Hi. I'm Newley Purnell. I cover technology and business for The Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. I use this site to share my stories and often blog about the books I'm reading, tech trends, sports, travel, and our dog Ginger. For updates, get my weekly email newsletter.
“How To Do Something Great.” I like this one:
An idea is only as good as its execution. I know people, everyday people like you and I, with great ideas, who just never do anything with them. For an idea to be worth anything you’ve got to do something with it.
(Note to self re: goals for this week: 1) finish patent application for chorks; 2) complete working protoype; 3) deposit angel investors’ seed money checks; 4) write Genius Grant acceptance speech.)
I heard about this on the radio this morning and it made my stomach turn:
GREEN TREE, Pa. — A state lawmaker is pushing for doggy seat belts on the advice of an 11-year-old constituent. Marc McCann of Green Tree came up with the idea as part of state Rep. Tom Stevenson’s annual “There Ought to be a Law” contest.
Stevenson, R-Pa., submitted a bill to the House Transportation Committee in June that would require drivers to keep their dogs’ heads inside the vehicle at all times. Stevenson also wants to require drivers to restrain the animals, either with some kind of modified seat belt or in a crate or carrier box.
“I never did like dogs sticking their heads out the window,” said McCann, one of more than 500 students from his legislative district who proposed laws. “Maybe a sign might have been too close to the road and they’d get hit. Maybe they’d jump out the window on a highway.”
Stevenson said the bill will protect “not only human lives, but pet lives. I think it’s going to be a great idea because it’s going to cut down on driver distractions.”
Rep. Tom Stevenson has an annual “There Ought to be a Law” contest? Wait, creating more laws is a good thing? Don’t we have enough already? Why do we automatically look to the government to legislate our behavior? Can’t we depend on ourselves to keep our own goddamned pooches out of harm’s way?
Hey, ladies: looking for some modest swimwear? You might find Wholesome Wear to be of interest as you go about sprucing up your summertime bathing collection.
When he has writer’s block, John Battelle, author of the forthcoming book “The Search: The Inside Story of How Google and Its Rivals Changed Everything,” keeps on writing. But not his book manuscript. Instead, he goes straight to his blog (battellemedia.com).
Mr. Battelle, a founder of Wired and The Industry Standard magazines, sometimes makes quick notes on the blog about a topic related to his book, and other times posts longer essays. “Writing for the blog is more like having a conversation,” Mr. Battelle said.
For years, book authors have used the Internet to publicize their work and to keep in touch with readers. Several, like Mr. Battelle, are now experimenting with maintaining blogs while still in the act of writing their books.
“Big toys for big boys at this theme park…”:
Hamburg – Almost every boy has dreamt of driving a bulldozer or operating a big crane or pressing the pedal to the metal of an earth-mover the size of a house.
Alas, that dream never comes true for most boys, who grow up to work in stuffy offices, wearing stuffy suits and neckties, driving nothing bigger than a family car.
But an enterprising construction contractor in Germany has come up with a money-making scheme for putting his idle machinery to use on weekends – by turning his bulldozer lot into a theme park where boys of all ages can come and make that childhood dream come true.
Warning: I’m about to get all serious and sappy. Leave now if you can’t stand seeing my soft side; I’ll think no less of you.
Still with me? Okay.
I saw a really moving segment on “60 Minutes II” the other night. It was about a guy named John Beltzer; he writes, produces, and records custom-made songs for sick kids — children who have leukemia and other chronic and terminal illnesses.
It was inspiring: as you could see in the footage, the kids really derive a lot of joy from the songs, and Beltzer’s devotion to what he sees as his life calling is impressive. He wanted to be a rock star but failed; he realized, after his own brother died, that he could use music to help children who really need cheering up.
Here’s Beltzer’s site, and here’s the “60 Mintues II” piece.
The World Hum crew has just re-launched their site — and it’s excellent. Check it out. RSS, some new features, a re-vamped blog. All great stuff. (You may recall that I wrote a story about eating soup in Bangkok for World Hum a few years back; it’s here.)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fishermen in northern Thailand have caught the biggest catfish on record — a 646-pound (293-kg) giant the size of a grizzly bear — and eaten it, the WWF and the National Geographic Society said on Wednesday.
The giant catfish, believed to be the largest freshwater fish ever found, was caught along the Mekong River, home to more species of massive fish than any river on Earth.
I love the fact that they ate it. Waste not, want not.
Tom Deja attended a recent technology convention in Chicago and has some very funny observations. Like:
As we walked into the hall, past the world’s fastest electric car (supposedly; as far as I could tell it was a large fiberglass canoe), through the sheet of steam onto which was projected a live image of the jackasses in front of us (seriously, who the fuck takes a picture of themselves getting their picture taken?), I could tell that my fantasy of the whole place being full of jive-talking robots and chicks in jet packs was a little off the mark. Instead, it was full of the aforementioned retarded cliques, suits two-fisting free Maker’s Mark and sweaty salesmen with glassy eyes and useless shit. Seriously, according to GE, the future is going to be pretty much exactly like it is now only our burglar alarms will work slightly faster and everyone will drive in tiny, super gay looking cars that can go 50 whole miles without being plugged in again.
Ever since discovering Bloglines a few months back, I’ve been meaning to write about how much I love the service. So here goes. Prepare to be proselytized (just like I’ve previously raved about delicious and Firefox and the Mac experience).
You’ve heard me mention RSS before — though a better way to describe RSS would be to avoid the acronym and focus on what it provides: Web feeds.
RSS (er, a Web feed) is simply a way to subscribe to automatically receive notices when Web sites have been updated. You’ll find all sorts of complicated descriptions out there, but it’s one of those things you kind of have to see on the screen to grasp. Which I why I urge you to check out Bloglines.
Web feeds hold a lot of promise, and I’d messed around with RSS before — I experimented with NetNewsWire and the Firefox RSS aggregator plugin. But I didn’t like the way those worked; I don’t like the idea of using a separate application (like NetNewsWire), and the I didn’t like the way the Firefox plugin appeared in my browser. Bloglines, however, is Web-based, so I can access it seamlessly using a separate tab in Firefox. (Another nomenclature-related bone to pick, though: Bloglines is a bad name, since the service can be used to track not just blogs but traditional news sites, weather, whatever — any site that provids a Web feed.)
Here’s more info on Bloglines and RSS:
— “Using Bloglines” (an illustrative tutorial)
— “15 things you can do with RSS (it was supposed to be 10, but I got carried away)”
(Oh, and a final note: when you get Bloglines up and running, don’t send me emails expressing your gratitude. Just subscribe to the newley.com RSS feeds — links to ’em are on the top left of this page. That’ll be thanks enough.)