?
Brawl is All: It’s always a great day when you get a new episode of There Will Be Brawl. If you haven’t watched this excellent series, you have a treat in store.
Good Idea, Bad Idea Department: I’d love a reliable pair of wireless headphones to use for our podcasts. At first glance these look pretty appealing. I use a set of Plantronics headphones every day at work and they are great. But I agree with Kevin Tofel on the proprietary thing. By using a proprietary wireless protocol instead of Bluetooth, they guaranteed that I will not buy them. No one should support proprietary when there is a standard protocol that works. I don’t want no dang ‘ol, dang ol’ dangle.
Burn the Monster: Here’s the only thing anyone should ever say about HootSuite: Lose that bloody browser bar. I will not click on any link posted by anyone who uses HootSuite. We need to nip this stupid browser bar crap in the bud. Honestly, I can’t believe there isn’t a massive public outcry over developers tossing this garbage on our screens.
In Other Monster News: I dislike the RIAA as much as the next guy (and I am a musician who gets occasional royalty checks), but I don’t think it’s productive to assume they are going to be jerks until they act like jerks. I may be proven wrong, but even the RIAA can’t be stupid enough to tell school kids not to sing pop songs on YouTube. Can they?
Good Luck with That: On the rare occasions that he has interacted with me, Om Malik has always struck me as a good guy, so I hope this move of desperation works out for him. But I don’t think it will. Blogs- even mega ones like his- simply can’t produce enough unique content to make a pay wall work. Maybe if we could all go back in time and prevent the news media from giving all their stuff away in the frantic but misguided internet land rush, the subscription model might work. But we can’t. If I were going to map out the best hope for paid content, I’d take the Daring Fireball model and charge for full RSS feeds. That probably wouldn’t work either, but it more closely approximates the Pandora, Slacker Radio payment for convenience idea. In other words, I’d never pay for “special” blog content, but I might pay for a more convenient way to access content. If you want to see some brave and righteous spin, see James Kendrick’s announcement. Again, I hope it works, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Fixing What Ain’t Broke Department: I don’t really know what Google Wave is or hopes to be. What I do know is that it isn’t going to “reinvent email” as the nerd herd is saying, because email doesn’t need to be reinvented. It works just fine the way it is, well, except for all the spam. We need to fix the spam.
My Kingdom for an iPhone Version: There is a Windows Mobile version of Live Writer! I cannot adequately describe how ecstatic I would be if someone did a version of Windows Live Writer for the iPhone. I would divide my life into the before and after.
Sookie, Sookie, Sookie: Several people told me that I would love every single thing about True Blood. It finally came out on iTunes, and I watched every single episode of Season 1 in four days. They were right. It’s southern and gothic and scary and cool, with great acting, good music and Sookie. It’s up there with Millennium as my favorite show ever. I am counting the days until June 14, when Season 2 starts. Highly, highly recommended.
Comcast Sucks: Period. Lately, my Comcast broadband is out at least half the time. It fades in and out like a bad headache. Thank goodness for my ATT wireless broadband modem. I will dump cable broadband at the first reasonable opportunity.
Fail in Waiting: So a day late and several dollars short, Sirius XM is about to dump an iPhone app on the unsuspecting world. And rumors are that they want to charge subscribers extra to use it. That’s the most disappointing news since the great Slingbox money-grab of 2009. If Sirius XM charges subscribers extra to use the iPhone app, I hope it accelerates their death at the hands of Pandora, etc. I don’t think trying to squeeze every possible dollar from your declining subscriber base is the best way to deal with the car problem.
Department of Sound: Twangville has a take on the excellent new Dexateens record. HearYa has a take on the new Dan Auerbach (of the Black Keys) video, in which he is joined by Hacienda. This particular song doesn’t do anything for me, but most of Dan’s stuff is pretty good. Hickory Wind has a piece on the Chris Gaffney tribute record. Finally, Cover Lay Down, the newest music blog in my reading list, has some excellent Mary Lou Lord covers.
Apptic Blast: Among the interesting apps I’ve come across lately are TuneUp (cleans your music collection), Routine Timer (my family badly needs that board game timer), TimeLeft, the AAA iPhone app, Repper (makes designs from JPEGs) and Totally Free Burner (non-bloated disk burning).
How Not to Catch Tigers: You need to see this video of a tiger turning the tables on some park rangers who (a) captured her cubs and then (b) decided to ride around on elephants nearby. Maybe I’m a sissy, but if I’m out trying to catch a tiger, I want to be on something a little faster than an elephant. Like, say, a Land Rover. Or a helicopter.
This is as Messed Up as Messed Up Can Be: So this lady’s diabetic daughter can’t see a doctor, but she gets the vapors at her resulting trial and they call 911? I would have suggested she say a prayer or something. I’m a pretty religious guy, and this sort of nonsense really chaps my ass.
Technowhat: Steven Hodson on Technorati’s efforts to stay relevant, or at least alive. Technorati had a chance back in the Dave Sifry era, but the train left the station while Technorati was looking for a ticket.
Tis But a Decade: Lost in LaMancha is a very interesting documentary about Terry Gilliam’s previously unsuccessful effort to reinvent the Don Quixote story, originally to star Johnny Depp. Now, probably thanks in part to the legitimization of time travel via Lost, it looks like he may one day succeed.
Comcast Complaint Department: For the past week or so, my Comcast broadband connection has become spotty, fading out regularly for short periods. Anyone else having a similar problem?
Science Fiction (Ooh Ooh Ooh) Double Feature Department: Here’s Someone’s List of the 50 Essential Sci-Fi Films.
King Kahn Department: Any time the king has a new song, you can count on hearing it here: 69 Faces of Love. Yeah, that’s pretty tame for the king. If you want less normal king, try Land of the Freak. Buy King Kahn and The Shrines records at Amazon. (via Hear Ya)
At the Edge of the Tech Universe: If just converting LPs to MP3s is not fringe enough for you, here’s how to rip a 78 RPM record to a Mac. Unfortunately, the only guy who’d ever want to do that is the dude who wrote that article.
Speaking of Ludicrous: Here’s some more ludicrous jargon, courtesy of ReadWriteWeb and its beloved semantic web. I just don’t understand how smart people can react so reverently when they see something like this:
If that was coming out of a horn, it would be perfect for a Monty Python movie. Honestly, I think if someone expressed this lint in a complex mathematical equation, some of these folks would literally faint from excitement. Forget all that nerdery, if they want to be all academic and whatnot, RWW should focus only on answering this question. Maybe it will help that the word Harvard appears in the first line.
Let’s Kill the Monster Before it Takes Over the World: As much as I fervently wish the Semantic Web concept would disappear off the face of the earth, like most of the other Web 2.whatever concepts, I would be even happier if retweeting was banned by Twitter. Or Congress. Or God. Retweeting is the bastard offspring of three horrible things: laziness, spam and cronyism.
Meanwhile, Back on this Earth: ReadWriteWeb also takes a look at the Feedburner problem. Google is gambling with a lot of goodwill, with the way it continues to ignore the epic problems with Feedburner. Yes, I know there are alternatives, but I also know that a lot of people have built their subscriber numbers using (and in spite of) Feedburner. Google should spend some of the fortune it made on the back of the publishers who rely on Feedburner and fix it. Just fracking fix it.
This Reminds Me of Something: Task.fm looks like a neat little Twitter inspired idea that takes more time than, say, adding the event to your calendar. But these days, it’s all about the 140.
Fancy Jargon Department: I’m over Wolfram|Alpha before I even see it, simply because it calls itself a “computational knowledge engine.” One thing I’ve learned in my 15 years or so online is that really cool stuff doesn’t need fancy jargon. There is generally an inverse relationship between fancy jargon and usefulness. The (ugh) “semantic web” is the best example of this. If you want to feel semantically smart, here’s more on the so called Google killer.
Nerdywood Squares: Google took a quick break from being killed by Wolfram to work on Google Squared, which extracts data from web pages and presents them in search results as squares in an online spreadsheet. Here’s a news flash- for 99% of the population, Google search works just fine. There are far too many people trying to fix what ain’t broken. Here’s a screen shot, which doesn’t really get me all that excited.
Department of Musicology: The “B” Side did a cool thing for Lattimore Brown. You need to read that story, and watch the EconoLodge & Holiday Inn rehearsal videos. And especially the video of his appearance at the Ponderosa Stomp Music Conference.
That Micro-financing Sound: Linda Thompson is using micro-financing to raise money for her next record. You can get a free MP3 if you’re willing to give out your email address. I donated a little bit. For $5000, she’ll actually record one of your songs. I wish I could afford that. I’d ask her to record When You’re Sitting at the Bar (which she could clobber). If you aren’t familiar with Linda’s work, just listen to the very excellent Walking on a Wire from 1982′s Shoot Out the Lights.
Drag and Drop Encoding to Go: EncodeHD promises a simple drag and drop application to encode your video for playback on your device of choice. iPhones are supported, of course.
Blip.fm Department: Thanks to @accepta for being the first (to my knowledge) to blip of one of my songs. Lots of my songs are available via the Blip.fm search box, so please blip away!
Department of Stupidity: I have and will continue to raise a vigorous defense against those who continually criticize everything Christian, but crap like this does not help my cause. It’s important to remember that there are extreme views in every organization and in every faith and those at the edges do not represent the generally quieter and more rational majority.
Hunting for Real Men: I have no respect (to put it mildly) for those dudes who go to Africa and shoot lions and elephants and whatnot. They should stone up and do it this way.
Nerdy Pop Quiz: Here’s a list of 64 things every geek should know. I only know about half of them, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.
Fab Four Department: 30 Days Out has some Beatles rarities. Check out this rehearsal take of “I’m Only Sleeping.”
Jobs I Don’t Want Department: And last, but definitely not least, if you want a new job, maybe you too can be a snapping turtle hunter.
So Now I Actually Know What They’re Talking About: I’ve seen all these articles about waterboarding, without really knowing what it is. Some reporter bet he could withstand 15 seconds of it. Think he made it? Take a look.
Girl Power Department: Dr. Isis at the Science Blogs is doing a really cool series called the Letters to Our Daughters Project, in which accomplished female scientists write letters of advice to young women considering a career in science. As the father of two daughters who would be thrilled to see them pursue and enjoy a career in science, I think this is interesting and worthwhile. Here’s a excerpt from the first one:
About a year later a classmate turned to her and called her a bitch. She thanked him for noticing, and then related how she had not reached her mother’s level of "bitchdom" yet. He said nothing more, and did not try to insult her the rest of the year. She came home from school empowered rather than insulted.
Fortunately for me as a smart girl, my family and my teachers never told me that I could not be who I wanted to be when I grew up.
Amen. I have consistently told my girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. They aren’t going to (and shouldn’t) choose a career just because I want them to, so they might as well do something that makes them happy. I like to expose them to stories about smart, cool women who chose their path, as opposed to having it chosen for them.
We Came to the Pyramids: Speaking of Isis, there’s this on the day before the 5th day of May:
Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child. What drives me to you is what drives me insane. I still can remember the way that you smiled On the fifth day of May in the drizzlin’ rain.
If Kafka Did Airports: This is really funny (via Will Truman):
Do Bears Poop in the Woods Department: Yes, yes a million times yes. Like every other thing in the Web 2.0 space. But as far as I can tell they haven’t sought out the overhype.
Writing blog posts Well you can dream That they’ll be On Techmeme Burma-Blog
Caveman General Says: That some dinosaurs survived the asteroid cataclysm. I wonder if it was Space Invaders that got ‘em. Or maybe this:
Speaking of the Surgeon General: Just remember that “the Surgeon General has one lung and a voicebox but he could still kick your sorry ass.”
Mythbusting Department: I love the epic battles between fairy tales and scientists.
Deep Art Ment: I go to great lengths to avoid all ads. DVR, XM Radio, Adblock Plus, you name it. Yet I like to read old Sears catalogs (I bought two from the 60′s off of eBay a few years ago) and old print ads. Here are some ads you won’t see anymore. And here’s a neat list of vintage illustrations.
Now I Can’t Eat that Either: Want to know how much sugar is in that healthy dish you’re about to consume?
Nice Monkey: On the other hand, some teas allegedly increase your metabolism. I’m not sure I buy it, but it makes me feel better about the Arizona Diet Peach Tea monkey I carry around on my back.
Find great music and books via our hand-selected recommendations below. Click on the image to hear clips and read excerpts at Amazon, or browse the entire Newsome.Org Store, at Amazon.
Speaking of Dell: Am I the only one who thinks Dell’s entire lineup of desktops are butt-ugly? Every time I visit the Dell site and look at computers, I can’t get past the photos. I’d pay $100 to interview the person who decided those cases were anything less than heinous.
One Sentence Movie Reviews: I have recently watched (links to Netflix; 5-point scale): 
Good Idea, Bad Idea Department: I’d love a reliable pair of wireless headphones to use for our podcasts. At first glance 
Sookie, Sookie, Sookie: Several people told me that I would love every single thing about 
