blog.mignault.net

My contest entry

CONTEST: WIN THE NEW RHODIA WEBNOTEBOOK!:

“‘Check out this cool site dedicated to finding Moleskine alternatives called blackcover.net’

or

‘Here’s an interesting site run by an obsessive compulsive nut who has an unhealthy addiction to stationery products! Check it out!‘”

(Via Black Cover.)

Interestingly, the second blurb sort of applies to me. I have a much greater addiction to fountain pens than notebooks, but I still have tons of notebooks around and a fairly unhealthy relationship with paper. The point of this post is mainly as an entry in a drawing for a free Rhodia Webnotebook, because Moleskines ain’t what they used to be. I am finishing an old lined one and looking for newer better alternatives. Hopefully I’ll win an alternative.

Testing the conversation

From the shameless dept…

If anybody at Bike Friday wants to send me a Tikit in return for my aging SA 5-speed Brompton, I’d be more than happy to say really cool things about them here. We already use a Family Traveler for the school run every morning and we love it. We were zooming along singing “Gangsters” by the Specials at the top of our lungs this morning….

Technorati Tags:
cycling, tikit, bike+friday

Google doctype

New developer resource from Google:

doctype

Doctype is a Google-sponsored open encyclopedia and reference library for developers of web applications. By web developers, for web developers.

* Open source
* Open content
* Open to contributions from anyone

Looks like a very useful resource and an interesting new application of social media. Not sure if it’s wiki-based, or whether this is something new from Google. Found via Gruber.

My 10-year-old kid

The Teacher’s View: Aram Saroyan’s Complete Minimal Poems:

“‘Anyone could have written these poems,’ another student said. ‘I could have written these poems.’

‘Yes, you could have,’ I replied, ‘but you didn’t.’ “

Saroyan’s Complete Minimal Poems has just been republished by Ugly Duckling Presse, and there’s been some comment due to the NEA kerfuffle over this poem (presented here in its entirety, though not in its solitary on the page context):

lighght

Cue gov’t hysteria over your tax dollar funding this crap, etc etc. The cited post is about a high-school class discussing the poems prior to Saroyan’s May 18th visit to the class. The exchange above is one of the best responses to the generic and eternal “my not-going-to-be-born-for-20-years-yet kid could have painted that asleep” argument I’ve ever read. But the students raise some interesting points, and this guy sounds like a pretty damn good teacher. Read the whole thing. I’m looking forward to the entry after Saroyan visits the classroom.

Holy crap. Aram Saroyan is 65 years old. Jeebus.

Technorati Tags:
literachoor, politics, poetry, saroyan, nea

Obligatory upgrade post

Upgraded to WP 2.5.1, now with extry hax0r resistance. Go thou and blah blah.

Technorati Tags:
blogging, geek, wordpress

Hi neighbor

We spent the weekend on Block Island, and in the local packy I saw that they are again making Narragansett beer, which in my misspent youth was the kind of stuff you drank strictly from sobriety – $2 change for a kinger six, and the resulting piss had more flavor than the beer.

I spoke to the proprietor, and she told me it’s been revived as a retro craft-type beer. Interestingly enough, it’s currently brewed in NY, not RI; but she also mentioned that they’ve sent a few shipments of RI water to NY to brew “limited edition” Gansett.

I bought a bottle and drank it in my hotel room that evening. It’s decent; nothing special, but a good lager, and certainly not the horror it was back then.

Technorati Tags:
beer, narragansett, craft+beer

wuh pee too five

How lame has a blog gotten when the blogger only makes entries about upgrading the blog software? This lame.

Technorati Tags:
blogging, wordpress, geek, upgrades

Deeply tindertwingled

Grand Text Auto » Programs Ted Nelson Likes: “When I pressed him to mention any programs – including small-scale ones like games – that influenced him, he said he wasn’t a game guy and just mentioned some other ‘full platforms’ that aren’t computers: Tinderbox, Emacs, and Flash.”

2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Which 2 I mean is left as a really simple exercise for the reader. I wonder if Mark Bernstein’s seen this?

(Via.)

UPDATE: He’s seen it.

Technorati Tags:
mac, emacs, tinderbox, hypertext, ted nelson

At what way?

more compelling than choice:

“I found myself pondering easy choice, supermarket paralysis and internet addiction in the context of the exciting promise and strange underwhelmingness of much hyperfiction. Then, yesterday, interactive game creator and SixToStart ARG writer James Wallis said something that flipped the light on. ‘Writing for interactive is different to print writing,’ he said. “

Apparently so.

(Via if:book.)

Technorati Tags:
e-books, grammar, writing, books

Google Maps “Bike There” petition

When I was figuring out my route to work via bike, I used Google Maps. I ended up having to do a lot of blue-line dragging, though, because, even with Avoid Highways turned on, i still wasn’t easy to plot a bike-friendly route. There’s a online petition asking Google to add a “Bike There” button to Google Maps, and if you’re at all for sustainable transportation, I hope you’d take a minute to go sign it. It’s at:

http://googlemapsbikethere.org/

Thanks.

Technorati Tags:
cycling, bicycling, bike+commuting, sustainable+transport, google, google+maps