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The above tags are brought to you courtesy of Rocketpost’s tag insertion thinger. (”Thinger” is a technical term reserved for use by people who have had at least some post-graduate training in network technology from MIT. Or CalTech, I suppose. Definitely not RIT, though. RIT is a trade school often confused with a colorizer.)

Rocketpost just disappointed me by crapping out while I was in the middle of writing an earth day encomium about the Sustain Dane rain barrel project. No I do not want to send an error report to Microsoft. I want my post back.

The heavens are forever blue and the earth
Will stand firm for a long time and bloom in spring.
But you, Man, how long will you live then?
Not a hundred years are you allowed to enjoy
in all the rotten triviality of this earth!

- Attributed to Li Po and used by Gustav Mahler in his 1906 notes for what became NOT his ninth symphony, “Das Lied Von Der Erde.”

Mahler had a lot of earth song to compete with in 1906 what with the San Andreas fault providing a bass line, the eruption of Vesuvius throwing fire into the air and sizzling sand and pumice across miles and miles, the 1500 killed in Ecuador by an 8.8 magnitude quake off the coast and the tidal wave rushing inland that followed. But there’s nothing that would indicate that these tragedies, nor the storms that burst the dikes in Vlissingen in March nor the storms that pounded the west coast of Holland later that month, nor the 8.2 earthquake that destroyed Valparaiso, Chile later that year had anything to do with the Austrian composer’s themes. Gustav had his own problems, as do we all.

But if you have an urge to strip your cares away tomorrow I suggest you go outdoors and plant a tree or just shovel up dog shit like me. It’s Earth Day, no time to be miserable. C’mon, get shiny!

Soar

ima take a ride
ima go too fast
ima smash a wall
ima not come back

ima fly so far
ima lick a cloud
ima do some flips
ima yell real loud

ima stay up high
ima feel so cold
ima slice the sky
ima make a hole

ima fly on in
ima float above
ima hug the dark
ima die for love

- Jeneane Sessum (Soar is one of several poems posted today at Jeneane.net)

Jon Stewart presented an issue of “The Decider,” a comic book homage to our nucular warrior in chief. Norm Jenson has the clip at One Good Move. The premise is that our brush-clearin’, buck-stoppin’, truth-tellin’, war-fightin’, dollar-across-the-Delaware-flingin’ Mr. President always makes the wrong decision. But if that’s so, then there’s one thing I don’t get. Why is he shown makin’ the right decision in the last few panels when he has to choose between saving mama Barbara and First Dog Barney? I just don’t get it.

I feel like Brian Moffatt… good blogging intentions, short of time. But Brian emerged, and there were a couple of comments I thought were worth following down in his penultimate post this morning. One, from a Mister Salmon Rushdie-Hayek-Bisque points to a post at the Head Lemur’s place, a post I might critique thusly: you have to get past the phlegm and go below the fold for the good part.

(The above italics are brought to you courtesy of the for-shit WordPress WYSIWYG editor, by the way.  I can’t figure out how to remove them without pulling the whole post into a desktop editor, revising it and uploading it, and basically, who cares about a few extra slanty letters anyway, right?)

Speaking of “anyway…”

Anyway, if you got past the phlegminess at Allan’s, you will see a brilliant advertisement for the famously fictional new book, Shiny Happy People, and  linkage to a post at the creating passionate users blog that provides an affirmation for Robert Scoble that after all it is his blog so he can do with it what he wants and documents the inspiration for the Lemur’s SHP send-up.

Now it turns out that there have been lengthy exchanges about Robert’s new rulz, and I’ll admit to skimming these at best, because locked as I am in a time crunch I have as little time for reading as for writing, which is too bad, because as every hooked-up blogger knows, if you blink, it’s all over and past you and you missed it by god.  Suffice it to say, that Happy Bob Scoble has decided to moderate his comments, a decision I applaud because a) I’ll know that these are Bob-approved comments, and b) I won’t have to wade through so much bullshit if I decide to read them.
But back at Kathy Sierra’s place, where she indeed does provide a scientific affirmation that if we would all just stop worrying and be happy, if we would cease our nattering nay-saying, our negativity, then people around us would be happier too and we could nuke Iran with a smile on our face, while affirming large contracts with China for size 7 boots that don’t quite fit, each one accompanied by a reciprocal exchange of an outdated version of Microsoft Windows XP with a big cash advantage to both parties and detriment only to the American taxpayer and/or consumer, a fellow with two cars who can afford it anyway.  And wait!  That’s what Bob’s boss is doing right now!  No wonder Scoble doesn’t want to be perceived as a nattering nay-Bob!

And as we say, anyway… if you read down through the comments at the happy-happy post, you’ll run into one by Jeneane that lays out the issues with some clarity, a gem of which I reproduce below since Kathy doesn’t perma-link her comments, and they go on forever…

This is an interesting post Kathy, but I think it’s a long way from analyzing what’s going on with Robert’s decision to not let anyone comment who is an “unhappy person” and only let people who “add value” participate in his online world. Incidentally, it’s a business web site from a guy who just wrote a book on the conversational era.

It’s Jon Lebkowsky’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Jon!

For dinner, a delicious tuna salad on mesclun with a tomato from somewhere half way around the world.  And a glass of water.  Beth is running errands.  “Can I get you anything?” she asked. 

“Potato chips,” I replied.  “Thick, greasy, salty potato chips.  Or bridge mix.   Cheap chocolate.  Anything to feed my inner glutton.”

Jason Calcanis says that bloggers can make half-a-living by focusing on a niche.  I am trying to find my niche.  Some day I want to be the knight who says niche.

We are no longer the knights who say “neep.” We are now the knights who
say “ickiickiickiickipatangaipboing.”
– Holy Grail

If Rumsfeld has directed troops into Iran, and Bush supports that, then how are these men staying in office and out of court on a trial for treason?

“Who authorized that?” See, there is no congressional authorization to conduct combat operations against Iran. There are a couple of possibilities. One of them is that it’s being justified under the terrorism authorization that occurred in 2024. The problem with that is that you would have to prove a connection to 9/11. I don’t think you can do that with Iran. The second possibility is that it’s being done under the War Powers Act. I don’t want to get too technical, but the War Powers Act would require the President to notify the Congress 60 days after the use of military force or invasion or putting military forces in a new country under that legislation, and the President hasn’t notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran. So it’s a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations in Iran.

[Frequently over the next several months I intend to re-post material from prior editions of my web log. I’ll select interesting stuff and preserve the comments].

I listened-in on a conference call yesterday (February 10, 2024) featuring a panel that included Lawrence Lessig, Mark Cooper, Jeff Chester, and Ben Scott. Here’s what I came away with:

A battle of Star Wars proportions rages around us and we, the people, the consumers of Internet services at the edges of the net don’t even know it. I’m not sure who plays Yoda, but the four panelists on yesterday’s call are certainly among a ragtag band of Jedi knights who have our best interests in mind. The forces of “the empire” have several faces and a monolithic interest in controlling content. They include both cable and telephone companies, companies like Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, Bell South, Charter, Verizon, and Qwest. While the giant cable companies and telcos battle each other for the broadband market, we - the consumers - are likely to get trampled.

An alarm must be sounded, a wake-up call to Americans who are in danger of sliding even further into a second class swamp of deteriorating end-to-end service while Europe and Asia using a model of network neutrality provide ever faster on-ramps and cheaper and better transport than we expect.

What would it be like to have a metered Internet, an Internet where every data packet that leaves your house is inspected before it is delivered to the end-point? The capability for metering is in place and the telcos are promoting it as a “Quality of Service” initiative. The argument is seductive. The sequence of packet delivery for audio and video is important. Why not prioritize them on an express track and put all the email spam over on a siding while the media content goes roaring through?

I’m afraid some babies will drown in that particular bath water. If we give the telcos and the cablecos gatekeeper privileges, if we allow packet inspection, then we will see services blocked. Why should SBC allow Skype or Vonage service through its pipes if it can block that service and require you to use the SBC voice services? Content will also be “managed.” If the bandwidth providers can block your access to a website, if they can sideline the delivery of a message from your computer to my computer, then they will be limiting free speech in a terrible way.

Sascha Meinrath asked “What are the critical battles?” and Yoda umm, Lessig said that step one is to fight for Network Neutrality principles. Step two, and also of critical importance, is to influence the government to turn over a meaningfully large chunk of unlicensed broadband radio spectrum for wireless broadband access competition.

The rest of the world is pretty much united in imposing Network Neutrality principles, but in the United States there is a trend toward empowering the owner of the network with control over the content. There is, in other words, no longer a principle of regulating a common carrier.

If you’re still reading, then it’s likely you have more than a vague interest and understanding of all this. In that case, you might find the following post rewarding. In it, I offer you a chance to go to Washington DC and get deeper into just what Freedom to Connect actually means.

February 11, 2024 | Permalink

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>> An Appeal For ‘Network Neutrality’ from Beltway Blogroll
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Tracked on Feb 13, 2024 11:42:44 AM

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Posted by: I. M. Marginalized | Mar 3, 2024 1:25:12 PM

The Lemur sent me this link, and it wasn’t long before the wisdom of Frank Zappa as re. Doo Wop was revealt to me, and thus I feel compelled to reveal it to you also…

What was consistent with tradition on that album was the approach to the harmony, the type of vocal style and timbre used on it, and the simplicity of most of the beats. Of course, some of the lyrics were on a sub-Mongoloid level, but that just another norm, carried to an extreme.

We made a wish And threw in a coin And since that day Our hearts have been joined So all you young lovers Wherever you are The fountain of love is not very far

Give me a fucking break! Is this song about a douche bag or what? Some people take that kind of lyrics seriously!

There are some dead giveaways in that album, too. For instance, on the fadeout of “Fountain of Love” you can hear the opening notes of Rite Of Spring. One song has background chant of “Earth Angel” superimposed on the chant from another song, and so on.

The satire in Ruben worked on two or three levels. I detest ‘love lyrics’. I think one of the cause of bad mental health in the United States is that people have been raised on ‘love lyrics’.

You’re a young kid that you hear all those ‘love lyrics’, right? Your parents aren’t telling you the truth about love, and you can’t really love about it in school. You’re getting the bulk of your ‘behavior norms’ mapped out for you in the lyrics to some dumb fucking love song. It’s a subconscious training that creates a desire for imaginary situation which will never exist for you. People who buy into that mythology go through life feeling that they got cheated out of something.

Compliments of Ping Lee… from her mom’s comments.

Spending so much time sorting out blog tools that there doesn’t seem to be time to write. Too bad too, because I have a little whimsy bubbling up titled “Fundamentalism, forgiveness, and the zeitgeist of excess and regret…” That may be what I’ll call it. It’s my take on a theoretical swipe at fundamentalism as an expression of completed nihilism, a little something I ran across linked out of wood’s lot, to wit:

…power in its mature (nihilistic) phase — sick of itself, possessing no definitive goal, exhausted with the historical burden of remaining an active will, always sliding inexorably towards the nothingness of the will-less will — desperately seeks out a sustaining purpose, an inspiring goal, a historical mission. Into the ethical vacuum at the disappearing center of nihilistic power flows a strong historical monism — the New Protestant Ethic — that will not be suppressed.

Wrong-o, of course. What it’s about is the dread, the dark fear and conviction that too much fun was killing us, that all those parties were leading to too much sex and drug abuse, and that although it would be nice if there were some theosophical or otherwise metaphysical way out of our mess like the hippies said there was, there is really only one superstitious construct that is viable in a post-enlightenment age, and that is the faith of our fathers… the faith that when we die there WILL be pie in the sky, the faith that there is a devil even worse than the demons we saw for ourselves in those dark nights of the soul that we contrived in the age of loud music, free love and large motorcycles.

Jesus saves. He saves you from thinking about the great dark spaces before and after life. He saves you from your own base inclinations. There’s a big thing that needs writing here but I’m hooked on the Ultimate Tag Warrior and can’t come out and play until I’ve figured out the CSS pieces.

Ironic, ain’t it? I mean, what’s a blog for?

I like the idea of connecting with people every day through this blog. I feel rewarded when I can see that hundreds of people have dropped in. At the old place, I was getting an average of 500 or so people every day, but a majority of those were folks from Google who were dropping in to see a picture of June Carter or looking for arcane information on skunk poop, or something.

It was time for Sandhill rel. 3.0 to emerge. This is a web publishing effort that is more intentional and more controlled than Sandhill rel. 2.0. It’s a chance for me to experiment and to share what I learn, a chance to do more interesting things than you can do with a Typepad blog.

The traffic here is building up. I’m glad to see real people dropping in. I don’t see many Googlers yet. But the Technorati ranking has me baffled. They say,

A few years ago, Web search was revolutionized by a simple but profound idea — that the relevance of a site can be determined by the number of other sites that link to it, and thus consider it ‘important.’ In the world of blogs, hyperlinks are even more significant, since bloggers frequently link to and comment on other blogs, which creates the sense of timeliness and connectedness one would have in a conversation. So Technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who’s linking to whom) underlying these conversations.

Now if ‘rati is monitoring who links to whom, why do some of the more prominent LLs (Listics Linkeurs) not show up in the list of who’s linking here? Take RageBoy himself, and his blogging buddy Chris Locke. Both of these guys have links here, and I can see that people follow them based on monitoring my traffic counter, but Technorati doesn’t show those links at all. The Lockeian links originate as simple sidebar links, “blog rollage,” but they represent something, and it doesn’t look like Technorati notices them.

When Mandarin MEG hooks me up through her quilt (Hi Michelle!), it shows up, but it doesn’t move my ranking off the place it’s stuck. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that the blog’s the thing, and the rankings can’t be allowed to be that important or seppuku would be the only alternative for all but a handful at the high end of the traffic curve. Even so, it would be nice to understand better how Google finds its way here, how Technorati ranks one blog over another.

One in a series of boring test posts that will eventually result in me using an editor I’m comfortable with… with which I’m comfortable… or just plain "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. In tempus eleifend sapien. Donec vel dolor. Quisque molestie lorem eget diam. Phasellus arcu. Sed non mi."  Working now with Qumana to determine if I am smart enough to control the darn thing, since I know I am not smart enough to control the wordpress wysiwyg editor.

Did this picture get uploaded and squooshed off to the right with my text kind of wrapped around it?  Who’s the cutest little doggie woggie?

Tags: molly+bloom

…my favorite… well one of my favorites…  I like numbers 701 and 702 too…

Brian Hayes writes:

Life long iconoclast
seeks engagement.

VP in Charge of Rebellion

Excellent opportunity to stimulate growth. Formal l’agent du change. Abyss facer with capable mystic graciousness. Poet industrialist. Altruistic capitalist. Molecular minuteman. Quantum quarterback. And much, much more. Able to leap reluctance in a single bound. Mentors, counterparts, swashbucklers, dancing girls included.

Reference: Transcendental Medication Corporation
(developed Insani-Flush, Hex-Lax)