Wingedpig.com - Mark Fletcher's Blog

From outside a bar in downtown Aspen.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first saw the documentary The King Of Kong when it came out in theaters last summer. It's the story of two guys and their attempts at getting (and keeping) the high score in the arcade game Donkey Kong. But it's much more than that. It was the funniest movie I saw last year. The DVD just came out and it has an update to the story (apparently it's still not over), along with a bunch of great extra footage. The extra footage is worth watching just for the Mr Awesome segment alone. Highly recommended.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 04:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I recently ordered a "Big Boy" Rocket Lamp from Cool Rockets. Just doing my part to support the lagging economy. Well, it arrived today. It's every bit as cool as I had hoped. After unboxing it, however, I noticed that someone had written on the side of the box:

It's difficult to see in the picture, but it also looks like someone has taken a pen or other small, sharp object, and stabbed the box many times.

I'm left to wonder what could have caused such anguish, that would cause this person to reach out to a random customer of his products with such a cry for help. I want to know.

I feel your pain, sad, anonymous rocket scientist. The last few months have been bad for many of us; I do truly feel your pain. But if it helps any, I want you to know that you make a bitchin' lamp.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alternate captions (feel free to add your own in the comments):

• These skis aren't short, I just have really long feet.
• A three-year-old punk was mouthing off to me at High Camp, so I stole his skis. Who's crying now, you big baby?!?
• But the box said they were pre-shrunk!

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

For those ONElisters and eGroupies (and anyone else who knew Michael) who might see this and haven't already gotten the Evite, we're having a reunion this Wednesday, January 16th at Tres Agaves in San Francisco at 7pm, in honor of Mike Klein.

Tres Agaves
130 Townsend St
San Francisco, CA
650-303-8260

As Rikk says in the Evite, we "know that Mike would have wanted this to be fun, wild, and happy event." I hope to see you there.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 06:50 PM | Permalink

When I brought Scott Shambarger in as the first person to help run ONElist back in 1998, we made a bet. If we ever sold the company for a decent amount of money, we'd shave our heads. A little more than two years after that, the company threw a party on a boat on San Francisco bay to celebrate the closing of the Yahoo acquisition of (the now called) eGroups. Michael Klein was instrumental in making that happen.

I tried to find a funny picture of Mike, and came upon this one, taken by Joe Gross, of Mike assisting in the shaving of my head at that party.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 02:54 PM | Permalink

The title says it all. Reports are that Mike Klein, who I hired as CEO of ONElist and who later oversaw the acquisition of (the renamed) eGroups to Yahoo, is missing after a plane crash on Sunday in Panama. Mike owns a resort off the coast of Panama, and the reports say he was flying with his daughter, a friend, and the pilot. Their destination was the Chiriqui volcano, but they never made it. Searchers have been hampered by bad weather.

Mike currently runs Pacificor, a hedge fund in Santa Barbara. They just issued a press release. Another report with more details is here.

This is terrible news. I will post when more is known.

Update: Report from CNN with a little more information.

Update: Unfortunately, the crash site was found Christmas day, and Mike, his daughter, and the pilot did not survive the crash. Mike was one of the smartest people I knew and this is a great loss.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of my favorite memories of this past year was of an afternoon spent selecting LOLcat pictures for use in a presentation I would later give in Edinburgh on blogging (trust me, it was more fun than it sounds). Anyways, here is my contribution to the LOLcat canon. Happy Holidays.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 07:10 PM | Permalink

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 07:05 AM | Permalink

The latest craze running through the blogosphere is blog tag, and Dave McClure tagged me. Thanks Dave.

1. My parents owned a minor league baseball team for 8 years, the Sonoma County Crushers, in the 1990s. During the ONElist years, escaping up there to see a couple games on the weekends was a fantastic stress reliever. Also, among other things, I learned how to set professional fireworks (long story involving a mostly deaf and blind "professional" fireworks person who had arrived late). The one heirloom I want from my parents is the mascot costume from the team. Crusher the Abominable Sonoman was by far the best mascot on the face of the planet, and I'm not just saying that 'cause I'm biased. One day, he will be stuffed, mounted and placed in my home, ready to greet all visitors.

2. My nickname is Pig. When I applied for a job at Diba, a startup building a WebTV-like box, I put a picture of a pig on my resume. I wanted to make sure my resume was noticed, and I had some Christmas lights in my cube in the shape of pigs. How I connected those two thing, I'll never know. I really don't recommend doing this, but it's worked out ok. At ONElist, the marketing folks had a field day with this. Our first t-shirts had "A little pig goes a long way" on the back of them. A tradition developed where new employees would bring in a pig related item, usually a stuffed animal. After the acquisition by Yahoo, I ended up with the resulting 'pig shrine', which had gotten rather large by that point.

3. I'm a big San Jose Sharks fan. I've been going to games for years, and this year I finally decided to get season tickets.

4. I have a completely irrational and unjustifiable fear of jellyfish. Have I ever been stung by one? Of course not. Have I ever even gotten close to one? Nope, no way. And yet, I'm very reluctant to get into the ocean. For years, in San Diego, I lived at most 2 miles from the beach, but I never went. Crazy, I know.

5. Vegetables and me don't really get along. What's the opposite of a vegetarian? Me.

And there you go. More than you ever wanted to know. I tag Jeremy Zawodny, Joshua Schachter, Nick Bradbury, Greg Linden, and Marc Hedlund.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Apologies if you've sent me email over the past week or two and I haven't responded. I'm way behind. I hope to catch up later this week.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 11:09 AM | Permalink

If you are reading this, then the DNS changes have propagated and you're reading this blog from it's new server. For the past 5 years, wingedpig.com was hosted on a machine at my house, running off my DSL line. For various reasons, I decided it was time to move to a hosted solution. Based on a recommendation from a friend, I chose Pair Networks. At the same time, I upgraded to the latest version of Movable Type and changed the style of the blog. Because of this, unfortunately, the links to individual blog entries have changed. If you're reading this in an aggregator, this means that you'll see a bunch of old posts show up as new again. I apologize for this; it's a one-time occurance.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Cross Posted to the Bloglines blog and the Ask Jeeves blog]:

Blogs have given individuals of any and every background the ability to freely speak their minds and share information with anyone who chooses to read it, at any time they wish to do so. Bloglines was created for people as a window to access this world of dynamic content and a way to participate in its creation. We believe blogs have helped enable an open exchange of information that has never before been possible. As some of you may have heard, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is reviewing its regulations concerning political speech on the Internet, including blog activity. Bloglines is committed to the continuation of open exchanges of information and opinions throughout the blogosphere and the Internet in general. Today, the Committee on House Administration is having a hearing on this issue. In the spirit of these beliefs, I have provided the Committee with the following statement. We encourage you to express your opinion on this matter in any forum you choose.

-Mark Fletcher and the Bloglines team

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 05:02 PM | Permalink

• I was on two panels at the SES San Jose conference last week, which was fun. If you ever have the chance to test Gary Price's knowledge of obscure '80's pop-culture trivia, I highly recommend it. The man is an encyclopedia both of amazing breadth and depth.
• I did in fact go flying in a Stearman, and I have the pictures to prove it. Except, umm, they're still on my phone. But they do exist. Flying an open cockpit bi-plane that's almost twice as old as I am is one of the more fun things you can do without going to jail.
• I work with really smart people. The Bloglines team is really great and I don't say that often enough.
• I was going to blog something about how tags are bad, evil horrible bad, and highlight the failure of existing search technology, but I couldn't muster the energy. High level message: tags suck and are unnecessary except in cases where no other textual data exists (like photos, audio or video). Discuss amongst yourselves.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 10:58 PM | Permalink

• I was part of the Recent Innovations in Search and Other Ways of Finding Information panel presented by BayCHI. I appreciated the opportunity to participate.
• I'll be in Tokyo next week, participating in a couple of Ask Jeeves Japan events. I've never been to Asia, so I'm very excited. I'll be making a second trip to Tokyo in late June as well, right before I head off to Gnomedex 5.0. This is my first Gnomedex, so please be gentle.
• Right after I return from my first trip to Tokyo, I'll be off to NYC for the Syndicate Conference, where I'll be moderating the Looking at the User Experience: The New Faces of Interface panel.
• Bloglines continues to do well and I'm really excited with what we're working on. We've made some great hires recently, and we still have a couple of job openings. Benefits of working with us include: a close-knit group, fast paced/startup-like atmosphere where everyone has a lot of responsibility, good medical/dental, (and upcoming) access to dangerous medieval weaponry.
• I publicly admit my addiction to Texas Hold'em Poker at Ultimate Bet. Don't worry Mom, I only play with the funny money.
• I've even managed to get in a little bit of flying, but not as much as I would like.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 11:24 PM | Permalink

Last night I was awarded the Tech Innovator award as part of the 6th Annual Wired Rave Awards. This is a tremendous honor and I want to thank everyone from Wired, especially Chris Anderson for his kind words.

The awards ceremony consisted of a dinner for the winners at the Plumpjack Cafe in San Francisco, and then a party at The Fillmore. Both events were top notch. I met several of the other nominees and winners, and everyone was very nice, even the famous people.

The photoshoot for the magazine was done at my house in early December. It was a surreal experience having a professional photographer, with his assistants and equipment, taking my picture. But again, everyone was great, and it was an enjoyable experience.

btw, while I think my interview in the magazine is good, I don't remember saying "Bring it on" in response to the question about Microsoft entering the market. That certainly doesn't represent my attitude. Other than that minor quibble, I think the spread is great.

For another, funnier, take on things, check out Jim Lanzone's post on the Ask Jeeves blog.

While I will do my best, I cannot guarantee that this award will not go to my head. Consider yourself warned.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 07:51 PM | Permalink

I recently purchased a Canon Powershot G6 digital camera. I'm really happy with it and it takes great pictures. So now, without further ado, pictures of my cats!

First up is Babe, who was named after Babe Ruth, because she was found at Crusher Stadium:

Another picture of Babe:

And here's Einstein. The name is ironic; he's not the brightest bulb in the bunch, but he's a good guy:

Next, if you ask really nicely, I'll post pictures of some of my favorite socks.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 05:05 PM | Permalink

conference season,
invited to two panels --
headshot pic steals soul!

discussion of share,
many interesting data points --
growth accelerates

sent out newsletter,
first one for bloglines users --
had no bad haiku

i flew an airplane
for the first time this new year --
not enough time for fun

unplanned machine crash,
system designed to handle --
cheap hardware is good

bloglines expansion,
adding 10 terabytes more --
progress amazes

busy week, bad poems,
lack of sleep, much goofiness --
people unsubscribe

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 04:22 PM | Permalink

This has been a great week. Several amazing things have happened and I unfortunately can't talk about several of them yet (don't you hate it when people say that?). Bloglines continues to get great press and grow like crazy. We've added several servers recently to keep up with demand, including a couple more web servers this past week. It's a good problem to have. The current issue of Business Week has an article on RSS that mentions us, Your Online Paperboy.

But really what I want to talk about is a danger, a hidden danger. Of pinball machines. I've wanted a pinball machine for several years, and I finally got one, a Simpsons Pinball Party machine. It's great. I've had it for about 30 hours now, and I've played it a lot. So much so that my forearms are now sore from hitting the flippers. Not sore in a 'he's a weak little girly man' kind of sore, although that's certainly true. Sore in the 'hey, that feels like the onset of carpal tunnel' kind of sore. I've been typing pretty much every day for over 20 years now, and have always taken steps (successfully) to ensure that I don't get carpal tunnel. Yet, all of that effort was wiped away in just a few short hours.

For those who don't know me, the above paragraph was written mostly tongue in cheek. Mostly.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 01:40 PM | Permalink

If you've sent me email in the last couple of days and haven't heard back yet, I apologize. Yesterday, I had LASIK to fix my nearsightedness, and I'm still recovering. I will say that even at this early point in my recovery, it's nothing short of amazing. My vision is already really good, and is slowly improving even more. I can't view a computer screen for long without it getting a little fuzzy, hence the lack of email replies, but even that is improving by the hour, and I'm sure I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. If anyone in the Bay Area is thinking about this, I recommend talking with Dr Mark Mandel, at http://www.optimaeye.com.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 03:23 PM | Permalink

This posting is a community experiment that tests how a meme, represented by this blog posting, spreads across blogspace, physical space and time. It will help to show how ideas travel across blogs in space and time and how blogs are connected. It may also help to show which blogs are most influential in the propagation of memes. The dataset from this experiment will be public, and can be located via Google (or Technorati) by doing a search for the GUID for this meme (below).

The original posting for this experiment is located at: Minding the Planet (Permalink: http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/a_sonar_ping_of.html) --- results and commentary will appear there in the future.

Please join the test by adding your blog (see instructions, below) and inviting your friends to participate -- the more the better. The data from this test will be public and open; others may use it to visualize and study the connectedness of blogspace and the propagation of memes across blogs.

The GUID for this experiment is: as098398298250swg9e98929872525389t9987898tq98wteqtgaq62010920352598gawst (this GUID enables anyone to easily search Google (or Technorati) for all blogs that participate in this experiment). Anyone is free to analyze the data of this experiment. Please publicize your analysis of the data, and/or any comments by adding comments onto the original post (see URL above). (Note: it would be interesting to see a geographic map or a temporal animation, as well as a social network map of the propagation of this meme.)

INSTRUCTIONS

To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and then answer the questions below, substituting your own information, below, where appropriate. Other than answering the questions below, please do not alter the information, layout or format of this post in order to preserve the integrity of the data in this experiment (this will make it easier for searchers and automated bots to find and analyze the results later).

REQUIRED FIELDS (Note: Replace the answers below with your own answers)

(1) I found this experiment at URL: http://www.mindingtheplanet.com

(2) I found it via "Newsreader Software" or "Browsing the Web" or "Searching the Web" or "An E-Mail Message": Newsreader Software

(3) I posted this experiment at URL: http://www.wingedpig.com

(4) I posted this on date (day, month, year): 02/08/04

(5) I posted this at time (24 hour time): 06:28:00

(6) My posting location is (city, state, country): Emerald Hills, California, USA

OPTIONAL SURVEY FIELDS (Replace the answers below with your own answers):

(7) My blog is hosted by: Movable Type

(8) My age is: 33

(9) My gender is: Male

(10) My occupation is: Internet Entrepreneur

(11) I use the following RSS/Atom reader software: Bloglines

(12) I use the following software to post to my blog:

(13) I have been blogging since (day, month, year): 14/08/01

(14) My web browser is: Mozilla

(15) My operating system is: Fedora Core 2

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 06:31 AM | Permalink

Courtesy of the fine Six Apart folk, I'll be at the Blog On conference tomorrow. I always enjoy meeting Bloglines users, so if you're one and at the conference tomorrow, please introduce yourself.

I'm not sure I'll be able to make the dinner/party afterwards, but I'll try.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 03:53 PM | Permalink

Wednesday night, I'll emerge from my undisclosed location to attend Joi Ito's pre-Supernova conference party. I love talking with Bloglines users, so if that's you, and you are one of the approximately 1.0E24 other attendees of this event, look me up. We've got some great things cooking for Bloglines, but we're always looking for more ways to improve the service.

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 07:11 PM | Permalink

• We rolled out enclosure support in Boglines today.
• Reaction to the release of the Bloglines Mozilla Toolkit yesterday has been fantastic. I'm not surprised, it's a super cool piece of code.
• Bloglines will have some downtime late Friday night. We've run out of space in our current location at the co-lo, so we need to move.

The Internet Archive is building a Petabox or 1,000 terabyte storage system. There's a bunch of fascinating information there, including heat/power/air flow calculations. They're going with 1U/half depth enclosures, running VIA processors, 512 megs RAM, with 4 300 Gb IDE drives each. Contrast that with the published specs of the machines that Google apparently uses for its clusters, which are P3 boxes, with 2 gigs RAM and 2 80 Gb IDE drives. With more RAM and fewer drives per controller, I'd expect the Google boxes to perform much better, but the IA machines get you much more storage bang for the buck. As usual, life's a series of trade-offs.

Reading about a 1,000 terabyte cluster makes the 5 terabytes that we're adding to Bloglines right now seem tiny. I never thought I'd say that about 5 terabytes....

Posted by Mark Fletcher at 09:57 AM | Permalink