I’ve implemented a little update for the ‘Related Content’ that’s found at the bottom of each post. While all posts will continue to link to other posts on a vaguely similar theme, longer posts will show a ‘Sphere It!’ link.
These links show content from all around the web and particularly the ‘blogosphere’ as bloggers like to call it. I think of the ‘blogosphere’ just as I would ‘the media’ but with the simple difference that content is written by normal people and perhaps not a professional production. The Sphere link opens an onscreen box which links to this other aggregated content. Just as the ‘Related Posts’ links are generated automatically and without any input from me (in their case, by Yahoo), Sphere content is linked via the company itself and I have no control over what it shows your or how or why.
Other examples of Sphere links can be seen below:
Walt Mossberg
TechCrunch
Just thought I’d point out two or three features of the site that may not be initially noticable. First is the RSS Feed of the page - like a self updating bookmark of all the posts that I’ve been writing. You can drag the link below onto your Safari/IE7/Firefox toolbar and it will show an alert when a new post is published. RSS Recent Posts Feed.
The other thing is the ‘Asides’ posts on the right hand side. Something I’ve been looking at doing for a while - these miniposts allow me to post little bits of info/news without writing a whole lot about them. You can comment on asides just like on a normal post. Click on the number (normally a ‘0′) at the bottom of the ‘aside’ and that will take you to a full-post style representation of the content. It’s like a normal post but, smaller! Think of the hierarchy of posts as; full post, asides, then ma.gnolia bookmarks.
Oh, and there’s the ‘related posts’ thing. I just added that last week or so. Half for me to see what else is related, half in case the thing that’s related is interesting. It works by analysing the words of a post and linking to similarly themed posts. Clever!
This story could be, IS (really), about my sister. Completely. I’m always shocked and awed… but in the good way. I know so many girls that are the future high achievers. The ones who coach the soccer team, are on the swim team, play the instruments, speak the languages, get the grades and the boys. They do it all, which is amazing but is doing it all what they really want to do? I try to be good but I know I’ll never be perfect…
The first message: Bring home A’s. Do everything.
The second message: Be yourself. Have fun. Don’t work too hard.
You still have to be pretty, thin and, as one of Esther’s classmates, Kat Jiang, a go-to stage manager for student theater who has a perfect 2400 score on her SATs, wrote[…] “It’s out of style to admit it, but it is more important to be hot than smart.”
“Effortlessly hot,” Kat added.
NYTimes: For Girls, It’s Be Yourself, and Be Perfect Too
I always think that I don’t really have any nicknames or pet names, until I really think about it and realise that LOTS of people call me names that are not my real name. Not that I mind or anything, I just don’t think of them myself. Here’s a selection of recent names for me. If you have any others you’re been whispering behind my back, yes Rebecca like ’stud muffin’, add them in the comments. 
- Petruchio
- (Allison)
- Pat
- (Rowena)
- Paddy
- (Andy)
- Patio
- (Rebecca)
- Patioo
- (Rebecca)
- P P P P P!!!
- (Roisin)
- Mr P.
- (Ken)
- Pat-e-rique
- (Stella)
- Paddy
- (Helen)
Andy Stern on the WSJ: The Wal-Mart Posse
He makes a huge fuss over how many anti-Wal-Mart groups are funded by ‘organized labor’. As though that’s a bad thing? Who else keeps tabs on these people? Nobody! They don’t hide their funding. It’s obvious that these ‘anti’ groups are going to be funded by somebody. And it’s not going to be Chinese factory owners. Who does care: the people who get paid dirt cheap nothingness wages. The unions are tryign to change wal-mart even when they’re not largely paid by wal-mart workers because of anti-union policies throughout Wal-Mart’s history. I think that’s pretty impressive that the Unions still try. And he claims that Wal-Mart is good for poor people. Only if you’re rich enough to drive there and shop and have other options too. it’s not great if it’s the only store in town, if it’s built a mega-store on your backyard. It’s not great if it’s made you redundant by putting your former employer out of business. And he claims that 7-12 dollars an hour is not a poverty wage. Not poverty?! Good lord. I assume he’s not paid 7 dollars an hour. I’m always amazed by American opposition to ‘organized labor’. It always shows a really rather mean capitalist streak. Don’t let those poor people get themselves together. Their leaders MUST be into something else. They MUST have an alterior motive.
“Today the company employs 1.3 million American workers, and its recent push into groceries has made life miserable for Safeway and other grocery chains organized by the service workers or the UFCW.” - Are the unions really that scared of Wal-Mart doing groceries? Who cares as long as they do it right! But this isn’t Costco with an average wage of 16 dollars an hour. Wal-Mart workers are lucky to be able to shop in their own store. And the reason there are always thousands of applicants for Wal-Mart jobs isn’t because they’re good jobs. It’s because Wal-Mart drops their stores on the poorest, cheapest areas in the region. There are lots of people out of work! That doesn’t make the jobs good ones, it just shows how desperate the people are. The WSJ disgusts me sometimes.
Andy Stern on the WSJ: The Wal-Mart Posse
I slept in my contacts overnight, not an unusual thing, but woke up with a pair of killer bloodshot eyes. Not pretty!
New pair I think..
(of contacts, not a new pair of eyes, though that would be convenient!)
My house was built in 1907. That’s the only thing I know about my house, really, and I tell it to people all the time. “It was built in 1907,” I say, pointing at something in the house when we’re walking around. I could be pointing at my CD player. It doesn’t matter what I’m pointing at, because then I make a little joke I always make: “It was a very popular year to build houses in San Francisco.”
I would say ‘Classic!’, but I think I’m overusing that word today. But you know what I’m thinking.
NYTIMES: My House - What Lies Beneath
