So: why doesn’t my web browser detect unlinked URLs in a page and turn them into links for me? Sure, sure, it should be an option I can turn off. However, I want to stop cutting and pasting stuff like http://www.meyerweb.com. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind if it picked up any hostname beginning with www — let it catch www.meyerweb.com too. Catching anything that registers as a domain name might be a bit much. On the other hand, perhaps it might be worth doing a DNS lookup and converting anything that returns. In a very optimistic world with sufficient computing power, you could do the DNS lookup, check port 80, and if there’s something responding then do the conversion. ...

The

Cloudtravel (via Ernie the Attorney) is exactly the sort of site I dig. It’s a one man show, written by Chris Cloud (and what a great name for a traveller), that serves as a travel guide to places he’s been. A real personal style, good information, and plenty of opinions. He says he needs more substance; I say he’s already given us quite a bit. I wish I’d been able to read this before my first trip to New Orleans. ...

So how come Dave Winer thinks that we should [maintain directories for free](http://web.archive.org/web/20111116223955/http://web.archive.org/web/20111116223955/http://www.xmlrpc.com/stories/storyReader$1583 (original) “How the directory on XML-RPC.Com works”) (original) but that it’s unfair to expect free programming?

I’ve written earlier about the new mission for US Special Ops forces, so since Rumsfeld held a briefing yesterday regarding the U.S. Special Operations Command (original), I figure hey, may as well talk about it some more. Let’s see. They’re increasing the budget, which strikes me as a rational step, particularly given these criticisms. He’s giving Special Operations Command a supported command role, which means “the Special Operations Command will have the tools it will need to plan and execute missions in support of the global war on terror.” The Washington Times claims (original) that this implies authority to plan their own assassinations, but that’s kind of unclear to me; if it’s true, then any command in a supported command role had that authority previously. Mind you, I’m still of the opinion that even Bush shouldn’t be authorizing assassinations as an instrument of US policy, but that’s me. ...

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.