Burningbird
Avast ye dirty dogs! Today be Talk like a Pirate Day!
Clear winner so far is Planet Arrrr! DF! As in: Arrrr! you scurvy dogs! Get yer hands off me bnodes!
In honor of Lady Pirates the world over, repeats:
The Jolly Rogerina, co-created with Elaine of Kalilily:
In the past, I have split the weblog into pieces based on subject matter and interest. However, most folk read weblogs through aggregators now, so it makes more sense to split weblog topics into different syndication feeds rather than different weblogs.
This is a mixed-bag weblog, which means I write on anything, and I mean anything. Not all of you are interested in reading everything I write. For those who are interested only in writings on certain topics, I offer to you the following syndication feeds. My posts are guaranteed to fall in whichever of these is most appropriate:
Technology Feed: All items related to technology and the field of IT, web, and computer science. This includes RDF and semantic web postings, as well as weblog tech how-tos, digital identity writings, and so on.
SemanticWeb Feed: All items specifically related to semantic web and RDF.
Directions Feed: All current events commentary, discussions on politics, and opinion pieces. This includes the writings that also incorporate history into the work, and the discussions related to women and feminism, gay acceptance, and human rights–both national and international.
Sensory Feed: All writings about photographs, featuring photographs, poetry, reviews, literature, personal philosophy, cooking, relationships, art, and so on.
Outdoorsy Feed: All outdoorsy, environmentally related discussions, including those on weather and the environment, space, giant squid, my walks throughout the Ozarks, and so on.
Folk Tales and Stories Feed: Featuring the longer posts that mix reality with imagination, throwing in a little culture and history; mixing it up into a soup of humor or humanity. This also features my more oddball posts, and the humorous ones like Parable of the Languages.
I’ll be adding these to the header for autodiscovery, and there’s still the main feed, which includes everything. The comments feed will also include all comments for all posts.
Then there is, of course, the ‘nofeed’, where you don’t subscribe to any feed, and no longer read this weblog. That is, also, a viable option.
I had to borrow the car today so I took my roommate into work and picked him up. As usual, I hung my arm out the open window when I drove, and when I got to roomie’s place of business, I noticed I had these tiny little blisters over most of my arm. I knew it was burned from the trip last week, but it looked more tanned than not. I guess the exposure to the sun today was too much.
I look like I have white measles. But you don’t want to hear that. You might want to hear, though, that I’ve removed the Google Ads. Again. See what you miss when you read this through an aggregator?
I’m not sure if it was the fundamentalist religous ads that kept popping up, equating disasters such as hurricanes to loss of faith; or the ’sell your blood’ ad associated with the posts encouraging people to donate blood to the Red Cross. I do know that the pennies I get each day to run the ads aren’t worth seeing crap like that in my weblog. Once I went to full syndication feeds, the click through rates tanked, and I don’t want to take time to tweak the ads through channels to filter out the type of businesses that seem to be making Google rich.
If I embedded the ads directly in my posts, I might break a buck a day; but I’m already feeling a little disassociated from the weblog by providing the full feeds–I don’t want to add yet more ’stuff’ to the site. What can I say? I suck at marketing.
I think ads work when you have a focused site on a ’safe’ topic, like photography. They’re also profitable if you really work it, like those who supposedly make thousands of dollars a month. If I have a focused site, I may add them back, but not in Burningbird; not when I talk on so many different topics. Yeah, I know: I suck at marketing.
I’ll have to send a note into Google to cancel the account. They take up to 90 days to pay when you cancel–it takes so long for them to process an email since they won’t automate the cancellation process. I guess the company is a lot like the Hotel California: you can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave. However, Google doesn’t suck at marketing.
Fridays are a good day to indulge in the work of others that gives me so much delight. I am lucky in your gifts–too many to list all, so I’ll just have to pick out a few this time around.
Jerry has a photo of a rather intimidating looking spider and I really like the poem he wrote to accompany it. He also has started a great new site on electric cars and other fuel alternative modes of transportation.
Loren has been publishing some pretty damn amazing pictures of birds and I also like the philosophy that accompanies them. However, he doesn’t post enough cat pictures. Still, I guess the world needs variety.
Dori posted a link to a site that features the work of graphic artists who are bored. My personal favorite is the fisherman.
(Oh, the cable company came out to disconnect the video and leave the internet, but he disconnected both. I caught him before he left, he checked his order and saw in small print that I was keeping my internet but dropping the video. He didn’t have a filter, so he disconnected the video and internet on the ground floor (since the router is on the second floor), but left both cable and internet for the second floor. For the nonce, we have free cable TV upstairs, including my bedroom/office/sitting room. So tonight, Firefly, Stargate, and Battlestar Gallactica, watching I am. I wonder who will get pregnant next on Battlestar? I’m banking on the President.)
Gordon writes on a “who’s turn is it to make tea application” written in .NET. So that’s what you folk in the UK talk about on Fridays? Huh. Anyway, Gordon, I hate to break any possible myth, but I am not a foxy chick. I am a tough, old, bird. Oh, still with a puff or two of smoke in me. Maybe a faint sizzle. A zing or two. Or three.
Elaine talks quietly on loss and paths taken.
Christine is returning to school. Good on you, Christine! Because I think this is a cool thing she’s doing, I have heeded her request and turned photos back on in my syndication feeds. With a wistful hope that you all still do stop by from time to time. It’s lonely at times, me here with just the bots. Millions and millions of bots.
(A hint: I’ve been thinking about going back to school myself…let’s hear it for the League of Grey Freshmen!)
I can empathize–so much!–with Pascale. I am also to her sending my most positive thoughts and bestest of good wishes.
Here’s to Julie and Ted Leung, who are probably one of the nicest couples in weblogging. Tech, too. And gardening. Between Loren’s pictures and the Leungs’, I’ve been getting homesick for the Northwest. Maybe it’s time for a move. If I did, though, who would serve you Missouri Green?
Dorothea Salo, who has a great new job and a wonderful new location, has a black cat, a bat, and a Thing in a Box, so she’s ready for halloween.
I started playing around with the NewsGator API yesterday, and so has Danny. Oh, how much I love REST APIs over SOAP. Sigh.
Jeneane is a real mensch. Phil is still one of my bestest buddies (no, you can’t go on break, Phil — too many of my favorites are on break).
Finally, a shout out to those webloggers who write long posts they never publish, for one reason or another. You know who you are. I have three posts in my drafts–really, really good ones–that I’m holding until you publish.
I just noticed that like the speech of Yoda, my writing is becoming.
I just finished doing my taxes for 2004. I had filed an extension in April, as I didn’t have money to pay for taxes then. The day of reckoning has finally arrived, and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I only owe 4.00 for Missouri state taxes. The bad news is I owe much, much more to the IRS.
Though it might be emotionally satisfying to imitate a chicken at this point–BWOCK!– running around in a panic does no good. I have two options to follow, and I’ll calmly and carefully assess the limitations associated with both, and respond accordingly.
And, no, selling myself on the street is not one of those options.
I am pursuing income more aggressively, and have been knocking at several publisher doors, both locally and otherwise. As you may have noticed, I’ve also put the Google ads back up on my individual pages. Folks were critical of the Google ads when I had them originally, primarily because Google placed an ad for drilling equipment in a post that was pro-ANWR. I rather wish there was a way I could be selective on which ads appear or not, but at this time, I’m not going to worry too much about it. And yes, that includes the “intellligent design” ad in one of my posts.
In addition, I’m going to be putting ads on my front page, though these are more in line with sponsorship ads than not. (Please email me if you’re interested in placing ads on the front page.) I may not make a million a year like a couple of folk, but every penny helps.
Web application and design jobs are starting to come in a little more frequently. I’m finishing Roger’s documentation right now, and working on a Dreamweaver based position, and I may have something working with web services a little later. It helps to have more front end work in my portfolio and I think the design for ThoughtCast was rather nice. I’ve also done some design and CSS work for Molly Holzschlag, of the WaSP. This is in addition to the documentation for Roger, and the backend help I’ve provided for Loren, Doug, and others–whose sites will also be listed in my portfolio when I am finished.
I am also re-designing the main burningbird.net to provide more of a portal for services rather than a thin front end to this weblog. I have hundreds of code examples that I need to reorganize and place prominantly, as demonstration of my ability.
One thing I’ve come to realize recently is that for the last couple of years I’ve been selling women in technology, aggressively at times, but I haven’t been selling me. No offense to my sisters, but I need to spend less time fighting for all of us, and more time fighting for me. Knowing many of you, I know you’ll understand.
The market for jobs in St. Louis continues very poor, and not just computer jobs. I did have a chance at a part-time store job recently, at 7.00 an hour. However, I had to decline when one of the requirements of the job was I had to be available to work any and all hours, and wouldn’t know what my hours would be from week to week. This makes it impossible to look for other jobs, while the part-time nature of the job made it so that I couldn’t make enough to live. More, I would also have to pay union fees. That latter kind of blew me away considering the hourly rate.
As for technical jobs, I am concerned that there might be an impression that I’m having a difficult time finding work in St. Louis because I’m not very good at what I do. Frankly, I began to buy into this myself the last six months, falling into a bit of a funk. However, St. Louis is not exactly the center of automated technology in the world. It is a conservative work environment, with fairly strict requirements. Literally if you’re not .NET or haven’t used WebLogic, or have a degree in design, you’re going to have some problems finding work here.
Outside of St. Louis, well, let’s face it: I’ve pissed off a lot of folks in the tech community with my weblog writing. As they say, though: what’s past is past, and there’s little I can do about my previous writing now. Well, other than to try and not piss off any more people–which is about as likely as me going out to run ten miles in today’s 105 degree temperatures.
Still, I think that this week’s discussion about Technorati and Lists and the Paris Index shows that we can have cross-weblog (and cross-comment) discussions and disagree without getting angry at each other.
I don’t know if my pictures are that great or not, or if you’re all just kind, but I have to have some faith in my photography so I am pursuing this, still. I have been sending out portfolios to local publishers, figuring nothing ventured, nothing gained.
There was interest in me selling prints, and I don’t know if that was also a kindness, but I going to give it a shot. I’ve been experimenting to see which of my photos makes a nice print and will be releasing these images starting later tonight. Each is printed on 8.5 x 11 matte paper, and signed. I figured a price of 20.00 for the first one and 10.00 each addition, and this includes mailing in a protected envelope. For international orders, add 5.00 to the total.
I hesitated to do this, because for all that there are a lot of people subscribed to this site, and I have a considerable number of unique visitors a day, something like selling prints, or writing or coding for that matter, does require there’s enough interest beyond just the “I’m subscribed to you, but I’m also subscribed to about a thousand other folk.” I have to just take a chance and assume there’s enough interest to at least give it a shot.
Some folks have also suggested that I look into self publication, and I am also exploring this, as well as electronic books. What book would you like me to write?
Now this is the part where you all come in:
If any of you know of work I can do, I sure hope you let me know. Even if it’s only a couple of hours here and there. As for permanent jobs, I would rather stay in St. Louis at this time, though I am willing to re-locate. I hesitate about moving only because I just don’t have the money for a move right now. Regardless, I don’t want to move to California. I was in California when the market fell last time, and I just don’t want to go through that again. The place is just too expensive, and I never felt like I fit there.
If you’re interested in placing ads in the sidebar, or my portal page when I’m finished, please let me know. I can give you readership figures, or give you access to my stats program.
If you know of any article or other writing opportunity, professional weblogging, or anything of that nature, I hope you’ll also let me know.
When I finish my portal page, I’ll definitely want opinions as to how it looks. I don’t mind being funky with the weblog, but I want the portal to be slick.
And if you like my pictures, and want a print, well, that would be very nice, too. I’ll even kiss if for you if you want.
Lastly, a quick note or comment saying good luck or howdy wouldn’t be amiss right now, and would be very welcome. Better yet: a joke. Good, bad, doesn’t matter.
Now, back to our regular programming.