LIVEdigitally

Monthly Archives: November 2006

I did, in fact.

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Vote, that is. Spent last night making some last minutes notes, finishing off my research. I felt very prepared. Went in with my list of choices, stood in line for far longer than need be, and did the deed.

I’m not sure how it’s been going other places, but they didn’t seem too organized at my site. I felt bad for the workers because it really wasn’t their fault. They had four machines, but only two of them were operating. In addition, the magnetic electronic whatever-the-heck card they had us sliding to access the ballot went a little fritzy sometimes. It would say that people’s numbers had already been used, which makes no sense.

To me, it is no mystery that people don’t vote. Not only do they have to THINK, but they have to take the time, deal with the lines and the problems with the machinery, and our incentive? A cute little “I voted” sticker, and I wonder if some people even get THAT! I’m taking a class right now on constitution reform and one of the issues is elections and voting. Does anyone have any ideas? We’re considering a national holiday for voting (so people don’t have to skip work), possible tax benefits, etc. Let me know what you think!

Where are the other 56,000,000 blogs?

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When I first registered with Technorati (the de-facto standard service for tracking the so-called blogosphere), I had about 1 incoming link, and my ranking was about 1 millionth.  David Sifry, Technorati’s CEO, gave his “state of the Blogosphere” report today, in which he claimed the site is now tracking roughly 57 million blogs, and revealed the following statistics:

  • The blogosphere doubles roughly every 230 days
  • As of October 2006, about 100,000 new weblogs were created each day
  • The total posting volume of the blogosphere is showing about 1.3 million postings per day

My first reaction: holy freaking crap!  Where are all these blogs?  Does this count every new entry into Vox, MSN Spaces, MySpace pages, and all the other “quick havens” where people get their feet wet blogging?  What are they writing about? 

I also noticed another stat in the report: About 55% of all blogs are active, which means that they have been updated at least once in the last 3 months. Which means, if I do my math, that my blog (with a Technorati ranking of ~22K at the time of writing) is in the top 1% of all tracked, active blogs. 

Here’s where it gets crazy: my traffic and links don’t even come close to 1% of the Top 100 ranked blogs.  Maybe I don’t post enough (thoughts on post frequency here and here)?  More thoughts on Sifry’s post over at IP Democracy.

My second reaction: Really now, where are they?  According to Sifry’s stats, about 40% of blogging is in English (more on language here), which means I should have the ability to discover about 40,000 new blogs every day.  But I don’t see em anywhere.  Sure, every now and then a new blog appears to gain some momentum and link traction, but at the end of the day, the discovery process for new blogs is pretty bad.

Maybe Technorati (or someone else) should introduce new services to get new blogs “on the radar?”  It’d be nice if there was a way to gain some attention, other than hoping/praying that Robert Scoble reads (and links to) one of your posts. Sifry does make a variety of points on the notion of a blogger’s “authority” but, other than by writing some Top 10 list, it ain’t easy to get noticed these days.

Some simple tips for participating in the voting process

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Tomorrow, I’ll go to my local balloting place which is conveniently located 2 blocks from my apartment.  I’ll walk there with the “prep” ballot I’ve already put together, which I’ll carry mostly due to an increasingly poor short term memory (yes on 87).  And there I’ll likely meander through lines, fill out some form incorrectly, then eventually find a place to fill out my ballot.  I have a lot of confidence that I won’t accidentally follow the wrong dotted line, and I predict no hanging chads.

But that’s just our civic responsibility.  That’s what we’re supposed to do.  David Cohn over at NewAssignment (a new web site dedicated to citizen journalism) put together a list of how we can go above and beyond our basic responsibilities, and actually participate in the process.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

  • Video The Vote is an organized effort, using camera phones and video, to cover any mishaps voters encounter this Tuesday.
  • The The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism to capture, post and share photographs of democracy in action by documenting the local voting experience. NewAssignment.Net consulted on the project.
  • Along with independent live blogging networks news organizations like the BBC, CNN and others are relying on citizen journalists to get full coverage of this years election. They can’t be everywhere, but we already are.

I’m bringing along my digital camera, and I look forward to doing my job as a citizen.  For newer readers, I only became a US citizen earlier this year, and I’m glad to have my chance to fulfill the commitment I made.  I hope you do as well.

Take a look at David’s list – it’s even in an easy-to-consume “Top 9” format!

UPDATE: if you are one of the, say 95% of the mobile phone owners in this country whose phone is capable of storing or sharing video, take a look at the “Veek the Vote” service.  Read the comments below by Kemble and Rodger for more info, or skip that and just go check out the site.  Just be sure to vote tomorrow!

Finally someone, somewhere has a good experience with TSA!

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SNL TSA skitI was reading Brad Feld’s blog today and saw his post with a photo from La Guardia airport.  I am stunned at the amazingly poor state of things with regards to flight and TSA policies.  I am more stunned that it seems to be status quo, and not changing for the better.  On Saturday Night Live last month, there was a great skit wherein they portrayed a TSA training session.  When presented with rules such as “no liquids over 3oz” a trainee asked the (obvious) question, “what if two people get together with 3oz each?  Is 6oz dangerous?”

No carryons allowedWhen the liquid ban came into effect a couple of months ago, I was on a trip to Europe.  I flew home via Stockholm airport, where they told me to put all my carry-ons in a clear plastic bag, otherwise they’d get confiscated in Frankfurt en route to the USA.  Sure enough, I was the only guy walking around Frankfurt with a huge baggie full of my personal effects.

However on virtually every trip I have taken since that flight, my carryon bag contained multiple containers with liquids or gels (yes, I admit to grabbing shampoos from hotels, but only one per stay).  My secret?  Well, I’ve mastered the security system.  Here’s what I do: when asked “got liquid?” I respond “no” and move along.  Try it out, it works pretty well.

Last week, as my wife and I entered security in SFO and we placed our bags on the security belt, to my extreme chagrin she separated her makeup bag.  Big no-no, but I couldn’t stop her in time.  Sure enough, the TSA employee picked up the bag, and went through it.  She found some makeup and lotion, and gave her three options: check it (nope), put it in a Ziploc bag (huh?), or chuck it out (gee, thanks).

I tried reason.  I tried logic.  To no avail.  I politely (then again, slightly less politely) asked how the TSA could operate such a policy without providing a reasonable solution.  Her oft-repeated answer: “all this information is available on our Web site” (not the official link).  I must say, I felt quite a bit like Arthur Dent (the only hint for such a reference is it involves a bulldozer, the rest, dear reader, is up to you).

Kudos to Wal-Mart, US Airways, and whatever supervisor at La Guardia who did not actively prevent such a common sense solution to a stupid, self-imposed problem.  Although I must say, knowing that mascara and facial cream can only be carried aboard a triple-7 inside a see-through Ziploc bag makes me feel safe, and I can only imagine it really drives fear into the hearts and minds of the terrorists.

I’m voting in the USA for the first time in my life this Tuesday, but it appears my ballot (yes on 87) doesn’t have any option to vote out such incompetence.  Ah well, maybe in ’08.

links for 2006-11-06

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New blog to bookmark: Jason Dunn

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Saw over at jkOnTheRun this morning that Jason Dunn is blogging now.  Jason runs the “XXXXthoughts.com” series of blogs.  No, the XXXX isn’t for porn, it’s for:

I have no idea how he’s going to find the time for it, but I look forward to reading his new personal blog.  He’s certainly earned his stripes with the others! 

Only question is, shouldn’t his blog be JasonDunnThoughts.com?  😉

links for 2006-11-05

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Digg gets more democratic; annoys geek-elites

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Back in the late 90s, workplace boredom often led to Web surfing.  The only thing is, the “discovery” element was pretty tricky, and you pretty much had to rely on word-of-mouth or links from Yahoo!.  Well, with the fun of Web 2.0, we have a bunch of new services that let people help each other find new and interesting stuff online.  Well, maybe not interesting, but at least new.

The top of these social bookmarking (as the term is called) services are Digg, Delicious (now owned by Yahoo), and Reddit (now owned by Conde Nast/Wired). I’ve recently started using both Digg (here’s my Digg profile) and Delicious (more on that in a few days), and find they really can help cure the “I’m bored and I want to surf for 10 minutes” syndrome. With each of them you can track your friends’ favorites and there are a variety of methods to see what’s new or what’s popular.  Only thing is “what’s popular” isn’t necessarily what the term typically implies.

If you want to to know the most popular movies, you can read the box office reports.

Most popular TV shows, Nielsen (which nobody really trusts, but nothing else is out there just yet).

Web sites?  Well, now you have a variety of unreliable services.

But for “Links of the day” you have things like the Digg home page.  Which is built dynamically based on some mysterious algorithm.  In the first era of Digg, the home page was pretty much dictated by the “Top 100” users.  The specifics of how to become a Top 100 weren’t exactly clear, but it basically was a self-rewarding process.  Once in, it’s nearly impossible to get out, and a new user has about 0 odds of getting in.  And the Top 100 were happy. 

Then team Digg decided to change their algorithms, to try to make it a bit more “fair and balanced.”  Sounds good, right?  Well, to everybody not in the Top 100, it’s quite good, as the “What’s Popular” list no longer reflects what they think is interesting, but what the entire Digg community thinks is interesting.  Which leaves the Top 100 feeling a little left out.

I do understand their feeling this way, as they spent countless hours contributing to the site.  Maybe they should have their own special section, or be an automatic filter of the home page or something.  They should get a little kudos and “thank-you” (and not just a T-shirt).  But the site has evolved, and its for the better.  It ain’t exactly a democracy just yet, but we’ll call it a Diggocracy and move on.

Hopefully they’ll work on fixing the “disappearing cookie” problem now…

Borat Review: Funny, but real or staged?

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Along with about 10 million college kids, I saw Borat tonight with some friends.  Despite trying to buy tickets on the Interwebs in the middle of the day, the best we could do was the 9:55 show in Daly City!  Here’s my spoiler-free review:

What is the movie?
It’s funny.  Laugh-out-loud funny.  Kinda almost nauseating funny.  Occasionally very squeamish funny.  A wee bit disturbing/disgusting funny. Often uncomfortably funny.  Completely politically incorrect funny.  Overall, it’s just plain funny. 

What isn’t the movie?
Clever, witty, deep, sensitive, brilliant, hysterical, thoughtful, or hygienic (according to IMDB, “The suit Sacha Baron Cohen wears when playing Borat has deliberately never been cleaned.”). 

But it might just have you fall out of your seat laughing.  If you just want to have a good time, and you can deal with 90-odd minutes of silly, then go see it.  It’s just that simple.

Mini-spoilers follow from this point (nothing to ruin a scene, but I will mention some scenes by name/location).

Continue reading →

links for 2006-11-04

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Birthing a Robot: History of the Robosapien V2

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Matt Whitlock put together a nice article with plenty of pretty pictures on the evolution of the WowWee Robosapien V2.  I just got my hands on, well, one of the shall-we-say “up and coming” Robosapiens and this thing is most definitely not just a toy.  I am stunned at the capabilities of the ‘bot, and if you’ve never taken a look at them, you really should check it out.  The Robosapien lineup is constantly evolving, and the newest ones have more programmable functions than you’d imagine.  There’s even a Web site (a few really) with robot experts building additional hacks to the products.  I’ll try my hand at some custom programming this weekend, which means in all likelihood mine will find a way to burst into flames.