Web, Blogging and Computers – Page 6

Chatfest Friday Style With Bullets

Can there be 100 comments without ry? That was the question I asked myself last night. We have settled into a kind rapport even with our differences. Is this middle age? Yesterday at the beer blog, I cited a post that I wrote in October 2003. That’s a long time ago. When do blogs hit middle age?

Blackness Update: Connie found guilty on four counts…those being criminal counts…no pardon expected.
…nuttin’…sympatico is choppy this mornng…uh, oh…
Lunch is approaching Update: I caught this guy on one of the morning news shows and now believe that Jim Early’s work on North Carolina BBQ could be a key to understanding the culture of the Western World.
Global warming may be good news for Ontario as long as we all plant ash trees now!
I think this is the blog that sets the standards for all blogs of a certain class of blogs. Did people do this before there was a medium to record that they were doing it?
PEI is all a dither. What else is new? Well, I will tell you one thing that is new – apparently a rock band said “fuck” during a concert and the entire community is going last-scene-of-Frankenstein. Chris has the whole story. There is a law in PEI that sets out how to do a rock concert and this is the only way you are supposed to do it under the Rock Performances Act (Marine), RSPEI 1957, ss 87-213.

Bullets postponed until bandwith available.

Update: Why does my broadband cut out in thunder and lightning? Does it rely on AM radio at somepoint between here and there?

This is nuts:

The Harper government has been told to stop referring to “fighting terrorism” and the Sept. 11 attacks, and to banish the phrase “cut and run” from its vocabulary if it is to persuade a skeptical public that the military mission in Afghanistan is worth pursuing.

If we are going to ask our youth to fight, speak about what they are fighting for. If you disagree, speak about the nature of your disagreement strongly. I may not vote for you but I will respect your free expression of your view. But for God’s sake, leave the PR consultants out of this. And as for not connecting 9/11 to Afghanistan…are you crazy?!?! Has no one any memory of the BBC leading the charge into Kabul? That is the theatre where all the resources of the Iraq war should have been focused. Offer me war bonds.

Review: Sports Picks

Well this is interesting. Sometime ago I signed up for ReviewMe, a paid review service over at A Good Beer Blog and once in a while have received a small but useful amount for a short and somewhat useful review of a web site. I got an email last night for this web site called Sports Picks and I thought “what has this got to do with beer?”. I mean I have to have some integrity, right? I mean you work hard to get a web presence, some recognition and a following…and then you blow it, you know? But then I realized that the request was for a review to be posted here at Gen X at 40 and the issues disappeared.

So the first thought I had was what is it about this here blog that connects with sports betting? I am not a gambler because I am a Scots Presbyterian and a bad gambler. Not a high likelihood of grabbing my interest. Then, if you look at the specific claims of the site – and not the pneumatic lassie to the right – it gets a bit ripe:

Think of it this way … If you played 200 games a year and bet 5% of your bankroll each time (whether free picks or premium picks), started with a bankroll of $4,000 and hit 55% of all the plays, within six years you would have over $2,000,000.

…or you will end with a bankroll of zippo as well as associated gambling sourced issues.

The layout is sort of 1995 flat-layout-esque without much of the dynamic design I would think any nerd pretending to be a high roller with the college savings would need. To be fair, there is a handy Sports Betting Dictionary with more associated pneumatic lassies – but if you are a solo nerd wasting away the grocery money you are not exactly going to be speaking in tongues, as it were, with any new pals. Perhaps the intention is that you will somehow converse with “SPORTS HANDICAPPING PROFESSIONAL MARK MILLER” and need to know the patiois. Nicknamed “The Shark,” you can find out more about the guy behind the choice of pneumatic lassies here:

Mark has been handicapping for over 30 years with his roots in horse racing at Santa Anita Park. He has been handicapping ever since and built his reputation with honesty, hard work and telling his clients like it is, whether win or lose. No false advertising. No sales pressure. Mark leads with results. Maintaining a small operation allows Mark to not only stay in close touch with his clients, but also allows him to build long term relationships…

Wow. Friendly…but ominously no mention that he will provide birthday party clown services in a pinch.

Once you can talk the talk there are still issues like the fact that when I click on the spot to get my major league baseball preview background advice – you know, the Miller touch – the page is blank. This, as far as I understand, is generally called “The Fatal Mistake” as in not being ready.

So, in the end, not only do I not understand what to make of the site, I do not really know what to make of the review request. I do not understand betting and have no desire to learn. If I did, I might need to swim elsewhere.

Bullets And Chat And Friday And Stuff

How will I remember this week? How will it sit in the past? I loaded and unloaded a canoe by myself this week. I bottled a hefeweizen. I ate well-roundedly and got a decent amount of sleep. If a nuclear holocaust were to come and I survive like those few in A Boy and His Dog or even Mad Max this is the sort of week I’ll miss. If not, I’ll have a hard time recalling it.

Update: Who is this “the left” that the Flea and some like the Babbler speak of, though the latter admits the truth? Cases would be much better made with out reference to boogie men. There is a distasteful and false presumption among those who elect themselves to speak for the equally vacuous “the right” that patriotism, security and common sense (despite all the evidence) is their sole inheritence. Given a recent pole [Ed.: see below] that says 40% of conservatives are against the war in Afghanistan, it is a meaningless broad brush. Name names. Focus the slur on the fringe. Admit the fluidity and undemarkated nature of the problem. Put up.

Break slamming point of correction: And just like that the Flea did in most excellent fashion…

A self-selecting group exhibiting the psychopathologies outlined above and related psychopathologies concerning the free market, crime and punishment and reality-testing deficiencies regarding the weather. The real left, the ones who continue to advance universal values of liberty and equality, do not exhibit these symptoms. Here I am thinking particularly of Christopher Hitchens and those of us who advance under his banner.

I can heartily live with this as long as “the real left” includes those large number who see the same security ultimately in participating in a social welfare system as well as well-resourced police and military. I once came across someone flogging the idea that only persons of the right were in the military. Horse pucks.
Update: Sounds like leasehold improvements to me. Pay up, Royals.
A good week for baseball. The Sox gave a thumping to Tampa Bay and, due to the badness of scheduling, will play them 15 times from here on in. No wonder there is now the sort of talk that does one no good.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has a snazzy new website.
An interesting article in the NYT about the continuing random police checks that have occurred in that city’s subways since 9/11.

Terrorism experts said the program’s effectiveness was not so much that it is a tight barrier to keep terrorists out of the subways, but that its fluid nature could keep any attack planners off balance. Trumpeting the program publicly is also a deterrent, they said.

That and John Smeaton – the West’s best defences.
Brother Doug considers how to dequill.
In addition to Smeaton proving that Scots in fact are the toughest wee bastards in the worrrrld, Scots finalized their take over of the UK with the beginning of the government of Gordon Brown who has made a wise decision:

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday he had given orders for government offices to “fly the flag.” He said he had abolished a rule which allowed government buildings to raise the British flag, the so-called Union Jack, only 18 days a year. “It was because they listed the number of public events and on no other days would the Union Jack be flown,” said Mr. Brown, who has pushed for efforts to promote a British identity for all citizens.

Good for Mr. Brown. I have to admit, I like that in the states more flags are flown and that they seem to represent each person not the government. We do well around Canada Day but, aside from the politics, the bi-colour is frankly just a little less eye catching. I had though the Red Ensign had recently be raised back to official status but can find now reference this morning. Viva Tanganyika, if you know what I mean.

A quiet week here but not so elsewhere.

Transcendent Beer Blogging

My favorite blog these days is one from London about beer. Stonch has only been writing for a few months but his style is cheery and knowledgeable. Like me, he brews and hunts out new styles but unlike me he is much more in the centre of things beery. He also has a great eye for the photographic beery moment, including the one shown illustrating that you can take a cask of your own home brew on a train in the UK. Today he posted about the end of smoking in the pubs of England that came into effect yesterday and caught a celebrity moment:

Although the selection was restricted to bitters and summer ales – the curse of the English pub – everything was in perfect condition. The massive pork pies and cheese plates, served in lieu of dinner, win plaudits also. The Falkland even has celebrity endorsement: Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame was sat at the next table to us. You can spot him in the background on one of the photos above. He wasn’t alone. Despite sporting a dodgy tache and white socks, he seems to have bagged a stunna. Well done, grandad.

Bagged a stunna. Excellent.

Chat For The Last Friday Closer To 2006 Than 2008

Yes, your life is flying by. The end of June is the end of the first half of the year, the year you still think of in the back of your mind as new. Time to get another hobby or make a greater change.

Update: freaky:

Authorities said Thursday they are trying to determine who altered the entry on the collaborative reference site 14 hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their son. Benoit’s Wikipedia entry was altered early Monday to say the wrestler had missed a match two days earlier because of his wife’s death. A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Conn., where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.
I received a copy of a 1975 game called Pub Games of England and what a treat. Who know that skittles was created as an illustration of mass conversion of pagan Germans to the faith? Who knew that darts was likely created as a response to legal bans on all games but archery for military (and not moral) purposes – it’s just a small archery game with the target being a cask of beer? And who knew lawn billiards (or pell mell) was the game of the future?
Speaking of early games, please lend your support to Project Protoball.
Interesting to note the passing of the NPR show Radio Open Source. NCPR observed the passing of another attempt at substantive convergence in this way:

So it is with very real regret that I report the end, for now at least, of his innovative and lively evening program Open Source. The producers were unable to put together secure funding to continue national distribution, and made the difficult decision to suspend production this week. Chris has been a great exploiter of both the countertrend and unabashed intellectual in the age of dumbing down–and of the coming trend–building a radio program upon the swiftly shifting sands of a community of bloggers.

The other posts this week were a bit telling – the lack of a MSM partner and the “old school” actual revenue stream as well as an odd choice for a celebration of the sort of substantive social community (SSC…as opposed to vacuous linking or LSC) that has never been triggered but has been much promised and, like the emperor’s clothes, observed. Maybe they’ll do a Lessig and declare they are going to reinvent cooking or home repair DYI.
In not unrelated news, the CBC has been shocked to discover that when you ask people to express what they believe in they will express what they believe in.
I don’t even like the NBA but am happy to see that Demetris Nichols is a Knick.
This is a good court ruling by the US Supreme Court in the Panetti case: do not execute crazy people. But it does make you wonder about the death penalty in terms of the idea of purpose – other than general deterrence – which is sort of captured in the description “a defendant who is to be executed be able to recognize the relationship between his crime and his sentence.” But if I am dead…I can’t recognize that relationship. But nuttier is the objection by Clarence Thomas who called the ruling “a half-baked holding that leaves the details of the insanity standard for the district court to work out.” Well, seeing as there concern that the door is open to false claims of incompetency, shouldn’t the lower trial courts assess each case? Or is there a suggestion in the dissent that mental illness isn’t real? Interesting to note that Anthony M. Kennedy has decided to become Mr. Swing Vote instead of Mr. Fourth Conservative Near The Back.

That’s it for now. I have to go Xmas shopping.

Snooty Facebook

Seeing as I never did anything with MySpace (or Twitter, or Orkut, or Friendster….) I wonder if the fact that Facebook works for me and my undergrad pals says something about us:

The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college. By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

What to make of that? I don’t know why there is so much buy-in from the people I know but it is as accessible as email in many ways keeping the participation threshold down. The lack of skins or visual personalization works in its favour as well. But the communal scrapbook thing is what I think works very well. Obsessing over who is that person in a photo from 23 years ago and tagging the separate people within them creates a pattern of continuity that expresses your own time line as well as branches out to do the same for people you know. So the illusion of a community gets some backing up compared to the post and reply of blogs or the thoughts of the day. It is a different thing to claim, having an actual mutual past – as opposed to a supposed present interest.

Chat. Friday. Bullets. Go!

An interesting week. The Red Sox have gotten back in gear and gotten back into the groove as the Yankees again falter. Summer is now here which means it will be a bit colder this weekend compared to last. Gary reports a tornado yesterday from the cold front that gave us hail up here. That was the sports and weather. Here is the news:

Neato Update: Excellent. Excellent. Excellent:

Your order #202-6921784-XXXXXX (received 18-February-2007)

Amazon.co.uk items (Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L.):

1 Pub Games of England (Olea…) £11.94 1 £11.94

Shipped via International Mail (estimated arrival date: 29-June-2007)…

Excellent. Did I mention this is excellent?
Update: Good thing they gave him a ticket.
Update: I have officially coined “Royal Sombrero” and, implicitly, the intense version “Sombrero Royale”. Alert the media.
Chris, Darcey, and the Flea all note the most offensive and apparently acceptable thing I have ever seen in a Canadian newspaper.
NCPR’s Brian Mann won an Edward R. Murrow award this week for his report on a rugby tournament in the Adirondacks.
My good pal the Pope announced his rules of the road earlier this week. I think this is a good thing. If the Conservative party is going to co-opt NASCAR, the Vatican was wise to grab the branding of the drive home. But I am sure he ripped this one off from me, something of a personal motto: “courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.”
Remember when cable TV was in its teens and the new channels got notice? One, the History channel, quickly was dubbed “the war channel” as it was odd to see old battle footage documentaries all the time. The other night, I was watching one about WWI and followed up with some surfing and came across this extraordinary contemporary report on the fall of Brussels in 1914.
I find these addiction to email stats interesting. I can’t say I am addicted to email because it’s died back a bit compared to a few years ago as a tool for me. A bit over the top to write: “[h]alf of Britons could not exist without e-mail…” Also noteworthy is the observation that Facebook is establishing itself as MySpace for adults.
The forces of anti-Canadian flag waving in Los Angeles have backed down. I suppose there being so few Canadians in the area, the Dodgers didn’t know what they were looking at when they saw the Maple Lead flapping up there in the bleachers.
Having only lived in Canadian military towns for most of my life – without being a military kid (except for that Berlin airlift bit in the RAF) – it was odd to see the brief flap in Toronto over the yellow ribbon thingies on the Big Smoke’s emergency vehicles. In the end the right thing was done which is good as I support supporting. Russon’s a bit surprised that the Star supports supporting those supporting us.

Well, that is it for now. Not an earth shattering week but we are again the house of many mouths and that sort of keeps things local. Wizards tonight as well as maybe Steve and Barry’s.

Thankfully, An End Of Something

A bit quietly, something ended the other day when Lessig packed it in, leaving the unproblem of intellectual property and digital media behind. Having beaten the drum and been a leader of the idea that copyright should not apply to expressions, much to the disgust of the creators of ideas who own and make money off of those expressions, we now find ourselves in a world where the proprietary interest has won out. The “mash-up” world of 2004 that Boingsters would have had us believe in never was just as the world of groceries bought via the internet promised in 1998 disappeared.

This is a wise decision as, in one way, nothing much as really changed from the effort while in another the world has largely moved on. Simon of Living in Dryden illustrates it all very neatly in this passage from a recent post:

About ten years ago, I went to a conference on web development. Everyone was talking about ‘disintermediation’ and how “brick and mortar stores” would get crushed. Consumers would be able to go straight to the manufacturer’s web site, or to a shopping web site of some kind, and order their products directly. All of the supply chains and middlemen (intermediaries) were going to vanish, leaving only producers of goods and their warehousing and delivery. Or something like that. That hasn’t really happened, except in a few categories of items where the Web turned out to be especially effective. Computer geeks, maybe because they heard this story enough times, often buy computer products online. It’s easy for an online bookstore to maintain the tremendous inventory some book buyers dream of, and for some reason a lot of people seem to like making travel reservations online. Even when it sort of works, though, this “disintermediation” is kind of perverse, sending goods all over the place from all over the place. Large online sellers, like Amazon, end up with hugely complicated supply chain management systems and warehouses all over to manage this process. Importers, wholesalers, and web site managers still act as ‘intermediaries’. Is it really that much less mediated than going to a store?

In January 2005 when Lessig was a bit more of a popular ideas man, I listened to him interviewed on NPR’s The Connection and took down some notes on the vision. He believed that under copyright the rules for content in text differed from that in film and music and image. The “next generation of blogs,” he said, will mix to create more powerful social commentary. Never.

That’s because plenty hasn’t really happened. News media have taken on a form of inter-connection with consumers but the balance has not really altered. Blogs have not advanced beyond scrapbooks and on-line journals but also things like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook have made it easy to participate in on-line experience without adding much substantive content and certainly without any real collaboration. And no one is surprised now when deals are made to ensure rights holders interests are respects and thereby, rather than being an obstacle, used as a platform for further development. These things are good. There has been no disruptive revolution, no need to fire millions of grocery store clerks, truckers and shippers or artists. Subscriptions to local newspapers are up. There has been change and the good from digital media have enhanced what was. But no revolution.

Like most with strong firmly-held beliefs, Lessig worked hard, thought a lot of good thoughts but missed the point…as, to be fair, a lot of people did. Alarmingly, however, he now wants to rid us all of “corruption” which he seems to define this way:

In one of the handful of opportunities I had to watch Gore deliver his global warming Keynote, I recognized a link in the problem that he was describing and the work that I have been doing during this past decade. After talking about the basic inability of our political system to reckon the truth about global warming, Gore observed that this was really just part of a much bigger problem. That the real problem here was (what I will call a “corruption” of) the political process. That our government can’t understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding.

That form of corruption appears to be an effort to stomp out disagreeing with Lessig. Here we go again. Good luck on that one.

Talking About The Weather

Remember when talking about the weather was a euphemism for something between being intensely dull to sensibly steering clear of controversial topics? Intersting story in the NYT this morning about the US channel the Weather Network and how the dullest station on the TV is now coping with relevance:

The daily weather forecast is rarely controversial, but the broader topic of climate change has generated no end of debate. As the network has seen its primary subject turn into a hot-button issue, it has had to grapple with how it wants to address it — and has decided not to tread gingerly. The issue started influencing the network’s coverage in a new way after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005, and has been shaping its programming decisions.

Please note: as a founding member of BFR (Bloggers For Reality) I admit and give witness to the fact I know nothing about global warming and have no idea who is right.

Internet Law We Can All Agree With

There are few things people agree upon as much as the benefits of jailing spammers and it looks like the law caught a biggie:

A man nicknamed the “spam king” for allegedly sending out millions of junk e-mails has been arrested in the US. Robert Soloway, 27, was arrested in Seattle, Washington, after being indicted on charges of mail fraud, identity theft and money laundering. Mr Soloway has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Prosecutors say Mr Soloway became one of the world’s biggest spammers, using computers secretly infected with orders to send out millions of his e-mails.

Fortunately, g-mail has effectively blocked most of the spam he sent me. Yup, it has been quite quiet for a year or two now. But, it is something of a testament to the staff at the Internet that email has not collapsed due to the load of 95% or more of their coal-stoking capacity has gone to sending junk. So here’s to the copytypists and telegraph operators who actually keep the whole thing going despite the acts of the wicked like Mr. Soloway.