Thursday March 10, 2005
Thursday March 10, 2005
Cooperation and Punishment
New Scientist has an interesting article about generosity, altruism, and cooperation. One part of it in particular struck me in how it relates to what happens in the blogosphere:
...cooperation can become the default behaviour in large groups provided punishers are willing to punish not only those who cheat, but also those who fail to punish cheats.[Charity begins at homo sapiens]
This relates to my last post, particulary the quote from Dave Winer, and also relates to politics on the web. It seems the most popular blogs/entries are those that punish others AND (on the Technorati issue) punish those that fail to punish others.
On the Technorati issue, I forgot to say that Dave Sifry did "the right thing" in the end: he publically supported Niall and explained his reasoning of the events. And in a response to my post he vowed that Technorati will 'try to learn from this experience'. Something we all need to do.
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Mar 10 2005, 12:04:35 PM
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it's worse when they're a friend
It feels a little weird to agree with Dave Winer, but then it really shouldn't. I'd say he makes sense about 50% of the time.
I was struck the other day how the mess with Technorati was swept under the rug with all kinds of "we like them" explanations, as if liking someone were the main thing that mattered. So if you don't like someone, then it's okay to nail them, right, and if you do like them, you cut them some slack. I try to play by different rules. If Sifry wants to win with me it's going to be because he does good, is fair, helps the Internet, doesn't try to siphon it off for his shareholders. And I still want to know what happened there, what was so offensive about the graphic?
Now here's the question for you bloggers, who are supposed to be so new, so enlightened, so irreverent. Exactly how is this different from the way it used to be? Seriously, think about it, and you'll realize that the players are poorer, the alliances are newer, but the process is the same. I suggest next time you feel compelled to say so-and-so is a friend as you write about them in a blog post, or you're about to say how much you like them, drop it, and say what you have to say without the fig leaf. If you think someone fucked up, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not.[Scripting News]
But you won't actually find that quote on that page for some reason (I got it out of Bloglines). My feeling is that if someone you like and respect makes a "mistake" like this, you need to be harder on them. The people I respect have to live up to higher standards. I expect my friends to be perfect (unfortunate for them, and triply unfortunate if they hold me to that same standard 
). I don't know anyone at Technorati, but they really messed up on this one. I don't see that the graphics in question were targeted at Technorati but at the "standard" corporate response to blogging (and "home pages" before that).
Reading Sifry's entry, I can understand how he reacted negatively to certain imagery. And I see his point about corporate logos. But one response would have been to replace the images with placeholders and post a notice that to that effect (and to add the standard "this is *my* blog" disclaimer). Sifry et al should know that you cannot erase a blog once it is published, and that is what gets me most about this incident; Technorati, of all people, should understand this best! And that is why this was such a big deal. They are expected to be cluefull, and they demonstrated a significant lacking.
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Mar 10 2005, 10:13:17 AM
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Wednesday March 09, 2005
Fwd: How I explained REST to my wife
If you don't really understand REST, or don't understand it's importance, or even if you think you understand it all, read How I explained REST to my wife.
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Mar 09 2005, 02:53:22 PM
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Friday March 04, 2005
the end of content maybe I'll just publish these stupid little "blogthings" from now on.
| You Have Fantastic Karma |
And all your good deeds will pay off - if they haven't already. But you're not so concerned with what you get in return anyway. You have an innate caring nature - and nothing can change that! |
( Mar 04 2005, 10:31:48 PM ) Personal Permalink [Trackback]
well, that's a surprise
| You Are 10% Extrovert, 90% Introvert |
|
You avoid people at all costs You aren't one for social interaction And you limit your interaction to a select few Thank God for self checkout! |
( Mar 04 2005, 09:53:03 AM ) Personal Permalink [Trackback]
Wednesday March 02, 2005
Phone-B-Gone
Apparently cellphone use while driving is on the rise. With all the news stories over the last several years highlighting the dangers of "driving while phoned" you'd think people would get it by now: Don't Talk And Drive! <sarcasm>Of course, these dangers only apply to others.</sarcasm> Did you hear about TV-B-Gone? I want the same thing for cellphones. The next time I see you driving, with a phone stuck to your face, I want to be able to turn the darned thing off *for you*.
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Mar 02 2005, 03:18:02 PM
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Tuesday March 01, 2005
MPAA Death Squad?
Watch out, or they'll get you too!
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Mar 01 2005, 02:41:24 PM
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Politics
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forelse
I was just reading about Javascript Templates when I noticed a cool bit of syntax:
{for p in products}
...
{forelse}
...
{/for}
I really like forelse, it's something I've always wanted but didn't know what to ask for. I run into this a lot:
if (collection.size() > 0) {
for ( /* iterate */ ) {
// loop logic
}
} else {
// do something else if array is empty
}
I know there is little hope of getting this added to plain Java, but this would be a great thing for Groovy (if it doesn't already have it). What about other languages? Does Ruby/Python/others have it? I don't recall ever seeing this in Perl or Obj-C, but maybe I just overlooked it?
Note: Bloglines stripped the style="white-space:pre" from my code tags, you're RSS reader might (should) do the same. Sanitized For Your Protection.
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Mar 01 2005, 01:59:11 PM
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