simra.net Doing stuff since 1973

This is a random post to indicate that I'm still alive and I've repaired perms on this blog, deleted spam comments and generally hope to get things ship-shape before I move the site to a new provider.

Howdy folks, hope you're all doing good. :-)

I hardly posted this year, so who am I to talk about the best of 2008? Look at it this way: just because I was silent doesn't mean I wasn't lurking.

My blogroll has grown to 355 subscriptions. That's a bit much to manage, but there are a handful of blogs that I come back to over and over. Here's my rundown of faves and knee-jerk reads.

Economics was the theme of '08, for obvious reasons. It's all about The Mess That Greenspan Made.
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/
Ok, maybe he cheers too much for gold, but he's got the right idea.
For a more center-of-the-road approach, see The Economist. Not quite as good as the print edition, but still a decent reference:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/economist/full_print_edition
P.S. if you're looking for a stock to short to the bottom:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/agoracom-braintech
HAHAHAHA. Just kidding, Rick. ;-) ;-)

Amusements and diversions:
XKCD always strikes a chord with me. The more melancholy it gets, the better it is.
http://www.xkcd.com/atom.xml
Indexed offers its daily dose of wisdom:
http://indexed.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
... and Strange Maps appeals to the inner geography geek:
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/feed/

Unicorns and Guily Pleasures:
The Xeni vs Violet smackdown was the buzz of the blogosphere this year. My money was on Xeni's version of the truth. VB probably won more eyeballs.
http://www.boingboing.net/atom.xml
http://www.tinynibbles.com/feed (prlly NSFW)

I don't give a flying frak about politics any more, but it warmed my heart to see the democrats and a real leader take the throne. For some reason Huff wins over KOS, just on sheer volume:
http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/huffingtonpost/raw_feed
... and yes, just because I've moved to Redmond doesn't mean I've forgotten I'm Canajun. 2 points for maximum offense:
http://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I'm still paying rent in Vancouver. :-( Miss 604 makes it all better. Except for those annoying copyright notices.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/miss604rss

For whatever reason, Buddhist, Atheist, Cephelapodist and Roboticist sites were not high on my radar this year. Friends, acquaintances and pseudo-internet-friends were, though. Some feeds worth digesting, just because, in absolutely no order:
http://smart-machines.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://alweb.homeip.net/blog/?feed=rss2
http://haikufactory.com/feed/atom/
http://letrangers.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://blog.mikedaum.com/feed/atom/
http://pooyak.com/blog/atom.xml
http://www.dudek.org/dudek.org/blog/rdf91_xml
http://level8.wordpress.com/feed/
http://streebgreebling.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/17586196933164395276/state... (Eli Sagor)
http://www.google.com/reader/public/atom/user/18067771064896365845/state... (Mike Daum)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Simranet (Yours Truly!)

Happy holidays, one and all, and all the best in the new year.

Bear with me while I mess with pipes and test some more...

fyi, if you're subscribed to my RSS feed, check that it's http://feeds.feedburner.com/Simranet and not /blog/rss.xml. Otherwise you'll miss out on half the action. :-)

Good news #1: My cousin-in-law has offered me free hosting. Sweet! The server can be on the slow side, but beggars can't be choosers, no? I'll tweak drupal's throttle module to try to make things a little snappier.
Good news #2: I'm sitting at YVR after receiving my TN visa in record time. Many thanks to Microsoft's immigration lawyers for assembling all the documentation I needed to complete the process. Now I have an hour to kill while I wait to board.

http://www.botjunkie.com/

I must have been asleep at the switch, because over the last month or so BotJunkie has had a whole slew of posts with cool robots, including a scary looking laser spot welder. Go see for yourself.

http://www.simra.net/blog/node/409

I haven't seen Sososa for a while so I'm tentatively re-enabling unmoderated comments. Be nice.

http://blogisattva.blogspot.com/2008/02/2008-blogisattva-awards-nominees...

Quoth Blogisattva:
The Blogisattva Organization is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2008 Blogisattva Awards honoring English-language Buddhism blogging during calendar year 2007. This is the third annual iteration of the awards which are given wholly for merit, and not as a measure of blogs’ popularity.

Some good ones in there: IOC, Hoodie Monk, Level 8th Buddhist (which imho deserves more than just a style nomination). Plus, lots of link candy.

http://www.metafilter.com/68467/ASCII-Game-Revolution

Sorry for the technical difficulties, folks. In the meantime I've been reliving past nethack glories...

My hosting provider had some technical problems there... hopefully they're solved.

http://bcbloggers.com/

Spontaneous free link to yours truly. Wonder what drove them to this madness...

http://coolmel.typepad.com/iblog/2007/09/creepy-library-.html

C4Chaos plans to read and review the growing stack of A-list Atheist celebrity books out there. Could be interesting...

http://tricycleblog.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/dharma-family-values-by-cla...

I don't often get a lot out of the tricycle blog but today's post has a handful of great links:

Ok, no big deal, really. This blog finally has 10 whole inbound links. Some of which are my own. But given that I know so few other bloggers in real-life, that's got to count for something. My old blog reached 32 links before I switched to a new URL. If you're a blogger and a regular reader, add me to your blogroll, drop me a line, and I'll do the same. :-)

http://thestoneoftear.blogspot.com/

The Stone of Tear is one of my favourite new additions to my reader.

I'm certainly elitist. What's wrong with being elitist, if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?

Check out their latest post on science vs faith:
http://thestoneoftear.blogspot.com/2007/08/science-vs-faith-faith-wins-i...

http://gomyo.livejournal.com/

What if Gary Snyder were a hoodie-wearing graffiti artist? A random blog post by Barry Graham tipped me off to visit Gomyo. Great stuff!

http://mojoey.blogspot.com/2006/09/join-mojoeys-atheist-blogroll.html

I've joined the atheist blogroll. Isn't there some Groucho Marx line about avoiding clubs that would admit you as a member? Enjoy!

http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2007/07/speedlinking-72007.html

I'm not sure how he does it but William Harryman manages to produce one of the best distillations of the day's news and information, with a Buddhist slant, every day.

This is just an informational post to let you know that, if you're subscribed to this site's original rss feed, it's been moved (some time ago) to feedburner:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Simranet

The old feed will still work but you'll miss out on whatever feedburner goodness is out there, and I'll miss out on knowing that I have subscribers. :-)

http://www.chriscorrigan.com/miscellany/bijournal/blogger.html

After a quiet winter, Chris has a slew of recent posts over at the Bowen Island Journal. This has long been one of my favorite blogs. At the back of my mind there's the hope that if I read it enough I'll actually find myself living there...

Greg Dudek was my PhD supervisor and is now director at the Centre for Intelligent Machines at McGill. He also has an interesting weblog.