I’ve been quite happy with Matters since I moved TTLB here a few months back. But I’m a little less impressed with them this morning: my shell access has been disabled to TTLB’s server, which means I can’t test some new Ecosystem stuff I had planned to work on today. I have a slight suspicion that HM might be getting irked at all the routines I’m running to support TTLB’s various features — but if that’s the case, an email would have been nice.
At any rate, now we’re in support-watch mode: I logged a ticket with their support site, priority High, at 6:38am PDT. It’s now six hours later, and no response at all. Not good.
I recognize Sunday is not a business day, but for me, it’s prime development time, so this is more than a bit annoying.
Updates to follow if and when I get a response…
-NZB
Update: OK, I’m back up and running as of 6:38pm. However, it seems that HM actually implemented some security changes that broke one of the Ecosystem scripts. Ironically, it broke the very piece of code that I inserted to ensure that I don’t spawn unlimited processes while doing scans — causing the test run I just executed to go berzerk and spawn about 450 subprocesses. Sure is a good thing I was watching it, else I wouldn’t have been able to fix it. I’m still waiting to hear whether I missed an announcement on this particular change…
Category: Main
Ecosystem now polls blo.gs
I’ve been using the sidebar for quite some time as my primary method of keeping track of updates to my favorite weblogs. It’s a great tool: you can define your list of favorites, and it then provides them in a list sorted by the date/time of their last update in your sidebar. (They also have a similar tool for Internet Explorer). Blo.gs aggregates update data from multiple sources, including weblogs.com and Blogger, so it’s pretty comprehensive.
Anyway, I finally realized that it wouldn’t be too hard to integrate the Ecosystem with their data feed: so I did. The Ecosystem is now polling blo.gs once every hour at the bottom of the hour, and marking updated blogs with a little red *. (Note that the actual link data is still only being collected once a day).
It seems to be working properly, but please let me know as always if you notice any odd behavior.
Also: I did some serious data cleanup today, deleting over 100 duplicate blogs. Surprisingly, this caused more shifts in the rankings that I expected. It seems legitimate, but I’ll be keeping an eye over the next few days to make sure I didn’t wonk something out of whack…
Independence Day
“We are not moved by the gloomy smile of a worthless king, but by the ardent glow of generous patriotism. We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in. In such a case we are sure that we are right; and we leave to you the despairing reflection of being the tool of a miserable tyrant.”
– Thomas Paine
Enjoy the 4th, everyone. And remember what it meant then — and what it means now.
Image from Factory via www.theflagpole.com. Quote via Dave’s Patriotic Quotes.
Oracle Isn’t Afraid of Commitment
I’m following the Edwards – Peoplesoft – Oracle catfight with some interest, given that it is all more or less in my professional space. For those who haven’t been following this particular mess, News.com has more coverage than you could possibly want.
What really caught my eye, though, is Oracle’s recent advertising campaign to reassure Peoplesoft customers that if it succeeds in buying Peoplesoft, it will take good care of them. The June 28th – July 4th (U.S.) edition of the Economist, for example, has a full back-cover ad from Oracle. The text of the ad is a slightly summarized version of this page on Oracle’s site, which lists the following commitments:
1. We will not shut down PeopleSoft products
We are devoting more than US$6 billion and engineers around the world to PeopleSoft products. We are committed to supporting the current PeopleSoft products for at least the next 10 years.
We want you to be a satisfied Oracle customer
2. You will not be forced to convert to Oracle E-Business Suite applications
Our interest in you as a customer is not based on you migrating to Oracle applications or database
By committing to extend your support, you will not be forced to migrate to any other version or product
3. We will provide high quality, truly global customer service for PeopleSoft products through our award-winning customer support organization, which will include PeopleSoft specialists
We will provide you with the same high level, global support that Oracle provides to its customers
We have a longer track record of offering superior customer support, and have received numerous service awards. Read more about Oracle Support (PDF, 55K)
4. We will extend the support period for PeopleSoft products beyond the timeframe PeopleSoft itself has committed to and into the next decade
Oracle support for PeopleSoft Version 7, which PeopleSoft is desupporting in December, 2003, will be extended for at least two years
Oracle will support PeopleSoft Version 8 for at least the next ten years
5. We will take no action that reduces the functionality of your PeopleSoft implementations
Oracle commits to enhancing the current PeopleSoft products for at least the next decade
In every acquisition Oracle has made, we have never reduced the functionality of the acquired products.
6. We will increase the value of your PeopleSoft investments through ongoing enhancements and maintenance delivered by one of the largest software development organizations in the world
Together with the PeopleSoft team, we will continue to enhance and maintain current PeopleSoft products
Customers will benefit from a next generation of products that incorporates the best features of both companies
7. If, and only if, you elect to do so, you may move to the Oracle E-Business Suite via FREE module-for module upgrades
You can stay on PeopleSoft applications, or upgrade to Oracle applications at your discretion. It’s entirely your choice
Utilizing PeopleSoft code and developers, we will build lower cost, automated migration scripts and tools
The interesting question to me is, do these ‘commitments’ have any actual legal force?
What happens if, for instance, Oracle decides to discontinue support for PeopleSoft Version 8 after only seven years (as opposed to ten)? Can a company which built its business strategy around Version 8 sue Oracle for damages?
And the fuzzier claims seem even more dangerous (or perhaps, more meaningless): given the complexity of software in general and Peoplesoft in particular, I find it hard to imagine that some enterprising lawyer won’t be able to make a claim sometime after a theoretical Oracle takeover that some change “reduces the functionality” of a Peoplesoft implementation.
Anybody from the legal side of the Blogosphere care to chime in here? Should Peoplesoft users consider this a strong reassurance, or is it just marketing noise?
The Blog Census
No, it’s not one of my projects! But I kinda wish it was.
National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education has a fascinating project: the NITLE Blog Census:
Despite all the recent interest in blogging, few hard numbers are available about the extent of the phenomenon, particularly in languages other than English. The NITLE Blog Census is an attempt to create and share a regularly updated database of all known weblogs.
The census has been active since early May, 2003.
Our crawlers search the Web for weblogs, and attempt to categorize them by language and authoring tool. Data gathered during the census is archived every two weeks, and is available for non-commercial use. Our software respects the usual robots.txt exclusion rules. If you do not wish your weblog to be included in our surveys, please contact the site maintainer and we will expunge your site from our records.
The NITLE team has clearly given thought to the methodology: they are combining algorithmic methods of link-crawling with feeds from sources like Weblogs.com and various weblog directory lists.
And even better: it’s an open effort! You can download their data set in various forms, or use an XML-RPC API to do targeted queries.
Spiffy stuff, indeed.
New Section: The Blogosphere Daily News
Well, I just can’t leave well enough alone. I’ve been working on a new feature / section to the site for a few weeks, and I suppose I should stop tinkering with it and just let y’all play with it and see how it works.
Blogosphere Daily News is meant to be a guide to what particular items folks are linking to in the Blogosphere. Yes, many other sites have similar tools, but I thought it appropriate that TTLB should have its own version. And, as you’ll see, I’ve tried to give it some unique features, with my own somewhat dubious flair.
I won’t go into details on how it works, but it will be updated each day in the early-morning hours based on link data collected during the Ecosystem scans. So there will be a single edition daily.
There’s still some bugs in the system, so I’m classing this as a ‘beta’ for now. But feedback and suggestions are much appreciated. Enjoy!
-NZB
PS – For all those of you who have been frustrated by the slow holiday week and lack of interesting stuff to link to: well, now you’ve got something! No extra charge…
Update: There is one rather serious bug that I know of, wherein if a blog has multiple posts displayed on an archive page, the details presented will reflect those of the first post on the page — not the actual post that got all the links. I think I know how to fix this, but it will be ugly… patience…
Showcase Winner: Web Dawn
Congratulations to Mark Carey at Dawn: Rebirth of the Social Marketplace. His post on a Forum View for Blogs has come in as the winner for last week’s New Weblog Showcase.
Full results for the week are:
Web Dawn: Rebirth of the Social Marketplace: Forum View for Blogs
( 12 links)
Practical Penumbra: Some People are Mean
( 8 links)
Bob’s Bits and Bites: Bob’s Thoughts
( 5 links)
PrometheusSpeaks: Get a Baby Bib Just Like Dubya Wears!
( 5 links)
The Chicago Report: Kant Lives
( 5 links)
The Right Christians: Dreams of the Future (3): Without a Future
( 4 links)
o.t.p.: Triteness Studies
( 3 links)
Occasional Subversion: Biotechnology and Hunger
( 3 links)
CavBlog: Bad Advice
( 2 links)
OLDCATMAN SPEAKS: Sat. June 21, 2003
( 2 links)
ultrablog: Words Ending in “opelessness”
( 2 links)
As if Nothing Happened: What are people thinking?
( 2 links)
The World Around You: Opposition Makes No Sense
( 1 links)
Danger: Sign-Holding Hippie Ahead
I doubt I’d find much to agree on with Bursey, should we ever meet:
BRETT BURSEY will be back in court again, fighting the forces of reaction, on June 24th. The veteran protester was arrested last October for trespassing at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport as he held a sign (
Peace and Game Theory
Tyler Cowen, known co-conspirator of those Volokhs, is asking for help in developing an essay on game theory and international conflict: particularly, that Israel and Palestine:
“Israel and Palestine and game theory I have been writing an article for the journal Public Choice on conflict in the Middle East. I am no Middle East scholar, or close to it, but I was asked to consider, from the point of view of game theory, how persistent international conflict might be possible. The Coase Theorem, after all, that touchstone of law and economics, tells us that parties will strike a mutually beneficial deal. But they don’t, so why not?
Can you give a rational choice account, in ten words or less, why the two parties don’t cut a deal?”
Well, I don’t work well with word count limits, but here goes:
Because there are more than two parties with conflicting interests.
(Ten exactly! See, I can write to spec. Now somebody start paying me.)
Game theory is hardly my area of expertise, so stop me if I start sounding stupid. But it seems to me that any attempt to comprehend the “Israeli- Palestinian” conflict that begins by assuming that there are only two sides in the conflict is doomed to failure.
The Israeli side has a wide spectrum of political parties jousting for power, each with its own view of how relations with the Palestinians should proceed. And on the Palestinian side, the divisions between the PLO leadership of Prime Minister Abbas and the ambitions of Hamas are well known. (Not to mention the equally clear split between Abbas’ faction and Arafat’s).
And we see how this applies to wrecking the game theory model on a regular basis. We’ve all grown used to the pattern: the moderate factions on each side agree to a negotiated peace deal. Then Hamas (or a PLO faction) escalates the violence, derailing the negotiation process.
And here’s another thought for you: Why should we conclude that the current state of unending violence and conflict is not necessarily what some terrorist groups such as Hamas actually want? And keep in mind, that’s not the same thing as saying that every single individual Hamas member wants unending war: Hamas as an institution, I think it can be argued, is designed to perpetuate violence and conflict. It’s not built for making peace — if you actually did ever manage to make peace with it, it would have ceased to be Hamas.
(And by the way: another problem is that if you take the stated goal of Hamas’s charter seriously, it’s the destruction of the state of Israel. So it’s fairly easy to see why there’s no possibility of compromise with the Israeli side; there is no mutually beneficial solution if that’s their starting point.)
So to wrap up from the game theory perspective:
1) If you want to properly apply it in this case, you can’t just use a simple two-player model, it has to be something far more complex with far more players.
2) Some of the players have mutually incompatible goals (Hamas: Destroy Israel; Israel: Avoid being destroyed)
Now I’ve gone way over ten words. But I suspect the subject deserves far more…
An Unsealed Room wins Catchup Week
Congratulations are due to Allison Kaplan Sommer at An Unsealed Room for winning the catchup week of the Weblog Showcase. Her post Cherry-Picking in the Golan Heights came in with 23 votes.
Complete results for the week are:
An Unsealed Room: Cherry-Picking in the Golan Heights
( 23 links)
suburban blight: Rock and Roll
( 18 links)
Hi. I’m Black!: Bret Boone on Steroids?
( 15 links)
Not Geniuses: White Wine or Kool-Aid, Mr. Sanger?
( 12 links)
Across, Beyond, Through: The Prodigal Father
( 9 links)
Metajournalism: Prison Privatization
( 9 links)
Brian Flemming\’s Weblog: Bill Gates to die in New York: Thoughts on the DV revolution
( 9 links)
Happy Furry Puppy Story Time: Austin Smoking Ban: Consistency is the Green Goblin of Something or Other
( 8 links)
Prometheus 6: Racism or Why They Don\’t Understand Us
( 7 links)
archy: Why do they support this man?
( 7 links)
Collinization: Find Joy In My Suffering
( 6 links)
truck808: rex sits idle
( 6 links)
Obnoxious Fumes: More on Moore
( 6 links)
A Blog of His Own: The French Method
( 5 links)
A Frolic of My Own: A day in Washington
( 5 links)
Cyber :: Ecology: Nasa to spark war with Mars
( 5 links)
Entre Nous / Musings of a former Belgian: Widespread “involuntary euthanasia” in Belgium
( 5 links)
Where We’re Bound: Scale of Democracy
( 5 links)
Backcountry Conservative: Orrin Hatch: “I write the songs”
( 4 links)
Dog of Flanders / Furandaasu no inu: You may have read this before: A guide to the successful showcase entry
( 4 links)
Little Miss Attila: The Mob Squad
( 4 links)
The Tears of Things: If I Had Curated the Arizona Biennial ’03
( 3 links)
Musings From The Imperial Senate: Corporate Welfare
( 3 links)
Screaming Bean: Tuesday, May 20, 2003
( 3 links)
geographica: Time for a new map of China
( 3 links)
RyCam.net: Flag Day
( 3 links)
Diversions: Treasure of Nimrud
( 2 links)
Political News and Analysis: Patriotism Toward Gov’t Opposed by Founding Fathers
( 2 links)
Tainted Law: Rational Basis
( 2 links)
The Blog Herald: Blog Herald attacks France again!
( 2 links)
Grammar Police: Lone Star Wars
( 2 links)
Nocturnal Nattering:
( 0 links)
Properwinston.: Properwinston.
( 0 links)
MercuryX23’s Fantabulous Blog: WMS
( 0 links)
They Coulda Been Contenders: Results!
Bet y’all thought I forgot my promise to do a roundup of entries to the New Weblog Showcase pseudocontest, didn’t you?
Fear not: here it is.
To cut to the chase: I simply had to give the ultimate victory to Glenn at Hi. I’m Black!.
Here’s a few exerpts from his post, self-described as “heavily laced with sarcasm” (you have been warned):
It is clearly evident to me that NZ Bear’s refusal to allow me to re-enter the New Weblog Showcase is a vast right-wing conspiracy designed to discredit the American Negro.
Please observe my timeline:
1767-Kunta Kinte is brought to the New World aboard the slave ship Lord Ligonier. ..
1990-Vanilla Ice’s debut album, “To the Extreme” sells 13 million copies..
2003-Given erroneous information, Glenn from Hi. I’m Black!, enters the New Weblog Showcase 2 days before the end of the weekly contest…
As we say in the biz, read the whole thing. A link to Glenn’s post now sits atop the Ecosystem listings — below the regular Showcase weekly winner, but above that other Glenn.
But the rest of the field bears mention as well. I have a feeling I may be missing some entries here — if you didn’t add a comment to the contest post, then I haven’t added your entry here. If I missed you, drop me a line and I’ll add your post to the heap.
The Dog of Flanders observes “that’s one sarcastic bear” — well, duh — and continues:
To NZ Bear: Dude, if you meant to say “stop whining and suck it up, dudes” just say it and don’t waste seven paragraphs. Seriously man, you must have too much spare time.
You’re telling a blogger to be brief? C’mon, I’m not hitting DenBeste / Bill Whittle levels here. And oh, yeah: stop whining and suck it up.
alter: Hey, self, we’re not going to win the contest with the above post. Maybe we should do a bit more grovelling.
self: Yeah, right, just so we can end up in the “special box on the Ecosystem page”, somewhere “prominent”. I can just imagine it: protoplasm of the week, or pond scum. I don’t trust that bear.
Nor should you! And by the way, you’re talking to yourself. [I think he knows that — Ed. Quiet you. ]
Kelley at Suburban Blight pleads blondeness — always a good defense:
I WAS ROBBED! Yes, heartlessly and cruelly. I mean, here I am, a Tard Queen and a blonde to boot, and I have SCRAPED UP the native intelligence to be able to communicate with you here, on the web…an Achievement! You! Should! Recognize!
Er…okay.
Graham Lester doesn’t just whine — he whines in verse :
There once was a fellow named Bear
Whose Showcase seemed rather unfair
Not full of baloney
But more Macaroni
Than looked like a rational share
It made no allowance at all
For people whose talents were small
Who thus got no links
Disastrous, methinks
My self-esteem started to fall…
Dan Morris, on the other hand, seems to center his rant around, well, a frog:
This is not intended as a macabre example of how truly twisted people can be. You may end up thinking I
Showcase: Catchup Week!
OK folks: as threatened, it’s catchup week for the Weblog Showcase!
Here’s the deal, for this week only:
– The entry period extends all the way back to March 1, 2003.
– A blog author can enter the Showcase this week even if they have entered previous weeks, as long as they did not get more than 2 votes with a prior Showcase entry.
– Usual linking rules still apply: you must link to three other competitors to be eligible to win. And blogrolling the Showcase itself is highly encouraged / politely requested, though not required.
Other than that, anything goes!
Keep in mind, though: this may cause a very crowded contest this week. So: if you are a really new blogger (who started sometime in April, May, or June), you might be best served waiting until next week’s contest, when the field will be smaller.
Judicious Asininity Wins Week 3
Congratulations to Romulus at Asininity for winning Week 3 of the New Weblog Showcase. His post Smoking Saves Lives came in with fifteen total votes.
Full results for the week are:
Judicious Asininity: Smoking Saves Lives
( 15 links)
Tales from a Yeti Suit: The Three Goddesses
( 8 links)
Transparent Eye: Dreaming of a Chirac Assassination
( 5 links)
I know this is probably bad for me: Grown Up Passion
( 4 links)
The SmarterCop: Bush is a genius
( 4 links)
Let’s Run The Numbers: Administration Seeks Overhaul of Federal Workforce
( 4 links)
Brian’s Study Breaks: Afghan Nation-Building
( 4 links)
Kuboid: Today’s Theme: Architecture
( 3 links)
The SchoolHouse Review: How NOT to diversify
( 3 links)
vision : on: Egad
( 3 links)
A Layman’s Opinion: n/a
( 2 links)
Catallarchy: Calpundit’s knowledge problem
( 2 links)
Facilitating Paradox: God-Name = God Substance
( 1 links)
idols of the marketplace: A Mapquest for Peace
( 1 links)
Martin Doesn’t Recall
Martin is by the recall efforts around Governor Davis:
“I can’t stand Gray Davis, but this is ridiculous. He was elected and that’s that. This recall thing is wacky beyond belief.”
Why wacky, Martin? There’s a legal process in place to elect someone; there’s also a legal process in place to recall them. Unlike impeachment — where there has to be genuine evidence of wrongdoing — my understanding is that you can do a recall for any reason, it’s just a vote of no confidence by the peepul.
So it’s actually a fairly objective thing (as opposed to the very subjective process of impeachment) — either you’ve got enough signatures to get a recall on the ballot, or you don’t.
So if it passes, fine, if it doesn’t, also fine. All is fair under the law, isn’t it?
Hell Blogger?
What exactly do you think it means that http://hellblogger.blogspot.com/”>http://hellblogger.blogspot.com/ exists, and redirects you immediately to my site?
“Hell blogger”? I’ve heard of Blogger Hell (who hasn’t?) but not the other way around. Yipes.
(And no, I didn’t set it up myself…)
Quote of the Day.
Just Because.
“Last night I had a very short time for dinner, and the nearest vending machine was all out of newspapers, even the hated Los Angeles Times. In desperation I picked up the LA Weekly off the floor to read over dinner. It was very thick — full of ads that were similar to the spam I get every day. ”
-Martin Devon, Pundit
Jarvis: Home Sweet Blog
Jeff Jarvis the world of online communications, assessing forums (“like Saturday night at the bar”), chat (“frat parties”) and of course, weblogs:
Weblogs are homes in nice neighborhoods. I put my name on my blog; I tend the lawn around it; I don’t want anyone littering my yard. My comments are my open house and I ask that you behave accordingly.
Yup, this is almost exactly right. The one correction I’d make: take out the “nice neighborhoods” part. Some weblogs are homey places in nice neighborhoods.
Others are clearly funky little lofts in some hyperactive urban cityscape somewhere. Quite a few are the kind of houses that are stuffed with books, art, and other academic brick-a-brack — while others are clearly dorm rooms. And of course, here and there you’ll stumble into a neighborhood that, if not exactly bad, certainly makes you wonder whether its really safe to be there at all.
To each, their own, of course. Every blogger builds their own house with language as our only bricks, and a little web design to serve as mortar to hold it all together. (And yes, tons of blog houses are pre-fab affairs of dubious aesthetic value).
PS – This metaphor also leads me to conclude that if bloggers build their virtual homes on the strength of their ideas, then there’s a few online houses I can think of that are likely to collapse any minute now due to shoddy workmanship…
What Might Have Been
OK folks. There have been a number of requests for exceptions to allow bloggers to enter the who otherwise are disqualified by the current rules. There have been some interesting suggestions (most notably one to allow blogs that received 0 votes to resubmit for another try).
I may run next week as a “catch-up” week of some kind, and open up entry back to the original start date for the first week in some way. But for this week, I’m keeping the contest rules the same, to give a fair shake to the genuinely new crop of blogs who have submitted their entries.
I will, however, offer up an alternative contest for this week for those disgruntled soles amoung you who feel you didn’t quite get a fair shake. I call it The Not-Quite New Weblog Showcase: I Coulda Been A Contender.
Rules are as follows:
1) Entry is open to anyone who got hosed by Blogger permalinks (or lack thereof); who missed the entry deadline due to overuse of controlled substances; whose dog ate their blog post (but it was a really good one), or who otherwise feels they have been cheated, gyped, duped, denied, rejected, scammed, swindled, or just plain ripped-off of the Showcase victory that they know in their heart is rightfully theirs.
2) To enter, simply create a post on your blog, link to this one, and describe, in your own words, why your blog just plain shoulda won, or, alternatively, just plain shoulda been allowed to enter the contest. Comparisons to great scandals in American history are suggested. Insults directed at myself are encouraged, and will be judged by creativity and degree of difficulty.
3) Seriousness is discouraged. Any blogger whose entry is deemed to be overly serious will be summarily disqualified, obliged to write “Blogging is for fun” on the chalkboard 100 times, and will be forced to wear a silly hat.
4) Judging will occur whenever I damned well feel like it, but probably sometime this weekend. Judging criteria will be based on whatever I’ve had for breakfast that morning, but may possibly include numerology, Tarot, and a divining rod to select the winner. Or I may just pick one that I like.
5) All submitted entries deemed to be not completely worthless will be exerpted in a roundup post on the main TTLB page here. The winning entry will (for real) be posted in a special box on the Ecosystem page — not quite where the true Showcase winner goes, but somewhere prominent.
Get crackin’, slackers! I look forward to some world-class whining and complaining!
This Week’s Showcase: New Competitors Only, Please
Folks –
We received about ten entries to this week’s yesterday, which I thought was great.
Unfortunately, I came to realize this morning that over half of them were duplicate entries from bloggers who had already entered in previous weeks.
Sorry folks, but if you have competed in a previous week’s showcase, you are not eligible for this week. Make room for other new bloggers to have a chance!
-NZB
It’s Blocking My View of Venus
rocks:
In 1948, Marvin the Martian realized his first mission had failed when he did not hear “an Earth-shattering kaboom.”
But while the animated alien was always thwarted in his efforts to blow up Earth, he will finally witness a shattering kaboom next week, when the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission lifts off.
The Looney Tunes character will join Daffy Duck on the mission’s official logos, which will be worn by Team Delta crews, comprised of members from NASA, the United States Air Force and Boeing.
“Where’s the ka-boom? There was supposed to be an EARTH-shattering KA-BOOM !”
Hat Tip: Jim Miller