Wild story: Doctors Say Man Survived Extreme Weather by ‘Hibernating’…

A man who went missing in western Japan survived in near-freezing weather without food and water for over three weeks by falling into a state similar to hibernation, doctors said.

Mitsutaka Uchikoshi had almost no pulse, his organs had all but shut down and his body temperature was 71 degrees Fahrenheit when he was discovered on Rokko mountain in late October, said doctors who treated him at the nearby Kobe City General Hospital. He had been missing for 24 days.

The guy fell asleep after the second day and doesn’t remember a thing after that…

Stowe Boyd wrote the following when some people responded to criticism of a conference by saying that the organizers “tried really, really hard”:

Everything worth doing is difficult to do well. Conferences, playing the bongos, tap dancing, sex, whatever. Developing software is hard. Should we start buying bad music because the performers tried real hard? I guess I should go easier on the companies launching new Web apps, because it’s so hard to get it right?

Yoda said: Do, or do not. There is no ‘try.’

Of course I want to teach my child that without trying, there can be no accomplishment. And I want her to know that the journey can be more important that the destination. And I want her to understand that even if she fails to accomplish an objective or reach a goal, if she gave her best she should be proud.

But if your product or service has problems, don’t expect your customers to buy from you because you tried really hard. Business is not about trying. It is all about results. Your customers buy your service because of the results of your efforts, not because of the fact that you made an effort.

Just had to link to World’s Tallest Man Uses Long Arms to Save 2 Dolphins in China:

The long arms of the world’s tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs, state media and an aquarium official said Thursday. The dolphins got sick after nibbling on plastic from the edge of their pool at an aquarium in Liaoning province. Attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because the dolphins’ stomachs contracted in response to the instruments, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Unfortunately the Baiji dolphins weren’t so lucky…

Great article at Scientific American on the 10 Promising Treatments for World’s Biggest Health Threats.

Treatments for diabetes, smoking, Alzheimer’s disease and lung cancer are just a few of the potentially lifesaving cures Scientific American has chosen to highlight in this year’s roundup of drugs you’ve never heard of, despite their potentially huge impact on global health.

These 10 treatments, all of which could significantly impact global health and wellness, are currently running the last gauntlet a pharmaceutical must run before it becomes available to the public–the clinical trial. During this trial researchers test the drug on humans, carefully observing its side effects as well as its overall effectiveness.

Check out this story for information on promising treatments for these diseases:

• Alzheimer’s Disease–Alzhemed
• Dengue–Live attenuated 17D yellow fever and dengue chimera
• Diabetes–Technosphere Insulin System
• Hepatitis C–E1E2/MF59
• Arthritis–Naproxcinod
• Lung Cancer–Stimuvax
• Malaria–RTS,S/AS02A
• Smoking–NicVAX
• Vision Loss–Bevasiranib
• HIV–HPTN 046 and Nevirapine

EarthLink Is Losing a Lot of Email: LandGator writes “Robert X. Cringely, doyen compu-columnist for PBS, reports on a hidden e-mail problem at Earthlink: They’re losing up to 9 messages out of 10, found as a result of a friend’s testing.” From the article: “He sent messages from other accounts to his Earthlink address, to his aliased Blackberry address, and to his Gmail account. For every 10 messages sent, 1-2 arrived in his Earthlink mailbox, 1-2 (not necessarily the SAME 1-2) on his Blackberry, and all 10 arrived with Gmail. Swimming upstream through Earthlink customer support, my buddy finally found a technical contact who freely acknowledged the problem. Since June, he was told, Earthlink’s mail system has been so overloaded that some users have been missing up to 90 percent of their incoming e-mail. It isn’t bounced back to senders; it just disappears. And Earthlink hasn’t mentioned the problem to these affected customers unless they complain.”

Wow… Can you imagine if you were losing 90% of your email and didn’t know it?

On the other hand, Postini announced Wednesday that 93% of all email transmitted over the Internet is spam. So if Earthlink is actually dropping the right 9 out of 10 messages, then maybe they’re doing their customers a favor. 😉

Rajesh Setty has a great article today titled Making the most of your time. He offers 9 tips:

1. Executing on your current projects flawlessly
2. Strengthening your personal brand
3. Building long-term relationships
4. Increasing your capacity to deliver
5. Making a difference to the world
6. Increasing others’ capacity to make a difference
7. Spending time with friends and family
8. Become a valued member in multiple networks
9. Learning and learning to unlearn

Read his post!

Jason Calacanis writes in Black hat and White hat SEO (or “Is SEO B.S. or not?”):

My belief has always been that:

a) if you do a great site and you take your time you will rise in the Google rankings

b) I have faith in Google’s ability to sort the good from the bad

c) all the SEO folks I’ve ever talked to–and I’ve talked to many over the past decade or so–have pitched me on expensive contracts that you can’t cancel for two years with them to do all kinds of shady things to move up in the rankings

d) the best way to do SEO is make better content, more consistently

That last line bears repeating: the best way to do SEO is make better content, more consistently. I think there are a lot of bloggers who spend a lot of time worrying about SEO when their time would be better spent writing another great piece on a unique topic…

Dave Winer wrote today:

Alan Kay once said the Macintosh was the first computer worth criticizing. Jean-Louis Gassee said that as the monkey climbs the tree, the more people can see his derriere.

The first quote especially is something to think about when your customers criticize your service or product. They are telling you your product is worth criticizing. Your customers believe it is worth their time to provide you with feedback. That’s a gift, take it and be thankful…

Trying to find out if BlogHarbor blogs are being blocked in mainland China…

If you know anyone in mainland China, can you ask them to try accessing this blog or any of the blogs on our list of Recently Updated BlogHarbor Weblogs?

We had reports of being blocked sometime in spring 2005, but later in the year and up until recently we’ve had users in mainland China as well as Hong Kong… But one of our bloggers is now reporting being unable to access any BlogHarbor site…

Any information would be appreciated! If you can help us determine if we’ve just been blocked and if the block is by domain name or IP address (do any of the blogs on our recently updated list which use their own domains get blocked?), I’d be most grateful and appreciative.

Great post by Tom today, Just A Couple Of My Terrible Blunders. Tom gives a couple of examples from his past about mistakes he’s made as a sysadmin or when communicating with partners or customers.

I probably ask too many questions these days. I suppose when you’re comfortable enough to ask questions, indicating that you don’t know something, the things you do assert become more believable, even from a bag of hot air like myself.

Blundering is one thing, but not learning from your blunders is another. Being able to laugh at them comes later. 😉

Missed this last week (Oct. 29) from the Stars and Stripes, Army steps up efforts to monitor military bloggers:

A new Army effort to monitor soldiers’ personal Web sites is raising concerns among military bloggers, who worry the service is discouraging the online community’s positive efforts.

Since July a new 10-man branch of the Virginia Army National Guard’s Data Processing Unit — a team of guardsmen trained in security issues — has been surveying the Internet for the Army, looking for online postings that might violate operational security standards.

The group isn’t reviewing things like soldiers’ e-mail accounts, but it is looking at blogs and photo-sharing sites like myspace.com.

From Media Buyer Planner: Another feature [in the upcoming Skype 3.0] allows users to set up text-based chats with up to 100 web users, whether they use Skype or not; it mirrors Skype’s group audio feature, called Skypecast. The public chat feature can be embedded into blogs to encourage conversation.



Sounds interesting… I’d bet that becomes quite popular…

Des Walsh was speaking at a convention today:

What I hadn’t planned for was the keenness of the people for me to show them how to actually set up a blog.

I took up the challenge and opened the BlogHarbor site. Five minutes later, they had a site up, with their first post – no need to futz about with credit cards, confirmation of emails, no special geeky knowledge required, no configuring databases…

The effect was so positive and the people so enthusiastic about the possibilities, that I know I just have to make sure I include this process in any future presentation.

Awesome – a big thanks to Des for showing how you can get blogging in 5 minutes!

Technorati Tags: BlogHarbor, blog+host

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a new service for Google account holders and Gmail users. Derived from Google’s acquisition of the Writely service earlier this year, this service allows users to create word processing and spreadsheet documents within a web browser, so they can accessed from anywhere. These types of web-based applications are often referred to as “Office 2.0” applications, implying an evolution of the standard desktop-based Office software. Google describes their service on the docs.google.com home page:

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a web-based word processing and spreadsheet program that keeps documents current and lets the people you choose update files from their own computers. You can, for example, coordinate your student group’s homework assignments, access your family to-do list from work or home, or collaborate with remote colleagues on a new business plan.

What’s exciting about Google Docs & Spreadsheets is that it also provides you the ability to post your documents directly to your weblog. It even can update your blog post when you update its original GDS document!

Google has made it easy to configure GDS to post to BlogHarbor weblogs by including BlogHarbor in the default list of blog services (thank you Google!), so all you need to know to configure GDS to post to your BlogHarbor weblog is your username and password.

BlogHarbor users see How to Configure Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Post to your Blog…

Technorati Tags: Google+Docs, BlogHarbor, Google

Bart Giamatti, former MLB commissioner, on the game of baseball:

It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

I heard that it rained pretty hard overnight in the NY area…

Technorati Tags: Mets, baseball