In an attempt to bring RSS to the masses, and to have the masses understand it, the infamous Dave Winer has created http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/ - with the goal of spreading the word and explaining RSS in a way people can consume. Good idea, when you consider it's all about making information easy to consume, don't-cha-think?

Every publisher that supports RSS has to explain what it's about, and every one tells a different and incomplete story.

Another clue is that most the hits on Google for RSS are sites for developers. Not much for a normal person who might want to use RSS or just know what it might mean for a person who's not a scientist.

So I wanted to start a site where people from the RSS users community can answer questions to help newbies figure out what to do with an RSS feed without requiring a PhD in XML.

 - Dave Winer

Jon Stewart is pretty darn funny. Read his commencement address that he gave a few days ago at William & Mary College, where he was a student back in the 80's. As always, he's both funny and makes you stop and think. And then, right when he's got you in serious mode, he slaps ya down with another joke.

“Lets talk about the real world for a moment. We had been discussing it earlier, and I ... I wanted to bring this up to you earlier about the real world, and this is I guess as good a time as any. I don’t really know to put this, so I’ll be blunt. We broke it.”

Classic.

I've always been fascinated by the planets, moons, stars, galaxies, comets, and things. It's amazing to think about all that's out there and how BIG it all is. Today I was checking out a friend's web site and found a link to really cool piece of (free) software called Celestia. Wow, if you're even remotely into this stuff, you need to download this and check it out.

The video I shot gives a pretty lame idea of what you can do with this software - only my execution doesn't do the program justice. Fly from one object to another and check out anything you want.

Here's a hint: Enter ISS as an object name with a distance of about half a mile. Neat-o.

“This fixes a critical problem where your blog cache can get corrupted. Just drop the enclosed DLL into your /bin folder and that's it.”

New web site files and setup MSIs also posted there.

I just ran across PeerFlix, which is using an interesting variation on the NetFlix business model. You let PeerFlix know what movies you own, as well as the ones that you want to see. Then you send your movies to others using the service, and they do the same.

Looks like the cost is lower than NetFlix, and they have a pay-as-you-go option as well as an unlimited number of monthly trades for $10 per month. You trade DVDs you own, and the company covers loss, theft, etc.

It's an interesting concept, and I might even try it out. I've subscribed to NetFlix for a few years now, but this looks like it has the potential to work. Not sure how the selection would be (although they claim 30,000 titles) or how easy it would be to get what you want (NetFlix is great for finding interesting titles on their web site that I otherwise might never know about), but it's intriguing, and I have a few DVDs around that others might be interested in, and for which I have no real use.

Might be a workable business model based on the “one man's junk” philosophy.

Seems like after updating to dasBlog 1.6 the emails normally sent when referrals and comments are made are pretty much hit-and-miss. Sometimes email gets sent, other times not. Or is it just my imagination? Anyone using v1.6 that's seen this behavior?

EDIT: since the hot-fix, problem seems to be resolved.