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A pool cue even robots would love

Jason Kottke, a long-time and superb blogger, has decided to quit his regular paying work and blog full-time! He’s running a three-week fundraising drive to support it, and I’ve already offered a tip in his tip-jar, because his blog is a truly stupendous resource of stuff that keeps me thinking. I’ll be intrigued to see how things turn out. Jason’s decided to abjure advertising, since he’s concerned it would queer his focus or his relationship with his readers. He wrote a FAQ explaining why he’s trying this, which includes:
In the recent comics issue of McSweeney’s, Chris Ware notes that “in the past decade or so, comics appear to have gained some greater measure of respect, due in no small part to the number of cartoonists who have begun to take the medium seriously”. This is me taking online personal publishing seriously because I feel it deserves as much.
I’ll be fascinated to see how his blog changes when it’s not competing for attention with his other work. He has a wittily sober assessement of his move — “dumb economic decision” — and notes that expects to make 1/3 to 1/2 of his previous income; if he can make it last a year before collapsing, he figures, he’ll be lucky. This part of the FAQ made me laugh out loud:
Are you excited?
If by that you mean “do you feel like you’re going to throw up?” then yes.
Check out his site, and if you like it, drop a buck or two in his cup!
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
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