Wednesday March 16, 2005

What Polyhedral Are You?

You are the rare, the overlooked, yet incredibly useful dodecahedron: the d12. You are a creative, romantic soul. You often act without thinking, but make up for your lack of plans with plenty of heart. You easily solve problems that stump others, but your answers tend to put you into even deeper trouble. You write long, detailed backgrounds for all your characters, and are most likely to dress up as one or get involved in cos-play. You can be silly at times and are easily distracted by your own day dreams, but are at the end of the day you're someone who can be depended on.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com
( Mar 16 2005, 03:35:05 PM ) Humor? Permalink
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Tuesday March 15, 2005

woot! disappoints

Hey, I'm all for getting a great deal and all, but I'm disappointed in how Woot.com processed my (second) order:

From: Woot
To: lance
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:31:25 -0600
Subject: Woot Order Tracking Number

Your order for 2 of 03/08/2005's woot has been shipped via FEDEX.

Your tracking number is: 697123673358.

Note that I placed the order *one week ago*. It took them a week to get it to FedEx. Last Friday I emailed them, as I noticed that their 'order tracker' didn't list a shipping company for my order. Their response?

Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:19:05 -0600
We ship in 2-3 business days

I suspect this is the last time I Woot.

Update: It looks like it is this particular Woot item, the BBQ set, as everyone's order appears to be delayed. Still, they should have let us know there was a delay, I'll happily wait if I'm told in advance.
( Mar 15 2005, 12:41:15 PM ) Personal Permalink
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Suffer the Children

My sister Christina is now 8 months pregnant with the baby due any time. Through an odd set of circumstances the child to be born may not have a nationality.[from The BabelFish Blog]

At least the Nation-less child is unlikely to suffer this fate:

Two-year-old shot by boy, 4, over toy

HOUSTON ? A two-year-old was shot by his four-year-old brother, who may not have known the difference between a real gun and toy one, police said. The two-year-old, who suffered a single gunshot wound to the temple, was in critical condition Saturday night in hospital. [via Dave's Chalkboard]

( Mar 15 2005, 11:11:19 AM ) News Permalink
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Buzzed? I have a referrer today from Yahoo Buzz Index. There is no link there to my site, so is this some form of referrer spoofing? There is an item on Blogosphere Buzz, but no particular link to me. Weird.
( Mar 15 2005, 11:09:02 AM ) Personal Permalink Comments [1]
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Monday March 14, 2005

Spanish Muslims issue fatwa against Bin Laden

I wonder what took so long, for Muslim leaders to really take a stand against terrorism in the name of their religion? I've also long thought that the only "solution" to the terror in Iraq will take the action of citizens there; they must form their own paramilitary organizations in order to hunt down those responsible for bombing fellow citizens. Why don't they do more to stop the bombings themselves? I know the US government won't care for such organizations (nor likely the Iraqi gov'ment), and it smacks of vigilante justice, but the official military forces just haven't been effective. Perhaps only those who live there, those with a real stake in their communities, can fight back effectively. They can gather the information and act stealthily in a way we Americans cannot.
( Mar 14 2005, 09:10:10 AM ) News Permalink
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Friday March 11, 2005

They talk by flapping their meat at each other

This is one of the funniest sci-fi stories I've read in some time!
( Mar 11 2005, 11:58:35 AM ) Humor? Permalink
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Thursday March 10, 2005

Cooperation and Punishment

New Scientist has an interesting article about generosity, altruism, and cooperation. One part of it in particular struck me in how it relates to what happens in the blogosphere:

...cooperation can become the default behaviour in large groups provided punishers are willing to punish not only those who cheat, but also those who fail to punish cheats.[Charity begins at homo sapiens]

This relates to my last post, particulary the quote from Dave Winer, and also relates to politics on the web. It seems the most popular blogs/entries are those that punish others AND (on the Technorati issue) punish those that fail to punish others.

On the Technorati issue, I forgot to say that Dave Sifry did "the right thing" in the end: he publically supported Niall and explained his reasoning of the events. And in a response to my post he vowed that Technorati will 'try to learn from this experience'. Something we all need to do.
( Mar 10 2005, 12:04:35 PM ) Technology Permalink
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it's worse when they're a friend

It feels a little weird to agree with Dave Winer, but then it really shouldn't. I'd say he makes sense about 50% of the time.

I was struck the other day how the mess with Technorati was swept under the rug with all kinds of "we like them" explanations, as if liking someone were the main thing that mattered. So if you don't like someone, then it's okay to nail them, right, and if you do like them, you cut them some slack. I try to play by different rules. If Sifry wants to win with me it's going to be because he does good, is fair, helps the Internet, doesn't try to siphon it off for his shareholders. And I still want to know what happened there, what was so offensive about the graphic?

Now here's the question for you bloggers, who are supposed to be so new, so enlightened, so irreverent. Exactly how is this different from the way it used to be? Seriously, think about it, and you'll realize that the players are poorer, the alliances are newer, but the process is the same. I suggest next time you feel compelled to say so-and-so is a friend as you write about them in a blog post, or you're about to say how much you like them, drop it, and say what you have to say without the fig leaf. If you think someone fucked up, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not.[Scripting News]

But you won't actually find that quote on that page for some reason (I got it out of Bloglines). My feeling is that if someone you like and respect makes a "mistake" like this, you need to be harder on them. The people I respect have to live up to higher standards. I expect my friends to be perfect (unfortunate for them, and triply unfortunate if they hold me to that same standard ). I don't know anyone at Technorati, but they really messed up on this one. I don't see that the graphics in question were targeted at Technorati but at the "standard" corporate response to blogging (and "home pages" before that).

Reading Sifry's entry, I can understand how he reacted negatively to certain imagery. And I see his point about corporate logos. But one response would have been to replace the images with placeholders and post a notice that to that effect (and to add the standard "this is *my* blog" disclaimer). Sifry et al should know that you cannot erase a blog once it is published, and that is what gets me most about this incident; Technorati, of all people, should understand this best! And that is why this was such a big deal. They are expected to be cluefull, and they demonstrated a significant lacking.
( Mar 10 2005, 10:13:17 AM ) Technology Permalink Comments [1]
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