See you in 2010!
Tweets From The Accidental Space Tourist
I've never flown before and I'm all for security, but this showing up
two days early thing is ridiculous
WORST SECURITY SCREENING EVER. Exhausted. Do they expect me to carry
the plane in case of emergency? Thank God for Zumba at the Y
@danielleNYC I'm headed to Star City
@danielleNYC No, I mean literally - it's a township in Russia
If they want to bring prices down they'll have to fit more than six
people in the plane. At least there won't be any crying babies
@danielleNYC I'm sure the travel agent knew what I was talking about
Tweeple, please disregard my earlier endorsement of Hastings Executive Travel.
@GODDAMNEVERYONE YES I GET IT NOW YOU CAN STOP SENDING ME LINKS
@porterMD Yes I did notice the ticket price was high. I thought it was
a package deal
@porterMD hotel, tours, that sort of thing
@charliejr Well she wouldn't be a "mail-order" bride if I met her in
person, so you can shut up now
Everyone says @richardbranson is a great guy. Apparently he is a
"great guy" that doesn't believe in refunds.
@danielleNYC no, I don't want to be set up on a date with your sister
again after what happened last time
No iPhones allowed on board so no updates for a bit
That was like carrying a sofa on my face while hurtling through a wind
tunnel followed by 5 minutes of "Fascinating Puke Experiments"
@danielleNYC No, that was referring to the date. The flight was amazing!
First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!
The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.
A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.
Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.
On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.
And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!
~ daisy
As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.
The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.
When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.
It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.
Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.
As always, thanks for your patience.
Oh Balloon Boy is a song about, well, you know. My favorite review of it is: "I didn't think I could possibly like anything about the balloon boy. I was wrong." There was a songwriting challenge for something topical, so I wrote the words based on an old tune, and someone else put the words to a different tune and the result is a fun pop/rock ballad.
Over on Flickr, I uploaded and organized most of the pictures I took from the early days of moblogging (dating back to 2002) with various experimental cameraphones (including the one that took tiny 120 x 90 pics). Lots of lo-fi, light-leaking fun.
Also on Flickr, I finally scanned and uploaded pictures from a cross-country trip we took back in 1997. Taken on real film and everything.
And of course the big summer project was Angry Octopus Comics, a webcomic I worked on with Zoe. When we were done for the summer, we made a video about it:
That's all for now, but hopefully more random stuff to come!
Like most of the country, I have sat by horrified and deeply saddened by the incident that took place at Ft. Hood last week. I have been further saddened by how Major Hasan has been portrayed as some fundamentalist Muslim on a religious mission of some sorts and the ensuing death threats against Muslims in the Ft. Hood area. Whatever the reasons motivating Maj. Hasan, of which I am sure there were many, none of them justify further killing or threats of any kind. Hate begets hate. If we all, or even a few of us, respond to this incident by targeting Muslims because one of them made a horrendous decision not in line with their faith, the chasm will grow and more horrible incidents will ensue. As Ghandi said, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
So, I am writing to propose a way to refocus those energies and to respond to the situation with love. Show our troops some love and get yourself educated on S.1963 - the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2009. The goal of the bill is to increase mental health services to veterans. Our veterans are suffering tremendously and the VA, and the rest of the country for that matter, are woefully ill-equipped to manage the severity of the problem. We are sending these people out on multiple deployments in a war zone unlike any other before. Whatever your political take on the wars, I think we can all agree that we need to take care of our veterans. I support this bill, but encourage everyone to do their own homework on it.
If you discover you support it, please call Senator Coburn's office and ask him to remove the hold from the bill. He alone is preventing the bill from leaving committee and reaching the Senate floor for a vote. The Committee on Veterans' Affairs has a statement about it here. Senator Coburn has his rebuttal here. If you believe the bill should be supported, please call your senators and ask them to support it. If you don't know how to contact your senators, go here.
I have hesitated for some time to post this because too often well-intentioned posts about how to offer support to our troops get thread-jacked by those wanting to debate the validity of the wars. I am the daughter of a veteran who served in two wars and I am proud of my dad's service. I am also a flaming liberal who vehemently opposes the wars. If I can separate the soldier from the action, then you can, too, and I respectfully ask you to do so here. If you want to say anything hateful, discriminatory, or negative, please make your own post. I don't post publicly very often because it's easier to deal with my small community. But, our troops are part of the larger community and we ALL need to come together to support them. It isn't enough to put a ribbon on the back of your car and wear an American flag pin. The heart of our country is action and I am asking you to take some positive action today to help support our troops and turn the events at Ft. Hood into a forceful, positive response from the country in support of our combat veterans. Many thanks.
So, I've been using my Typepad account instead of VOX, and whenever I come back over this way I have shit loads of spam comments to delete. Surely, VOX, if you delete a spam account, it should automatically delete all of the spam comments they've left as well?
Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
