Five O’Clock Shadow 4

Five O'Clock Shadow 4

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Yep. Smiling. Why? Work week is over. Hooray. My internet connection has been spotty as hell. And while that may sound like no big deal, consider that I work from home and rely on internet connectivity to stay in touch with my team.

A few folks I know have decided to get "serious" about their music collection. Not in a rip-all-CDs-in-my-collection-to-the-computer way, but in a do-I-really-want-or-need-all-this-crap way. I fully embrace the idea of "new media", support the efforts of DIY artists, have some pretty strange tastes in music, and am about as "anti-clutter" as you can possibly get. So yeah, this idea appeals to me.

To that end, I'm now listening to my music with intent as my playlist rolls through the day. I'm not being quite as dogmatic as some, as I really like my Primus, Presidents of the United States of America, Cake and others. But I am playing clean up -- to RIAA songs and even those podsafe tunes I've collected. If I don't love it, it's going away.

My way will take some time, but I think I'l like the outcome. Happy Friday.

Five O’Clock Shadow 3

Five O'Clock Shadow 3

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Today consisted of (not including work) making arrangements for Joe's stuff, kicking some leeches off my wifi and much pondering on the concept of "friends".

I don't think there is any denying that there is a difference between meat-space and virtual friends. No comments made in regard to the depths of either, but it is different. I contend that there is also a difference in how "friends" are treated from one online service to another.

For example, I don't accept all Friend Requests on Myspace. Too many bands and wanna-be-porn stars trying to befriend anyone and everyone. So I look at all the profiles. If I don't see an immediate connection with the requester and how they might know me, I deny the request.

On Digg, I'm even more prickish. Since I don't have a profile to go off of, I rely on screen and "real" names. If I know you, groovy. You are in like Flynn. If not, well thanks for adding me.

Yet on Twitter, where there is no "accept friend or not" decision, I always add everyone who friends me to my friends list. Why? Hell if I know. Twitter stands the largest chance of being overly interruptive to my day, and the more folks I add as friends (doesn't matter how many add me) the more interruptions I get. But for some strange reason, that's OK.

And then there's SecondLife, which I haven't logged into in well over a month. I have only a handful of friends in there, and almost all of them were formed after speaking to someone in-world for some time.

Interesting how our notion of friendship changes to meet the environment.

Can one add friends too fast?

diggerror.jpg

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

This isn't the first time I've received this message from Digg. I dropped the error message in to Google and can't seem to find where anyone else is complaining about this.

Uh... why the hell not? Digg, wonderful tool that it is, often is responsible for bringing sites to their knees with an influx of traffic. Surely they've developed an infrastructure that is robust enough to handle me trying to add a couple off friends every five minutes.

Or maybe this is how they keep the site up? Hrm. Wonder how many others are turned away by this message? Would the Digg community be larger if this didn't happen?

Gorb = Wuffie

As of this morning I've become enamored with a new "reputation currency" site, Gorb. In a nutshell, it's a place where you can go and leave ratings and comments for people -- anonymously.

For those of you suffering from a bit of virtual whiplash, allow me to explain.

Yes, I've gone on record saying that begging for votes is tiresome, boorish and a waste of good quality time. That opinion still holds true. You'll never hear me asking you to go rate any of my podcasts. Been there, didn't like the smell.

But this site is different, and probably because of the intentional barriers they put in place to hinder the beggars out there. Unlike most sites which actively encourage direct linking to profile pages and one-click ratings, Gorb doesn't allow it. They work on the principal that, regardless of how you got there, you are only qualified to rate people that you actually know. They make this determination of personal or professional acquaintance on something simple -- and email address. If you know someone's email address, you can rate them. If not... well then you probably don't know them well enough to provide honest feedback on them, now do you?

Pretty simple. And pretty simple to beat, that I'll grant you. But that little barrier will probably be enough to keep things more honest than other places. Sometimes a simple barrier is nearly as effective as a serious hurdle. Think about all the front doors with glass windows in them or beside them. Won't keep anyone with felonious intent out, but it keeps out the riffraff. Or I could be totally wrong and Gorb gets all fracked up with worthless ratings in a matter of weeks. But I don't think that will happen. There's something about this program that seems pretty groovy to me.

But it's not all rosy. The one flaw I see is for people like me. I have email addresses for the following properties/domains/podcasts:

• Dragon Page
  
• Slice of Scifi
  
• Podiobooks.com¹
  
• Wingin' It
  
• A Simpler Way
  
• Farpoint Media
  
• Yahoo!
  
• Gmail

Currently, there is no way for me to log into Gorb and tell their system that any and all ratings/comments received on those addresses all belong to the same person -- me. That's a problem, in my opinion. I've spoken with one of the interface designers and expressed my concerns. We'll see if they can/will do anything about it. Or maybe I'm wrong, and they should stay separate. Nah... that feels wrong.

So there it is, my new Gem of the Moment™. Oh, and if you're wondering about the "wuffie" reference in the title, go read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow. It's available online for free.

¹ - This is the only email account (with the requisite "evo@" prepend) I've so far registered with Gorb.

Five O’Clock Shadow 2

Five O'Clock Shadow 2

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Twice in two days? Not to shabby for me. Today was... OK. Felt like I accomplished more yesterday. Happens. Kickboxing tonight!

See you at the Arizona Book Festival

Once again I'll be making an appearance at the Arizona Book Festival on April 14th.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing, as the organizers have asked me to again host some author panels (easy enough) and perhaps do a signing (groan). I'll skip the last part.

But they've also asked my Lovely Wife Sheila to be involved as well, since she co-hosts The Dragon Page With Class and a big part of the AZ Book Fest is they YA and children's track.

See you there! If the standard weather pattern holds, it'll break 100 that day. Sheesh.

Now if I can just figure out how to make the Appearances links show in the correct order...

Five O’Clock Shadow 1

Five O'Clock Shadow 1

Originally uploaded by evo_terra.

Starting a meme. Could be stupid. Will most certainly track how old I'm getting -- or how old I look after a day of day job working.

Every day (that I have a connection and remember to do so) at or just after 5:00 PM local time, I'll post a picture of me and tag it with "Five O'Clock Shadow". No idea if anyone else will do it. Don't care.

E.