• Intel: Human and computer intelligence will merge in 40 years
  Humans are intelligent?
  via The Code Project
  (tags: intelligence computers posthuman)
• The ascent of scripting languages
  From JCL to Ruby in under six minutes
  (tags: programming languages scripting oop jcl sh awk sed perl tcl python ruby tintowtdi pols ducktyping)
• writing | ben fry » Brains on the Line
  Intelligence test scores by football position (via Hacker News). It would be interesting to compare scores across different sports as well.
  (tags: intelligence football visualization sports)
• Twitter / KathySierra
  One of the few things that might draw me into the Twitter-hole: Kathy Sierra’s talking there. Subscribed. Thanks, Eric.
  (tags: kathysierra twitter engtech)
• Petzold Book Blog – A Brief Proof That Unrelentingly Catchy Tunes Do Not Good Music Make
  They were on the BIO channel last night, and I still can’t shake “Dancing Queen” from my head.
  (tags: abba music)
• Five Don’ts for Marketing in Tough Times
  6. Don’t be expendable
  (tags: marketing economy)
• Scott Adams Blog: Dogs 07/25/2008
  Just wait until your wife wants to get a second puppy, Scott.
  (tags: dogs humor)
• YouTube – The Process
  Redesigning the stop sign, corporate edition. Thanks, Jason.
  (tags: humor video design advertising marketing)
• Stu Savory’s Blog – Your comments…
  I can understand why Germany is still shell-shocked over Nazism, but doesn’t suppression of expression defeat the purpose?
  (tags: nazism racism blogging comments)
• Twitter / Kathy Sierra: @amyhoy on dog behavior: ‘l…
  Zing.
  (tags: dogs techcrunch commenters humor)
• The Tibetan Book of the Dead in comic book form…
  And now for something completely different…
  (Thanks, Paul)
  (tags: comics buddhism religion death tibet bardothodol reincarnation)
• Chad Perrin: SOB » Is a GUI its own reward?
  More like its own punishment
  (tags: gui ui design)
• I will never complain again – iBLOGthere4iM
  MAHAHAHAHAHA!
  I dunno, maybe they enjoy it. That might be even an interview question.
  (tags: career humor thermometers)

Found a couple of handy plugins for WordPress related to commenting. I installed both of these today on both Chip’s Quips and Chip’s Tips:

“Follow URL“, by Angsuman Chakraborty. Removes “nofollow” from “rel” attributes of links in comments. I was unaware that WordPress 2.0 still adds “nofollow” by default, until I happened to spot it when viewing the source for one of my pages. While “rel=nofollow” was intended to discourage comment spam by denying Google juice to their links, it doesn’t really work and instead it only shuts off the Google juice to valid commenters. Akismet does a damn fine job of filtering spam comments, anyway. So share the love.

“Subscribe to comments“, by Jennifer (aka Scripty Goddess — an alias designed to get your PHP pumping). Enables putting a “Subscribe to comments via e-mail” checkbox on your comments forms. This plugin requires a little more work than most — besides uploading to two different folders and activating it, you have to add the checkbox code to your comment forms in your theme. But it seems to work — at least with my theme. I followed TDavid’s lead and checked the checkbox by default — but I’d like to hear your opinions on that decision.

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles…not!

I’ve been meaning to post a series on some of my favorite blogs, and TDavid gave me a good reason to get started now. He has some very nice things to say about my blog in his Father’s Day post: “He has been improving his own blogging efforts so much that when he hits the blogging big time hopefully he’ll remember me.”

That’s quite a compliment coming from one of the best bloggers out there. MakeYouGoHmm is one of the few feeds I always read top to bottom every day. Whether or not I feel compelled to comment or trackback, TDavid’s coverage and perspective nearly always enlighten. Just a for instance: here’s a post on eBay’s new blog feature. Lots of people have talked about it, but TDavid takes you through it step by step with pictures and adds some pointed questions and observations that I read nowhere else. As much as I like TechCrunch, I think MakeYouGoHmm is usually a little more thorough when covering the same topics.

BTW, TDavid, I started reading your blog because it kept popping up in the Google Desktop version 1.0, which was my very first aggregator. So, you can thank Google’s algorithm for picking up on my interests and your witty headlines for acquiring my attention.

One of the best things about MakeYouGoHmm is the way TDavid treats his commenters. Unless a visitor is being exceptionally rude, TD eagerly welcomes comments as conversation openers. Some really good content comes from those exchanges, so if you’re only reading the feed you need to click over to the page from time to time and check it out.

Speaking of the feed, check out some of TDavid’s other subscribers on Share Your OPML (try both http://www.makeyougohmm.com/wp-rss2.php and wp-atom.php). Not that I’m driven by what they read, but it speaks to influence. I sure would like to have more of those folks reading my blog. And thanks to those of you who do, Randy.

No, TDavid, if I ever “hit the blogging big time” (whatever that means) you will definitely not be forgotten. You will most likely arrive there long before I do anyway, my friend.

But I hope you can get there before it sucks.