Wednesday Lunkdimp-Thing

Bully visits Seattle and now has me craving Top Pot Doughnuts. Mmmmm Bavarian Cream...

Lots and lots of cool Owly sketches. I want an AquaOwly one of these days.

The Bad Astronomer links to a sky map. Cool.

Speaking of space, Airliner narrowly misses being hit by falling space junk. This is going to become more and more of a problem in the future. Should we start worrying now?

Colleen Doran on the search for Homer’s Ithaca.

Seattle Times on Song of the South.

I like tattoos, but I'm nart inclined to get one, 'cuz I'm a coward who changes her mind too much for a permanent change. But I'd be tempted by this tattoo.

How To Get Rid of Stuff.

Spinning shapes. Is it related to the hexagon on Saturn?

A call for Blogging Code of Conduct. Um, how about basic common courtesy and respect? And immediate criminal prosecution of people who make "anonymous" death threats?

Is the blog boom over? I'd say, just from the killing of dead blogs I've done on Blogshares over the last few months, that there was a boom in the summer of 2004 that resulted in a lot of dead blogs.

The face of the RIAA: Sony Music drops suit after sternly worded lawyer-letter. And Boing Boing wants you to remember that it's the LABELS that are suing their customers, and hiding behind the name of the RIAA to protect their reputations.

Hotlinking is BAD. It's theft. Nobody told John McCain apparently, as his campaign stole bandwidth from a webpage designer, who pranked McCain in response. In future, all politicians should hire an internet consultant who actually knows the internet.

I'd wondered why there wasn't a lawsuit... but I guess I didn't look far enough. Snohomish County and voting machine maker Sequoia are being sued for the inability to recount votes in a transparent way (as is required by state law), therefore effectively outsourcing elections to a private company. Among the data presented was the very close election between Rossi and Gregoire for Governor, which included a "statistical impossibility" that gave Rossi considerably more votes in Snohomish County.

You'd better hope you don't end up on the list.

Afraid of subpoenas, White House staff avoids using secure White House e-mail. Instead, they use non secured e-mail that puts sensitive data at risk. Yeah, really intelligent. They might as well just hand over all our state secrets to terrorists.

And to leave you with amusement... CLUNK!

Some Links

Roombas Go Caroling.

Top Ten Astronomy Images of 2006.

Teapot Synchronicity, simple, yet satisfying. Via Boing Boing.

100 Things We Didn't Know Last Year.

I admit that despite reading tons of blogs for my Blogshares playing, I haven't found many that I really want to share with my readers. I have come across one that I found fascinating, though, called Generation Watch. I think my fascination stems from how the generations are defined on this site. I don't really agree with the site on much of its philosophy, but I found it to be a good read.

I'm going to relax a bit for awhile, and return to "regular" blogging next year.

Blogging About Blogging is a Sin

And I'm a sinner...

I'm still playing Blogshares as I mentioned a bit ago, and I have some observations to make.

First off, to set you up, I'm earning "chips" in the game by reporting dead blogs. A dead blog is a blog that hasn't been updated for at least six months. I'm using the "random blog" function to find blogs, and then visiting each blog to see when it was last updated. If it's not dead, I try to put it into a category (an "industry" for game purposes). These are my observations from that random sample of Blogshares indexed blogs (I've looked at well over 1000 blogs now, and I'm just getting started).

• There are tons of blogs with only one entry. Started, then abandoned in one fell swoop. These aren't dead blogs so much as stillborn blogs.
• If a blogger gets past that first entry, they usually go for a few weeks up to about four months. Lots of blogs I find dead after three or four months of posts.
• If the blogger makes it past four months, the odds are good that the blog is still alive. There are many exceptions, of course.
• I hate HATE Microsoft live spaces. They often don't have an easy way to tell when the blog was last updated, and most of them have so much extra garbage the pages are hard to navigate. And they all load slowly.
• I can't read the dates on any Persian blogs.
• I can read the dates on almost any non-Persian blog.
• Many people go to great lengths to make a cool-looking blog, then abandon it after a few months. Some of the best designs I've seen were those "3-4 months of posts then dead" blogs.
• Many people have no sense of design at all, and make completely unreadable blogs.
• Coming across a live blog after tons of dead blogs is like finding a fresh chocolate bar in a sea of stale candy corn. Ah... bliss.
• Blogspot blogs are usually the easiest to tell the last update on. The dates tend to be in a standard format despite language, and the site tends to load fast.
• Blogspot Beta blogs load slow and are annoying.
• Even dead blogs are sometimes interesting. Nothing so interesting I want to link to it, but sometimes I run across a blog I'll read despite its stale content.
• Videoblogs freak me out. I guess I have trouble imagining wanting to put myself on video for the whole world to see.
• Profanity is common on dead blogs, slightly less common on live ones.
• Even though I can't read dates on Persian blogs, I still keep looking at them, apparently hoping that the next one will be the exception and I'll suddenly understand Farsi.
• "Normal" bloggers update their blogs a few times a month. I have great respect for the ranks of insane bloggers who update daily or at least multiple times a week.
• If you get a 403 "Forbidden" error when going to a blog, always try again. Virtually every time I've gotten that error my second attempt got me to the blog.
• Most of Blogshares indexed dead blogs seem to date from the summer of 2004.
• A lot of people do not seem to realize that the whole world can read their posts. Either that, or they simply don't care.
• Most people cannot spell.
• If a blogger can spell, and has a profile, they are virtually always older than 30.
• Profile pages are really useful on live blogs. Blogshares tries for demographic information on all blogs: gender, language, and location. A good profile will show all three.
• There are a surprisingly large number of blogs named "my blog" or some variation of such.
• Alternating Caps (LiKe ThIs) is annoying, but can be tolerated in small amounts. Blogs that have all text in alternating caps are unreadable, and the bloggers are morons.
• The year 1385 is the current year on Persian blogs, so if I can spot a year and it's 1384 or before, it's older than six months. Ha!
• Most first blog entries are either "Hi!" or "Test". These are also the last blog entries on many blogs.

Comic Book'ed Out

No "Ripples Through Time" today, I'm feeling a bit waterlogged. I don't want to burn out on the reviews, so I'm willing to take a break every once in awhile.

Instead, I went and got my hair cut today (Thanks Carol!) and went for a nice walk. Now I'm busily playing Blogshares. I haven't read all of this week's comics, and that's ok. I need the break every once in awhile.

My first experience with Blogshares was a few years ago when I had that absolutely horrible sunburn. I couldn't sleep, and I needed something besides TV to occupy my mind. So I started playing Blogshares and went completely nuts with the game, all the way to making the top ten and earning a free year of Premium service. I mostly played with the "idea" market, which was new at the time, and became an in-game billionaire.

Coming back to it seriously for the first time in over two years, I want to play a more standard game. So I've been playing with shares, and trying to help clean up the database by reporting dead blogs and putting live blogs into categories. There's now incentive in the game to help with the database. You earn chips, which can be redeemed for raffle tickets, "chances" and other fun stuff. I've been playing my chips for chances, which is an in-game lottery that has some nifty prizes.

To find dead blogs, I use the "Links" option on the navigation bar, then find the "Random Blogs" link, and visit each blog I get. There are a lot of dead blogs (for Blogshares purposes, a dead blog is any blog that hasn't been updated in 6 months). I'm finding a lot of blogs that have one or two entries after they were created, and nothing after that. It makes me wonder why the folks bothered at all. But then... at least they made the effort. They started. But it's strange, like walking through an on-line graveyard.

And it's fun, too. I'm seeing the strangest blogs, very different from what I hit in my normal browsing. That's part of the strength of the game. There's so much there, and you can have a bit of fun while you are at it. Not that it's for everyone. But I'm enjoying myself.

Linkdump

Happy Birthday Elayne.

Just FYI for anyone living in the North Seattle/Kenmore/Bothell area, my local comic shop, Corner Comics just massively increased the amount of Manga she's carrying. No, I'm not getting anything for blogging this. Just wanted to let people know. And I'm curious to see how well it sells, as she's been hesitant to carry titles that regular customers weren't ordering.

My thanks to everyone who clicked on my Blogshares and QuackTrack links to help me out in my on-line game. I got some "chips" in the game, which allowed me to get some other cool stuff. All virtual stuff, but I'm enjoying myself.

Speaking of enjoying, the local high school team, Bothell High School, is playing in the state championship for football tonight. Earlier this year, the Cougars set a state record, and tied a national record, for most overtimes in a high school playoff game.

The First-Christmas/Holiday-Card-Of-The-Season award goes to Baboon Books. One of these years I really ought to send out Christmas cards.

Here's a summary of Seattle's November.

The Incident on Niihau Island. Another story from DI.

Need a dose of Cute, and Cute Overload just isn't cutting it? Try The Cutest.info, and vote for the cutest if you feel like it. I'm kind of partial to The Funniest.info, but it's often NSFW.

Comic Book Thoughts

Yup, I'm playing Blogshares again. I seem to get back into it every few months and just play around for awhile. I find it amusing. Anyway, if you click on that link or on this QuackTrack link, I "earn" some stuff in the game. You, on the other hand, get taken to other websites. Your mileage may vary.

The snow is mostly gone, at least from the streets. However, there is still snow on the ground, and no rain predicted for a few days... fingers are crossed that we don't get any nasty weather for the weekend. Also: at the moment, I still haven't gotten this week's comics due to both weather and UPS/Diamond mix-ups. Which means I still haven't read the latest Aquaman. Which means I'm in a bit of a foul mood. UPDATE (2:20pm): Ah... Got Aquaman now. Much better.

Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #79.

Fantagraphics store opening makes the Seattle Times.

I've been asked to cover some of the current Comic Book News. Ok. Right.

• Wizard Fires Senior Vice-President/Editor-in-Chief Pat McCallum. I don't read Wizard anymore, and haven't for a few years because the quality got too low for even my low expectations. So I'm not surprised, nor am I impressed.
• DC's Minx Line. I haven't seen much about the books themselves, and until I see some art and a bit more about the stories, I'm not all that intrigued by them. As for the act of creating a line "just for girls", well, at least they are acknowledging that there is a market there, and giving a little effort to tapping it. I seriously think that this Wonder Woman pitch could also accomplish the same task, but DC doesn't listen to me.

Anything I missed that people actually want to hear my opinion on?