Saturday, March 6, 2004

Surfing the Blogisphere

To start with, I used the Ranking by Page-Reads link. This led me to a number of worthy, almost professional blogs. The problem was, I just didn't find them terribly interesting. A lot of the content was references to other sites and the authors seemed to have a limited contribution to make in their own right. It seems to me that a lot of them attract readers in much the same the way that our local gossip attracts her neighbours. The rankings also seem to be self perpetuating; once you're at the top, you become the first place that people visit, regardless of content. On the other hand, some of the high ranking blogs are very good, particularly the specialist ones. They obviously attract readers with their content; they don't contain many references. I've dropped the rankings in favour of the Updates link. Visiting the most recently updated pages gives all the active bloggers an almost equal chance of my custom. (Almost equal because those who update the most will get a bit more than their share and those who update while I'm asleep are likely to lose out.) My Fresh Meat policy makes for a much more rewarding experience. I doubt I would have learned about the ins and outs of buying a car in Brazil if I'd stuck to the well worn rankings path. I find these little snippets of other people's lives fascinating. Of course, you run into the odd nutter who thinks that everyone should be allowed to buy mil-spec automatic weaponry (I'm not going to gratify him with a link), but even they're fascinating in an is-that-what-the-insides-of-a-badger-look-like roadkill sort of way. 3:36:32 PM

News Feed Policy

I've had a couple of days experience with Radio now and decided on a policy for dealing with the news feeds. Radio's starter pack consists largely of 'big' name news producers, like the BBC. These organisations generate huge volumes of news that I'm not really interested in. After a couple of days I ended up having to scroll through 12-15 screens worth of stuff. The new policy is to unsubscribe from all of these professional channels and go back to Google News. It's is fast, it updates itself and its concise. You can also get more detail on individual sections if you want it. The Radio news feeds will be used for following other blogs. 2:59:38 PM

Star crossed lovers

Look closely. Isn't today's APOD reminiscent of Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss'? 2:41:22 PM

Non-Porn

This got a belly laugh. 2:13:42 PM

The End of the World

Hilarious 12:26:35 PM

Radio Active

If you're interested in women and motorbikes, and who isn't, then check this out. 12:25:14 PM

OmniDictionary

I never thought that I'd become a dictionary geek, but someone introduced me to Dictionary.com, and from there I got to Word of the Day; then I found OmniDictionary. OmniDictionary is a freebie from the Omni Group, which makes brilliant software for the Mac at really good prices - the kind where you don't have to really think before parting with your cash, and thereafter think 'bargain' to yourself every time you use it. The really nice things about OmniDictionary, over Dictionary.com, are that there's no advertising and you can select the dictionaries you want to search, and some of those dictionaries are fascinating. They include 'CIA World Factbook 2002', which tells me that tsunamis are one of the hazards of living in the US (no mention of drive-by shootings or obesity ;-), and a couple of old dictionaries that throw some light on the way that people used to think. For example, From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993): SUFFRAGE, n. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized. Refusal to do so has the bad name of "incivism." The incivilian, however, cannot be properly arraigned for his crime, for there is no legitimate accuser. If the accuser is himself guilty he has no standing in the court of opinion; if not, he profits by the crime, for A's abstention from voting gives greater weight to the vote of B. By female suffrage is meant the right of a woman to vote as some man tells her to. It is based on female responsibility, which is somewhat limited. The woman most eager to jump out of her petticoat to assert her rights is first to jump back into it when threatened with a switching for misusing them. Can you imagine those last three sentences being committed to paper nowadays? 11:38:48 AM