Listics

Stowe’s new site, recent wit and wisdom from Rage Boy, and the incredible role modeling of Ronni Bennett have inspired me again to move forward with the listics project. 

Stowe is starting from ground zero at /Message.  He has a clean design, a reasonable ad volume, and a professional voice.

Chris has been blogging this way and that.  His Mystic Bourgeoisie project seems to have the shape of a book emerging.  It’s a spot where Rage Boy seldom ventures and Chris holds forth on a complex research project that is leading him (and us) into a deeper understanding of the anti-human roots of a lot of human culture.  Meanwhile, he’s working out technical details at a site called beggars choice.  There’s not much that holds a candle to today’s screen test posting.

And then there’s Ronni.  I read at Stowe’s site that "The Blog Herald" had been sold and I thought of Ronni.  She’s carved an important niche in blog journalism with her warm and considerate focus on aging at Time Goes By.  It’s the kind of site that could be packaged for resale any time because of the consistent topicality and the attraction of the subject matter to an aging boomer population.  Of course, since the value is all Ronni all the time, the purchaser would be faced with a bit of a problem.  Anyway, it’s not for sale.  Discussing the Blog Herald deal Ronni said, "I’m nowhere near ready to give up Time Goes By. I’m just gettin’ started…"

Hey Ronni Bennett and RageBoy both sign their emails RB.  I wonder if Stowe Boyd would consider changing his name to Roger?

Anyway, thanks to RB for pointing out the value of Rollyo.  Looks like just the thing to serve as a listics foundation stone.  I’ll be rolling my own again soon, I think.

I pretty much credit this to Mme. Levy, who made me link… and of course sbpoet, who linked to me.  I’ve received some hundreds of hits through other people who inexplicably found it funny, people like Doug and JR, but sbpoet has been pumping traffic this way by the thousands.  Sandhill traffic goes up and down based on what I don’t know.  But a dull month has been pulled out of the doldrums by a dumb joke.  Thanks, I think.

Three weeks from now the vile usurper will deliver another State of the Union Address.  Some pinko dog democrat fund raising group that has my email address suggested that the occasion be used for house parties by the disloyal opposition.  It seems to me like a good time for an IRC gathering, a time to unite the good and true people in the blogosphere in hilarious and snarky opposition to the illiterate schmuck with his thumb on the button of America’s nukuler arsenal.  Laptops and living rooms, wifi and virtual high fives every time the boob chokes on a pretzel.

IMPEACH

Ken’s blog is named "Digital Common Sense."  Here’s some common sense he shares about being a hyperlinked individual…

…hyperlinking is about connectedness to some extent. I’ll
venture a guess that I exceed most in connectedness, but there’s also
an overwhelming sense of frustration and futility. The single word
mantra I’ve tried to live by since 1998 is simplify.
I’ve gone to some incredible efforts here and there over the past
several years to simplify life. I only buy technology tools when they
simplify life. I bought my truck to simplify. If there’s an
undercurrent that runs throughout my work week, a theme, it’s
simplification at every possible turn.

Yet with all this
connectedness (which is very different from connectivity, something not
to be had at CES I noticed), simplification is a very complex process.

Yes, a rule. A universal truth - Simplification is complicated.

And
it all raises the question what’s it done for quality of life. By
simplifying the way I work, I’m now simply able to work a 75 hour week
far more effectively. So……what asshole thought that was a good thing?
Our connectedness, our hyperlinked lifestyle, is creating a community
of automatons that live to work, work to live. But do we really play
enough?

An open
letter to the Women’s Media Center….
Suggestions of long time women bloggers for your linkage:

Jeneane
Sessum blogs at “Allied.” Jeneane was the
founding “Blogsister” and I see you have linked to Blogsisters but not to Jeneane directly. She has been writing online daily for over
four years.
http://allied.blogspot.com/

Shelley
Powers blogs at Burning Bird. Shelley
has been blogging since before it was called that. She’s a techie, a published writer, a
photographer and her work bespeaks a rare sensitivity as well as a feminist
focus.
http://weblog.burningbird.net/

Sheila
Lennon is a media professional, a proto blogger who writes for the Providence Journal in Providence, Rhode Island.
http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/shenews/

Leslie
Winer is Madame Levy, blogging from France at La Vache Qui Lit. She is the godmother of trip hop or something, an old
associate of William Burroughs and Gregory Corso, a one time high fashion
model, the mother of four or five girls and a no nonsense genius. She played at the ATP festival this summer… here’s a BBC cultural comment that could lead you to more info.  You really have to link to her.
http://lavachequilit.typepad.com/la_vache_qui_lit/

Denise
Howell, an LA Corporate lawyer from Orange County, blogs at Bag and Baggage, has
written daily for the last four or five years, coined the terms “blawg” and “blawger”
for – you guessed it – legal blogs and bloggers.
http://bgbg.blogspot.com/

Rebecca
Blood may be the first woman blogger. Ever. (Although I doubt she would claim that).  She wrote a how-to book
about blogging four or five years ago. Rebecca’s Pocket remains one of the best informed, most diverse
sites. It’s a pleasure to visit. Rebecca could give up her day job if there
was a way for individual bloggers to make money. She’s a professional.
http://www.rebeccablood.net/

Ronni
Bennett, blogging at “Time Goes By” is probably the only person blogging
professionally into the “aging” space. She’s
passionate and brilliant, used to produce for Barbara Walters among other
shows. A list of women bloggers can not
be complete without Ronni.
http://www.timegoesby.net/

There are
of course dozens and dozens of other women blogging who deserve linkage, but these
seven just leap to mind as missing when I read your blog roll. I’m sorry I can’t list every woman blogger I read, everyone whose work I’m fond of, but the seven above are feminists all, women
who have been blogging for a long time and have a huge readership, and who will
enhance your blogroll. Blogging is to a certain extent about linky love, so if I was you, I’d
link these people.  Wait.  I already have linked these people!

Frank Paynter
http://sandhill.typepad.com
… and
elsewhere

I sucked on Ethan Zuckerman’s 10 question Africa quiz.  New Year Resolution:  Check in at Black LooksBlogAfrica frequently enough to emerge from cluelessness. and

Getting smarter about Central America and South America is also on my list.

In all the hubbub and hectic preparations leading up to the Frankmas season, I missed another Wikipedia brouhaha.  Shelley posted a typically discerning article on Wikipedia in which she pondered how few female bloggers had found their way into that collection of information.  A "Shelley Powers" entry was posted and, according to standard practice, marked for potential deletion.  There seems to be a vetting process, and the Wikipedians go through a classic thumbs-up or thumbs-down ritual, a ritual that makes those of us on the outside resent the insiders for their willingness to judge.

But wait… I’m an insider too.  I have no clue how long I’ve had a Wikipedia log-on in my own name.  I’ve touched up a few articles.  Any touch-ups I’ve done have been anonymous though, not associated with my log-on, but if I wanted to play the Wikipedia game, I could.  I think I’d rather do Sudoku puzzles than sort out the complexities of Wikipedia community membership and content creation.

But let me return to the gated community aspect of Wikipedia content screening.  In Shelley’s original post, a woman or three scuffed toes in the dirt and looked down all humble at the ground and allowed as how she didn’t necessarily rate an article, but she could see that Shelley does.  And indeed Shelley deserves an article.  But the nature of encyclopedicity is that we are in the business of collecting knowledge and making it accessible to readers.  So why wouldn’t we create pages for interesting people?  Why should the gates close behind public persons (from Finkelstein to Seigenthaler) and not easily and readily admit Julie Leung?  For example.

Since I don’t contribute to the Wikipedia, I suppose my opinions are not too important.  I’m confident that were I to take on Wikipedianism as a project I would be welcomed, and eventually I’d learn the boundaries, the rules.  At Shelley’s Burningbird Blog someone pointed out that when we’re looking for info on people we’re more likely to Google them than look them up on the wiki.  That’s so, and the observation itself seems to foster some kind of competitive value judgment.  Actually, ain’t we the lucky ones to have all these great resources at our fingertips?

Shelley’s initial post has been followed by a few more, "Yo! Sock Puppets!" and "The Pedia Me." 

I just left this message at the blog of another TypePad customer. 

"They worked a lot of magic putting everything back together after the great Typepad meltdown.  Better if they would configure so there were no meltdowns.  I think they are playing too much WOW and not paying attention to the blog business."

Then I realized my intuition was probably bang-on so I thought I’d share the insight here.  I think they’re well configured for the blog biz at Six Apart.  I just don’t know how well they’re configured for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.

Whatever.  Hardware fault tolerance, like massive RAID arrays, requires somebody in an operations center to be monitoring so disks can be swapped when they fail.  A level or so up from that, the powerful database engines need maintenance and occasional tuning.

I’m thinking about how Bank of America would feel if all the ATM machines went down for a day or two.  Or all the terminals in all the branches….  I wonder if the guys in the back office would still be playing WOW the next day.  Looking for work, more likely.