Before and After
Just a thought from 30 June 2005 about Fun, Photos, Powazek.

One of the many perks of the first day off work in months is tending to long-overdue life maintenance. Today I ran errands, cleaned the house, and got a haircut. Consider this post my little contribution to the most interesting Google image search ever. I feel like a new man already.

Thanks Steve
Just a thought from 28 June 2005 about Art, Geek, Quotes.

Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college after six months, gave a commencement speech at Stanford recently. Here are my two favorite bits:

Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

This is the guy who was the visionary behind the computers I use every day. If it weren't for him, for the Macintosh, I never would have used a computer as a kid. If I never used a computer as a kid, I wouldn't have the job I have now, the wife I have now, the life I have now.

Thanks, Steve.

It's Alive!
Just a thought from 20 June 2005 about Technorati.

After months of work and weeks of beta testing, The new Technorati is alive! Among the notable improvements are:

• Totally revised design, identity, and user experience.
• Powerful new search options!
• Goodies for member profiles: Bios, blog descriptions, and people can search your blog right from your profile page! (Here's mine.)
• Duplicate removal and sidebar links in URL searching!
• Top Searches on the homepage and a new Popular section so you can see what the talk of the web is.

And lots more. Check it out!

Batman Begins
Just a thought from 18 June 2005 about Batman, Movies.

I had low expectations, but it really is that good.

I've excused so many plot holes, crap dialog, and spandex with the phrase, "well, it's just a comic book movie," I'd forgotten how comics, real comics, could be dark, emotionally intense, psychological affairs.

Batman Begins reminded me of what I loved about the old Frank Miller take on the character. Here was a man so ravaged by loss, he tries to rid an entire city of crime by himself.

Batman has no superpowers. He was not bitten by a radioactive spider, not touched by magic space gas, not fallen from a distant planet. What he has is rage. Guilt. Anger. And, to be honest, a whole lot of money. Which, ya know, helps.

Batman Begins sheds the skin of the dopey Tim Burton movies (yeah, the first one was great, the rest got worse and worse) and pays absolutely no heed to the campy 60s TV series. If it's like anything, it's the brilliant animated series from a few years ago. But even that is a faint reference.

The movie has totally reborn the character and the storyline. It's characters are real and the performances brilliant. And unlike the first Batman movie, the best parts aren't already in the trailers.

For the first time in a long time, it's a comic book movie that's not "just a comic book movie." Go see it. You won't be disappointed.

The New New Thing
Just a thought from 9 June 2005 about Blogging, Design, Powazek, Technorati, Weblogs.

Seven months ago, when I told my friends and family that I'd taken a job at Technorati, they all had one thing to say to me.

Cool! But, um, what do they do?

These people weren't rubes. My tribe are some geeky folks. Bigtime bloggers, hardcore nerds, and computer-enabled professionals all asked me this. And translated through my filter it said one thing loud and clear: Houston, we have a problem.

I answered their questions as best I could, but I decided then and there to make it my life's goal to do everything I could to make it so that I never, ever have to answer that question again. The site should explain what it does, not the people who work there. Today we took the first step toward that goal and released the new Technorati beta.

This is a huge revision to the site, and the product of some of the most talented people I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I'd especially like to call out Jason DeFillippo who was literally coding with bandages on his fingers, and Ben Jenkins who came on a month ago and has been our ace in the hole ever since. Thanks also to CSS jedi Eric Meyer and illustrator extraordinaire Chris Bishop for lending their talents. And of course the real heroes are the engineers and ops crew who make it so people like me have something to design at all.

But enough with the acceptance speech. There are a ton of changes in the new site. In fact, just about every bit of frontend code has been rewritten. And all toward the goal of making the blogosphere more understandable, more fun, and more accessible to people who don't even know what a blog is.

I'd say more, but right now I'm so tired I'm literally about to fall over. So just go check it out. And, of course, that "beta" slug up there is on purpose - we're still working the bugs out and there's lots more in store. But please do check it out and be sure to let us know what you think.

And now I must sleep.