Gans on Line 1

They're congratulating (tnf) aka David Gans in the "Well Members in the News" topic (media.2190 and linked elsewhere) for appearing in an article on Al Franken and Air America Radio that appeared in Rolling Stone. From the article:

A young woman puts her head in the door and says, "Al, David Gans for you." David Gans has made a career of being informed about the Grateful Dead. For the music that will accompany the show, Franken is going to play only Jerry Garcia. Franken has called Gans for help. "What I'm looking for is the clean, melodic, upbeat, soaring solo and less the vague, spacey, acidy solo," Franken says. "I don't want people to be scared." He listens, makes a few comments, then hangs up.

The full article is located here.

Flo Control

Geeky pet owners and their pets.... user (wiggly) mentioned this great URL in the genx conference.

Flamewatch for 27 Apr 2004

Hmm... now at #4, but very close to becoming #3...

Tue Apr 20 00:00:00 2004 through Mon Apr 26 23:59:19 2004

 1. 5807  news           11. 2055  sanfran        21. 1106  music
 2. 4745  media          12. 2006  words          22. 1082  decor
 3. 3970  tv             13. 1940  macintosh      23. 1034  parenting
 4. 3294  flame.ind      14. 1757  sports         24. 1017  web
 5. 3249  movies         15. 1690  current        25. 1015  games
 6. 3143  genx           16. 1660  obsess         26.  979  newmusic
 7. 2775  popcult        17. 1471  books          27.  953  gd
 8. 2418  hosts          18. 1387  ny             28.  875  pets
 9. 2349  politics       19. 1356  health         29.  838  cars
10. 2254  chow.ind       20. 1303  plumage        30.  788  berkeley

Au in the Merc

Wagner James Au, longtime WELL user, is written up today in the San Jose Mercury News, in a story about his involvement in the "Second Line" virtual world gaming environment. Read the story here.

Patrick Henry College: The Bush Connection

In various conferences around The WELL, user (barbaral) has been posting a URL to an article in The Independent, a UK news publication. The article's entitled "The Bible College That leads to the White House. Read the article. It's fascinating. This is a very unusual college. What's most unusual is how many students from this school are winding up as interns in White House and other federal government agencies, sometimes winding up in jobs in Iraq.

In the genx conference someone suggested a group form to head to PHC and offer an alternative curriculum of wine, women, and song... Oh, those Genxers are such a subversive bunch.

The website for the school itself is worth reading. Especially the Strategic Intelligence Program, part of the Department of Government.

Integer Sequences

Whoda thunk there'd be an Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, maintained by a research lab at AT&T? It's actually very interesting to browse. Heard about it from a posting by (rbr) in genx.1860.512.

Interpreting Friendster Photos

(mcow) mentioned in the vc conference (virtual communities), topic 482, resp 68, this hilarious page from a website called "Buttafly" entitled The Buttafly Guide to Interpreting Friendster Photos. Right on the money.

Aral Sea

There's a new topic getting off to a somewhat uneven start in the media conference called "Misinformation" (topic 2230), but a user named (hal) posted two great links there, on the incredible eco-disaster that is the Aral Sea.

When I was growing up, I was a serious geography buff, and loved studying maps. I always wanted to go to the Aral Sea kind of like Feynman always wanted to go to Tuva. The Aral Sea was, after all, the largest lake in the world, a huge body of water in the middle of Asia. Alas, it isn't so huge anymore.

First link is to a fascinating page developed by UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme.

The second link show is a photo of what it looks like from the ground. Photo reminds me of a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, only this time, it's for real.

flamewatch for 14 Apr 2004

flame.ind moved up to #5 today:

Public conference visits
Wed Apr  7 00:00:01 2004 through Tue Apr 13 23:59:25 2004

 1. 6169  news           11. 2318  sanfran        21. 1266  health
 2. 5015  media          12. 2129  chow.ind       22. 1174  berkeley
 3. 4090  tv             13. 1983  books          23. 1149  decor
 4. 3863  hosts          14. 1845  macintosh      24. 1114  music
 5. 3345  flame.ind      15. 1775  current        25. 1099  byline
 6. 3286  genx           16. 1646  words          26. 1080  cars
 7. 3249  obsess         17. 1629  sports         27. 1045  gd
 8. 2869  movies         18. 1496  plumage        28.  898  parenting
 9. 2612  popcult        19. 1483  ny             29.  849  work
10. 2362  politics       20. 1297  games          30.  834  newmusic

Robert Caro News

In the books conference, someone mentioned on April 7th that he'd heard that Pulitzer-winning author Robert Caro spent three months in the hospital recently, is out now, and has not been to Vietnam as part of the research-gathering for the next volume of Caro's famous LBJ biography covering the Presidency years.

Can't find a peep about Caro being ill in Google News. I hope he's ok! The world is a better place having Caro around.

Found Items

There's a fascinating topic in tbe books conference called "Items Found in Used Books" that was started back in 2001.

Recently someone posted a description of an amazing item found in a used 1907 edition of the Iliad: a World War II-era flyer that had evidently been released by American planes passing over Germany, it was written in German, and assured the reader of America's honorable intentions in winning the war, and supplying Britain with ships, airplanes, tanks, etc.

Earlier posts include how one person found $200 inside a library book, and how another person knew someone who'd left $20 in their master's thesis at a library, and upon going back years later, discovering the money hadn't been removed.

Quicken Naggers

In the genx conference, which is essentially a placeholder for talking about anything and everything, there's a topic (1801) called "HELLO forevermore", a long-standing WELL tradition of topics called "HELLO" where the postings can be about anything but usually start as "HELLO, my car didn't start today, and I found out it's going to cost $1100 to fix" or "HELLO, my boss just fired the whole department, then said he was kidding!".

Today someone posted something about his having to pay taxes using money from his 401K. The reponses that followed alternated between gasps of horror and comforting reassurances. Then (lendie), an accountant, replied urging the original poster to reconsider tapping money out of their 401K, that there were other, safer methods. I responded:

Finally, an instance where a talking Microsoft paperclip might be useful: you're in the middle of Quicken, and it notices you're withdrawing money from your 401K to pay other bills, and before you can do the withdraw a Quicken wizard pops up and says, "Whoa dude, you'e doing what? Here. There's a better way that avoids penalties..."

Call it Lendie[tm]!

Another WELL person (mtrbike) responded with a great idea of "Quicken Naggers" -- and provided a list of things a Quicken Nagger (think Intuit version of that awful MSFT paperclip) would nag you about, as if it were your own personal comptroller.

Intuit, are you listening?

The Kindred Spirit

The socal (Southern California) conference has been the scene of an amazing ongoing narrative by a user named (duca), and his adventures living aboard a boat named THE KINDRED SPIRIT in the San Diego Bay. It all started back on November 18th of last year, when (duca) posted a gonzo-style dialogue in a quiet "live aboard in San Diego" topic whose previous response was dated October 1996.

Ever since November, (duca)'s stories have ruled "socal". In the past few weeks, he's been moving from one marina to the next, using every trick in the book to find ways to live aboard his boat even in marinas where live-aboard is verboten. Today's posting suggests the marina's on to him. It's going to be interesting to see how this unfolds.

What's really remarkable about (duca)'s writing is how vivid and spicy the dialogue is with all the crusty characters he encounters on the water. Either he's making it up, or he has a) a gift of phonographic memory, remembering everything that was said that day. It's like a Fear and Loathing on San Diego Bay crossed with The Old Patagonian Express. I once posted a reply asking him, exactly how does he get such vivid dialogue? How does he remember it all? Tape recorder, or vivid memory? Never got a reply...

Kill Bill vol 1 DVD

They're talking about the new Kill Bill Volume 1 DVD in the movies conference, topic 2978. Andy Klein, aka (saiyuk), an L.A. movie reviewer, longtime WELL user, and host of movies, is shocked tonight to learn from (beau) that the full text of his review of the movie is included in the DVD package. (saiyuk) says that back in March, Miramax told him they weren't going to include his review in this release despite plans to do so, but had instead pushed it out to the Special Edition version of the DVD that'll come out later. Despite his having had a copy of the DVD for a week, he'd not bothered to open it, believing his review wasn't in there. Ha! A pleasant surprise to find out it is indeed.

[I'm assuming this is the text of the review in question.]

flamewatch for 13 Apr 2004

Flame.ind at #6 today.

Public conference visits
Tue Apr  6 00:00:08 2004 through Mon Apr 12 23:59:49 2004

 1. 6137  news           11. 2318  sanfran        21. 1248  health
 2. 4956  media          12. 2013  books          22. 1231  berkeley
 3. 4029  tv             13. 2006  chow.ind       23. 1229  games
 4. 3684  hosts          14. 1813  macintosh      24. 1104  byline
 5. 3171  genx           15. 1734  current        25. 1090  gd
 6. 3163  flame.ind      16. 1659  sports         26. 1033  decor
 7. 3085  obsess         17. 1612  words          27.  994  cars
 8. 3060  movies         18. 1436  ny             28.  915  newmusic
 9. 2626  popcult        19. 1410  plumage        29.  875  parenting
10. 2389  politics       20. 1318  music          30.  823  cooking

Welcome

Welcome to WNOTW aka "What's New On The WELL". This is an independent blog, not supported by, endorsed by, or in any other way influenced by the managers of the conferencing community known as The WELL nor its owners Salon.com. It's just a blog about stuff that's going on on The WELL, or stuff that I found interesting that I first heard on The WELL.

A brief explanation of the items in the Navigation Bar at the top of the screen:

• Home: The most recent blog entries are shown on the home page.
• HOTW: Heard on The WELL. Something I read on The WELL that I thought was interesting or noteworthy. Might be a link to another website, a paraphrase of something someone said, who knows.
• TBTOTW: A long-standing tradition on The WELL is for folks to (jokingly or seriously) comment on a topic somewhere in one of The WELL's conferences by saying "This is the best topic on The WELL." It is especially common when there's a spectacular digression from, say, what was a serious discussion on current legislation on Medicare reform, but has morphed into a heated debate on the design of toasters or a MINI Cooper automobiles or the latest baseball scores or a series of worse and worse puns. So, this section of the blog will try to track places where folks are currently insisting *this* is currently the best topic on The WELL.
• Slippage: "Slippage" is a term used by The WELL to mean when someone's latest response in a topic was beaten out by one or more other responses to the topic first. For instance, someone asks a Windows question, and you know the answer, and by the time you've typed it in and submitted it, you find out that more than one person has already provided the answer. The WELL will tell you that other responses have "slipped in" before yours. Often, very hot topics will have a lot of slippage. This section of the blog will try to track those hot topics.
• Flamewatch: A popular, if notorious, conference on The WELL is called "flame.ind". In it, some WELL users comment on, chastise, or flat-out flame other users, especially those who have made what flame.ind denizens feel is an outrageously clueless or uninformed posting somewhere else on The WELL. The flame.ind conference is, strangely, one of the most popular conferences on The WELL. I find this disconcerting, and I tend to keep an eye on the day-to-day rise and fall of flame.ind in the WELL's top-30-conferences tally. Theory: the higher the flame.ind ranking, the less interesting The WELL is that day. Dread: the day flame.ind gets a rank of #1.
• The Numbers: Think of it as Harper's Index but for stuff seen on or about The WELL.