Mostly useless » Meta http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge (Bertrand Russell) Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:22:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 The 100th post http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/08/22/the-100th-post/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/08/22/the-100th-post/#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:57:04 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/08/22/the-100th-post/ 100th post

This is post number one hundred! This blog was born 445 days ago, so on average I posted once every 4.45 days.

This is a great accomplishment, congratulations to myself. Started as nothing more than a joyful experiment and a way to improve my English, this blog slowly changed in something that I care for. My posts are still mostly useless, but maybe some of you will like them.

]]> http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/08/22/the-100th-post/feed/ 2 Just a pause http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/03/15/just-a-pause/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/03/15/just-a-pause/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2007 03:09:21 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/03/21/just-a-pause/ Yes, I know. I haven’t blogged in the last two months. Jessica asked for news and where I’m hiding. I’m happy she pushes me to blog more. Knowing there is somebody out there who cares for this mostly useless thing is a great motivating factor. Go Jessica go!

I was a bit busy working and traveling around and laziness temporarily won, but don’t worry, I’ll keep on blogging!

]]> http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/03/15/just-a-pause/feed/ 0 The best spam I ever received http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/01/10/the-best-spam-i-ever-received/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/01/10/the-best-spam-i-ever-received/#comments Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:37:42 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/01/10/the-best-spam-i-ever-received/ Of all the spam I received in my life, this is definitely the nicest. A mere few hours after I posted Caipirinha, a cachaça producer posted a comment with their recipe and a link to their web site. They have to have a robot connected to gogle alert and automatically scanning blog posts. Since this site is mostly useless, I decided to approve that comment even if it was spam, just removing the URL to avoid google bombing. At least this blog can be useful to somebody to promote their product.

UPDATE: there was no robot, there’s real people scanning the internet and posting comments! OMG, this is a lesson on marketing 2.0!

]]> http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2007/01/10/the-best-spam-i-ever-received/feed/ 0 Blogs and privacy http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/09/25/blogs-and-privacy/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/09/25/blogs-and-privacy/#comments Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:19:21 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/09/25/blogs-and-privacy/ A friend of mine recently closed his blog because he fears his privacy would be violated.  This makes me think.  Should I do the same?  Blogs are a wonderful and exciting media and can be a lot of fun, but sadly in today’s society they can scare people.  This is probably because laws are not protecting our privacy enough, and all sorts of governments, agencies and private companies are scanning the web collecting personal information.  In Italy there is a law that theoretically is very strict about privacy, but unfortunately it is very hard to enforce.

I found this article on EFF website very interesting, with lots of suggestions about how to blog safely.  I’m not scared, but I’m adopting some of this measures anyway.  Better safe than sorry.

]]> http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/09/25/blogs-and-privacy/feed/ 0 Why this blog is in english http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/11/why-this-blog-is-in-english/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/11/why-this-blog-is-in-english/#comments Sun, 11 Jun 2006 13:23:42 +0000 simone http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/11/why-this-blog-is-in-english/ Shakespeare's manuscript

I’m italian and I live in Italy, so why this blog is in english? No, I’m not a snobbish xenophile and I do care my friends can read my blog, but you know, nowadays more and more of my friends don’t speak italian while more and more of my italian friends do speak english as a second language. And I think it is a matter of fact that english is the language of the Internet, even if writing in the local language is perfectly OK. Last but not least, I like to practise my english and this blog helps me learn new words at every post. For example in this post I learnt the use of xenophile. OK OK, I don’t think I’ll ever use this mostly useless word again in my life, but then again… Now that I think to it, at work we’re adding a lot of stranger people lately. In our offices we’ve already gathered at least a dozen non-italian people and I really love to work in such a international environment!

]]> http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/11/why-this-blog-is-in-english/feed/ 1 Hello world! http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/03/hello-world/ http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/03/hello-world/#comments Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:54:48 +0000 simonep http://www.mostly-useless.com/blog/2006/06/03/hello-world/ A newborn
Welcome to Mostly useless, my newborn blog.

I’m gonna write whatever useless thing comes to my mind, just to fill the page, so please don’t take it seriously.

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