Disqus - Friends of BenRay

Re: Five Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water

chrisbaskind — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:56:49 -0000

Perhaps you'll feel differently once you're in junior high with all the big kids.

Re: Twelve Practical Ways to Green-Up Your Autumn

chrisbaskind — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:36:55 -0000

And this is why I like comments: I live in the South, and hardly ever encounter wintry road conditions. Thanks for taking the time to add your perspective.

Re: 12 Cool Urban Bicycles Ready to Replace Your Car

chrisbaskind — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:57:40 -0000

The Lime is a good bike, and our next list will probably be broken into price classes. Agreed on the narrow bars. I'd cut down the ones on my SOHO, but I carry such heavy loads, the extra leverage is worth the trade. It's also an excuse for a tight little single speed someday. ;-)

Re: How Not to Get Ripped-Off When Buying a Used Bicycle

chrisbaskind — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:45:25 -0000

When I was still doing triathlon, the judges would always check our bikes for bar plugs. No plugs, no race.

Re: New Study Reports the Obvious: Airport Security Theater Doesn’t Make Us Safer

chrisbaskind — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:49:48 -0000

I'm sure Israel is a lovely place, but I'd rather not live in an armed camp. Good luck with that.

Re: 5 Decluttering Projects You Can Finish in Under 5 Hours

chrisbaskind — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:17:04 -0000

I know better than to even suggest displacing cats. It's warm, it's high, and they can bat you on the head as you go past. Perfect.

Re: Minimalism Is More Than Less

chrisbaskind — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:41:25 -0000

True, but the Byrds/Dylan lyrics aren't verbatim. I was quoting the song,
rather than Ecclesiastes.

Re: 5 Decluttering Projects You Can Finish in Under 5 Hours

chrisbaskind — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:48:44 -0000

I've followed Nomad Needles for a while, and now it's on our Recommended page. :-)

Re: Thanks, but No Thanks, Chevy

chrisbaskind — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:28:16 -0000

There are bicycle activists who -- in good faith -- oppose bike lanes as a kind of "segregation." I'm not one of them. People ride bicycles when they feel safe doing so. Even the Europeans, who are decades ahead of us on shifting traffic from four to two wheels, know that you *must* create facility for bike transport if you expect people to ride.

We have very little bicycle infrastructure in my county. I am aware of only one local company which makes any provision for secure bicycle parking (ironically, it's Gulf Power -- which runs a coal-fired power plant here). Some major routes have bike lanes, but the markings are inconsistent, and the lanes seem to disappear in exactly the places they're most needed.

Lots of work to do. And please consider More Minimal a safe place to rant. ;-)

Re: Thanks, but No Thanks, Chevy

chrisbaskind — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:59:50 -0000

Since June, I've *needed* a car three times. Twice, I bummed rides. Once, I just let things fall down. Neither was a great option, but there's very little public transit here.

Next up: the Holidays. I'm guessing I'll have to rent a car at some point to see way-out-of-town family. Even at holiday rates, that's a much better deal than even a single month of car ownership.

The Equinox looks nice. It's reasonably efficient for a gas-burner -- though not as efficient as pedaling. ;-)

Re: What Glenn Beck Can Teach Us About Consumerism

chrisbaskind — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:38:15 -0000

It's hard to tell where he wanted to go with that. Away from us, I hope. ;-)

Re: Ford Fiesta Movement: Can Social Media Sell Cars?

chrisbaskind — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:40:28 -0000

And that's a good answer, Scott. Thank you.

Re: My Thoughts on Posterous as a Lifestreaming Platform

chrisbaskind — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:48:58 -0000

Oh, I dunno. Postereous could easily replace Friendfeed as it is currently used by most of the people I follow. That's as a discussion board -- not an aggregator.

FF moved from emphasizing lifestreaming to "conversation" as soon as it went with realtime. Most links I see in my stream are shared directly or are topics original to FF. Postereous can certainly handle that, particularly if it improves the robustness of its comment system or allows users to move to Echo or DISQUS.

Re: studio.rizzn == new.media: /socnets: #AmazonFail: Is It Really a Conspiracy? [No, Idiot, It Isn’t]

chrisbaskind — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:41:21 -0000

Point taken, but it does still seem a tad hypocritical. Amazon is happy to take the money -- but you have to go round to the back entrance to make your purchase. Bah. If there are titles so offensive that it would damage the Amazon brand to have them listed with everything else, maybe they shouldn't be selling them at all. Instead, Amazon ends up with this "privately held" PR mess. ;-)

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/04/as-feedburner-flails-and-fails.html

chrisbaskind — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:53:14 -0000

I don't take it lightly, either. i have a commercial site still on FeedBurner. Haven't moved it yet. Thinking about it.

Re: Review of Great New Premium Wordpress Theme Designed for Lifestreamers

chrisbaskind — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:38:08 -0000

Well, that's unfortunate. They could at least have credited you in the footer.

Re: The Abandoned Garden

chrisbaskind — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:51:04 -0000

Spent several years in Memphis. It's beautiful in the spring. Our dogwoods are already doing their thing -- won't be long for you.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/03/google-reader-adds-comments-for-social.html

chrisbaskind — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:40:27 -0000

I think RSS readers will seem quaint someday. Intelligent user agents will do the feed crunching for you -- content (and how we interact with it) will simply follow most people around. Those of us who wish to data mine will have more powerful tools available than even Google Reader.

But it's interesting that Google is starting to tie things together. This makes me want to expand my Reader network.

Re: Inappropriate Valentine Card for Children: Wet and Wild for You

chrisbaskind — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:52:19 -0000

How else would we bait people like you?

Re: Is It Time to Let FeedBurner Burn?

chrisbaskind — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:00:13 -0000

Your comment is certainly not spam, and I'll be over to check you out. :-)

Re: Making Moderation Easier

chrisbaskind — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:11:40 -0000

Looks like maybe someone tweaked it last night. It's rendering just like Firefox now. :-)

Re: Is It Time to Let FeedBurner Burn?

chrisbaskind — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:49:54 -0000

On this site, I'm using Mint metrics and the Birdfeeder plugin. The numbers it has been producing are very similar to those measured by FeedBurner. Don't get me wrong: This was just a thought piece, and I expect FeedBurner to improve. But there are other options, and I expect we'll see new ones this year.

Re: Is It Time to Let FeedBurner Burn?

chrisbaskind — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:09:42 -0000

Your communication, Matt, have been very welcome. Thanks for addressing this.

Re: Is It Time to Let FeedBurner Burn?

chrisbaskind — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:36:42 -0000

I certainly hope so, Dave -- Google can make AdSense for Feeds insanely useful if they care to. I'm leaving Lighter Footstep on FeedBurner for now, though I have ben planning to transition our email subscription support to a commercial service for months. In the meantime, this site and GreenRemix will fly solo. Until there are other developments, at least.

Re: Is It Time to Let FeedBurner Burn?

chrisbaskind — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:09:22 -0000

Matt, thank you for responding. Most of us here are longtime FeedBurner, and would be delighted to see Google reignite the flame. You're fully capable of making FeedBurner both a modern feed manager and an impressive ad delivery system.

That being said, why has it taken Google so long to poke its head up and show some interest in our concerns? You question my qualified references to Duncan and Dave (and there has been a steady drumbeat from Gillmore, Scoble, and a number of others). I'm not even a tech writer. Shouldn't you have been talking to these guys all along? Duncan's article has been around a while, and the one at Scripting News dates back to July. you've had plenty of time.

Your point is well-taken on MyBrand, and I'll repeat my article's appreciation of Google's generosity in making FeedBurner's premium services free for all. Here's to a bright future.