This week has been an odd week, mostly marked me with feeling absolutely pants and wanting to do nothing but stay in bed and sleep. Unfortunately I have to work for a living so lots of sleep is just a pipe dream. This general feeling of malaise has affected my writing somewhat, making me overly grumpy and inclined to see the dark side – my apologies. I promise to beat whatever nasty virus is taking control of my immune system shortly. Till then, enjoy this weeks offerings.
The US House of Representatives has just approved the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) “tries to limit the access paedophiles have to networking sites”… How does it do this? By stopping the children using those sites. Um, am I missing something here? Surely it is the paedophiles you need to ban? I’m all for net safety but… This smacks very much of shutting that barn door after the entire herd has stampeded. That, and it punishes kids and is likely to make them rebel and me MORE unsafe rather than teaching them to be careful. That’s my original gut reaction any way.
In another attempt to combat this problem, a child online safety card has been unveiled This ‘NetIDMe’ relies on you, and the person you are messaging, both having a verified card, hence identity. More than that I can’t tell because the NetIDMe website is down at the moment due to unexpected demand… Yup, getting your story talked about on BBC News might do that if you aren’t prepared. Doesn’t bode well for the scaleability of the solution. Also, does it transfer to other sites, or do you have to use the NetIDMe site? Questions that will have to wait to be answered…
Good news – the BBC is supporting Top Gear’s current format. For those of you not familiar with Top Gear, it is a long running British motoring show that is, quite frankly, hilarious. Even my mother who freely admits she wouldn’t be able to pick a Jaguar out of a line-up, religiously watches the show each week. They have in the past determined that a car can get to the Alps faster than a plane, that it is possible to play football with cars, and that caravans (whilst the nemesis of all motorists) make a satisfying ‘kaboom kablooey’ when dropped from a height. A good chunk of what makes the program so funny is the interplay between the presenters, so it is reassuring to see that the BBC is standing by the team and the slightly… unorthodox… way they choose to do things.
Tara has a sweet post describing her fear of loosing readers which dovetails nicely with something Ben said this week – it should be fun. Yes an audience and technorati ranking is nice an’ all, but don’t get all neurotic about it (says the girl who goes into a fit of the doldrums when technorati slices two or three links off the total, or who went into transports when Feedburner reported a readership of 72! Yes, 72!) I think the point here is that whilst being ‘famous’ and loved is always nice, the most important thing is to enjoy what you’re doing. Passion shows. If you ain’t having fun, stop.
Which is exactly what Josh did. He dropped off the scene several months back after having the quintessential ‘what the frell am I doing here?’ moment. Now, refreshed, rejuvenated, reinvigorated (and all other good ‘re’ words you can think of), he is back. In fact he is back twice.
Women 2.0. No, not a new version of women (for starters you just couldn’t improve on the current model 😉 ) but rather Scrivs having a moment and realizing that women are a vast, untapped resource on the web. I leave him to explain it better.
I think I’ll leave the headline to speak for itself: Dog destroys £40,000 Elvis teddy. The photos of the carnage are really rather impressive. That was one pissed off dog.
Darren asks should blogs use the extended entry (more) feature? Personally I don’t like to use it – that extra click to get to the full content annoys me, but I can see the advantages to using it.
We’ve had the Web for fifteen years today. It’s hard to think I was 9 when Tim Berners-Lee released the software. I have, like the rest of my generation, grown up with the Web. I didn’t really start using it though till about 1998. So you could say I’ve grown up with Google.
Now I am something of a geek when it comes to chess. I love to play the game, though at the moment the only chance I have is on the rare occasions I go back to the Homestead – in fact last game I played was back at Christmas when I fought a long campaign against my brother and finally beat him 3 games to 2. I also have a small but growing collection of chess boards. I’m not sure what it is, but I just find them aesthetically so beautiful. So when I read this article the header image interested me almost as much as the text (it is an interesting read as well). This was a chess-set I had to have. So one email later, I was armed with the name of the company. Now all I need is $160, or an occasion to get someone buy me one… Hmmm, it is my birthday in just over a month…
And lastly, the weekly funny: Four men, eight treadmills… Some people have far too much time on their hands. (Thanks to Moose for forwarding me this).
Regarding what you said about enjoying blogging: I know that if I ever felt the need to stop it would only be momentary. I’d be back at this again in no time. I enjoy it too much! 🙂 Thanks for the link though ;). At least I know one person is reading my stuff.
*poke*
That’s an awesome looking chess board, I noticed that they have a less expensive 9x9in version for $50.
I think the (more) feature is quite useful when there is a team of bloggers for one site. That way, if some of the authors post some lengthy entries, it won’t shove the other posts to the bottom of the page. Take Metroblogging as an example (I write for Montreal). We were all asked to make use of the feature on a regular basis a while back. And it makes sense to use it in our case. But on the flip side, I don’t use it on my personal blog, though what I write there isn’t usually quite as long.
The Web is 15 y/o eh? Man, I feel so old now!
And the dudes on the treadmills are a band from the US called OK Go. They rock. (just an FYI, in case you didn’t know)
Top Gear also Rawks, yo! 😉
My pleasure Ben 🙂 I have in the past taken one or two week holidays from the blog when I felt I was getting a bit stale, or life was beating me over the head with a big stick, but yeah – I enjoy it too much to stop all together.
*is poked* :O
Yeah, it’s an amazing board. I saw the cheaper ones as well… I just have my heart set on the bigger one. Size shouldn’t matter, but bigger ones are more fun to play with. And look more impressive.
And is that enough innuendo in one humble comment or shall I continue?
With the MORE thing, I actually use it myself on the ‘monday update’ posts, mainly because I am pretty certain that the majority of people round here don’t want to read about my healthy eating highs and lows (mainly lows). The MORE means I can take them off the front page so as not to overly interfere with the proper articles. Other than that I like to leave my rambles in their full glory. There’s always the worry people won’t click the MORE link because they’ve read enough already!
I’m mildly disappointed they’re a band. Somehow that video would just be cooler if four guys had sat in their basement and dreamt the idea up for shits and giggles. Then again. it is still a genius idea and video.
Glad to hear you’re not fond of clicking the “more” link either. I’m the one who asked the original question, and got laughed at a bit by a few commenters who declared me “laughably lazy”. The truth is that many people are lazy, and the “more” link makes it that much easier for those who don’t feel like bothering to just skip on to the next post and then, eventually to just leave the blog altogether with a feeling of unfulfillment. Or maybe that’s just me…
Welcome to Bright Meadow Caryn 🙂 I like your point about lazy readers. I think I may be one of them myself!
My main problem with it is that newer/non-blogger readers are often confused by it. I remember when I first started reading blogs I kept wondering why articles stopped midway as often the ‘click here to read more’ was visually indistinguishable from the footer elements of posts (like the comment and technorati tags).
I am also frequently stuck on dial-up due to travel to places that haven’t heard of technology yet (my parents house for one!) Each ‘more’ I have to click sends shivers down my spine because it is one more page load I have to wait an eternity for. At least with the last couple of articles displayed in full on the front page I can load it and disconnect to read later.
As a third point when I come across new blogs I like to read a few posts to get a taste of whether I like the style or not. ‘More’ links mean more tabs open and…
Oh, it’s mainly just a personal preference like most of these things. I can see where it is useful (Jay’s example for one) and do on occasion use it myself when the circumstances warrant it, but I find it is used overly much.
I’ve had those same problems, Cas! I’m a little more prone to clicking if I’m on my computer, which has Firefox, because I can just do the CTRL-click and open it in a new tab to read when I’m done browsing on the main page. I just don’t like having to go back and forth between the main page and a new post each time, I guess. Though, strangely enough it doesn’t bother me when I comment. Hmmm. I do see the points of those who use the More function, though.
Awesome looking Chess board but too expensive for me right now. Thanks for pointing out that Josh has been resurrected from the blog graveyard!
Caryn, get yourself a firefox extension called ‘TabMixPlus’ and one of the options you can choose is to have all links open in a new tab (or variations on a theme). It’s a great extension 😀
Dewayne I’m budgeting for that board already! I’ve got two big purchases to get through first (new tattoo, new external harddrive) and then it will be time to treat myself with a very pretty chess board! And… have no one to play with 🙁
Nice chess board… Drool. Want.
And yet broke.
Yup. Not sure how many times I can say ‘pretty board’ but I’m gonna say it again, because it is so shiny.