Weblogs Archives

Work to be done 2017

Though this and last year have had 'not getting to do what I'd planned to do' as their main theme, I have not given up my intention of moving this site to new software.

My goal is to integrate all my online output into this one place. As is obvious below, there's a lot to be done for Twitter integration, just for starters.

A big part of the problem is that as ideal as it once was and as fond as I am of that old Movable Type foundation, Typepad as a platform has been sorely neglected for a long time. Another is that I haven't had web design or even web-based product management as my main job for years. That's why making the big switch has become an increasingly challenging task and ever easier to put off. But it's time. I'll start with my other, vastly smaller, sites before I tackle this big beast.

Feels like I'm standing outside a ramshackle mansion and rolling up my sleeves. :)

Posted on November 30, 2017 at 07:10 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Definitely still some issues with Typepad's post-by-email... 2016

... which is how I'm getting my non-reply tweets logged here on MetaGrrrl.com.

Many annoyances—CSS being ignored, category showing as text not applied properly, URLs in shortened form, truncated message text, images not passed through—are making me think before long I will have to bite the bullet and completely rebuild the site in software that's better maintained. Maybe for its 20th birthday...

Posted on October 10, 2016 at 04:17 PM in warnings & kvetches, web design & documentation, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

The slow process of bringing it all together 2016

I've been using the Internet a long time. Not as long as some of my friends, but since before the first Clinton administration at least. In all that time I've created many things online, some significant, some fleeting. Lots of them are lost forever, but what I've been able to save, I'm gradually integrating into my blog here on MetaGrrrl.com along with other memorabilia of my life.

Think of it as an autobiography written very, very slowly.

One way I'm able to reduce the workload of this phenomenal project is to automate those additions where services allow me to do so with my skills. Unfortunately, these integrations are often rudimentary, as you can see with my tweets, where Typepad isn't obeying the style rules it should and where, ideally, I'll come back eventually and merge separate related tweets into a single post.

Thanks, everyone, for your patience with this multi-decade project. As ever, I appreciate you visiting my site and reading my words. Thank you for sharing the Web and the world with me!

Posted on October 6, 2016 at 11:26 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Laments of the death of old-school blogging are missing something 2015

Kevin Drum's piece "Blogging Isn't Dead. But Old-School Blogging Is Definitely Dying" is not without some truth, but overlooks key things. Most importantly, that when old-school blogging was in its full flower, text was the only easy way to share yourself online. Now it's almost as easy to create and distribute art or audio or video or combinations of those as it was to submit a long post in the Blogger submission page. We have a great diversity of expression happening, particularly in video.

Beyond which now, with a good computing device in everyone's pocket, it's no longer necessary to save everything up into one chunk you laboriously craft over a long evening at home. The conversation truly can be dialogue, with reactions and riffs taking place within minutes or even seconds. Yes, Twitter and other easy technologies for portable sharing of ideas and images are sometimes knee-jerk, but heaven knows so have the comments under blog posts always been. Nor has >140 characters ever been an unusual length.

One of the strengths of new-school sharing is that it allows conversations to easily extend and expand not only over a growing audience but also over time. Yes, we had follow-up posts back then—and that inter-blog dialogue was always a joy—but it was hard to find and even harder to maintain momentum. Now, between Twitter and, to my mind the best combination of the old and the new, Medium, it's possible to more easily find the pieces of reaction which wander around the web, rebounding from and influencing each other.

I started blogging before the word was coined and have never stopped, but—like many—my means of output have expanded as opportunity grew. Wordy posts pour out of us when words are all we have, but we have so much more we can do now, and more ways to use our words. Since Flickr and Twitter and Medium and the opportunity to take my long-form work into finished books through self-publishing, I write fewer blog posts, but I am even more creative and connected through the web than I was back in the day.

Old-school blogging isn't dead, it's growing up, and growing up beautifully into something new.

Posted on February 1, 2015 at 10:22 AM in Web/Tech, Weblogs, writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

A conversation 14 years long 2012

Have we met?

I asked that question here on this site in September of 1998 in a post one month before MetaGrrrl.com would turn into what we would later call a blog.

I say I've never met Karawynn, Jamie, Carl and Justin. What the fuck does that mean?

I sit next to someone on the bus, I shake hands with a co-worker's client who I'll never see again, I chat with the bank teller and somehow these are people I've met?

...

My body doesn't encompass me.
I don't have to breathe the same air to be in the same place as you.

Have we met?

What a different world we live in now. We've been through radical changes in politics, technology, and cultural norms. Our days have transformed as the non-present world becomes present through these magic devices in our pockets. I live in a different city. Have a completely new career. Am in another relationship.

What hasn't changed? Many of those people that some folks used to say I'd never met are still a part of my daily life.

So here's my question for them, and for you, what has made these "virtual" connections so strong?

How has the way we built the web and the mobile internet and our tech-centric cities strengthened and weakened those chains since that year, 1998, when it seemed like maybe this world wide web thing might be sticking around?

 

Posted on August 17, 2012 at 11:56 AM in friends & family, tools, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Safe in the loving arms of pairNIC 2012

My domain transfer from Dotster (formerly 000domains.com) is now complete. To their credit, they provided adequate service for years until their platform migration snafu and did address all my open support tickets even after I had begun the transfer process to pairNIC. However, I am greatly relieved to now have all my domains with pairNIC, who are just great to work with and have a higher caliber of technical expertise directly available to customers.

Let me know if you encounter problems with accessing any of my sites or if any mail bounces, but I think everything is now working correctly.

Posted on August 5, 2012 at 10:27 AM in Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oo! New glasses? Haircut? Redesign! 2012

It's not a radical change, but my online self is now looking more put together thanks to the skilful minstrations of Mr. Lance Arthur.

Do let me know if you find anything amiss, but, frankly, after the work he did both for appearance and cleanliness of the underlying code, you're more likely to find something working that used to be broken (or at least kinda janky).

The biggest changes took place on Discardia.com, which is now not only prettier, but more functional and a far better reflection of Discardian principles.

Hiring someone who actually knows what they're doing is worth every penny.

Posted on July 9, 2012 at 06:48 PM in web design & documentation, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ch-ch-changes 2012

As you can see, exciting changes are taking place around here.

It took me quite a long while, but I have—over a decade after it ceased being my day job—finally embraced the fact that since I'm not a web designer anymore, that means I can hire someone else to do it for me. Because the someone I have hired is also one of my most trusted friends, this revitalization of my sites will take place with the same devil may care attitude as changes I made myself in the past. You may see all sorts of crazy, halfway-to-their-final-state stages of the process. Pardon, as they say, our dust.

[animated gif of construction guy]

Posted on July 2, 2012 at 09:52 PM in web design & documentation, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wise guys 2012

Very much enjoyed watching this conversation between two smart, sweet friends @anildash & @photomatt. #respect

Posted on June 5, 2012 at 04:23 PM in tweets, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's 98 in blog years, right? 2012

Oh hey, how about that? MetaGrrrl.com "Creation Date: 22-may-1998". Yep. 14 years I've been using this handle. Still like it.

Posted on May 24, 2012 at 02:52 PM in tweets, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Details filling in as I go 2012

Yes, it may look a little sparse around here with my tweets automatically popping over, but don't worry: I'm adding proper titles, additional quotes, better (perhaps more long-term durable) forms of the links, embedded videos, etc. every few days or weekend.

When I looked back on the pre-Flickr, pre-Twitter years of this blog, I realized how much clearer a picture I had of what was going on in my life and capturing my attention. It's my intent to restore that richness to the blog going forward and—as time permits—to bring into the archives of MetaGrrrl.com those things I shared elsewhere on the web.

Thanks for your patience as I work out the kinks of this single lifestream stuff. :)

Posted on April 29, 2012 at 10:23 PM in tweets, warnings & kvetches, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (4)

Exposure is not why I blog. 2012

Was there some kind of major staff change at @typepad? Email/blog stuff now all SEO this, SEO that. Ugh. Sign me "saddened 9 year customer".

They reply:
@MetaGrrrl We just know that a lot of our users are interested in SEO stuff. Is there a specific issue there that's worrying you?

I react:
.@typepad In the wake of this ("Google Is Working On Making SEO Matter Less") you really don't see the negative connotations of the term SEO & ad-over-content culture?

Just using the term in a tweet prompted auto-following by "social media management" & "network marketing pro" types. Ugh. Not the web I want.

Then Ed chimes in:
RT @vielmetti: @typepad, I'm not producing content, I'm writing.

Posted on April 27, 2012 at 11:01 AM in tweets, warnings & kvetches, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Is blogging journalism?” - an FAQ 2012

RT @flashboy: Nice bit of journalism from @currybet

Posted on April 26, 2012 at 09:16 PM in tweets, Weblogs, writing | Permalink | Comments (0)

Upgrades provoke more upgrading 2012

Well, I can see that @ifttt is going to be a huge help to me in bringing my online activity together in one place—& will spark some redesign

Posted on April 17, 2012 at 04:31 PM in tweets, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intellectual property, the online life, and physical death 2010

The recent loss of my dear friend Brad Graham and the memories it brought up of another wonderful person we lost too soon, Leslie Harpold, has me thinking about what might happen to my online presence when I die.

In remembering Brad, many of us began to worry that his wonderful voice online as expressed in his Bradlands.com website might be lost to us as Leslie's was.

I'm fortunate to have a family that understands and celebrates the important role the Web plays in my life. My mother – who could, as my principal emergency contact on all documents calling for such a thing and beneficiary on any life insurance policies I've ever had, argue persuasively that she is my primary heir – has a thriving online life herself, primarily through Flickr. She's also, like me, a writer and would, I think, understand my desire that my works be preserved.

However, the legal position is unclear. My websites have always had copyright statements - either explicitly or implicitly "All Rights Reserved". Some of my Flickr content is Creative Commons licensed, but I have not taken the time to review and update all of my public creative output and its stated license terms.

And why is the legal position unclear? Because I do not have a will. Because of course I'm not going to die anytime soon. Of course. Never mind that Brad was younger than I.

So, yes. I should make a will. But I'd also like to find a way to make it easier for people to declare their intentions without that step.

We in the United States have CC0, which is basically a "No Rights Reserved" license. We have traditional copyright which protects our work for 70 years after our death. But we don't have an easy way to say "While I'm alive, this belongs to me, but after I die, I want to give it to the public domain."

Evan Roth has suggested an "Intellectual Property Donor" sticker for the back of your driver's license, just like an organ donor sticker, but it's unclear that this would be binding since it does not appear on the works to which it applies. It seems to me that a succinct statement which could appear on the work itself, much as a copyright statement does, would be easy to use and legally stronger.

I've got some homework ahead of me, learning more about this topic. I'll be looking at sites like The Digital Beyond and, in particular, their list of service providers in this space. I will also be attending the session "Become Immortal: Understanding the Digital After Life" at SXSW Interactive in March.

Please share your thoughts in the comments and let me know if there are other resources I should be checking out.


The clever Lillian Chow remembered the details of what I only had a vague echo of in my head: Neil Gaiman wrote a great post about this concern and provided, with assistance from lawyer Les Klinger, a tool – a simple will – to help address it. This takes the approach of naming trustees rather than turning things over to the public domain, but it does provide a model we could start from.

Any estate, copyright or other lawyers want to weigh in in the comments on that idea and/or on a phrase which could be used on the bottom of a website to reference it. Something like "Copyright © John Doe during my lifetime, transferred to public domain upon my death, per my will."

Posted on January 26, 2010 at 03:26 PM in creativity, The Web, tools, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (7)

Step by slow step, pulling it all together 2009

*phew* Even for web geeks sometimes this stuff can be such a long slow haul.

What I want is for my blog at MetaGrrrl.com to reflect all my online publishing as MetaGrrrl. That means, currently, that I want to have my tweets from Twitter and my photos from Flickr to appear inline along with longer blog posts.

It would also be swell if when I post to my blog, that would also be reflected in Twitter with a tweet.

All of this is made much more complex by the fact that I use advanced templates. Yes, I'm greedy; I want the maintenance ease of TypePad and the control of Movable Type. Fortunately, Six Apart usually gets me at least 80% of the way to where I want to go and frequently does so with more ease and elegance than I expected.

In theory, I've now linked my Twitter account to my TypePad account, but so far I haven't seen it actually work. Perhaps that's because the new little mini Compose function doesn't actually share out to Twitter, which seems bizarre since it's intended for short content, but might be true.

---

Aha. Finally found a Share This Post help page with some screen shots and I wasn't getting the options in the interface. I deleted the Twitter account and re-added it and now it seems to be tickety-boo.

Posted on December 12, 2009 at 10:08 PM in Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eleven years. 2009

Eleven years?! Holy cow. I've been writing this blog for eleven years. What a lovely time it's been! Wonder how the next eleven will be?

I believe I'll celebrate with a vacation near the ocean. See what little treasures the tide washes up...

Posted on October 10, 2009 at 03:20 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (3)

Nine years ago today 2008

On May 24, 1999, is the first use of the term "blog" on this site. (The title was added later since my posts were untitled in that distant era).

Brad posted about exactly the same thing the day before me so he got the OED reference, darn him. :)

I was working with Ev & Meg on a contract project at HP at that time, so I was almost certainly the vector for Peter's "wee blog" to be converted to verb form "we blog" and thence to the name Blogger.

I had Blogger blog #11 and helped test this new little "side project" of the Pyra gang. The rest is history. Good times, good times.

As Brad puts it so well, happy birthday, you awkward, uneuphonious little word!

Posted on May 24, 2008 at 11:44 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

Victoria Harbour from Lure restaurant 2007

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the beginning of my delicious dinner at Lure, in honor of the 9th birthday of my blog

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Posted on October 10, 2007 at 12:00 PM in Food and Drink, travel, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

9 Years 2007

When I was 9 years old I went on a big trip with my folks to Scotland & Norway and still feel the echoes of that wonderful trip today.

What will MetaGrrrl.com do now that it's nine years old? Exploration, new friends, new horizons, new foods, new ideas... that's what I'm hoping for.

Thanks for reading and commenting and being part of my adventure!

Posted on October 10, 2007 at 09:37 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (5)

Venerable 2006

To my amusement this evening I received some spam with the subject line

when to stop blogging

and I just had to laugh because tomorrow is MetaGrrrl.com's 8th birthday.

When to stop? Not yet!

Posted on October 9, 2006 at 08:02 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0)

MetaGrrrl Classics #1: Best product endorsement ever 2005

December 21, 2000

Now that's an ass!

Thanks again, Neale!

Posted on December 18, 2005 at 10:47 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (1)

Wait, how can I be a trendmonkey and behind the times? 2005

And in the category "Best second comment on a weblog" the winner is danf for

Of course, you would probably start a live journal now that several other popular bloggers have mentioned having private livejournals and other switching to live journals already.

Honestly, do you ever do anything other than follow? I use to enjoy your site. But you seem to just tag along with everyone else. GTD? You started writing about it months after it broke, like it was some new deal. Now this live journal rant when it's already been passed around the web.

I'm disappointed, really. Thanks for the previous years, though. I'm sad you changed.

I know, I know, cheese? EVERYONE writes about that. Pictures of baby rhinos? SO old hat. And, really, who DIDN'T quote Greg Brown lyrics this month?

Sheesh.

Other bloggers are talking about LiveJournals? Dude, I'm just writing about 'em because someone turned me on to a really good one and I've read 3 years worth of posts in the last 3 weeks. Given my blog-centric past, it made me wax philosophical. (And what's funny is I've been reading that journal so much I think I missed the other discussions you reference).

To clarify: I post about things that I find interesting, amusing, beautiful, useful and/or significant. And I've been doing so since 1998.

This may come as a shock to you, but MetaGrrrl.com is not in fact a news site or the home of the meme-of-the-week.

Nor do I write it to please you. If it does, cool. If not, there's a big wide web out there and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

I am curious, though; hey everybody, what do you think are the classic Dinah posts? You know, before she sold out.


Soundtrack for this post? Tool.

Posted on December 16, 2005 at 10:02 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (6)

I'm not trading this in, but... 2005

... after much consideration, I have to concede that one of the differences between a blog and a LiveJournal is that the latter seems to be more likely to develop the kind of community that leads to strings of fantastic comments.

For example, a couple years ago (yes, when I find a site I like I do tend to dig for those deep album cuts) Gordonzola asked everyone what they hate and generated an enormous response. Replies included:

- lysosy's hatred of "PolarTec couples. You've seen them. They wear khakis and fleece pullovers with hiking boots, and their Golden Retrievers sit in the SUV under the kayak. The girls pull their ponytails through the hole in the back of the cap, and the guys always have skinny legs."

- amarama's long list includes SUVs with "Free Tibet" stickers and White men who only date Asian women.

- capn jil hates lots of stuff I agree with, but especially "white people with fugly dreadlocks"

- I'm also right there with misia when it comes to "People who send me multiply-forwarded urban legend e-mail. (OH MY GOD THEY'RE PUTTING KITTENS IN BOTTLES!)" and elusis on "Top-quoters in email" and wasop regarding "People who take their dogs everywhere.  A dog is not a child substitute, and it does not need to help you pick out a new throw blanket at Crate and Barrel.  " and the anonymous poster who railed against "anyone wearing so much cologne that I can taste it when I am not actually licking them at the moment"

And then there's this gem from msjen:

People who teeter around SOMA on Friday and Saturday nights, holding each other up as they stagger to their cars (parked in valuable parking spaces), giggling and announcing how drunk they are.

When I lived near MIT frat row in Boston, where this of course happens a lot, I proposed building a satellite death ray that would be triggered from space by any human that yelled "Whoooo!!!" and had a certain blood alcohol level.

I think it's time.

Posted on November 28, 2005 at 09:25 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (4)

Seven years good luck 2005

Happy birthday, metagrrrl.com. Seven years of blogging. Almost 2500 posts. Wow. I guess I found my medium.

Sure was a nice weekend here in San Francisco. I had a great time Saturday night. My friends Len, B.J. & Bev and I went to dinner at Sneaky Tiki (pricy but fun, with tasty appetizers). On the way there Len and I shared a cab with a nice woman we met at The Trolley Stop Where The Trolley Never Seems To Be Coming and in our 6 block ride together heard the nutshell version of her life which entailed decades as a Southern Baptist preacher and head of a funeral home business in Texas before realizing a few years back that none of that was right and he was a she. "On Sunday I said farewell to my congregation, on Monday I sold my business and by Wednesday I was on my way to San Francisco to begin transitioning." We all agreed it was good to let go of the things that don't fit in your life and she said "yes, like Southern Baptism, the Republican party and conservative Texas". She positively radiated that "I'm on the path that is absolutely right for me" vibe that's so energizing. I love this town.

After dinner, Len, B.J., Bev and I walked over to Natoma Street to a little tiny hidden theater space
to see TVLand Presents Star Trek Episode 4: Mudd's Women at Theatre Tableau Vivant. 82759462_a41d1d6840_o
Tremendous fun and Leigh Crow does an amazing job as Kirk. Marvelous satire and yet also capturing why he's a such a likeable character. I'll definitely be watching for TVLand's next show.


Had a lovely lazy Sunday brunching and puttering around Open Studios with a certain very pleasing fellow.

So, my weekend having including all the necessary ingredients: alone time to kick back, hanging out with friends time, getting chores done time, laughing time, enjoying local creativity time, kissing a handsome man time, being fed tasty food time, and the aforementioned sipping cocktails, clever interior design, flirting with cute boys, outrageous fashion, witty friends and more than my minimum recommended weekend allowance of gender-bending, I'm ready to face the week.

Posted on October 10, 2005 at 07:44 AM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (5)

Blog (noun) A weblog or similar brief journal usually containing links and commentary thereon. Term coined by Peter Merholz.

Visit Typepad or Blogger to start your own. (I began with hand coding, then switched to Blogger when it first became available, then to Movable Type when I wanted more control over my weblog and to have it hosted at a place of my choosing (Hurricane Electric). Since 06/2003 I've used Typepad, a hosted service built by the same folks who made Movable Type, which I love because I don't have to maintain the underlying system).

You may write to Dinah @ this domain.

Except where otherwise noted all content is copyright 1965-2018 Dinah Sanders. Please do not repost my writing or other creations elsewhere. Instead, copy a tiny bit and link to the rest. Thanks! Images are copyright of their original creators. MetaGrrrl logo and photos by Dinah are copyright 1965-2018 Dinah Sanders. Inkspot Books and the Inkspot logo have been Service Marks of Dinah Sanders since 1993.