the pod bay door

:: Charlie Rose discusses blogging on his show tonight with four well-known bloggers: Andrew Sullivan, Ana Marie Cox, Glenn Reynolds, and Joe Trippi. This group represents political bloggers, and Trippi hasn’t updated his site since February 6th. Should be worth dialing up, nonetheless.

Update: I watched the first fifteen minutes of the segment (will watch the rest tomorrow), and it was good. One point made: that blogs allow the submission of comments by readers, immediately after reading the blogger’s post(s), thus connecting reader and writer in real time, as opposed to, say, a magazine or newspaper column, which can take days or weeks, or months in some cases. Readers can provide feedback and opinion, point out errors, make suggestions, etc. What’s interesting is that of the four bloggers on the show, only Joe Trippi’s blog allows for immediate submission of comments. Sullivan’s site allows for submission of e-mail for publication, which are then published anonymously, if at all. The most recent e-mail published is dated 31 January 2005. Reynold’s and Cox’s blogs do not allow for immediate comments either, but accept e-mail feedback. And who’s linking to whom: Cox: links to Sullivan and Reynolds. Sullivan: links to Reynolds. Reynolds: links to Sullivan, Cox. Trippi: links to Cox.

:: I have been extremely busy at work the past while, preparing a couple of major presentations, one on Friday, one next Tuesday. I will resurface soon. Also, regarding the rock band, I’ve decided to stick with it and see what happens. More on that later.

:: A few weeks ago at practice, a fellow band member mentioned the revived, or as it is being called, reimaged Battlestar Galactica series, speaking favourably of the new version. (Canadian site here.) I was vaguely aware that a mini-series version had aired in 2003, but paid no attention to it at the time. When the original series first aired in the late 70s, I detested it, with the exception of having a major crush on Maren Jensen at the time, which caused me to watch more episodes than I care to admit. The show was pure camp, featuring characters with horrid names like Starbuck, Apollo, Athena, Adama, Boomer, and Cassiopeia, combined with bad acting and writing.
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:: I haven’t been blogging a lot lately here, more so on STLQ. (I’ve been asked to speak on a blogging panel at the Canadian Library Association Conference in Calgary in June, 2005.) Lack of inspiration and other things, heavy workload, etc. I’m also trying to catch up on e-mails dating back to last fall, and found a few items that may be of interest, some or all of which may be old news to you already.

• wwiTV: World Wide Internet TV, “an index to streaming media available on the web.”
• MSN Spaces: MSN has its own blog service, to compete with Blogger.
• Seeshare.com – the Edmonton Moblog Community. “It’s a weblog of photos taken by Edmontonians with their camera-phone & digital cameras sent via MMS or email to this website.” MMS means multimedia messaging service, and not owning a cell phone, I’m not surprised that I don’t know what MMS is.
• The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released a number of interest reports of late, including The State of Blogging, The Future of the Internet, A decade of adoption: How the internet has woven itself into American life, and Artists, Musicians and the Internet.
• blinkx.tv: “blinkx.tv allows you to search the web for video and audio clips. Unlike other search providers, blinkx.tv not only lets you search using standard keyword and Boolean queries but you can also use conceptual search. This type of search is provided by blinkx only, and allows you to enter normal text for which blinkx.tv will return results whose content is conceptually similar to your search text.”

More to come.

:: I have been waiting for almost two years for someone, anyone out there, to try the Skype program with me. This afternoon, my dear father downloaded and installed the program on his machine in Winnipeg, and we spoke to each other through the VoIP program, using headsets. VoIP=Voice Over Internet Protocol, used in IP Telephony. I was amazed at how clear the sound was, much better than my telephone. What are the rest of you waiting for?? All computer-to-computer calls are free to anywhere in the world! Put your headset on, start a call, and the damn thing even rings like a telephone!

I purchased €10.00 worth of time to use SkypeOut, which lets you call landlines or cell phones. Using Skype, I can call a landline or cell phone in the States for $0.032 per minute.

Thanks, Dad. Anyone else care to try?

:: Didn’t think spamming could get any worse? Think again:this isn’t good news:

SPAMMERS TRY A NEW TACK – Tired of being blocked by “blacklists,” spammers are turning to a new technique — routing it directly through the computers of their Internet service providers, rather than sending it from individual machines. The result poses a dilemma: to block spam coming directly from an ISP’s servers would mean blocking all its mail, crippling the system. “From what we’ve seen, the volumes of this type of spam are going up dramatically,” says Steve Linford, who heads up the Spamhaus Project. “We’re really looking at a bleak thing” if ISPs don’t quickly deploy countermeasures, he adds. Such measures could include more aggressive monitoring and limiting how much mail is being sent from individual machines on their networks. In addition, ISPs should beef up efforts to authenticate mail they pass on through their own computers, says Linford. A study released yesterday estimates that deleting spam costs nearly $22 billion per year in lost productivity, based on a survey of 1,000 adults who said they spend about three minutes per day trashing spam when they check their e-mail. (Washington Post 4 Feb 2005) <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61901-2005…> – (requires registration to view)

:: The entire state of Connecticut was almost evacuated today, when someone pushed the wrong button.

:: First Brad and Jennifer, now Bloom and Bosworth? Methinks Legolas has shot too many arrows in the wrong direction. What was he thinking? Breaking up with Kate? That radiant smile, that thoughtful gaze? Kate, if you need a shoulder to cry on, gimme a call.