danbruno.net/blog

More on Bonds: some discussion in the comments of my last entry, and ownage from The Onion.

Steven Frank, Mac developer and hardcore Apple fanatic, has signed off on the Xbox 360. Dear Sony: when Apple fans prefer Microsoft’s products to yours, that should raise a red flag or two.

Sixtyforce lives! My favorite Mac N64 emulator is still kicking around, and there’s a new beta out.

The New York Times Book Review asked “a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages” for the best work of American fiction from the last 25 years, and now the results are in. The winner was Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

I took a Toni Morrison class last semester, so I spent the last few months plowing through her oeuvre. And, to be honest, I was a bit let down by Beloved. I can see why people like it — it has the epic scope, powerful extended metaphors, and controversiality which seem to be the necessary ingredients for serious modern novels. Personally, though, I found it to be too self-aware — too carefully constructed to become part of the American canon. The odd postmodern pseudo-poetry and the implausible melodrama was a bit too much for me. Morrison is definitely deserving of the praise, but I’d take it from Beloved and heap it onto the underrated Song of Solomon.

Next semester I’m taking a class on Philip Roth. Interestingly, American Pastoral is a runner-up on the Times Book Review’s list, and five others are listed as receiving “multiple votes.” I’ve been picking the right people to read, anyway.

Look Around You [google, youtube] is a brilliant parody of educational videos. “Iron” is my favorite.

CNN on Maddox’s upcoming book.

Am I the only one who is finding it hard to give a shit about Barry Bonds? This is the guy that “unknowingly” used steroids for several years, by his own admission, and yet the ESPN pundits can’t shut up about his tying Babe Ruth’s career home run total.

Seriously, how is that at all impressive? He cheated and he got away with it on a technicality. Even if you buy that he didn’t know he was on steroids, he still was, and he had an unfair advantage. That doesn’t just diminish his accomplishments; it trivializes them.

The worst part is that the sports newsanchors know this, but refuse to admit it because they don’t want to take a controversial stand. Tonight’s SportsCenter mentioned the controversy and then immediately relapsed into a six- or seven-minute list of impressive statistics. “No matter how you feel about him, the career numbers for Barry Bonds are unbelievably great.” It’s like watching the Democrats kowtow to the Republicans.

Get over yourself, Barry. And ESPN: stop covering his every miserable groundout.

UPDATE: This kid rocks.

ifoAppleStore, a blog that apparently covers Apple retail outlets, has a blow-by-blow recounting of the Fifth Avenue grand opening.

Mozart & Micromanaging is a fine essay criticizing modern treatment of Mozart’s operas. If only Joe would study music theory and drop the political blog in favor of more work like this.

A recent Metafilter thread directed me to An Entirely Other Day, a wonderful personal blog that was just revived after a five-year (!) hiatus. The author, Greg Knauss, just finished guest-blogging for the ever-popular Jason Kottke. This is from his final post:

There are two kinds of bloggers, referential and experiential. Kottke is one. I, now two weeks too late in realizing this, am another.

The referential blogger uses the link as his fundamental unit of currency, building posts around ideas and experiences spawned elsewhere: Look at this. Referential bloggers are reporters, delivering pointers to and snippets of information, insight or entertainment happening out there, on the Intraweb. They can, and do, add their own information, insight and entertainment to the links they unearth — extrapolations, juxtapositions, even lengthy and personal anecdotes — but the outward direction of their focus remains their distinguishing feature.

The experiential blogger is inwardly directed, drawing entries from personal experience and opinion: How about this. They are storytellers (and/or bores), drawing whatever they have to offer from their own perspective. They can, and do, add links to supporting or explanatory information, even unique and undercited external sources. But their motivation, their impetus, comes from a desire to supply narrative, not reference it.

Knauss’s conclusion is that he was the wrong blogger for the job, and apologizes for his (self-percieved) mediocrity. I thought his links were fine, but I found his two types of bloggers much more interesting than his defense.

I started this site as a backlash against LiveJournal. I was tired of the middle-school drama, crushes, and “which Harry Potter character are you” quizzes that are the bread and butter of the average user. Nobody could possibly want to read this shit, I thought. There has to be something better. So I browsed, Googled, and Yahooed, and came up with content-heavy link blogs: Kottke, Metafilter, and Boing Boing. Sites that make an effort to be interesting to the general public. And here I am, still trying to avoid the banal, angsty egotism of the teenage blogosphere. (Man, “blogosphere” really rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?)

Like many others, I based my initial style on Kottke’s referential technique: find cool links, combine with more cool links, add pithy comments, rinse and repeat. It worked, and it was fun, but trying to find original material is tough. Even with the metric assload of information on the internet it’s tough, because there is a comparable metric assload of blogs. Everyone and their mother can point you to Apple’s website for the new iHotness; why do you need me to do it too? I’m usually not informed enough to provide worthwhile, intelligent commentary on whatever stuff I dredge up.

After reading Knauss’s blog, I realized something: personal (experiential) blogs don’t have to suck! There are not three hyperlinks per sentence or discussions on fantastical technologies and funny videos, but damn if it isn’t entertaining to read. This is the guy I should be emulating, not Jason Kottke. So-called referential blogging is fun, and I’ll keep it up, but there’s a reason it’s been relegated to the sidebar. And based on my current audience (and yes, I know who most of you are — I can pick out some individual people in my logs), that ought to go over better anyway. Onward to broader, less focused blogging!

Flickr has left beta!…and moved to Gamma. Very funny, guys. (The new site is nice, though.)

Internet telephony service Skype is offering free internet-to-phone calls for the rest of 2006.

High-quality Apple blogs are pretty rare. There are some decent general-purpose blogs, like TUAW and TAB, but they’re a bit thin. I love them, and they’re mainstays in my RSS newsreader, but I can’t help noticing that they mostly aggregate news and provide a few reviews here and there. Similarly, the rumor mill sites like Think Secret and AppleInsider are interesting, but offer too little substance.

The best site for intelligent Apple commentary is John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. The secret to DF’s success is twofold: Gruber only writes about stuff that he knows, and he knows a lot. He can tell you why Apple is doing what it’s doing in almost any situation, and back it up with history, reason, and in-depth analysis.

However, Gruber also likes to be right, so his blog is not very speculative. That’s why my new second-favorite Apple blog is Roughly Drafted by Daniel Eran. It has the intelligence, analysis, polish, and wit of Daring Fireball, but also makes predictions and wishes. I highly recommend it.

The BBC accidentally put a cab driver on live television, thinking that he was the expert they intended to interview. His attempt to fake it is hilarious. (UPDATE: actually, he was applying for an IT job.)

Jonathan Tisch has donated $40 million to Tufts. Thanks, Jon!