Anyway after days of work and some expense I tracked the beast to its lair, but in the process of restoring the posts, a lot of question marks replaced various bits of punctuation. Dispiriting.  Sorry to those of you who read older entries, but I can’t face the job of fixing those right now.

A meaningful Easter to those of you who have them, and for the others, this piece of chocolate-based theology.

Garrison Keillor nailed it. Writers don’t want to mumble ‘Glad you enjoyed the book’. They want to say ‘Rise, my grateful people.’

Nothing wrong with making money. I just wish people would be more straightforward about it.

Consider the case of Nathan Rice, a prominent WordPress guru and theme designer. His conscience has been troubling him, he explains, because his work rests on a free platform, WordPress, whereas his themes are for sale. In his view the freebies out there aren’t up to much. (I wonder if his disdain extends to Cutline, or Tarski, the minimalist designs at plaintxt or indeed Oulipo.)

Anyway, Nathan felt he wanted to give away a really first-rate theme.

An Innovative Business Model

Ever since I first conceived the idea, I?ve wanted to toy with the idea of a ?freemium? model theme release site. I wanted to figure out a way to give away free themes, yet build a sustainable income from the site as well. In my opinion, unless an idea can indirectly monetize, eventually the project leader will burnout.

Elevate will be monetized in three ways:

1. Premium Membership
2. Theme Sponsorship
3. Community Job Openings

From my experience in other domains, Nathan is dead right about burn-out. But, y’know, ‘freemium‘?

If you give somebody a gift, that person will feel a small but distinct obligation to reciprocate. AVG, for example, gives away its very effective anti-virus program. Are they mad? Are they philanthropists? Or do they count on enough people upgrading to their paid version? Play ‘Find the Freebie’ on their website.

Terms like ‘monetise’ (or ‘social capital’) are small signs of the seemingly endless effects of Carlyle’s ‘cash nexus’. Looking back on the feudal era, he wrote: ‘Cash Payment had not then grown to be the universal sole nexus of man to man.’ (‘Chartism’ 1839) Looking back from here, we’re inclined to say the same of Carlyle’s own period.

Anyway, Nathan, all the best. Looks like an appealing theme, with sufficient complexity under the hood to guarantee that those who use it will pretty soon be paying for support. Sort of like Windows and DOS – and look at him today.

I?ve been reading entirely too many blogs lately. When you take that initial step into this blogging thing, you never realize how much time it takes to actually get some people to read the crap you dare to write.

Go Kim.

Random memories,
yours and mine,
pulled one by one
from velvet sacks
and laid on the table
of our common awareness,
connect,
gain strength and structure,
build a bridge
from then to now.

I promised not to say anything too sappy, but my baby boy is 35 today!! He really is a great guy and I’m very proud of him. Here is a look back at some of the early years. Note the “thumbs up” in his little race car photo. And he used to cry when anyone sang “happy birthday”, so that’s what he is doing in the birthday photo. Yes, I made his blue suit. Sorry, buddy!

In other news, hubby has to go and see the dermatologist on the 22nd May. Our GP thinks it might be a skin cancer spot. God I so hope not, even though I know skin cancer is very curable, I am worried about it. Fingers crossed.

Charlie the Service Dog has been paired with a young autistic boy named Tim. Read the sweet story about the tiny miracle that happened at their house.

There are so many creative blogs, wise blogs, beautiful blogs, funny blogs, informative and stimulating blogs. Blogs by young ladies with a depth and wisdom beyond their years. Blogs by older women who have great experience, insight, and wisdom. I honestly wouldn’t know where to start in handing out awards.

Gee whillikers, Susan, with all those adorable children and grandchildren, how do you find the time? Hey, how do you find the blogs?

Because, although the tone is altogether more genteel, women don’t fare much better in a Google search than men.

Progressive Historians has three older ladies for you: phone now, or be left behind.

Natasha Victoria, while singing Hallelujah, enjoys ‘reading blogs by older women who manage their homes, children, and live frugally’.

There’s a link to something called Social Search which contains Twitterings and trackbacks and looks like a May/December dating site. And a dream journal. That’s it.

Coming soon! “People”!

The word “blog” is a portmanteau term for Web log or Weblog. In 1997 Jorn Barger, the keeper of Robot Wisdom, a Web site full of writings about James Joyce, artificial intelligence, and Judaism as racism (he’s reputedly a racist himself), coined the word “Weblog.” In 1999 Peter Merholz, the author of a Weblog called Peterme, split it in two like this?”We blog”?creating a word that could serve as either noun or verb. “Blog” was born.

Sarah Boxer in The New York Review of Books

The excellent Andrea Mignolo , deviser of the Oulipo theme, is blameless. It’s other people’s themes leaving small black holes in the database. Friends, I have been to the database and looked upon it and returned.

Quello che non mi uccide mi fortifica – it sounds almost sensible in Italian.