In today's referrers, the search string "how to make your boobs stand up/not lose". That's so friggen funny, I almost pissed myself. Thanks, dooce, as it was partly a quote from you that helped me turn up in that result list...
February 2003 Archives
Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report
Zeldman has a few thoughts on discussing how many readers you have. The voice of wisdom.
First, you'll notice a new section to the right, 'Now Reading'. Lately, I've been reading a lot (although slowly) so I figured I'd get some use out of that books category I have and start writing some book related posts. Stay tuned, as I'll be finishing The Silmarillion soon.
In the background, I've added the referrer checking script to all pages on the site. This will let me see even more of the great search terms people use to get here. For a long time now, I've kept the referrer script to myself and a few close friends. Now though, you'll find it linked in the within section to the left.
I'm slowly working on the new layout, however, I have some other projects as well going on. More will be revealed shortly.
On the web front, I've been skimming some pages that I've read in the past but haven't been able to get to recently. Specifically, check out the following:
- Random Fixation: Cory on "Doing the Right Thing". He also expounds on going to Church. No link here to that post, just look around a little. I think there are a lot of us right now who feel like we're currently adrift in life and we're struggling to gain control.
- Megnut: I like Meg a lot; she's witty, well spoken, and usually has some interesting things to say.
- dive into mark: Although I'm still a little put out with him, Mark has some interesting news on the Google/Pyra front.
Information Recovery in Text-Only Discourse
After my post the other day about AIM's "Your Buddy has Entered Text" message, I started getting some hits from people searching for AIM related things, and I clicked through to a Yahoo results page from one of the searchers. Thre, I found a link to this paper. It's a decently long read, and I've only made it part way throguh so far, but it's interesting, in a communication geek type of way.
Starting with Clark's description of the structure of embedded join projects, this article attempts to examine the changes that occur in the structure of discourse when the only medium of interface is text. To do so, a modern on-line "instant messenger" (IM) system is used to provide transcripts of text-only conversations. A standard convention of IM conversation is the use of what I call recovery devices: textual utterances which are intended to provide information present in face-to-face conversations which is lacking in IM conversations. Using the ability of IM software to integrate a recovery device into the conversation interface (via a feature called Direct Connect), I find that the device makes a statistically significant improvement in IM conversation orderliness.
Brian Jepson's Radio Weblog
Brian Jepson lives near me. He also has neat things to say. Like this:
The Sony Ericsson Clicker adds a menu to your your Sony Ericsson phone that lets you control your Mac remotely. It's customizable through AppleScript, and the weirdest part is the proximity sensor. If you wanted to, you could have your Mac shriek out "Elvis has left the building!" every time you went out of range.
movabletype.org: News
Ben has posted, letting us know that they'll be making a nightly build of MT in order to create more stable version releases. I think this is a great idea. The one problem, in my opinion, is that it's a lot harder to set up MT than to, say, unzip and run the nightly build of phoenix. For people like Kottke who run a local and remote copy, this might work, barring any conflicts between versions.
I definitely have to say: Ben and Mena have a mean product in movable type.
The Register: AOL probes hacker "breach"
I kept calling and pretending I just had jaw surgery and mumbling gibberish. At first I had no info except the screen name, then I called and got the first name and last name by saying, 'Could you repeat what I just said?' Then each time that I got information I called back making the real information understandable, and everything else I just mumbled.
You'd like to think that this kind of stuff could never happen, that such a simple way of getting information would be completely useless because no one would ever fall for it. You'd be wrong though. As data storage centers become larger and larger, the rewards gained from obtaining access become more and more lucrative. On top of that, the number of ways to gain entry are increasing. It used to be that to get this kind of info, you'd need to break into a building, and you could only steal what you could carry out.With one customer's info on a sheet of paper, how many customer's could you carry out? Now, you can attack from anywhere in the world, mobile devices, desktop PCs, your local library, wherever, and the amount of information that could possibly be swiped has grown incredibly. National citizen database? No thank you.
TV Guide Online - [Cheers & Jeers]
According to TV Guide, the prank caller that gave Dan Rather a hard time during the Columbia coverage was a member of the Howard Stern cast. I never liked Stern to begin with; now I actually have contempt for the bastard. What a bunch of asses, him and his staff.
Did you ever think about the little features of a given piece of software? You know, the ones you use all the time and never think twice about? I'd like to talk about one right now, one in particular.
I'm a big AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) user. Been using it for a long time under a variety of screen names. I've used the direct chat feature, the send a file feature, the send an image feature, the buddy icon feature, etc etc. I've played with chat bots, written some AIM links that create a "sexiest man alive group" and add my screen name to it, and used programs that filter the aim protocol and can kick people off by exploiting well known AIM bugs. Yes, AIM and I are pretty tight.
In the latest version, though, there's a feature that really gets me upset, a feature that has changed the way I use AIM. You've seen it if you're using the newest version: the infamous "Your buddy entered text / Your buddy is typing" message in the middle left of the chat window.
It's gotten to the point where I can watch that message and tell what version of AIM my buddy is using, pre-message or with-message. When I type, they hesitate and stop, delete and rewrite, stop again, wait for me to finish, rush to type and send before I get my words out. It drives me crazy. I find myself typing faster to finish my thoughts before they interrupt, those damn buddies. I see them typing, waiting for me to get mid-point so they can make the "Your buddy has entered text" go away with an exultant press of the enter key and break my train of thought. Man, you buddies are bastards!
It seems trivial, but it's important: small features can make or break a piece of software. Bookmarking multiple tabs (or tabs period) in gecko browsers is an example. Minimizing CallWave is another (honest to goodness, in old versions you couldn't make the thing go away without closing it). Movable Type bookmarklets count as well. Think about this the next time you write or use software, and keep it in mind if you ever have the ear of a developer. Remind them: the bottom line is that we write software for people to use, not to hate.
Well, we have three feet of snow on the ground here. Based on the length of my driveway and each cubic foot of snow weighing one pound, I moved about a ton of snow today. I should be one hurting unit tomorrow. I mean seriously, Boston got more snow yesterday that in the infamous Blizzard of '78. Crazy...
Viking Kittens - Joel Veitch rathergood.com music - Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song
I hadn't seen this before, but it's pretty funny. Not as good as that whee! video with the squirrels, but funny all the same...
HighLift Systems
I had heard of the space elevator before, but never actually looked into it. Who would have thought we'd be attaching ribbons to the earth and using the centrifugal force created by the earth's rotation to keep them stretched out towards space. Seems pretty crazy to me... So crazy, it just might work!!!
Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time
Wow! I'm really excited about this... Way interesting to see what comes of it, and extremely entertainging and though-provoking to watch what others are thinking this will mean for both google and blogs.
Jason Kottke has another post up about Power Laws. Interesting read. To summarize, links in blogaria graph as a power law curve. The power law is basically the 80/20 rule in disguise ("80% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population").
I don't really know what to say about this. It seems, lately, that people are concerned over how little blogs will get traffic. Everyone only has so much time to spend online, so people can only read so many sites a day, and if five top sites get the most links then they'll be the most read and no one else will be able to break onto the A-list. I completely disagree. With tools like weblogs.com, google, and dmoz it's becoming easier and easier to discover blogs that you like. To me, this seems like common sense: more blogs equals more recognition for the "medium", google likes fresh content, which most blogs have, more blogs become mixed in with google results, more people look for blogs in their google results, and more blogs get found/read. I'll admit, when a good blog search engine is written to take advantage of the realtime nature of blogs (current indexes, links to specific posts, categorizing, etc) this whole thing will become easier, but for now, it seems to be working. Since I've started, my traffic has slowly increased, and not because I beg for people to link to me. Instead, it's because occasionally people find things here that interest them and they come back for more. If you truly have something to offer people, whether it's witty insight, color commentary, or information they can't get anywhere else, they will find you and they will come back. It's as simple as that.
Maybe the graphing of weblog links says something more basic about people: in general, 80% of us are boring and have nothing interesting to say. In that case, it's no wonder the same twenty people who are friends and family read our blogs. Guess we'll just have to suck it up, eh?
For me, that's what it all boils down to. If your blog/website/journal/photo diary/etc is good enough, people will find it, and they'll tell their friends, and share the link, and you'll become popular and get lots of traffic. If you're average, though, your traffic will be average. I don't draw because I'm not good at it, despite the abundance of paper and pencils in my house. If you suck, find a new hobby.
At another level, though, it really comes down to your own expectations as well. I'm quite happy with the traffic I get here at BTB, but I'm sure there are other small-timers who think they deserve much more. Maybe they do, and if that's the case, it'll come with time. Stick with it. However, there's also a good chance that you're not any good and no one wants to tell you. I think many residents of blogaria fall into this category.
The barriers to entry for creating a blog are pretty low. This means the quality of blogs will vary greatly. Maybe instead of crying about how the a-list gets all the traffic, we should spend more time writing and sharing things that actually mean something. Show me why you deserve more traffic, don't tell me. Otherwise, enjoy your average traffic: it could be worse.
A new story at Blogmedic It's a shame this site doesn't get updated very often, as I enjoy it. It's a great look into what can be a thankless and harrowing job. Check it out.
A new tool by Eric Meyer, Color Blender. Pick two colors, give the number of mid points you want, and out pops a gradient chart. Amazing. I can barely get a simple "hello world" out of javascript most days.
via :: zeldman
Over at Alogorhythm, Shawn has a story about a new app on OS X that monitors connections to the internet by programs on your computer. Some applications tell you when they connect to the internet, others don't. In my opinion, this is an app that should have been written a long time ago. As noted in his write up, the fallout from things like this will be interesting to see, as I'd be curious to hear what the "one up" by companies like Microsoft will be.
Lear's Shadow
I don't even have anything to say about this excpet to stick it out. Your have to read the entire page for the complete weirdness of it all to actually freak you out.
What is Reversible?
Interesting concept, but as you can see in the about page, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Anytime you allow users to do whatever they want, you introduce crazy amounts of variability into the system, something that is hard to get back out. Very neat, and something to check out.
Oh, yeah, you want to know what it is: It takes referrers and categorizes them. You can create directories by creating a link, the site then takes that link and trates it like a category, showing people who have used the link to get there in the category. Weird, eh?
I've been working on a new template for the site and it's coming along pretty well. I'm kind of excited. Such a geek, I know.
In other news, I have a collection of links to share with you guys, but I have to get them all in here. One link at a time is easy and quick. Twenty or thirty get much harder. I'll try to do it tomorrow. After I deal with the student loan consolidator who keeps stalking me...
Over the last week I've gotten a few comments and emails from people who read the site but who I don't know. That always gets me pretty excited, as it just goes to show that even though most days I work on this site because I enjoy it, someone else likes it too. Someone else besides the people looking for American Idol porn.
In other news, Zeldman has a new stylesheet up. It's orange. There's a picture of a woman in the bottom corner. Save her and look at her. If you can tell me how he optimizes his images like that, I'll love you.
Have a good night all, and look forward for my pathetic commentary on American Idol tomorrow.
Socially Inept
For you, Dave. Maybe we were both wrong and it will be HallMark's main headquarters?
Lance Arthur gives Kottke some advice and at the same time gives him a little teasing. I'm not gay, but I still love Lance.
- Progress and Future of Mozilla-the-application-suite
- Investigators Try to Identify Object Spotted Near Columbia
- Israel Offers Palestinians Phased Truce
- South Korea Fears U.S. Is Emotional Over North Korea
- Secret Shuttle Part Sought in Texas Search
- Sun Microsystems: The Java Problem
- Cosplay.com News and Features
- WTF???
- Al Qaeda’s Opening Shot
- How to be a Small Town Slut
- Common HTTP Implementation Problems
- An Introduction to Cuban Council
The phone went dead tonight for a good long while, hence the lack of a real post. Kind of a good thing, since I had some other work I needed to do and some of it actually got done.
I didn't watch American Idol. I'm not even sure who got voted through.
While I'm thinking of it, anyone watching Mr. Sterling on Friday nights? So far, I think I like it.
Great gadzooks was that ever awful!
1) I don't like the parents on the couch. 2) I don't like the cheerleader crap going on with all the contestants. 3) I can't stand Seacrest. 4) Simon needs a new writer, his comments aren't witty, funny, or mean. 5) I don't like the parents on the couch. 6) Where were all the good singers? 7) I don't like the parents on the couch.
This episode sucked. The singing was ok, but not good, no one inspiring or amazing. The judges sucked, no humor, no excitedness, they all seemed very "ho-hum, been here, done this". The parents sucked, and the guy who went out to talk to Simon? What are we, two? Your kid couldn't handle that on his own? Seriously. Finally, what's up with everyone running to the door to hug each? Don't they understand they're all trying to win? That not everyone wins, only one person? Don't they understand that Simon hasn't said anything wrong yet?
If this keeps up, I won't even be able to force myself to watch the rest of this. Oy...
According to an article in today's Metro, Microsoft will not be purchasing Vivendi Games afterall.
Student Fakes Report of Microsoft Buyout
Microsoft Corp. and news network CNN said they were hit buy a hoax yesterday after a faked Web page wrongly reported that the software giant had agreed to buy the video game operations of French conglomerate Vivendi Universal. The hoax Web site, which Purdue University in Indiana confirmed came from its Internet address, was designed to look like a CNN report and circulated on the Web among video game industry watchers yesterday.The student who put up the site was identified and referred to the university's dean of students for possible disciplinary action, the spokeswoman said. It was unclear whether Microsoft or CNN plan to press charges or take any other legal action.
Since Blizzard is a part of Vivendi Games and has been making a move into the console market, I'm glad this rumor turned out to be false. I'd hate to have to buy an Xbox in order to play Ghost.
When I was younger, I built a model of a NASA orbiter. Like many kids, I dreamt of being an astronaut. I visited the Boston Musem of Science and crawled around inside model space vehicles. Like many Americans, I've seen the video clips of the moon landing, feeling pride that our country, the United States of America, was the first to have a man walk on the moon.
As I've watched and listened to all of the coverage today, one thing has kept coming back to me. No matter what happened, both the astronauts and their families knew what the risks were. They knew there was a chance they might not make it back from their adventures, yet they went anyway. They died in the pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of science. Who's to know if the results gained from their experiments might have cured a disease, or lead to further gains that might have made the world a better place?
Today's events are heart-breaking, but such events are bound to occur as we explore things that we are unfamiliar with. The only thing we can do is vow not to forget the sacrifices made by others as the science of tomorrow will be built upon the shoulders of the scientists of today.
Update: From LGF, by Cox and Forkum
Dave, over at scripting news, has some great coverage of the current events ragarding the Space Shuttle Columbia. His coverage is much better than anything I could offer, and I have nothing else to say as I haven't really wrapped my head around all of this yet. More later.
The LGF take on things, also very good. Look there for links to Reagan's speech following the Challenger disaster, still relevant now...
The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. -- Ronald Reagan
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