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They didn't allow cameras so this is from my cell phone.
On Monday I'll be attending an event in DC hosted by President George W. Bush. He will be speaking about defending democracy against terrorism.
Any suggestions on questions I should ask, assuming they let us ask our own questions without approving them first?
Real-life Simpsons Intro...
A friend sent me a story that was mostly true, but some details were changed. I found this out through the urban-legend-busting site Snopes.com.
We've all seen a blog entires about stories that seemed real enough but were actually urban myths, totally made up, or originally posted on parody news sites.
Here's my idea: A tool that automatically looks up content on resources like Snopes.com and lets users know when something they are about to email, post, or share is not real. It would work behind the scenes, the same way anti-phishing and anti-virus software.
A tool like this would help make all of us smarter by reducing the amount of fake information clutter we run into every day.
I already have an idea for version 2: political spin detector. Of course there have to be several different editions of that one depending on which resources our users trust for their information.
Here's my "Why didn't I think of that, I could have built in an hour" site of the moment:
The idea is that anyone can create any list they want (like Amazon's lists), and anybody else can add to it, and everybody can thumbs up or thumbs down the items in the list.
Add a few more features and this could be a real winner. I hope to see an easy way to show lists on other sites, like blogs and myspace. I also hope they add something with location, so making a list such as best local Chinese takeout would be a cinch to find rather than trying to guess the tag. Today with tagging, location is very difficult. You might need to search for DC, WashingtonDC, DCMetro, a zip code, or who knows... And finally, as Dave Winer might ask - Where's the OPML for these lists?
I created two lists to see if people add to them. You might recognized the sites I put in there.
http://www.listible.com/list/best-sites-for-college-students
http://www.listible.com/list/best-free-blogging-sites-and-services
I was one of the lucky ones who got their XBOX 360 several days before launch. I won it through the Every Ten Minutes contest in which Pepsi and Microsoft gave away an XBOX 360 every ten minutes for two months straight. They gave away over 9,000 of them!
I would have posted something sooner, but I'm working like crazy on TeacherReviews, and the rare moment I'm not working, I try to eat something or get a quick game in on the 360.
Two friends who work at Microsoft are IM'ing me asking where they can go to get theirs. Even MS employees don't get the hookup on this one.
One of the many addictive features of the 360 is the Gamercard, which shows what games you've played and what "achievements" you've earned for those games. Here's my gamercard: http://www.xbox.com/member/dylan.
It's been two days and I'm still recovering from this incredible party. We smashed all previous party records with well over 100 people in attendance, and just about everybody in costume. We throughly trashed just about every room on the first floor. We knocked back over 100 extra strong jello shots. We finished the beer, the mixers, wine, much of the liquor. And we managed to rock the neighborhood without having the cops called on us.
Thanks to everyone who helped set up for the party, and everybody helped clean up after the party, letting me sleep in a little late on my 30th birthday. Thanks to everyone who brought food, drink, and other surprises. And a special thanks to Mike Reyes for purchasing the outdoor heater, without that it would have been impossible to fit everybody inside the house.
...until the big Halloween party at my place.
From the evite - yes, maybe, no, and no reply.
This might be a record number of people at our annual party...
Chris is finishing up the CD. Lou from Peru is inflating balloons. Suzy has been cleaning and decorating. I'm leaving soon to get the chairs and tables I rented and buy more alcohol.
Didn't get enough Tampa party photos?
Here's more:
Parties.dabu.com - 110 photos
Word.dabu.com - 104 photos
CindyAndRoland.dabu.com - 108 photos
Suzy.dabu.com - 75 photos
I'm sure there's more but it's time to board the plane.
Hurricane Wilma did little or no damage in Tampa where I was staying. In fact I wanted to watch it pass, but I slept right through it. The pool had some leaves blown in it, and it was a bit colder today than usual, but it was a typical beautiful sunny cloudless day by the time I was awake.
I'm typing this from the Tampa airport - free wifi - what a nice idea.
It's a down right luau at Tom (Hoss!) and Mike's house in Tampa, and we all got leid. A couple people even jumped in the pool.
I'm in Tampa for a 30th birthday party with a bunch of friends. Mike, who's birthday we are be celebrating, maintains parties.DABU.com which has some details and photos as the days progress. Over 18 people are expected to be staying at the house.
Hurricane Wilma seems to be a safe distance away.
I just finished watching the Oscar-winning movie Gandhi.
It's amazing that a 20 year old movie about one man's work almost 60 years ago can still be so moving and inspiring today.
Wikipedia entry on Mahatma Gandhi.
It's disappointing that the problems that India faced are being mirrored today in Iraq. Like Iraq today, India suffered from insurgents, terrorism, massacres, and religious wars. Gandhi knew these violent tactics would not work again the stubborn England, which only fought back harder. His nonviolence measure eventually prevailed, bringing India her independence and peace in the country.
Could Gandhi's principles of nonviolence work in Iraqi? Do the people of Iraq need their own Gandhi to inspire them? What if America took the first step by following Gandhi's principles of nonviolence?
DABU, the free blogging service I created, got a bit of blogging buzz this weekend when one of the most read bloggers in the world, Robert Scoble, launched a "developer's challenge" - with a unique prize: He would switch blogging services to whichever service could answer the challenge first.
The challenge was to have full OPML support.
Well, silly me, even though I knew what OPML was, and was a beta tester for Dave Winer's OPML Editor, and was at Gnomedex when Dave said OPML was the next big thing, but I still didn't have OPML support in DABU. So like any self-respecting geek, I stayed up late and added it.
It took just a couple hours - the hard part was finding a standard to follow, Dave's site wouldn't loading (it does now), and OPML.org (also run by Dave) didn't answer the questions I had. No sweat, I found Dave's OPML implementation, and used as my spec. I got it working, and even tested it in Dave's OPML Editor and it worked on the first try.
So I posted on Scoble's comments "DABU supports OPML" with a few links so people could test it.
Unfortunately I wasn't the first to post a response.
The next morning Tim Macrina, who graciously hosts DABU and my other projects, messaged me excited but slightly worried: "What if Scoble switches to DABU - how much bandwidth would that be?" I told him not to worry: "What are the chances that Scoble would actually leave his current URL?"
Then I started getting a bunch of congratulatory emails. Scoble announced on his site that he's going to use DABU.
Whoa!
I gave Scoble a call to talk about the bandwidth potential. It didn't seem as bad as Tim and I expected. Tim was ready to order another T1 if it came down to it.
However, the story doesn't end there. People started getting angry. Specifically, Linux, WordPress, and Apache fans. The terms of the challenge were that he was going to switch to the first service to support OPML. The big question was: I Scoble choosing DABU over WordPress because DABU is hosted on a Windows machine whereas WordPress is on a Linux box, even though WordPress was first?
Scoble is a man of his word, and a huge supporter of the community, and said he'd use WordPress as promissed. Does that put DABU out of the picture? Hardly. He's going to use DABU too, but he hasn't said what for yet.
Scoble story links:
Sept 29: Developer challenge: I'll switch blogs to the first blogging service that supports OPML
Sept 30: New URL appears on DABU, WordPress still in the hunt too
Oct 1: OK, OK, I am gonna use WordPress, but I'm going to use DABU too
The number of DABU sites has doubled this weekend - so thanks for all the press Scoble!
I'm going to try to go to this. I've never been to an unveiling at a major museum, I live pretty close by, it's free, and this is a pretty cool piece of history.
SpaceShipOne, the world's first privately built and piloted vehicle to reach space, will be donated to the National Air and Space Museum during a brief ceremony featuring Museum Director Gen. Jack Dailey, SpaceShipOne sole funder and donor Paul Allen and designer Burt Rutan.
Wednesday, October 05
12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
Milestones of Flight - Gallery 100
National Mall Building
Admission: Free
More info...
Note this is at the National Mall and not the new Udvar-Hazy Center.