Wanted: Despamming intern

Because spammers subsist on donkey-anus jerky, cleansing the nightly sputum out of the comment system of my nanopublishing network node (it’s an empire I tell you, a veritable Conblogulated Edison of small-press samizdat and closely observed ephemeral minutia) is starting to take at least half an hour each morning. I could adopt best practices, make posts over x days old autoclose comments. Start requiring TypeKey. Whatever.
Here’s a better idea. I’m looking for an intern to do two things for my blogs over the next six months:

1. despam
2. suggest improvements (ask the readers)

Applicants must demonstrate the ability to get email through my spam filters.

E-marketing, plus online/offline sales

From Publisher’s Weekly, a note about MoveOn’s book (from Inner Ocean Publishing; links added). Perhaps it’s worth noting that networking or marketing online always has a slight hazard of turning off potential customers or partners who aren’t wired?

Grass roots has trumped big media–at least for the moment–as an e-mail marketing campaign for MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country: How to Find Your Political Voice and Become a Catalyst for Change has enabled the title to knock Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies off the top spot on the Amazon.com bestsellers list.

An e-mail, sent in waves over the past few days by MoveOn to a mailing list that has more than two million addresses, urges members to buy the book and “push it to #1 at all booksellers.” The group tries to balance the desire to reach the top spot on Amazon with the need to avoid alienating offline booksellers. The e-mail urges members to ask for the title at their local bookstore, but also provides a link to Amazon.com.

The Yeah Yeah Song

I wrote a pretty simple song on my ukulele today. I still can’t play for shit, but tapping into the magic of chord patterns is just too fun. It goes (basically) G C G C7 D Em A C and back to G again. I was so thrilled that I called up Cecil Vortex and played the song into his voicemail. He played it back into his cellphone and sent it to me along with a little remix. Warning: it sounds atrocious!

• The Yeah Yeah Song (take 1) (~ 2 meg)
• The Yeah Yeah Song (take 1) Remix (~ 1 meg)

Wanted: PHP Nuke expert

I’ve heard about an interesting work lead for someone who knows how to hack PHP, especially if they are a good communicator. If this sounds like you or if you know someone who fits the bill, drop me a note and I’ll hook that person up with the lead.
At the request of the source, I am deliberately being coy about the details, but suffice it to say that I think it’s an interesting opportunity.

Knights of the living web

What a week this is already turning out to be in the metaworld:

• Mitch Ratcliffe posted another essay from the O’Reilly book last night.
• Jon Lebkowski writes, ‘About technology for SNs I keep thinking “The map is not the territory, but it’s good to have the map.”‘
• David Weinberger has a long blog entry kicking off the Microsoft symposium.
• RSS GUI Shrook goes 2.0.
• About that recurring theme: A June book titled Critical Mass is reviewed in the Guardian (link via The Futurist’s Bookshelf).

A bit from that review:

… This yearning for universal mathematical laws to govern the behaviour of human beings has burdened the west with all sorts of harmless and less harmless nonsense, from phrenology to economics. It now finds a champion in Philip Ball in this long book.

Ball’s argument is that this time, it’s different, guv. In other words, mathematical and statistical physics has attained such a sophistication that its insights into the behaviour of particles of matter can be transferred to the mass behaviour of human beings, whether investing in the stock market or racing for the exits after a fire at a football ground.

In addition, and sotto voce, Ball tells us that society in mass has now become so mechanical that human beings really do resemble atoms of physical matter interacting with one another through forces of attraction and repulsion. …

Catching up

I’m still not logging my things done each day but I’m starting to get to it in less than a week, so that’s something.
Thursday I started an email interview with Levi, found the tab for Syd Barrett’s “Evervescing Elephant” on the web and transposed it for my ukulele, put out the garbage and the yard waste, and went to a meeting in the evening ostensibly to plan the PFA website but ultimately to work on voter-registration drive pyramid scheme.
Friday I managed to speak to Joan Blades of Move On for my book, went grocery shopping, and threw together a rapid first-draft wireframe for the Pyramid project using VoodooPad. I also got the tab for Uncle John’s Band, learned that most of the chords are doable easily on the uke, and serenaded my friend Nick with a tortured rendition played into his voicemail.
Saturday I went to another Pyramid meeting (developing software for political purposes goes much faster than for business purposes!) around 10:30 am in Berkeley and spend about four or more hours there, with lunch provided by our lovely hostess, Simona (a frittata, some risotto, and some strawberry-yogurt parfait). We hashed out a second draft of the process flow and I’m currently stil updating wireframe 2. On the way home I exchanged some unmentionables for B at Victoria’s Seekrit.
Yesterday (Sunday), on a whim, we drove into the city before midday to take in the Art Deco show at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. It was beautiful crisp day and hte Marin headlands were starkly visible across the golden gate. You could also see Mount Diablo quite clearly off in the other direction. The show was great too. IT was the perfect weekend afternoon. B bought a book on tiaras in the museum bookstore. I had a turkey and bacon sandwich in the cafeteria and B ate some of my pickle.
When we got home I practiced my uke for a few hours and then went out to write with Cecil Vortex and the Monkeyman, who are working on their new Monkey Vortex Radio Theatre concept, which I offered to host at x-pollen at least until they get famous and break my server.

Effervescing Elephant (take 3)

in which I remember the chords a bit better but still to no avail

Effervescing Elephant (take 2)

In which I try to remember to keep strumming

Effervescing Elephant (take 1)

one day i will be able to play this

Uncle John's Band (take 2)

choppy and sad