February 2004

Ashes to Ashes Diamonds
Welcome to the LifeGem Home – www.LifeGem.com Memorial Diamond:

Here you will find everything you need to know about this wonderful memorial. The LifeGem is a certified, high quality diamond created from the carbon of your loved one as a memorial to their unique and wonderful life.

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Lab Addition
My Demonstration of oncontextmenu Event Handler has been updated with the information that the code works under Safari 1.2 and Firefox 0.8. Thanks Joe Xaxo for this information!

How the Press Failed Us Before The Iraq Invasion and Occupation
The New York Review of Books: Now They Tell Us:

“Since the end of the war, journalists have found no shortage of sources willing t criticize the administration. (Even Colin Powell, in a recent press conference, admitte that, contrary to his assertions at the United Nations, he had no ‘smoking gun’ proof of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.) The Washington Post has been especially aggressive in exposing the administration’s exaggerations of intelligence, its inadequate planning for postwar Iraq, and its failure to find weapons of mass destruction. Barton Gellman, who before the war worked so hard to ferret out Iraq’s ties to terrorists, has, since its conclusion, written many incisive articles about the administration’s intelligence failures.

The contrast between the press’s feistiness since the end of the war and its meekness before it highlights one of the most entrenched and disturbing features of American journalism: its pack mentality. Editors and reporters don’t like to diverge too sharply from what everyone else is writing. When a president is popular and a consensus prevails, journalists shrink from challenging him. Even now, papers like the Times and the Post seem loath to give prominent play to stories that make the administration look too bad. Thus, stories about the increasing numbers of dead and wounded in Iraq both American and Iraqiare usually consigned to page 10 or 12, where they won’t cause readers too much discomfort.”

San Diego Bloggers, Ads
San Diego Bloggers now includes Google Adsense Ads. I have pondered including advertising in some of my sites for some time, and now SDB includes them, as of yesterday. I’m curious to see how well they work—or don’t work.

Cool Feature from the US Postal Service
USPS - Track & Confirm by Email.

I recently sent off for a renewal of my passport, and I did delivery confirmation, and I get notifications that they got it. It’s so cool.

Bruce Sterling shift in tone…
The latest Beyond the Beyond has Sterling being rather poetic about wandering in the desultory urbanity of Modern Turkey.

I like it…

The Dolphins Are Talking To Me
Halcyon: Carl cried “Dolphins!” on Sunday.
Joanie: said “What Dolphins” on Sunday.
And on Monday I was working on a redesign of LAMP Host which includes the MySQL Logo, which features a dolphin.
Janece: talks about IMAX Dolphins on Monday.

Is it that I’m merely noticing mentions of dolphins? Or are dolphins entering the collective unconscious somehow?

There are a few mentions in the news.

Mere coincidence, I think.

Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego
BoingBoing points to the eTech Wiki, the eTech main page, and BloggingETech.com

Of the folks I read: Dori, Doc Searls, and Brianstorms.

Also check the Technorati Profile of the main conference page.

I had intended to go, but I’m way busy.

New Badges
There are new badges for San Diego Bloggers I found. One by Tim Murphy, and one by Dale Franks.

On a related note: Leah has some too.

Red Door Interactive Buys AVENCOM
Red Door Interactive acquires AVENCOM. NIFTY. I’ve worked with both companies: as an employee for AVENCOM and a contractor for Red Door. I think it’s a good fit.