Month: February 2007

Categories
Political Weblogging

Bloggers resign from campaign

Both Shakespeare’s Sister Melissa and Pandagon’s Amanda have resigned from the Edwards compaign. Amanda’s site is down, but at Shakepeare’s Sister, Melissa had this to say:

I regret to say that I have also resigned from the Edwards campaign. In spite of what was widely reported, I was not hired as a blogger, but a part-time technical advisor, which is the role I am vacating.

I would like to make very clear that the campaign did not push me out, nor was my resignation the back-end of some arrangement made last week. This was a decision I made, with the campaign’s reluctant support, because my remaining the focus of sustained ideological attacks was inevitably making me a liability to the campaign, and making me increasingly uncomfortable with my and my family’s level of exposure.

I understand that there will be progressive bloggers who feel I am making the wrong decision, and I offer my sincerest apologies to them. One of the hardest parts of this decision was feeling as though I’m letting down my peers, who have been so supportive.

There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation, but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with vitriol and veiled threats. It is not right-wing bloggers, nor people like Bill Donohue or Bill O’Reilly, who prompted nor deserve credit for my resignation, no matter how much they want it, but individuals who used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation.

This is a win for no one.

(Also see this ABC Story for more)

I don’t think any supporter of both would be disappointed, and I admire both of them for taking this stand. They would never be able to speak freely as part of Edwards’ campaign, but now they can use their voices and their popular blogs however they see fit, and no one can shut them up now.

As for this quack Donohue or that tedious and dull Malkin claiming victory, small minds must get gratification where they can. Frankly, the rest of the country could care less what these two carp in a small pond think.

My only concern is if Amanda and Melissa are going to suffer some financial repercussions from this event. If so, I imagine many of us would be willing to donate a few bucks to help them get settled back home.

Amanda’s announcement.

Categories
Political

Sleight of hand

It would seem that the US isn’t the only country whose primary leader plays sleight of hand when it comes to debate: Australia’s Howard is using Obama’s candidate announcement speech to deflect discussion away from climate change to the Iraqi conflict.

If I were the people of Australia, I would balance 1400 soldiers in Iraq against the fact that it is completely surrounded by water when making a decision about what is of most critical importance to the people of that country. Unless Howard would prefer that Iraq remain a lightning rod for Islamic discontent, rather than have such shift focus to, say, Indonesia.

This kind of political rhetoric isn’t surprising: it seems to be representative of anyone associated with Bush. What is surprising, though, is how anyone can possibly think there is any question of ‘win’ or ‘loose’ regarding Iraq. Frankly, I would question the intelligence of any person who uses such terms in regards to this conflict. But, we have enough problems with our own fearless leader, who now seems to want to make bad matters worse by trying to trigger a war with Iran. Howard is Australia’s concern, not ours.

Categories
Media

Netflix vs Blockbuster: The winner is…

I had a Netflix account until Blockbuster came out with their, “Turn in a movie, get a movie” plan. It was a novelty to go into the local Blockbuster, turn in an envelope and get a movie. It was especially nice because online DVD rental places aren’t always good about sending that next video.

Recently Netflix came out with it’s responding shot: watch a movie online. Depending on how many movies you rent at a time, you can watch so many hours of movies online a month. It’s an interesting concept, though the original announcement was somewhat misleading because the plan is only now being rolled out and we’ll only be available to everyone in June. Additionally, you have to watch that movie within a web browser, which doesn’t provide the best viewing experience.

Late last week I switched back to Netflix, but it wasn’t because of this new deal, it was because of the old deal. One reason to have a service like Netflix is that you can access older or more unusual movies; movies that your local video rental shop doesn’t have. Yet when I put these items at the top of my list at Blockbuster, they’re never sent; even when shown as available in the queue, I would never get them. Blockbuster would pick movies from the middle of the list or the bottom over these movies–there was no rhyme or reason to how it made its shipment decisions.

As a test, I put three items that have been at the top of my list at Blockbuster for close to two weeks at the top of my newly re-awakened Netflix account. The next day, all three items shipped.

Netflix also has a better interface. It’s easier to find the movies I want, it’s recommendations are better, and it’s faster and less cluttered than the Blockbuster interface. Disregarding the ‘deal’ to turn a movie in for a free one, or watching movies online, when it comes to the ‘core’ business of providing DVDs based on a queue, especially older, foreign, or more unusual movies, Netflix is better.

It might not be ‘Web 2.0’, but all the gewgaws in the world won’t compensate when you let your core business flounder or fail.

Categories
Technology

Web considered harmful

Jeremy Zwadony believes JavaScript and widgets are harmful, and points to situations such as Techcrunch and their recent slowdown. Of course, he hasn’t seen the supreme widget.

I get irritated at the sites that have dozens of things in their sidebar, all of which slow page loads. Luckily, most of these sites provide full content in their feeds so the only time I need worry about it is if I want to comment. Jeremy does have a point in that too many of these scripted beasties can slow a site down; or that if the widget is nefariously designed, can enable snooping at your visitors via the web service request. However, I think he gives far too much credit to the widget developers; or perhaps not enough credit to the page holder.

You have to have a level of trust between you and the widget, or API, or other service developer. If you don’t trust the source, it doesn’t matter what you use, or even how you use it. You could be getting text, and it could be harmful if it’s full of lies. If you trust the source, then again, it doesn’t matter what’s being delivered: data, an API, or a scripted solution.

Like Jeremy, I wish more services would provide an API. However, many of the more popular widgets are a front end for a service that does provide an API: the widget is just a way for a non-programmer to access the functionality. Flickr badgets come to mind, a company that’s owned by, why golly, Yahoo.

Other widgets manage ads, and there’s not much you can do about the ads other than, again, force people into learning PHP so they can do the code to an API themselves. Either that or let’s get rid of the ads. Hell, yes! I go along with this! Let’s all of us be broke together! Mike Arrington, just think how much time you’ll save if you just get rid of your ads–how zen-like your site will be.

Broke is the new black. Poor is the new web. It’s all Web $.0 from now on.

Pushing this stuff on to the server doesn’t change the problem: if you have a PHP program that’s waiting on ten services, it’s not going to be much better than ten different JavaScript clients waiting on ten different sources. As for how badges frustrate search engines, my only response is, what does that have to do with anything? Widgets don’t take the place of navigational links, nor do they replace in-post or article links. Widgets are just things.

Jeremy mentions at the end if more of these services were available as an API instead of a widget, they could be useful for Yahoo pipes. This is the “ooo, shiny!” syndrome talking. Pipes aren’t necessarily a better way of utilizing web services; they’re just a newer way. Out with the cruddy old Ajax, in with the shiny new pipes. In three months it will be something else, and we’ll all be bitching about pipes. “Out! Out damn pipes!”, or some other Shakespearian plaint.

Categories
Semantics

RSS kills gotos

Assaf:

Everytime you meta-program, God kills a for loop.

*snork*

(Link thanks to Sterling.)