...more recent posts
The recent flurry of meta weblog discussion continues. Why this is happening now is unclear to me. Is it just the linguistic gas supplied by Chris Locke? Seems like we go through these times of blog analysis ("what is a weblog?") periodically. This time around has generated a lot of words. Doc points to the recent activity on the cluetrain email list. The thoughts are all interesting, but is the question? I think the reason why different words (either 'weblog' or 'blog') became popular (instead of just 'website' or 'homepage') is because having a 'website' implies some technical skill (even if it's just understanding basic HTML and FTP) but having a 'blog' only requires the desire to write publically. And most bloggers realized, naturally, that they weren't 'webmasters' and so they needed a different word. Having a 'weblog' is specifically not about displaying your mastery of internet technology. Having a 'website' often is (at least as a side effect.)
An American airlines flight just crashed into the densely populated Queens neighborhood of Rockaway (well, Belle Harbor more technically) around 129th street & Newport avenue. It was an Airbus plane that had just taken off from nearby JFK airport. It's unclear what happened.
I've changed the new activity monitor on the site. It is simpler now, and I think more usable. Of course it assumes that you either have a permanent connection or stay dialed in for long periods of time. I took out all the javascript, so now going to /monitor just turns the browser window black (the present window, not a pop up.) Resize or not as you wish. It will reload (once a minute now, but the black page is only .5K so it's not very much bandwidth really) until there is something new at which point it will just load up the front page which will indicate where the new post is. Also I realized I could have it print out the people who are currently monitoring, so I'm having it do that. Not sure if I'll keep that in or not. Could be sort of interesting.
If there is anybody from the outside listening in, the deal here is that if you have an account, then the front page of this site is configurable. You can add or remove any pages that exist anywhere on the site to or from your front page. Also you can tell the system to keep track of new (to you) posts and/or new (to you) comments for each page. Then every time you load up the front page it lists the pages you follow, and next to that the number of new posts, and then the number of new comments. Clicking on the page brings you to the page the same way a guest sees it, but clicking on [x new posts] brings up the page with only the new content. Clicking on [x new comments] brings you directly to a page containing new comments. The activity monitor is simply a blank black page that reloads itself every minute sending an id cookie to the server, and the server looks in the database to see if there is anything new for that user.
It's been our experience that this simple system greatly enhances the usefulness of the site. The most important result has been that old threads (even very old threads) which receive new comments are immediately called to everyone's attention. So while all the pages are chronological, in standard weblog style, we don't have the negative side effect where old discussions are less important simply because they are buried somewhere in your archives. If someone comments on something I wrote long in the past it is immediately brought to my attention.
The Washington Post has an article about peer to peer networking. Apparently the military is interested. The article is not technical, but I'm always interested to read anything that departs from the "P2P networks are for pirates" standard entertainment industry line.
The U.S. Joint Forces Command last week began testing new commercial software called Groove, developed by the creator of Lotus Notes. About 20 large corporations also are using the program, which allows people to create ad hoc computing groups, send instant messages, mark up files and do other collaborative work online without help from system administrators. Makers of similar "groupware" products got in line this week to take the military up on its appeal for help.Dan Gilmore has a column on this same issue in which he talks with John Robb (ex USAF special operations and now president and COO of Userland software) about how the internet can help our overly centralized leadership meet the highly distributed enemy of today. John Robb expands on the idea at his own website. (links from HTP and scripting news)
It's not just for stealing music and exposing your diary to the world anymore.