Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm

Three recent postings raising concerns about the health of the blog pinging ecosystem: one, two, three.

I’ve written a lot about this and done some work, but I’m sanguine about where we are headed.

I’m reasonably optimistic that we will end up with a robust and reasonably equitable feedmesh. I’m less optimistic that some design goals for that will be met. I’m concerned about privacy issues for blog readers. I’m concerned about the terms that small players will be forced to accept when they hook up to the mesh. I’m disappointed that the large players have not found it in their interests to establish a robust governance that assures predictable architecture for ping exchange “marketplace” going forward.

I don’t think there is a crisis. I don’t think there is a conspiracy. I do think that some of the parties aren’t taking actions that they could take in increase the level of trust.

The last 10% of this interview on NPR is mighty thought provoking. It’s an interview with the director of a key oil port in Louisiana. As the interviewer is wrapping up the interview she casually asks if he is at home right now. He says yes, but that his house isn’t behind the levee system. His farm has it’s own private levee. Which is over topping, “right now.” He and his brother have 16 thousand alligators, on their farm. Notice the nervous laugh.

The link below is a 12 megabyte animated GIF showing a forecast of Rita’s storm surge. Loading it tends to make powerful machines and web browsers complain. You probably need a gig of memory. It is totally amazing. If you decide to take the risk of loading it make browser window large first.

   http://www.cozy.org.nyud.net:8090/ben/r24_bpt.gif

I have no idea how accurate that forecast is. Maybe somebody clever can convert it into a smaller movie format.

I believe that this is the output of the model discussed here, where there are some nice smaller examples of it’s output. The FTP site I found that animated GIF on was amazingly slow and quite obscure. Maybe somebody knows of a more official dependable source.

Rovenge (rO-’venj), n: Politically motivated retribution. The White House sought rovenge against Joseph Wilson.

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. Which I enjoyed. So I have a portfolio of childhood memories of special places. When I went to college I was particularly looking forward to visiting an soda fountain in an old haunt. From my childhood home, in second grade, we would walk three blocks. Crossing two major streets, pass the fear inducing polio nursing home, down a small side street to the pharmacy and get ice cream sodas at a dark wood counter. I returned my freshman year in college, it wasn’t there.

In a different city in seventh grade a medium length bike ride away was a tiny two lane bowling alley in a residental neighborhood over a bar. If you were rich you could use a phone on the wall to order a hamburger. They would send it up on a dumb waiter. I wonder if it’s still there?

I had a job that involved a trip a week to NYC and it took me a long time to find the hotel that I wanted to return to. The one I finally ended up in was small, run down, with a piano bar that the locals would come into for a drink. When you checked in they would give you a room, but you often needed to go back down and ask for a different room since they were all in very different states of decay. The hotel had once had a dance hall, bar, etc. on the roof and if you rode the elevator to the top you could wander around it’s remains. The city all about you.

I had a job that involved a trip a month to Silicon Valley. The hotel that finally won my loyalty was Dinah’s Garden Inn. Somebody at VON made me sad today, Dinah’s has apparently closed. It’s going to be torn down.

Who ever owned Dinah’s laid in the most amazing gardens. Between the buildings there were ponds, and little waterfalls. The plantings were amazing, complex, mature, and very appropriately fragrant. They had also accumulated a huge amount of garden art from the South Pacific; including a large elephant that they would cover to protect from the rain.

Dinah’s also featured theme rooms; though I’ve never stayed in one. Somebody had a lot of fun. The railroad barron room includes a train set.

The good news is that apparently my informant was mistaken. I suspect that the ratty motel down the block is the one that’s closed. It was nothing but ground cover. Dinah’s on the other hand should be declared a Shinto shrine, or something.