Wayward Comments

by Steven Garrity

If you’ve noticed some odd reader comments here on Acts of Volition in the last little while, rest assured that we’re as confused as you are.

Starting about a month ago, comments started showing up here on Acts of Volition on old posts, where the were no other comments, or the conversations were long dead. Perhaps you’ve noticed some of the more peculiar comments, including: odd letters to Bill Gates, weird robot talk, a Korn fan named jimmibob, and strangest of all, some crazy-ass comments on the death of Biggie Smalls (removed because they were offensive).

The nature of the comments makes it clear that the posters aren’t at all familiar with the nature and content of the site and conversations that go on here. I’m glad to welcome new people to the site, but these replies feel more like people driving by and yelling out their window than sending a note or dropping by for a chat.

My best guess as to why this has started happening all of the sudden is some change in the way Google is indexing the site. We did recently redesign this site with a URL scheme that’s a bit more friendly to search engine indexers. Still, I don’t see this kind of behaviour on other sites (or maybe I just haven’t seen it).

I don’t want to close comments down on old posts. Some readers may come along with pertinent links or comments on old posts – they should be able to add them. I guess we’ll just to grin and bear it.

 

Paul Martin has a Weblog

by Steven Garrity

Paul Martin (quite possibly Canada’s next prime minister) has a weblog. I have mixed feelings about this. Part of me thinks it’s great that weblogs can be used in mainstream politics. Another part of me is finds it creepy and suspicious.

To their credit, the writing is good. It appears to actually be written by Paul Martin, and in a style suitable for a weblog. They also feature two smart links at the top of the page: What is a blog? And Why does Paul blog? Very good questions for many people visiting the site — and with good answers.

Unfortunately, they are missing permanent links to each individual post. These are critical to a weblog, I think — particularly for interaction with other sites.

Though he did get me talking about him, I’m not going to vote for him. What I would really like to see is a Paul Martin weblog after the election (regardless of the outcome).

 

Northern Exposure coming to DVD (no thanks to me)

by Steven Garrity

Last year when I posted asking for people to sign a petition asking for the release of the Northern Exposure TV series on DVD, over 1000 people came out of the woodwork before I turned it off. Despite my reluctance to fan the flames again (I was interviewed about it on a local radio show and my co-workers have never let me forget about it), there is some news.

I emailed the petition to a few of the companies involved in the production/ownership of the Northern Exposure series, but didn’t receive any responses. I doubt our petition had much impact (I’m sceptical that any online petitions ever have any impact). Regardless, there is now a glimmer of hope. A diligent reader has alerted us to a USA Today story run on Yahoo News:

While many beloved series have found a new home on DVD and on viewers’ shelves, a few holdouts such as Seinfeld and Northern Exposure remain — but not for long. DVD releases are in the works for both series. They are among the most requested DVDs on Amazon.com. [Source]

It’s not much — no release date or other info, but I can now look forward to the release and to listening to Chris on KBHR at my leisure.

 

Swimming in Spam Stats

by Steven Garrity

Since I started using the excellent SpamBayes Outlook Addin spam filter three-and-a-half months ago, I’ve gotten an average of 64 junk email per day. That’s a total of 4993 junk email (I’m sure I’ll have gotten #5000 by the time you’ve read this). In the last week I’ve gotten an average of 150 junk email per day.

Fortunately, thanks to the SpamBayes plugin and since I have a high-bandwidth internet connection, this isn’t much of a problem for me. Still — 150 junk mail a day? What a terrific waste of time and resources.

The following chart shows the amount of junk email I’ve gotten each day since late May, 2003.

Junk Email per Day

Junk Email Chart

 

Like Son, Like Father

by Steven Garrity

Speaking of killing independent george, inspired by our weblog seminar last month, my father now has a weblog: BruceGarrity.com. He’s new to the medium, and it may take him a while to get the feel for it, but I think it’s a safe bet that he’s the only Charlottetown city councillor with a weblog.

Way to go Dad!

 

Killing Independent George: A Definition

by Steven Garrity
Killing independent George
To have disparate and independent areas of your life meet, usually in an undesirable fashion.

The term is based on an episode of Seinfeld where, to his great dismay, George’s fiancé starts to socialize with his other friends. Hilarity ensues.

 

The People’s Radio Station in Canada

by Steven Garrity

Driving into the office today, CBC Radio played Adam Sandler’s Lunchlady Land (live) followed by Leonard Nimoy’s Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. This truly is a great country.

 

Is that a web-server in your pocket?

by Steven Garrity

Imagine we eventually have sufficient wireless bandwidth everywhere. What do we do with it?

I heard the idea that everyone’s palm-pilot/pocket-pc would be a web server. This is not unreasonable. Some current handheld PCs are running at 400MHz with 128 MB of RAM or more. I’ve seen PCs with less power run popular websites (with Apache/Linux). By the time the bandwidth catches up, the hardware will be a non-issue (hopefully battery-life will be a non-issue by then as well).

Why would Johnny-business want a web server in his pocket? Well, for some of us, it would store all of our personal and work files and host our own weblogs and websites. Perhaps we will all be hosting our own IM and email servers.

Add web-services into the mix and things get interesting. Need my contact information or access to my calendar? Query my personal info web service. The amount of detail my web services sends back will depend on my relationship to you. If I know you well enough, and I’m in a good mood, I might even let you query my physical location via GPS (with a limited accuracy — so you can’t detect… gyrations).

Why bother carrying this around with you? Couldn’t this work just as well if everyone had equivalent hosted services? Maybe — especially with a lighter client in our pocket that handles anything that needs to be in our pocket (GPS, voice-com, IM, etc.). Still — I wonder if, when battery life and wireless bandwidth are sufficient, will the concept of a “lighter client” become obsolete (because your cellphone/handheld can do it all anyhow).

What other applications can you imagine for a web-service enabled web-server in your pocket?

 

In case you don’t have 15-20 minutes to spare

by Steven Garrity

Tip: When called for a phone survey, tell them that you work for a marketing or advertising firm. This usually renders you an ineligible subject. Often, they’ll explicitly ask you if this is the case, precluding the need to say “no” and hang up.

 

Deplaning – a short story

by Steven Garrity

I was invited to read a piece of fiction on a segment called “The Write Lane” on the CBC Radio PEI show, Mainstreet with host Mitch Courmier.

We spoke a bit about how writing for a weblog differs from tradition creative writing. I chose to read from a work-in-progress short-story (that I secretly hope will turn into a novel) called Deplaning.

For your listening and reading pleasure: