5/5/2003
Continuing from where I left off yesterday, I’d like to detail the attributes of a blogger. In MMORPGs like Everquest or Asheron’s Call 2 each character is given a set of attributes from which they can modify throughout the game, increasing as they level up.
Note: I highly recommend Mike Reed’s cartoon depictions of Flame Warriors. If you’ve ever used a forum or a newsgroup you’ll understand immediately as to the depictions he develops. The blogging community is similar in many ways, you’ll know what I’m talking about after viewing all of them.
Dexterity usually improves speed and some strength or vitality.
Strength, how strong they can attack (damage), how many hit points they can dish out.
Wisdom, can they see long-term ramifications or the cause and effect of a certain situation, predict the future even - do they run in without planning? (Shoot first, ask questions later).
Mana, the ability to wield supernatural abilities; shapeshifting, lightening bolts, disappearing, fireballs, you’ve seen them all before.
Courage, can they take on that Level 70 Duck of Doom? What about the Raging Platypus? Can they count to 3 and thrust the Holy Hand Grenade properly? In short, do they have what it takes to be a Knight?
Intelligence, are they an Orc or an Elf? Can they conceptualize or is Zug Zug their entire vocabulary? Crafting weapons, learning new trades and memorizing spells all fit in this category.
Integrity, will they tell the NPCs lies and half-truths in order to gain access to the piggy banks of paupers? Are they turn-coats and traitors? Will they backstab you in the middle of the woods over and over, so they can get the loot from the Hill Giant?
For Bloggers, here are some of the intrinsic character attributes:
Dexterity – how clever can a blogger be? Can they obfuscate and slip out of a sticky situation? Are they aware of their surrounding - astute and sharp? How do they handle pressure, do they crack and lash out at others?
Strength – do they use their powers for good or for awesome? Are their positions impregnable from counterexamples and contrary beliefs? Can they stand their ground and maintain it through a barrage of continuous attacks? How intense can they utilize various strategies to leverage their views and vanquish the enemy? How mighty is their first attack, does it seem like they’re grasping at straws and rolling dice, or are they consistently good swingers?
Wisdom – do they understand what should and should not be published for the public eye? Are they living their age or their shoe size? What kind of common sense and judgment do they utilize when both posting articles and comments? Do they show any moments of desperation? Will they admit being wrong when shown a different perspective? Do they embody Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt or its antithesis?
Mana – what outside tools and techniques do they wield that most other bloggers do not use? Do they use them to maliciously attack an opponent or for pure defense? From what position of authority do they speak, how fast do they resort to argumentum ad verecundiam?
Courage – can they stare fear in the face and stand their ground, possibly even vanquishing the foe? How confident are they, does their demeanor reflect any inconsistencies? Are they willing to stand alone and fight Ze Uber Monster alone? Will they attempt to do the impossible or improbable? Are the assertive and bold, firm and gallant? Are they undaunted by the Men Who Say Ni? Can they pronounce intrepidity without stumbling?
Intelligence – do they seem well-read, knowledgeable and informed? Do they cite real sources or shredded newspaper clippings in a brief case? What comprises their counterexamples, more sources or more conjecture? How many four-letter-words do they eschew throughout their blogs, are they gratuitous or witty.
Integrity – will they stand up for what they believe is right no matter what the cost? How often do they resort to an argumentum ad hominem? Do they stand undivided or are they moving in all directions?
Feel free to add any input, these are by no means complete.
I’d also like to take the time to point out that I’ve been working on another syndication format: I plan on calling this RSS 6.237, so if you are developing a new version of RSS, please be aware of this.
Here are some of the new namespaces I plan on introducing:
[mahnahmahna:rss xmlns:mahnahmahna="http://www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com/RSS6_237"
xmlns:foo="http://www.whokeepsthemetricsystemdown.com/foo/"]
[mahnahmahna:channel]
[mahnahmahna:title]Not The Ingrish[/mahnahmahna:title]
[foo:title]Not the Irish either[/foo:title]
[biyotch:author]Bizatch[/biyotch:author]
[/mahnahmahna:channel]
I know this is a little revolutionary but it seems simple to me, once I learned that you can define any metatag I just went with the flow. Feel free to send in your additions, however if I don’t like them I will probably start another version of RSS. Actually, I’ll be blunt, I’m working on 4 more RSS versions as we speak just in case each one fails – I’ll let you know which one I’m going to promote and claim as mine at a later undisclosed time.
Only in England can you get away with wordsmithing or otherwise using the english vocabulary to its fullest. A friend of mine pointed me to this Man of Mystery story that is unfolding near Turnbridge Wells, however my obligatory tangent comes first:
[T]he spa town of Royal Tunbridge Wells is a place full of charm, leisure and relaxation, The Pantiles; for shoppers, the Pantiles is a haven of pretty boutiques, The Hop Farm; Hop Farm is a great family country park, and a relaxing day out, Scotney Castle; there’s also the historic and very picturesque Scotney Castle, only a short drive away, Hever Castle; if you’d like to step back into yesteryear, you can visit Hever Castle, the home of Anne Boleyn as well as William Waldorf Astor. Lose yourself in the maze, or explore the house and gardens.
What menace would possibly befall such a quaint town? Thanks to the help of a Caped Crusader, Evil and it’s brother, Very Evil have their days numbered:
A MYSTERIOUS caped crusader has launched a mission to wipe out crime — on the streets of Tunbridge Wells.
The masked hero is the talk of the sedate Kent town after a series of rescues and good deeds.
KAPOW! He chased away a group of young thugs hurling abuse at a woman in the town centre.
BIFF! The do-gooder scared off a gang of yobs chasing a man through the picturesque Pantiles area.
HOLY mackerel! Another woman was stunned when a young man in cloak and mask tapped her on the shoulder and said she had dropped her purse.
So far no one has any idea who he is.
Student Ellen Neville, 21 — who witnessed the first rescue — said: “A masked man rushed past me to assist the woman.
“He swept in, broke up the commotion and ran off. It was hilarious.”
Chase victim Peter Norfolk said: “I thought I was going to get a real beating when suddenly this man arrived. He saved me, but didn’t even stop to give his name.”
Ruth Barker, who had her purse returned, said: “If only there were more people around with this kind-hearted spirit.”
Police said: “This man should be applauded. He simply wants to carry out some good deeds. We have no idea who he is.”
DO YOU know the caped crusader of Tunbridge Wells? Call us on 0207 782 4105.
Since we’re on the subject of retribution and ‘justice,’ my amigo Jason Ditz put together a quick post regarding a rather amusing essay from H.L. Mencken. Check it out.
The buzz last week surrounding Apple’s new music service is still turning some heads. In one week alone Apple sold over 1,000,000 songs at $.99 a piece, they’ve definitely shown that some individuals are willing to pay for what could otherwise be obtained freely. In addition to having access to a library of over 200,000 titles you can also listen to the first 30 seconds of a song, to try before you buy. The software Apple created for this online music-store service is called iTunes, and it currently only interfaces with Mac OS X and will only work if you’re in los Estados de Unidos (no, not Canada America or Mexico America but America America). Steve Jobs did say however that they plan on porting it to the Windows environment by the end of the year (they even put a job application on Monster.com).
Anyways, I found this comical review of iTunes that even non-geeks could appreciate. Enjoy.
For the past couple of days I’ve been exchanging emails with the creator of Media Dystopia. I noticed his site from my BlogMatcher results and upon reading a few of his seemingly frustrated posts about errors in the Blogger Pro software, I sent him some info on other blogging tools (and found out the Blogger team has put all the fixes on hold for now).
He just informed me that Blogger has been working on a new software package called ‘Dano’ (with an inconspicuous code name: Blogger New [they must have had the Windows NT branding team around during that nomenclature decision]).
The FAQ and Release Notes aren’t too particularly informative. They did mention RSS feeds which will definitely provide a boom to not only news aggregators and meme collectors, but also in developing more of the Semantic Web.
I should note that they are not using RDF/RSS 1.0 as the feed. Apparently they’ve decided to go with Changes.XML, from Userland - and as you can see in this feed, the elements aren’t exactly too descriptive (or helpful for an advanced AI agent). And to reaffirm that conclusion, you quickly read the “How changes.xml works” (note to self: does not look like the Dublin Core, but it’s soooo simple). By the way, the RSS feeds are nothing really new as it has been a feature of Blogger Pro for sometime now.
The ‘Dano’ project looks like it’s only been public for a couple weeks and they haven’t fully migrated existing Blogger Pro users over to it yet (as seen with my correspondence with Dystopia).
Speaking of Blogger Pro, is anyone else confused with how Pyra presented BlogSpot Plus and Blogger Pro? Yea, they are different: BlogSpot Plus offers image hosting and a few other perks (like bStats) and Blogger Pro currently offers all the features you can find in Nucleus or Movable Type. And I suppose you could integrate Pro and Plus to make the Super Duper Blog Combo with or without a cape.
They have a funky pricing structure too (I’m betting TypePad will be alot more straightforward and simplified than the Blogger peeps). Currently you can sign-up for Blogger Pro at a discounted price of $35 (it will go up to $50 when they “officially launch”). Then they impose a posting limit of 100KB/month. After you hit your limit you are charged $3/100KB more. In the month of April my posts alone account for more than 300 KB. Based on their FAQ images do not count against that total, but that’s another story too.
Note: the CNET review they link to from the Blogger Pro FAQ was less than meticulously detailed (yea, not very thorough, plus the reviewer made a small mistake stating “100 MB” instead of “100 KB”).
This is what I know so far: Blogger Pro has a bunch of features, some of which are on hold until ‘Dano’ is officially released. Pyra (or whatever you want to call them now) is in the process of migrating Blogger Pro users over to ‘Dano,’ so those users will still have broken features until some pigs fly. As a Blogger Pro user, you can still utilize the BlogSpot servers for free; however you can’t upload images unless you upgrade to BlogSpot Plus (or if you use your own server).
My question is this, if you’re using your own server why don’t you just migrate to Nucleus or Movable Type? They both can offer the same features and neither group will nickel and dime you (despite some contentions).
Basically, what needs to happen is that Pyra or Google or Chewie needs to streamline what in the world is going on. A list of complete, bug-free features for all the different plans side by side would be great.
As it stands now, the pricing is pretty steep as well, especially the BlogSpot Plus. Googling the term “web host” provides an almost limitless amount of cheaper solutions for hosting blogs (not to mention a certain company that offers the whole enchilada at better rates).
I’m interested in seeing what they will do with ‘Dano,’ my hunch is it is Blogger Pro fixed with a few more features and repackaged with the $50 price tag. Note: still no sign of TrackBack, however they do have a “secret” part of ‘Dano’ as illustrated with the greyed out ’suprise’ box on their Blogger New site.
I mentioned several weeks ago about a survey being conducted regarding blogging. Mrs. Efimova has posted some of the results that can now be viewed. I’m supposed to receive an email regarding its completion (hopefully within the next few weeks).
And you’re probably wondering what I put, well, here is a multiple choice test:
Question 5: Please, provide a one-line description of your job and professional background:
A) i work as a management assistant at 20six and am writing my marketing doctoral dissertation at whu graduate school of management in koblenz, germany.
B) Head of the Center for New Media, Danube University Krems. Focus: education and research in the field. I’m a historian by trade but got addicted to the net in 1994 and worked on that ever since.
C) I’m studying business on a Berufskolleg. I’ve been used Internet sice 1998.
D) I’m the president and founder of Collectrix.com a webhosting company that is specializing in blog hosting/community building.
Question 6. Which characteristics of your job support blogging?
A) Qualitative research and the whole area of group facilitation requires an inquiring mind, a good ‘ear’ and the ability to ’sense’ human nature and behaviour. Basically filtering in info through all the senses, processing it and then articulating and sharing it and taking it forward. Communication ultimately brings in the results at work (eg. how well can i bring alive the viewer of MTV for my client) - and blogging is a great tool for this.
B) well, i’m keeping a project blog about my phd project and i also surf the net extensively while working for 20six. my 20six.de/martini blog is thus pretty much a filter weblog…
C) dunno?!
D) In order to better understand bloggers I became one myself and have made some new friends that also blog. To be a better salesman (to sell hosting plans) I need to find out what people want and/or need. In short, my job depends on blogging (I’m also starting BlogPromotion.com because in my travels I’ve unearthed vast quantities of blog directories and such that aid in syndication).
Question 7. Which personal characteristics support blogging?
A) Passionate curiousity so i read more and more through blogs, wanting to be at the leading edge - blogging opens up the world to me, and most importantly i think, is the desire to start a dialogue – conversations and exchanges and collaborations with people that have the energy to say “hey lets share and learn and grow”. Also, the question in my mind - do I really need several profiles and identities – a company website, Ryze profile, Ecademy profile … the list can be endless. I think a blog could consolidate all these identities – a one-stop profile – where you see ALL of me – my thoughts and preoccupations – personal and business - a bit of mind and soul.
B) write for yourself, don’t care about the f*cking loosers that aren’t willing to understand anything
C) Effectivness of 1:many asynchronous communications. Public sounding board.
D) It benefits me to have all of the data laid out in an organized fashion for several reasons. First, it’s archived, so I can search for it if need be (I use this quite often). Second, I can receive feedback, both with the built in comment system and emails
Question 9. [Bloggers only] In which situations would you like to write to your weblog, but are not able to? Why?
A) if I’m drunk
B) my sexuality ? i’m to shy
C) Not applicable, except maybe when I’m on an airplane.
D) Economics and libertarian thought and personal ramblings - I just don’t have the time.
Question 10. [Bloggers] Why did you start your weblog? What motivated you?
A) Share informations on blog in Italy
B) because its so easy … you need no f*cking motivation
C) no idea
D) I started mine for several reasons. First, because some of the clients wanted to see what one could look like from scratch. Two, because I wanted an easier outlet to publish my thoughts and what influenced my thinking. Three, because everyone will eventually use a publishing system online (I say “will” with a long-term scope, 10+ years).
Hard - Question 11. [Bloggers] What other added values of blogging did you discover after starting (if any)?
A) I am running a whole lot of blogs now. They are valuable in the sense that they are a kind of “information dumpster” where I can push information in without caring where it goes. From time to time I unload that dumpster (so it isn’t really a dumpster but maybe a shoebox)
B) Blogging per se did not bring me anything. Using the tool educated me in using a CMS, what was RSS, what was an aggregator. And I came to realize what writing good markups means.
C) It is somewhat addictive : ) You can easily build friendships and partnerships with it. It fits my lifestyle and how I surf (I do lots of research anyways).
D) 1) That ideas can turn into new relationships and social networks.
2) That I get praise for writing good stuff, or criticism for bad stuff, even if I myself wasn’t sure about its worth: it’s a sort of test, am I crazy, or is this a good thing. Especially when there are no others in your own organization working in the same field. 3)The dialogues that come from posting,
Now let me see which one of you has been paying attention and understands my greymatter. I’ll post the answers after enough of you has failed (miserably is an option).
