Life is Healthy

Based on a blogging-themed version of the Monopoly board from littleoslo, gaming site Kurnik just launched Blogpoly. From their post about the launch:

For a geek like me, there was no better theme for a Monopoly-like game that I planned to add (even Ghettopoly couldn't compare).

Before you give it a try, however, please be warned that the game is highly addictive. Seriously. The Polish flavour of Blogpoly launched a few days ago is now attracting crowds of more than 3,000 simultaneous players, nearly as much as the most popular game on Kurnik (a Polish card game of Thousand).

Previously, we tied the post-level setting for Backlinks to the Comments setting. Turns out that proved a little limiting for some folks. So we've just pushed additional options that will enable you to control your Backlinks settings separately.

These options can be found in the collapsable section we just added to the bottom of the post composition window. (Yay! I don't need to see the "change date" options all the time anymore.)

Marc Hedlund, blogging at O'Reilly Radar, makes a case for adding perhaps-inconsequential tidbits about yourself to your blog as a way to give your readers a better sense of who you are and therefore make you more memorable to them. He writes:

It turns out, then, for me at least, that reading about someone's cat and what they ate for breakfast and seeing their Flickr photos of the swirls in their coffee and all that adds up to a picture of a person in my mind; not a full likeness, but enough for an actual presence in memory; and with that picture, I associate the things they tell me with them, and remember what they say surprisingly well. Far better than my memory usually works, unattended.

Hot Dog Spot "is the weblog of a crack team of 'dogophiles' who are hot on the trail of the best dog in Los Angeles!"

Godspeed, dogophiles. I wish someone would do this for San Francisco. My vote is for Rosamunde Sausage in lower Haight.

In addition to their Legal Guide, the EFF has published a Guide to Student Blogging; here's a snippet:

Do I Have More Protections for a Personal Blog?

Yes. In Emmett v. Kent School District, 92 F. Supp.2d 1088 (W.D. Wash. 2000), the court held that public school officials had violated a student's First Amendment rights by punishing the student for his personal website, the "Unofficial Kentlake High Home Page." The court held that "[a]lthough the intended audience was undoubtedly connected to Kentlake High School, the speech was entirely outside of the school's supervision or control." Likewise, in Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks School Dist., 247 F.Supp.2d 698 (W.D. Pa. 2003) a federal court found a public school's policy, which prohibited "inappropriate, harassing, offensive or abusive" behavior, was unconstitutional because "the policy could be (and is) read by school officials to cover speech that occurs off school premises and that is not related to any school activity in an arbitrary manner."

Every once in a great while (and much less now than in the past), we have to take Blogger down and poke at it for a bit. Blogger Status is the most comprehensive place for outage alerts, but who wants to have to check another blog? Now we have a new way to let you know of upcoming outages: the Blogger status indicator. It’ll show up on your Dashboard and on pages under the Posting tab and warn of any scheduled outages that might disrupt your posting.


This indicator checks in with Blogger every minute to see if there’s an outage coming up. This means that, even if you’re working on a long post and haven’t refreshed the page in a while, you’ll get notification just the same.

As an added bonus, if the indicator can’t get in touch with Blogger, either because we’re down or because you’re not connected to the Internet, it’ll warn you that you probably won’t be able to post.


Despite all this, if by some trick of fate you lose a post — to a Blogger outage, to network trouble, or to a browser crash — you can usually recover it by using your browser’s back button or the recover post link on the posting page.

Carla Johnson for AP on rise of blogging by senior citizens:

Joe Jenett, a Detroit-area Web designer who has been tracking the age of bloggers for a personal project called the Ageless Project, said he has noticed more older bloggers in the past two years.

"Isn't that phenomenal? And their writing is vibrant," Jenett said. He noted that sites such as Blogger.com give step-by-step instructions and free hosting, making it simpler to self-publish on the Web.

द्राक्षा म्लानमुखी जाता शर्करा चाश्मतां गता

सुभाषितरसं दृष्ट्वा सुधा भीता दिवं गता

Sanskrit Quote
Category: Good Sanskrit Quotes

English Translation of Sanskrit quote:

Looking at the flavor of subhashitas (good sanskrit quotes), grape turned pale, sugar turned into crystals & the nectar (honey) ran away to heaven.

Commentary on Sanskrit quote:

This is how the writers of Sanskrit literature have described the sweetness of good Sanskrit quotes. To emphasize on this, the author has given three striking (though imaginary) examples of the sweetest things we come across. Grapes used to think they are the sweetest thing, but on encountering sweeter flavor of Sanskrit quotes, they turned black with shame. The sugar was so spell bound with the flavor of Sanskrit quotes that it stood stand still with astonishment & turned cold into crystals. The nectar was so scared of the flavor of Sanskrit quotes that it ran away to heaven. Such is the sweetness of Sanskrit quotes & such is the importance of wisdom contained therein. They act as a path setting example of how a good quote can stimulate a depressed man into activity, of how they lift the morale of an unhappy lost soul & convert him into a happier person. They teach us to look at the world around us from a broader perspective & at a new angle. Happy Living!

As a consequence of adding the PuppetVision blog to Blogs of Note, I contributed to overwhelming the quota for their image hosting. Sorry ’bout that. I don’t know if it’s helpful or extortion to mention Blogger images as a way to post images without worrying about being BlogsOfNoteDotted. (Yeah, you heard me. I coined a phrase.)

So check out PuppetVision, but be nice to their servers and close your eyes. And now’s as good a time as any to give credit and admit that I crib my Blogs of Note nominations from Luxo, a blog about Pixar.

We've just introduced a frequently-asked for feature, comment moderation. By using this feature, you can approve or reject what would-be commenters are looking to post before it goes live on your blog.

This is useful in situations where you're looking for a bit more control over the conversation hosted on your blog. Additionally, comment moderation will prevent unwanted comment spam if previous deterrants like word verification and rel="nofollow" have proven insufficient.

You can choose to moderate your comments via either email or from blogger.com. To enable the feature go to the Settings | Comment tab of your blog. As always, more information on how to use this feature can be in the help.

A couple days ago, I picked up David Marusek's novel, Counting Heads, based on Cory Doctorow's ecstatic review over on BoingBoing.

Last night I finished it, after a week of franticly reading it in every spare second - unable to stop because on each page it seemed there was a new thumbnail of an idea or invention that would tease me along to the next chapter. Counting Heads has that remarkable quality of great science fiction - totally absorbing the reader in the intracies of complete world.

Just now I went to see what Blog Search would tell me about what others were saying about Counting Heads. And I realized that Dave Marusek has a Blog*Spot blog he started to talk about the release of his book.

Sweet!

(Interestingly, whenever authors start blogs people from both the publishing industry and bloggers themselves are, generally, excited. There's none of the "how do these two media relate to one another" angst that's been the central conversation around blogs and journalism for lo, these many years. Hmmm.)

आरभ्यते न खलु विघ्नभयेन नीचै:

प्रारभ्य विघ्नविहता विरमंति मध्या:

विघ्नै: पुन: पुनरपि प्रतिहन्यमाना:

प्रारभ्य चोत्तमजना: न परित्यजंति

English Translation of Sanskrit quote:

Those who do not start the work (at all) fearing the obstacles are (called) men of low caliber. Those who start the work but stop on encountering obstacles are (called) men of medium caliber. Those who even after being destroyed again & again by obstacles do not leave the work once started are (called) men of high caliber.

Commentary on Sanskrit quote:

On this particular day a middle aged respectable looking gentleman came to my office. As an orthopedic surgeon by profession, I was to teach him physiotherapeutic spinal exercises for his low backache. He was symptomatically relieved of his backache but looked worried. I offered to help him for his mental agitation. He was working as a senior project management professional in human resource department of one of the corporate multinational company. He was given to select the junior staff of three persons from a short listed ten candidates. He had interviewed all the ten candidates & found them all equally able intellectually. I told him to run a search on their past performance & voila……. There came the solution. Out of ten, five had left previous company because they thought they were given the job which was out of their capability. Three had started the projects but were told to give charge to somebody else on being unable to negotiate with their clients successfully. Only two of them were found to have completed all the projects allotted to them in spite of ever changing work conditions. No prizes here for guessing whom the manager selected to be his junior staff members. And me????? I got the manager of that corporate multinational company as my client for ever. P. S. I hope you have somebody from the human resource department who can benefit from this Sanskrit quote & the above stated experience. You see…Top level business secrets are not given away like this everyday.

It's November, and it's novel-writing time! If you haven't signed up already, you can do so at NaNoWriMo.org, or just dive in and start writing. In a few short weeks, you could have your very own shiny new novel. (Hint: Blog your writing as you go, to create a month-long serialized novel for all your friends. It's fun, and it's harder to quit if you have readers waiting for the next installment.) Good luck!

सहसा विदधीत न क्रियां अविवेक: परमापदां पदम्

वृणुते हि विमृशकारिणं गुणलुब्धा: स्वयमेव संपद:

English Translation of Sanskrit quote:

One should not act suddenly (without judgment). Bad judgment is the seat of greatest disasters. Liking the virtue (of good judgment) wealth, itself, takes (goes) to them who think & act.

Commentary on Sanskrit quote:

I certainly remember the big bullish share market a few years ago. Anybody who knew even a bit about the share markets & stock prizes was commenting authoritatively about uptrend share market had & how much money they should invest to benefit best from it. Those who were in a hurry to cash in on their profits indiscriminately invested in the stocks, bonds & securities only to know of their ill fates as the stock markets crashed a few days later. A few wise men had gone to the stock market & financial investment analyst & were told that this is only a bloated market & not a real uptrend. They restrained from investing in stock markets & probably invested in some other type of financial investment & got assured returns on their investment. Those who had acted hurriedly had nothing left with them. There goes the English saying “Let the bubbles settle before you take the cup of tea.” So if one wants to prosper one should have a discriminating mind which tells him what is good & what is bad for him & his business. Only with the ability to take right decision at the right time can one get along the path of success. So use your judgment properly & to the best of your ability.