Yesterday’s title, “years of resentment”: When the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 and the terms were announced, my great-grandfather said, “That’s no peace treaty. Some of them young German boys will want revenge for this in a few years.” Seventeen years later in 1933, Hitler gutted the Weimar Republic and began perhaps the most vengeful regime ever.

Nobody guessed. Maybe today’s will be a little easier. Or not. Remember, the answer is 18.

How many of your friends and associates pass Word documents around in emails? Well that’s too many (thanks, Kiltak). Think, people: PDF, RTF, or WTF!

Next time your kids complain about studying math that they’ll never use in “real life”, show them this (thanks, Randy). Followed by this and this.

A manifesto for the independent entrepreneur. (thanks, Hugh) In my case, s/Johnny Cash/Dave Brubeck/. Not sure whether my boss is an idiot, either.

Alfred Korzybski: “There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”

An unhappy ending. Kim managed to walk seven miles through the snow in the quest to save his family, after days of enduring the cold and lack of food. Ironically, if he had stayed with them, they would have all survived. Rest in Peace.

CORRECTION: removed the anachronistic radio in the explanation for yesterday’s title.

Your online life becomes even more virtual, as opposed to virtuous. (via Bloggers Blog)

Hugh plans to keep his wings intact. Ties in with this discussion.

Into the promised land. This would be absolutely awesome. (Thanks, Armchair Anarchist).

Randy’s strategy for eliminating telemarketers: make them regret the call. Reminds me of one time I was visited by Mormons when I was in the middle of writing my senior paper in Biblical Literature. I had a lot of fun sharing my thoughts on the trustworthiness of Joseph Smith’s translation services. Now if only we could devise a similar strategy for spam.

Newly subscribed: Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke. Just the premise in the title made me LOL, and the execution does not disappoint. Found in Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. –Hermann Hesse

When I act hatefully or resentfully, I see that as a weakness on my part. Like Nietzsche’s idea of resentiment, it implies that the hated party has some control over me. Even anger, though it can be well-placed, must have as its target someone or something that poses a threat. If your actions don’t threaten me, how can I be angry (unless I’m just driving up blog traffic)?

So a good exercise for me is to look at the things that make me angry (especially with “righteous” anger) and ask myself: how does that threaten me?

If I can’t come up with a response, then look a little deeper and ask Hesse’s implied question: what part of this do I see and hate in myself?

Snarkiness, sarcasm, irony, satire — that’s a completely different story. My father said to me when I turned sixteen, “You’re not going to listen to a damn thing I tell you anyway, so for all intents and purposes you’re your own man now. But I do reserve the right to laugh.” Poking fun, even when somewhat cruel, is probably the most constructive criticism you’ll ever receive. If that makes you angry, go back to step 1.

• Akira Rabelais : Book of Changes
  The Wilhelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching on one page (searchable!)
  (tags: iching)
• gapingvoid: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”: basically two ways
  Hugh gets even more market-positionally explicit.
  (tags: humor marketing gapingvoid)

Hot damn! Chip’s Quips has busted into the Technorati Top 100,000.

Meanwhile, Kathy and Hugh are necking in the Top 100 (or more, in Hugh’s dreams imagination mind).

Well, not exactly “from now on” — but at least until Tuesday. We’re going on vacation to Seaside, Oregon. Planning to do a lot of nothing. I’ll have a laptop along, but my fingers will spend more time building sand castles with the kids than writing or coding.

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.

Maybe there is no blogosphere, but there is now a blogofamily. Thanks, Robert, for sharing your Mom and your grief with us.

Nick Bradbury writes, “the surest sign that your blog is boring is when you write about blogging”.

It seems to me, though, that the number one subject in the blogosphere is…the blogosphere. Many blogs devote almost all of their space to the subject of blogging. It’s certainly one of Scoble’s favorite topics. Winer can hardly ever leave it alone, especially if you include podcasting. Almost everyone has something to say about it. And, IMHO, a lot of what they have to say is pretty interesting.

Over a year later, reports of the death of metablogging appear premature. The technologies and the people involved are still changing, and the culture is still growing, perhaps even more rapidly than they were a year ago. That provides a lot to talk about. Still, that a relatively new phenomenon can generate so much content purely about itself does make me feel like I’m climbing an Escher stairway.

OK, so now I’m blogging about blogging about blogging. Time to eject.