Tagged: Metablogging
Thanks to AV for the tag -
1-Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?A bit, yep. I worked hard to get just the right balance between totally crap design and totally unbalanced elements, then threw in a shyteload of useless sidebar content like Amazon ads (never earnt a red cent from them in several years) Weather Pixies and Flickr badges, and liked the chaotic look so much I used it on every other blog (see sidebar) I write as well. It looks different on each blog despite being the same template...
2-Does your family know about your blog?Yep - until he passed away my father often read it, my siblings know it's there and ignore it for the most part, my partner knows it's there and doesn't bother.
3-Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?A private thing? Don't be joking with me! Anything you keep written down is no longer private, let alone anything you keep written down on a publically accessibl;e web page on a public webserver connected to the Internet. At my last place of work the traffic to the blog multiplied several hundredfold when I put in a blog article about one of the managers at work and suddenly everyone at work and at several of our clients' workplaces had all read the article... No I told no-one but it just shows what you can kiss goodbye when you blog, meaning your privacy. I LIKE making people react. I prefer laughter but any reaction will do actually.
4-Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? or you try to discover new blogs?I have a collection of blogs I read often. Mostly I don't comment there and they don't comment here. But I know many more people thanks to blogs, usually discovered by searching for them.
5-Did your blog positively affect (sic) (By the way this is the correct spelling for this application. Ted. See end of article.) your mind? Give an example.Yes. I use the blog to focus my thoughts and attitudes. One of the blogs I sporadically post is about technology/human interaction and it's sparked several ideas for inventions that I haven't patented but which are eminently patentable.
6-What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?The traffic counter I use tells me a fair bit about my visitors, from where they are from to how they get here. (Some have a bookmark, some jump here from another page and obviously have a customary trail they follow, etc) I also get traffic figures, which basically tell me that some days you eat bear, some days the bear eats you. If I got many many more visitors a day than I currently do, those Google and Amazon ads might actually make some money one day, that's what the traffic counter tells me.
7-Did you imagine how other bloggers look like?Yes, and invariably never correctly.
8-Do you think blogging has any real benefit?Yes it has the effect of bringing a group of people consisting of bloggers and readers more closely into contact, it allows readers all over the world to experience the world through another blogger's eyes. And that is not to say that books didn't do that already, just that with a blog you don't have to stuff around kissing some publisher's ass to get you vision out there. It lets bloggers share experience without needing any difficult or expensive means, and it lets any reader that wants to, get those different perspectives and experiences.
9-Do you think that the blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?The "blogosphere" is something that has proven its usefulness (as asked about in the question above) by becoming steadily more and more mainstream. While it initially existed in isolation and splendid geeky enclaves, it is paralleling the way the Internet was first the purview of the elite few, then gained popularity, and is now a global phenomenon. Every MySpace page is a blog in its own right, every personal homepage ever made contains the seeds of bloghood within it. It's what we humans do, it's communication to the max. I would say that in another ten years we will be blogging without any conscious effort, as our Lifecams and so forth record and post our daily doings directly as we go about or day.
10-Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?There are some blogs which are the political equivalent of religious fundamentalist fanaticism. I don't tend to follow them as closely as the blogs of more sane and balanced people, but you should keep your friends close and potential enemies even closer as they say. If you don't read them then you don't know what they're up to - and one day they could end up running some nation....
11-Do you think that criticising your blog is useful?What? For me to criticise it, or for my readers to do so? Neither will make that much difference to what I write and how I write it, you know? I write like this because this is what and whom I am. If I criticise you for picking your nose and eating boogers, will that stop you? Not likely, you might take pains to avoid doing it in front of me especially if I've been very caustis and harsh, but would it fundamentally rock your world? Thought not. Criticise my views, fine, although again that's what and whom I am, criticise the incorrectness of my facts if you like but usually I can't be bothered to go back and correct something once it's online, but the best form of criticism is self-criticism - if you don't agree with what I say in my blog then you should start to wonder why you're reading my blog in the first place. If it's to see the workd through another person's eyes, then why are you now trying to change the way I see things to fit in with your world-view?
12-Have you ever thought about what would happen to your blog in case you died?I may have a successor, my niece. But then it would become TAmALOG Lite. I doubt anyone would erase my home directory at the ISP where I post, and the wayback machine would also keep a copy of it, so it may last until the end of humankind, assuming that we find storage space to be so cheap that we never bother to delete anything again. It may become historical, but it will probably endure for a while. Anyway, why should I care, I'll be dead.
13-Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?Tim Berners-Lee. His personal blog is, like, really really REALLY big...
14-Which blogger do you think is the most similar to you?Do you have an identical twin? Someone who drinks the same beer you do, tells all the same jokes you do, eats at all the same restaurants you do, bonks the same partners you do? Thought not...
15-Name a song you want to listen to?The anthem. A Polonaise. Anything. I'm listening to music *right now, if you know what I mean, and I think you do* (kibologists will know) and guess what? It's the song I want to listen to right now, and I have no idea what it's called or who it's by until the announcer back-announces it. But I really want to listen to it so stop with all these questions okay?
Here are a few people I think should give this a go:Sara because her blog is a fun celebration of lifeSilly Bahraini Girl because she'll have fun with thisEria whose blog keeps me in touch with my past
You've been tagged peoples, have fun! (And no there's no reason why I picked women out of all the blogs I read, just that they're people I haven't tagged in a while.)
Pedantic nitpick on the use of "affect/effect":Affect is the verb form, if you affect something you are having an Effect or resulting change on whatever it is you are affecting.
To make matters worse we also use "affect" as a noun as in "an affectation" where we mean some quirk or foible someone adopts, and then we also use "effect" as a noun in the sense (usually) of a belonging or something one owns or has.
"Affection" on the other hand is used as the term for love or regard one has for someone or something, as in being affected by that someone/something.
And then the noun "effect" has been bastardised into a verb "effecting" where we mean "having caused an effect to be made" where in fact that usage should never have been allowed or encouraged because look at the effect it's had on the language. English is hard enough without adopting (NOT adapting!) an affected form of grammar and speech...
(Side note: The Wet (sic) Australian newspaper for years ran a column called "My Word" by one PD Jeans, in which Peter would write a small discourse on a word. He was also my High School English teacher and now I can see what an effect his affection for the English language has had on my life... Yikes! %)
Categories - ::/:: posted at 1:32 AM Ted More Comments: (3)
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Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Mobile phones and sperm counts...
Now I suppose if I had nuts on my cheeks then I might understand this, but otherwise, I'm stumped.
I mean, the test seems to almost have been empirical, it has no data that might help establish what is going on or which of dozens of factors might be contributing.
Take the "used mobile phones for more than four hours a day" - what do they actually mean by that? Used the phone to prop their balls up? Used the phone as a suppository? For heaven's sake, who spends half their working day on the phone?
Also, if by "using" they mean speaking on the phone, are they talking about a naked mobile phone, using a wired headset, bluetooth headset, or what? Because I mean to say, sticking a mobile phone next to my face should not affect my sperm count, because my sperm is made in my testicles almost a metre south of there, and that means that the radiation reaching there is about 1/1000th as much as is reaching my ear, which is about the same as what would reach my testicles from the portable phone beside the bed, the total combined amount of radio signals from TV stations, radio stations, two way radios, and other stray sources.
If by "using" the researchers (if I may call them by such a title) meant "hanging on your belt" then if that also includes "and speaking on the phone using a wired or bluetooth headset" then THAT could explain it. While in use the mobile phone transmitter is punching out a fair amount of RF and if used in this way, a large amount of radio signal is sleeting its way through your gonads.
If the mobile phone is just sitting on your belt then every 20 - 60 minutes it will squawk for a cell, that is a 3 second burst around every 3/4 of an hour, so in four hours that could be six 3 second bursts, again, you get that much radio wave going through you when a taxi driver hits the button to acknowledge a fare or whatever. Okay so that doesn't happen to you every day - but it does to taxi drivers... Are they more infertile than other men? The "study" doesn't say because they didn't think of it.
So I suggest that perhaps the kind of people that are on their mobile phone for four hours a day are also the kinds of people that skip a meal here and there, drink way too much coffee, get way too shitfaced rat-arsed after work, indulge in way too many chemical-laced fast foods. Any of which could also contribute to decreased sperm count and mobility. Just sayin...
Categories - ::/:: posted at 10:36 PM Ted Comment made, yay!
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Monday, October 23, 2006
Not Thinking
about where I work or anything, but what do you do if you're a system administrator and your IT manager suddenly decides to "help" and in the process creates three times as much work for you?
I do know of one such place where the IT manager's help caused the system administrator to quit recently, and I am finding that a similar situation means I may soon do the same. I'm more of a mind to discuss things first but it seems to me that there isn't going to be much point, as my manager is doing things from a genuine desire to help me while I have a large workload, so anything I say is going to get construed as hostile.
Anyways not your problem, but if you read here that I've moved jobs you'll know what that's all about.
HOUSE NEWS we had a couple in to look at the place before it was even officially open but they didn't seem to find it suitable. Not disappointed as it's not even officially on market yet, but the early interest has been encouraging. Home is open next Sunday afternoon, look in the Real Estate ads for a home open in Parkwood if you're interested.
Categories - ::/:: posted at 1:30 AM Ted
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Sunday, October 22, 2006
4400 thoughts
Just an example of media misdirection- 4400 is on again, and just like the first time I saw it, I'm wondering just how unlikely a scenario has to be before network chiefs decide not to run with it.
I'm not talking about people that can bring birds back to life or suck life out of other people. I have no problem with that, it's just an extension of human skills right now - vets and doctors get better and better at preserving life every month, and as for the other, well we have John Howard and His Merrye Staffe...
Nope - I'm balking at the idea of 4400 people appearing in the middle of the USA and actually being allowed to see the light of day again ever. Come on, the States has never had a very liberal attitude towards illegal imigrants, and anyone that just suddenly appeared out of a UFO in front of hundreds of people are just asking to disappear and have cover stories made up about how they were all just marsh gas appearing in the light of Venus.
And I know that the 4400 each have some incredible talents but not too many of them would have the ability to avoid copper jacketed ordnance... That seems to be a very USA way to deal, not that crap about just letting 4400 potential biological weapons loose on the streets.
So one wonders why the damn series was even produced, doesn't one?
Categories - ::/:: posted at 11:37 PM Ted Comment made, yay!
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Saturday, October 21, 2006
Three Thoughts
Firstly, a few weeks ago on "Whats Good For You" (don't laugh I watch it cos Sigrid's on it...) they tested food that had been left to grow mould in the fridge and guess what? They found mould...
So it occurs to me that the average kitchen isn't laboratory-sterile, right? I would love to see potatoes tested. Nice fresh potatoes, whatever. Or for that matter any other foodstuff. Cos surprise surprise - there are germs in the world with us, and fungi and moulds. And they have to eat too. In the good old days we ate our food and never worried that something else was eating it too.
In the good old days, we probably welcomed the additional nutrients. More importantly, our bodies coped with the freeloaders and were stronger for it. Nowadays we eliminate the bugs and then wonder why so many people are sick. The implication, stated quite overtly by the "scientists" on the show, was that once something got a speck of mould on it, it would most definitely kill you, or at least render you incapacitated. What a load of crap!
Let's face it some of our food actually IS a fungus, such as mushrooms! And other foods - well, they grow in the dirt!! Fed by fertilisers that are usually made of crap! And then other things eat some of that filthy stuff and we kill those things and eat them!
So bollocks to you Sigrid, this is a beat-up. Go test other foods, go on I dare you!
Okay so I lied about three thoughts...
Categories - ::/:: posted at 11:40 PM Ted
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
BSOD Brain!
Interesting article, here. My thoughts, here.
Stupid thought about ad currently on TV, here:
"Want lighter insurance?" is the tagline of this ad. Makes perfect sense to me, to insure your house against accidentally taking a lighter to it... How stupid ARE the people who write these ads, really? They surely can't be so totally effing stupid that they say things like this and don't get the connotations? So are they a company that you would want handling YOUR advertising? Nuh-uh, not likely. I prefer my advertising geniuses with at least two neurons so they can form at least one synapse...
Like the old joke about the three men in the Bahamas isn't it?
Businessman 1: "I'm here cos there was a fire, destroyed my business. Insurance paid up, and here I am."Businessman 2: "I'm here cos there was an explosion, destroyed my house, my business. Insurance paid up, and here I am."Businessman 3: "I had a flood, washed away my business, my house, my car, and my family. Insurance paid up and here I am."Silence. Pause.Businessmen 1& 2: "How do you start a flood?"
Categories - ::/:: Edited on: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 9:37 PMposted at 9:34 PM Ted
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Categories - ::/:: posted at 3:36 AM Ted
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Monday, October 16, 2006
Fortnight since I blogged, sorry
And what a fortnight it's been. I've had pneumonia and acute bronchitis, one due to co-workers one due to paint fumes at home. Paint fumes? Yeah because we're selling, and want the place as noice as possible for the new purchasers. So all the little jobs I've been putting of, for, ohhhh, say, a few years.... Have been getting done now, all the floors finished, doorframes around the new laundry sliding door finally fitted, and paint paint paint everywhere. Couple of rooms have not been painted but I tell ya tis very few...
Windows polished, and I've even reconnected the dishwasher we were going to sell because with two of us there was just never a need for it and I was going to sell it and turn the space into cupboards.
Person buying this place will also get a nice stainless microwave and coffee espresso machine thrown in because they fit the space in the pantry recess so well, and may get a few other knicknacks as well. Oh yeah and they get a gardening shed out front and a serious shed out back, as well. I am so proud of that shed out back, laid the pad and assembled it myself, and welded up a huge rack to take boxes and material like wood and steel.
Buyers also get spare tiles for each of the two bathrooms, one fully private, the other with a spa, and paint oddments for everywhere, and heaps more. Built in wardrobes to all four bedrooms, tile kitchen and family/dining room floors, all other rooms except bathrooms and two bedrooms have floating wood flooring that I laid and fixed, it's an excellent place now.
Two carports, rear patio, and heaps of fruit trees out the front, Trish is sad to see it go, and so to a degree am I - but I'd prefer to move closer for both our workplaces, also I've lived inner-city much more than I have lived suburbs, and definitely lived more NOR than SOR so we're looking for a place to rent around Daglish Jolimont Subiaco West Leederville Leederville Vic Park East Vic Park Lathlain Carlisle areas unless we can find one decent rental place in the City itself that has two bedrooms and doesn't cost an arm and a leg...
We're also looking for a 20 foot to 28 foot caravan and a hilux 4.0d to tow it, or a motor home, so we can go hunting down our ideal country property and once we have that, taake a holiday at our leisure around Australia.
Know anyone interested in our place, anyone with a caravan, a hilux 4.0d, a place to rent at mates rates for a fellow blogger, or a country property, let them know we're here!
Categories - ::/:: posted at 1:13 AM Ted
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Monday, October 02, 2006
Poem Across The Decades.
As we're selling up and moving house, I went through many many boxes of my father's possessions, airing out a lot of it and seeing what's there. Two sheets of paper fell out of one book, written in dot matrix printer, and turned out to be copies of poems I'd written in the mid to late 80's. I think I have second sight...
SMOKEY'S LAMENT
Smokey the bear went out one day,Found a six lane carriageway,Saw the cars belch fumes and soot,People competing to pollute!Something welled in Smokey's eye,A bitter tear, he wiped it dry . . .
How long can we do it, this rape of the soil, This searching and striving for land to despoil? How long can we pillage the trees of this land, Before we fall victim to our own wanton hand? Silting the rivers with algae and spill, How long before we must swallow this pill?
Smokey the bear turned aside for the city,Sad there the earth, and the more was his pity,Covered in concrete, entombed in highrise,Cloud of pollution was hiding the skies,Coughing and stumbling and hiding his tears,Smokey resolved not to come back for years.
Kill the damn bugs, for the ruin our hay! Curse them with sprays for they get in our way! Coursing their ways through the Earth's veins they ran, Now in us all, every child, woman, man! Salt in the tillage, a new man-disease, We've forsaken the land and raped her of trees!
Smokey the bear turned his steps to the West,To places which once were with native life blest,Found only farms all steriles and bare,Rusting machines - man must once have been there.Bowed now and weeping and heavy of heart,To the wide oceans did Smokey make start.
Full of our excrement, turgid and green,The results of the Exxon Valdeez were here seen, (yes I added these verses when reprinting it for Dad, in 1990.)And great were the fishes that died in the net,And great was the whale (what was left of him yet)Lifeless the reefs and the corals as one,Nature again has by man been undone.
Smokey the bear thought he knew of a place,Safe, and so far from our human death race,Made for the east, for the rainforests there,(Arrived just as we laid the last acre bare)Heavy of heart now and laden with doubt,Smokey the bear booked a fare to the South . . .
"Here in Antarctica, surely," thought he,"I will no more of this man-folly see?"Alas - that which greeted him, ugly and dusty,Campsites abandoned, and boats reefed and rusty,And with horror he noticed his blistering skin,- No-one had told him the ozone was thin . . .
Smokey the bearAsked the Lord for one boon,And so, in a thrice,Was set sail for the Moon,But space debrisGot in his way,Up there, whereKiller Sputniks prey,And on the MoonWe'd left our traces,Pitted robots andRocket cases . . .
And so on he continued, he's gone off to see,If somewhere there might be a sane galaxy,We're left here to face this our pell-mell race,To make amends to our birthing-place.A beautiful world that we treated unfair,- And without Smokey, what hope is left there?
SING A SONG OF CHAOS
Sing a song of Chaos,Entropy reversed,New and strange attractors,In the mind are nursed.
Mindful of another verse,I can but watch and frown -It looks just like "Atishoo!""We all fall down..."
Ere I wake this morning,Before I end my sleep,I pray to have a gentle dream,A treasure I can keep.
No more nuclear nightmare,Frightening to my rest,Pleas, not another forest raped,With axe and chainsaw "blest!"
Wanna dream of pastures green,Not razed by 2-4-5-T,Please - show me a verdant place,Where in dreams I can be.
Let me look on fish and whales,At play in waters blue,Don't show me an albatross,Dying in black goo!
Let me roma a mountain range,Not opencut collier's pit,I want to swim on beaches clean,Not have dodge through shit!
Oh Progress, you are wonderful,You fill me with such dread,You've stuffed a lovely countryNow you're starting on my head . . .
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Please pass this URL to people - I know it's not good poetry, but it has a message that's crossed almost 30 years and is even more important today. Both verses are (C)opyright of myself 1980 and again this year 2006 but I give permission for them to be reprinted as long as they remain unaltered and the URL, copyright, and attributions are preserved and displayed.
Categories - ::/:: Edited on: Monday, October 02, 2006 6:21 PMposted at 12:15 PM Ted
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