I feel as if I have a media mistress (or two). I’ve been a bit lax posting the last few days not just because of life and family (tonight was the middle school’s open house, where guys like me look at the algebra text and, for once, feel glad to be old) and consulting (read: income) but also because I was writing a Guardian column. I feel like a shameless blogging hussy. But I’ll be back.
Tag: Weblogs
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Multimedia
Steve Baker at Business Week has started podcasting and we sat down and talked about Recovery 2.0 (more details on that soon). JD’s quite right that they’re going to get in a tussle for calling this chats with the “elite.” There is no elite. There’s just us.
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WordPress help
I’m getting an error on some — but not all — pages, a 412 error: “Precondition Failed. The precondition on the request for the URL /wp-comments-post.php evaluated to false.”
If you try to post a comment on the post below, for example, I get the error.
In the support forums, I see something about Bad Behavior, a spam filter, but I use Spam Karma. I deactivated and activated it; no difference.
I also got this error just going from one page in an archive to another.
Any ideas??: LATER: I just shortened the url and it worked. Have no idea whether that’s the cure. If you get a problem like this on the site, please let me know. thanks.
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Now this is obscene
The FBI is expanding resources to fight not terrorism but… porn. And not kiddie porn but the good bits aimed at adults. The Washington Post reports today that the bureau is recruiting agents to ferret out flesh and that even people in the FCC are rolling their eyes.
The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography — not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.
“I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror,” said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. “We must not need any more resources for espionage.”
That is obscene. Last I checked, we were still at war with terrorism. And we certainly ran short of good law-enforcemenet help in New Orleans, didn’t we? But what is the priority the administration and, one assumes, of the man in charge of the Justice Department — the man who’s reportedly in line to sit on the Supreme Court. They want to stop grownups from getting off.
: The fact that Captain’s Quarter, Instapundit, and I are all writing with disgusted disapproval about this today has nothing to do with the fact that we were all just mentioned in Playboy. Honest.
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Asked and answered
Jason Calacanis starts an “Ask Jason” feature and I read with interest his first answer in the very offices of About.com:
1. Paul Short Asks: If you were to start a large content portal along the lines of About.com, what would you try to improve on or try to do better than them (or similar sites) in terms of a) organizing the content, b) initial promotion, and c) building in interactivity with your readers ,beyond comment features or newsletters.
Paul: Trying to take on About.com would be like trying to take on a freight train with your mountain bike–it won’t be pretty. As Mark Cuban likes to say “if you want to run with the elephants you’re either quick or you’re dead.” So, given the fact that you’ll never beat About.com or Wikipedia.org at this point in the game, your best bet is to look at how far their content goes and at least triple the value they provide.
And he goes on to give good advice.