week 35, 2004 archives
it’s all about the benjamins
technorati has reportedly raised some venture capital (via anil dash), but the thing that struck me is the valuation and amount of investment: $12 million valuation, $6.5 million investment. that would put the VCs in control.
i wonder if i’m being dumb for not pursuing blogging-related dollars.
charity, august 2004
if you’re getting a sense of déjà vu, it is because i also gave money to the southern poverty law center in august 2003. (and if you’re really keeping track, august 2002, too.)
i think one reason i’ve been a faithful supporter of the splc is that they send what i consider to be a reasonable amount of fundraising literature, but also the really great intelligence report magazine. they are guilty of doing the silly ploy of having the forms with the donation levels that are based on your previous contribution. (so the smallest one is the same as your previous contribution, the middle one is 1.5× that, and the high amount is double.)
recently the world wildlife fund has been getting on my nerves by sending what seem to be weekly brochures for their travel program.
i took a dip into the itunes music store again, and picked up the eponymous debut album from mosquitos. i found it via salon’s music sampler. it’s a fun album, although too short. they have another coming out in october.
now i’m thinking that i may have jumped the gun in buying it from the itunes music store, though. i’ve got another growing itch to visit amoeba records.
selling stock short
there’s things to like about the motley fool, but i hate it when they publish dumb articles like this one that says you should never sell stocks short. the whole unlimited-risk angle of selling stocks short is completely oversold. you see, there’s this thing called a stop order….
fun with archives
rescued from an old disk: trained monkey, before october 1998 and trained monkey, circa november 1998. i just renamed some .php3 files to .php, and fixed up some paths so the right images would load and the links would go to the right places.
i think the original design actually holds up pretty well, although the content is sparse. the later design has the fun fake history of the company, but otherwise doesn’t work as well. but it was the beginning of the hanging-monkey logo, which i only recently abandoned.
failed password for root from ...
what is with the recent uptick in failed ssh logins everywhere? a few weeks ago, i almost never got emails from the automatic log watchers about these, now i get at least one or two a day, all from different ip addresses. usually they’re attempted root logins, but sometimes they’re attempts to log in as other role accounts (like bin).
discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or nation.
XCHANGE::PDF and mac os x
somehow, xchange::pdf manages to create pdf files that mac os x’s preview application can not handle, but adobe acrobat reader can. since this is the tool that my internet service provider uses to produce the bills that i need to print out to include in expense reports, it means i need to fire up adobe acrobat reader to handle them instead of just being able to print them from my browser. (and this means i keep around a disk image of adobe acrobat reader, because i don’t want to actually install the thing….)
called to serve
naturally, my group was called to report for jury duty on the first possible day. the worst part is the early report time (7:30am) that simply leads to two hours of listening to instructions (some delivered by video) about jury duty. there should be some way to get out of that part of the service, especially if you have served before. (maybe some sort of online quiz that you could take that would demonstrate you knew the information.)
this week in downtown news
two pieces that caught my eye in the la downtown news this week: “a market shift: grand central struggles to balance history with changing demographics”, and “broadway buildings get $1 million facelift”.
personally, i’m glad to see more (prepared) food vendors in the grand central market. the one thing they’re bringing is variety. it will be great to have a tortilla maker in the market again, and i’m looking forward to the hawaiian barbecue place. i’m not sure that mongolian barbecue is a great fit for the space (you have to point out what you want to the person loading the bowl through glass partition, which makes it nearly impossible to communicate), but the food is tasty. it will be interesting to see how the 99 cent store opening in the underground space does. perhaps it will help fill the gap left when the baked goods vendor closed a few months ago.
i’m not entirely sure about what variety the multitude of produce vendors really brings to the market. they all sell basically the same things at the same prices, and none of them appear to put much effort into distinguishing themselves from the others.
the broadway renovation projects sound great, although i’m less than thrilled about the use of taxpayer funds to pay for it. it is a shame that the building owners can’t justify spending their own money for the improvements.
oh, and i should probably mention the article about bringing wifi to pershing square. it’s a fine idea, although i’m really not a big fan of pershing square.
you could probably be drinking whole milk.
napoleon dynamite was the movie of choice this week — apparently it has been re-released, with an epilogue added (which i did not realize, and probably missed because i left during the credits).
it is a truly strange movie. it’s a very how-on-earth-did-that-get-made sort of movie. the plot sort of clumps together out of all of the odd little scenes and quirky behavior by the even more quirky characters. there are some laugh-out-loud moments, but most of the humor is so low-key, it is practically tragedy.
i saw “a dangerously unexpected tribute to la music with musical direction by stew, featuring the cover problem” at the california plaza last night, part of the (via grand performances series. the california plaza is a really cool performance area (the stage is actually within a part of the fountains at the watercourt).
the show was pretty good — the cover problem performed what were basically mash-ups of songs about los angeles or by los angeles bands. one of the best mashed together the eagles’ “hotel california” and iron butterfly’s “in-a-gadda-da-vida”. one of the special guests did a cover of van halen’s “jump” that was great, too.
