Utterly elite. Amazon is now offering the Sidekick (original) for fifty bucks after rebate. And, come to think of it, if you use Share the Love I bet you get the full 10% of $250, which would make it an additional twenty-five bucks off, assuming one of your friends takes advantage of the deal. Um. That would mean you’re getting a Sidekick for twenty-five bucks. Twenty-five bucks. It’s a cell phone, an email station, a web browser, an AIM client, and a crappy camera. Plus all the essential organizer functions. But hell, even if you can’t share the love, it’s still just fifty bucks. ...

Oliver Willis has AIM alerts going now (original). Slick. He mentions in email to me that he’s working on other messaging systems as well; I’d forgotten MSN Messenger as a player in cell phone messaging, but I shouldn’t, since Microsoft wants to be a player in the cell phone OS market. I’m wondering if anyone’s going to pick up on this for the local elections in 2004. 2002 saw very little Internet action on the election front, even if you count Tara Sue Grubb’s weblog. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more proactive uses of the technology; looks like Tara Sue will as well. ...

By the by, I am sick as a dog and stoned out of my head on TheraFlu, so if I say anything really wacky today (or if I said anything really wacky yesterday) that’s why. I keep thinking I’m writing pithy witty paragraphs. I am very probably wrong.

Glenn Reynolds slips into the surreal, saying it’s a good thing the South didn’t win the Civil War because then the United States would look like Europe. Yeah, and I seem to recall there was some other issue involved, too. Can’t put my finger on it, though.

Inspired by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, I present shrpshr.html, a global filter plugin useful for mockery and little else.

I’m standing at a bus stop in Harvard Square, realizing that I’m better off posting via Web than by email. Whoops; maybe not, since I can’t set categories this way. Oooops. Ah well. The first day review of the Hiptop: pretty good, it’ got a very thoughtful design. For example, the @ sign is unshifted, which makes a ton of sense since it’s used so much. There’s decent autocapitalization. The keylock automatically tturns off if you flip the screen open, cause you’ll never do that unless you want to use it. ...

Annnnnnd it’s more on the Confederate flag issue (original). It’s an important article to read for two reasons. First, it describes how white supremacists have hijacked the Sons of Confederate Veterans (original). These days, the SCV is into talking about how much blacks enjoyed fighting for segregation (original). This is real. This is not a random accusation from the left wing. This is a major, important Southern organization being coopted by virulent racism. ...

sweetcode is cool. I am sick. Thus, few words surround this pointer. I barely managed a half-clever title. Cool for sysadmins and programmers, that is; not sure anyone else would care.

Oliver Willis ( blogging maniac) is already pushing the SMS thang, in his unofficial John Edwards weblog. Mind you, it’s one guy, but one guy can have a lot of leverage these days. Looks like he’s using Upoc to do mass SMS messaging. I guess it’s a start, but he’s going to need to get email and AIM into the mix, too. The legendary Randomness observes, in response to my thoughts earlier today, that “there just isn’t the SMS culture in the States that there is in South Korea, Japan, or Europe.” Truth. But I think it’s gonna be email and AIM on mobile devices that makes it happen in the US. ...

If South Korean elections (original) can be swung by smart mobs, what’s that say about US politics? Mind you, the voter turnout was a mere 70%, which is the lowest ever for a South Korean presidental election. Conventional wisdom says that Roh Moo-hyun benefited from text messaging because it helped him get out the vote, but the low turnout seems to contraindicate that. Possibly the turnout would have been slimmer if not for the smart mobs? Hard to say. ...