Category: Our Web, Ourselves.

Salon had an article about Flickr this morning that didn’t mention who invented the thing. If I were the folks at Ludicorp, I’d be pissed.

Jenny Traig’s Virtual Book Tour went off without a hitch. Now back to regularly scheduled blogging.

I’m thrilled to be hosting Jennifer Traig and her memoir Devil in the Details: Scenes From an Obsessive Girlhood for the latest installment of the Virtual Book Tour. DITD is a hilariously touching look at Traig’s childhood in rural Northern California and her twin battles with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Orthodox Judiasm. Ms. Traig is a frequent contributor to McSweeney’s and The Forward. She is the author of a series of young adult books and a humor book, Judaikitsch. She has a Ph.D. in literature and lives in San Francisco

The tour is smack in the middle of Chrismukkah. Consider Devil in the Details an excellent holiday choice for the neurotic (of any faith) in your life. You’ll laugh your fool head off.

Tour stops are here. Stops marked “Review Squad” are a new part of the VBT, blogs that have graciously agreed to review the book as part of their daily blogging instead of serving as a more formal tour stop.

Enjoy.

Sometimes you just need a little geek talk. You need to hear smart people talking about “jacking in” and Bluetooth-enabled easy chairs. You don’t know why but you’re probably doing something utterly mindless and wish you otherwise engaged.

I was thrilled then when Dan Budiac pointed me towards IT Conversations, a free audio repository of various high-geekery speeches, presentations and conference panels. No one (save probably my friend JD Lasica

Finally, a really good explanation, thanks to my buddy Brad Stone via Social Media.

Ok, even though I sounded really bitter a few posts ago, I’m actually insanely jealous that I didn’t get to go to Web 2.0—great speakers, fabulous topics, a ton of great thinking in one place. Plus, I just don’t get to see Ben and Mena all that often. I guess I’m sad that it costs $3000, that it was aimed at “the hardcore business geek” (their words) and that I didn’t think to talk my way into a press pass. Hmmph.

I’ve been listening to MP3s of the panels (generously linked to by Jason Calacanis), which have been setting my own head abuzz with ideas. As soon as Litquake winds up (it starts tomorrow), I’m going to try and have some lunches with the smarter people I know and ask a lot of questions.

After the Zinefest yesterday, I really wanted an excuse to stay home and get the hell out of the heat. But MJ and her roommates had invited us over to housewarm their new place. “Think food and general geekatude”, MJ told me. We’ve got a huge TV and WiFi. I brought my laptop.

An MJ party usually means a sizeable percentage of the tech-savvy that I can ply with dumb questions. I had been enjoying Mr. Merlin’s new blog 43 Folders earlier that weekend and wanted to soup up the ole iBook something serious.

They did not let me down. I now have my Safari bookmark bar back which makes me feel all kinds of empowered, learned about Audioscrobbler and how to burn DVDs to my hard drive which is great because I never remember to return anything to the video store on time.

Several other folks (including Bill whom I hadn’t seen in a long time) brought laptops and a general media swapping frenzy began. CD were pulled off the shelves and duped. DVDs downloaded. Link wisdon exchanged.

This is a great idea for a 21st century party. Of the nerdtastic sort. I love it.

So Friendster has decided to fire the engineer who upgraded their slow-ass backend. Why? Because this engineer decided to blog about it. About her job. About work, something just about everyone blogs about.

Since neither of the posts in question reveal protected trade secrets (so far as I can tell) this strikes me as barely legal. Related coverage may reveal otherwise but if Joyce Park didn’t divulge confidential information, I can’t imagine why blogging is an appropriate reason for job termination.

Despite Friendster CEO Jonathan Abrams’s asinine behavior at last year’s South by Southwest, I can’t say I saw this coming.

Friendster accounts are being cancelled all over the place. I might just do the same (via BoingBoing).

I know I haven’t posted about my trip to Ireland but I have mad catch up to do before my book’s deadline on Sept. 1. So I’m going to try to blog about my trip this weekend but until then, simple regular-old blogging.

Ok?

The Virtual Book Tour has hit the open road again for a one day invasion of several distinguished blogs. See here for a complete list. The touring author is MJ Rose, novelist, thinker and friend. Her book is The Halo Effect.

I’m happy to be at the controls for today. Please let me know if any of ya’ll have questions.