It's been a LONG, busy,

It's been a LONG, busy, and tiring week. I've been to two fabulous holiday parties - one for work at a coworker's house and one for my wife's office at MIT's Endicott House. "Wow" is all I can say.

I'm going to see Jennifer Kimball at the Natick Center for the Arts tonight and I was listening to her and some Ellis Paul today (Jennifer did a lot of backup singing for Ellis) who I will see January 30th at Club Passim.

I heard Ellis live once at the Iron Horse Music Hall and I remember his song "Don't Breathe" being particularly striking and vivid. As I listen to it today, it still evokes strong feelings on what the meaning of true love is from the perspective of youth. Listen, enjoy, and reminisce.

Got quoted in a NY

Got quoted in a NY Times article about creditcards.com being compromised, extorted for money and having cc numbers publically posted on the Web.

An online security expert said such attacks could largely be avoided if companies kept sensitive data on computers separate from those running their Web sites. "Your credit card is only as secure as the Web site it's going on," said the expert, B. K. DeLong of Attrition.org, a nonprofit computer security site.

Here's a fabulous article about

Here's a fabulous article about Piers Anthony's world of Xanth books. Like the article's author, I too discovered Xanth while in high school. I was working at a summer camp when I read a friend's 3-copy collection. When I got back I immediately started from book one and got caught up. Just last week, I started rereading Book 1 of Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" series titled "On a Pale Horse."

This is incredibly so true.....so

This is incredibly so true.....so true:

"PR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE FOR A DOT-COM STARTUP - Here's the perfect job for people who want the worst of all worlds. For starters, everyone hates flacks. Journalists hate them because they think they're incompetent whores. Businesspeople hate them because they think they're incompetent whores. And flacks hate themselves because deep down inside they suspect that they might be incompetent whores. But what's particularly bad about doing publicity for Internet startups is that everyone in the media has already heard every story with every angle about every product and every service a thousand times and never wants to hear from another PR firm as long as they live.

But flacks can't explain this problem to their nitwit 23-year-old CEO clients because the CEOs have all persuaded themselves that their generic success story is the stuff of legend. Flacks get personally abused by clients, insulted by journalists, stiffed out of their fees by customers, ridiculed by colleagues, and humiliated by their superiors. One flack for a major software company says her boss got so upset that he ordered her to attend charm school. Another had to go shopping for underwear for a skivvy-less journalist. How uncouth. All in all, being a dot-com flack is exactly like being a whore, except the hours are worse."

Where were these guys when

Where were these guys when the Web Standards Project was being savaged.

The Web Standards Project (including

The Web Standards Project (including me) issued a statement today praising Netscape for trying to further Web standards integration in their latest browser but now encouraging Web developers to take up the call to standards and begin developing sites that use as much of the standard as possible, avoiding proprietary code. This was covered briefly in a statement we made in a News.com article by Paul Festa that he was writing about the subject.

I just filled out 6

I just filled out 6 raffle tickets to support Animal Umbrella, a rescue organization for cats in Massachusetts. Take a look at their adorable adoptees and give a donation if you can.

BrainStream is happy to be

BrainStream is happy to be contributing to and hosting the Harry Potter weblog "The Leaky Cauldron". If you have any news about the upcoming Harry Potter movie, the two "short" stories due in March, the next book coming out in November 2001 or the deluge of merchandise, do share!

I've archived my "Day Without

I've archived my "Day Without Weblogs" page.