WordPress maker buys IntenseDebate commenting system

Matt Mullenweg announced today that Automattic (the maker of WordPress) is acquiring IntenseDebate, a blog commenting system with lots of features that WordPress doesn’t have available yet except through third-party plugins.

IntenseDebate currently works with a number of different blogging platforms, including WordPress, TypePad, Moveable Type, Blogger, and Tumblr.  They say they plan to keep it that way, and to extend support to even more platforms.  For now at least, IntenseDebate will also retain its separate brand.  We can expect that WordPress will gradually incorporate some of IntenseDebate’s features into their core as time goes on.

Features of IntenseDebate include:

  1. Threaded comments.  Lots of people currently use the Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin for WordPress, not without problems.  Matt says that threaded comments will become part of WordPress 2.7.  How much of that comes directly from IntenseDebate?
  2. Reply-By-Email.    Just send an email to respond to a comment.  Hope they have a good spam plan.  This seems to imply built-in email notification as well.
  3. Importing/Exporting from/to other commenting systems.  They would be smart to provide an importer that understands Brian’s Threaded Comments’ comment relationships.
  4. Commenter Profiles.    Sort of like the optional user registration on WordPress?
  5. Reputation Points & Comment Voting.  Make your blog a mini-reddit.
  6. Moderation/Blacklisting.  Sounds a lot like the moderation that’s already built into WordPress.
  7. Widgets.  More ways to waste space on your sidebar.
  8. RSS Readers and Tracking.  This one sounds really interesting.  They’ve integrated with Google Reader and Bloglines so you can read and respond to comments right within the feed reader.  Sweet.   More feed readers to come, they say.
  9. Twitter.  Make any comment you post an automatic Tweet.  Noise * 2.
  10. FriendFeed.  People make comments about your blog on FriendFeed.  You can automatically pull those comments over to the blog itself.
  11. OpenID support.  One less extra login.
  12. HTML formatting.  That’s sort of expected, I should think.

I haven’t had a chance to try out the service, and they have gone back into closed beta since the acquisition, so my statements above are based on information from their web site only.  I sent an email through their contact form to ask a few questions not covered there, but haven’t received a response yet.



Geek Profile: Felicia Day

by Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

As far as sexy geek girls go, Felicia Day was recently catapulted into Goddess status. This is largely due to the fact that not only is she an actress who has taken on roles that appeal to the crowd (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog), but she’s a geek herself. A real one, not a poser. (Sorry, Megan Fox, but wearing a Star Wars shirt does not give you much geek cred in my opinion. Give me some details about your favorite “comic books and stuff like that” and I’ll re-evaluate.) According to Felicia’s website, her passions are “video games, fantasy novels, web 2.0, wordpress, cooking, playing with her cats and making people laugh.”

Some reasons that Felicia is worthy: (1) she plays a level 66 gnome warlock and a level 63 priest in World of Warcraft, (2) she sang “Still Alive” (the theme song from Portal) with Jonathan Coulton at the recent Penny Arcade Expo, (3) she got into Julliard but went for a degree in math instead, (4) when told her television pilot for “The Guild” was too “niche” she just decided to make it for the web instead, and (5) she plays the violin. I could probably go on.

As for her professional cred… well, she played potential slayer Vi in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She also gained some notice from her role in a USPS commercial. She stars in (and writes/produces) the award-winning web series The Guild, about a group of WoW gamers. She recently appeared as the female lead in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog opposite Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. And tonight she’s appearing in an episode of House, M.D. (apparently she does not have Lupus).

One of the reasons that I find Felicia so endearing is that in every interview with her that I read/see, she comes off as so completely real. She’s just a normal person, a geek without being a stereotype, who just happens to act for a living. She’s also hilarious, which you can pick up just from watching “The Guild.” Oh, and she’s totally cute. I kind of love her hair, even if I don’t necessarily want to brush it like she’s a pony.

If you’re not watching “The Guild,” then you should be. If you haven’t seen Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, then you definitely should. But at the very least, you should watch her on House tonight, because I foresee big things in this geek’s future. Hats off, Felicia. You get our Sexy Seal of Approval.



Hammer Films is making a horrific comeback!

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Classic film fans, I bring good news!  After 30 years, Hammer Films is making a comeback with its first horror movie!

Its last horror flick was in 1976 with Christopher Lee, “To the Devil a Daughter“.   Now once again, they are venturing back into scaring the crap out of people with a movie called “The Wake Wood”.

So what is this new film about?   Well, according to Hammer’s press release :

Still grieving the death of nine-year-old Alice – their only child – at the jaws of a crazed dog, vet Patrick and pharmacist Louise relocate to the remote town of Wake Wood where they learn of a pagan ritual that will allow them three more days with Alice. The couple find the idea disturbing and exciting in equal measure, but once they agree terms with Arthur, the village’s leader, a far bigger question looms – what will they do when it’s time for Alice to go back?

No Christopher Lee in this one but I wonder if Hammer can tempt him back in future movies?   If so, we might see classics similar to this one –

Esteban IV: Taking solar propulsion to the next level

Each September, Montreal, Quebec closes Ste-Catherine street, one of the busiest streets in the city, to hold the “a day without my car” event. As the name implies, no motorized circulation is allowed on the street during this day, and a bunch of vendors present green-transport alternatives to cars.

This year, “L’école Polytechnique de Montréal,” a branch of “L’Université de Montréal” related to engineering, was presenting their solar car, named Esteban IV.

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Getting divorced can now lead to some cool gifts

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Divorce is a messy stressful affair (from what I hear).   First, there is the breakup which is obviously painful and upsetting for both the husband and the wife (it’s even worse if there’s children involved too).   Then the lawyers get involved and the arguments then start over who gets what.   Months or even years later, you stagger out of the marriage, having aged ten years with your computer game collection under your arm and your laptop under another.

But Angie Schmidt had other ideas when she got divorced.   She decided she needed a bit of laughter to cheer herself up.   So she started a business called Smashing Katie which sells divorce gifts to women (Katie is apparently the woman she blames for the breakup of her marriage).

Gifts can be as simple as a wedding ring coffin or as scary as an Ex Knife Block (!)

The business has been a success – but it has divided people over whether the business concept is a sound one or not.   Some have praised Schmidt for having the personality to get over the bump in her life and moving on, but others, including one divorce attorney, thinks that the last thing a divorcee wants to have, are constant reminders of a failed marriage –

“You don’t want to have a bunch of reminders around about your failed relationship,” she said. “I’d get away from these kind of cynical reminders that just sit on your desk. The best thing I did when I got divorced was use some frequent flier miles to go to Paris for a week. That was the best gift possible.”

What do you think GAS divorcees?  When you got divorced, would you have liked gifts like this?   Or is this just twisting the knife a bit too much?

Breaking up can lead to a business – San Francisco Chronicle

RIAA rejects judge and takes Whitney to jury trial

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Remember Whitney Harper?   She was that 16 year old who didn’t know that downloading MP3’s from Kazaa was illegal and she pleaded ignorance when the RIAA set their hound dogs on her.  It actually worked because the judge ordered that she only had to pay $200 per song instead of $750.

Well the RIAA has now apparently decided that the judge’s award of $200 per song is totally unacceptable and they have told the judge to shove his $7,400 up where the sun don’t shine.   Instead they have decided to force the whole matter to a federal jury trial and let the jury decide how much the RIAA deserves (I’m praying they award them $1!  That would be poetic justice!).

This decision just shows the RIAA’s hypocrisy.   All along they have said that it’s not about the money, that instead it’s about teaching those darn downloaders a lesson.   If that’s really the case, then why not just take the $7,400?   I don’t think Whitney will be doing any more downloading anytime soon.    But to drag her now through a jury trial and rack up even more legal costs?

That is just downright vindictiveness, nothing more, nothing less.    Why don’t they just form the firing squad, put her against the wall and get the whole thing over with?

Via Ars Technica

Steve “The Clown” Ballmer is a PC

Now that you’ve all seen the new “I’m a PC” ad from Microsoft, I’m sure that we can all agree that this commercial was much more efficient in driving its point across compared to the “Seinfeld and Gates” joke. Even though part of the ad was made using a Mac, it’s no secret that PCs are being used all around the globe by people of many cultures and professional backgrounds. And yes, as shown in the ad, Bill Gates is part of those users.

Unfortunately it seems that the marketing company who thought of the whole concept didn’t deem Steve Ballmer worthy enough to appear in the commercial, so today, we thought that you’d all appreciate seeing a video of Mr. Ballmer screaming at the top of his lungs that “He’s a PC”.

Fish With Fingers!

by Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

The British science journal Nature reported a study today that upends what we thought we knew about the evolution of fingers of toes. The previous theory was that air-breathing animals that had found their way to land were the first to develop primitive fingers, but this new study shows that rudimentary digits actually existed inside the fins of a transitional fish specie (the Panderichthys, pictured).

This discovery didn’t come from a new archeological find, but rather a reexamination of fossils. Recent genetics research suggested that a gene that affects the patterning of hands and feet is present in the modern-day lung fish. This information prompted scientists to have a closer look at the Panderichthys fossils using more advanced techniques. And what they found there were distal radials–stubby bones arranged like four fingers–at the end of the fins of the skeleton.

I’m not sure if I would find this as fascinating if I hadn’t been playing Spore so much lately, but I’d still call this a plus one for evolution!