Here's a link to a Russell Beattie post…

I'm a Lucky Guy

I can totally see this. Half the people I know just don't *pay attention* and they don't, *think ahead*. And when bad things happen to them, they just moan and prepare for the next bad thing, instead of the other way around. I think that's all there is to it. Many things are predictable, you just have to be prepared when they happen both bad and good. “Seventy percent of success in life is showing up,” Woody Allen said, and I totally believe it. The other 30% is showing up at the right place.

What more is there to say? I've always felt more observent than most people, and sometimes I've been rewarded for it. Other times, it's been my undoing. I'd consider discussing the wisdom of experience at this point. What effect did age have on the “luckiness” of the study's particpants?

This is an excerpt of the original, please be sure to read the whole article and leave a comment.

dotmac.info has specs of the new G5. Apple leaked them by accident. Read 'em while you can.

My iTrip arrived today. Great packaging greeted me when I opened the UPS blue package. Similar to the iPod's box, it's white and grey and contains the same type of simple instructions: insert software CD, run installer, sync, you're done.

By default, the iTrip was set to 87.9FM. A quick check of the FCC website for conflicts and I was ready to go. I tried three different stations at random before I settled on 98.1. I tried it on our home stereo–success! Out to the car–success.

So far, it's what I expected: FM radio fidelity. The strength of the signal is very surprising; I can move the iPod within about 15 feet of the car with no loss of quality. As far as volume is concerned, I set my iPod to about 75% of maximum and get good results.

I'd give the product a 4 out of 5 rating. The Firewire plug port is my only complaint–it messes with the port cover on the iPod.

I just bought NetNewsWire. After using the lite version (for free, thanks Brent) I wanted to show my support for the world of shareware. This is only the second piece of software I've purchased like this; Radio was the first.

Update: just got the post function working. Outstanding. I've got an iMac running in our basement, running OS9 and my licensed copy of Radio. I use it as a “server”, allowing me to post from anywhere I can pull up a browser. The best part of NNW's weblog post function is now I don't have to hit the downstairs machine with extra serving work. Posting is *much* faster.

Here's a great story about Michael Jackson, MTV and the music biz. From Adam Curry's weblog.

Read this then read the comments below…

What a great read! I finally understand why the iTunes Music Store will be a fundamental force in consumer spending this Christmas season. I especially enjoyed the simplicity of the deal: Apple is buying the songs wholesale, not licensing the right to sell the songs. That means one relationship for Apple–the label. It also means the label has a better opportunity to market it's services to independent artists (who *wouldn't* want their new release featured in an email to 10 million people?).

Doc Searls: “Notice how much of the few minutes of non-advertising content on your local 11 O'Clock news is devoted to “stories” that are nothing more than promotions of entertainment shows on the same stations?”

Is Radio's usefulness hard to uncover? Ask Don Park:

Formal Blogroll

My blogroll is now defined inside an OPML file and divided into sections to make room for a Korean [language] blogroll.  If you use Radio and want to do the same, checkout Jake Savin's tutorial “How to create a Blogroll with Radio's outliner“.  Worst part was finding the tutorial.

[Don Park's Blog]

I had the same problem. Something as simple as a list of online authors is hard to do until you stumble upon the instructions. Can't wait for this.

Scripting News: Ben Edelman, a Harvard Law student and fellow at Berkman, has been studying Gator, one of the leading advertising servers. He’s got a Web app that simulates a Gator client, and sends messages back to Gator asking for ads to display on certain sites. For example, here are the ads you get when you visit Microsoft with Gator running. A few more: Apple, Yahoo, American Airlines, Ford, Harvard, UC-Berkeley. It doesn’t seem to know about weblogs.

Thanks for including this on your weblog, Dave!