(no subject)

[scottobear]

I've got lovey thoughts on my mind... the music, and thinking about my sweetheart brings me joy. Feeling extra-bonus mushy this morning. She is truly a permanent resident in my heart.

$25 check in the mail from Grammy and Ted, along with my phone/internet bill. D'oh.

Anarchists and the fine art of torture

"A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war."

They say that everybody on the planet is separated from everybody else by no more than six degrees of separation. Of course, that's a load of old bushwah. What isn't is the fact that everybody is born with a *potential* separation number - if you live long enough, you're destined to meet the right people to put you within that many degrees of separation from the whole planet. There's a couple of ways to find out your number - there's a beggar in Katmandu who'll tell you if you give him 777 rupees, and there's a guy in Sunnyvale, California who owns a coin operated fortune-teller that'll spit out a slip of paper with your number on it if you use a silver dime minted in a leap year.

Now, even though the old saw isn't really true, there are quite a few Sixes running around out there, several Fives, and a handful of Fours. Lately, though, there's talk of a kid out in the Midwest who's got a potential number of Three. The guys who watch the numbers - Bacons, they call themselves - are trying to keep a lid on his whereabouts so that he's got a chance to grow up a little before every Illuminated ding-dong tries to enlist him in whatever underground war they've got on tap that week.

Of course, they tell me that it's only a matter of time before there's a Two born. That's right, an honest to gosh FOAF, and whoever gets him is going to have a propaganda tool that make the Internet look like a basket of Chick tracts.

Oh, this is going to cause some problems with a lot of the teeny-bopper million-post per day situation, and some of the folks that run a news-style I think limiting the number of comments is a much worse idea than posts per day. I may have to buy the menstrualhut a paid account, just so it can have more than 3 -5 posts a day. (Yesterday it had six posts.)

In other News, there's a community management page now. If you're in charge of a community, the interface is much simpler to deal with. Thank goodness!

Dear Little Newton, My favorite orange quadruped:
When I'm cleaning out your litter box, and replacing the sand... please wait until all of the sand is poured before jumping in and doing your business. I know a clean potty is nice, but it's only two more minutes, tops... I promise.
Thanks!

I took a quick palm-snap of a birthday card while the room was post-shower steamy.


I swear that it seems like on some days I only see some of the entries of folks I read. I just caught BQ's lovely birthday wish today.

Comments

[ishgod.livejournal.com]

What about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (http://www.cs.virginia.edu/oracle/)?

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

That's why the researchers are called bacons. :)

[ldy.livejournal.com]

Now I have "A Friend of the Devil is a Friend of Mine" stuck in my head. Which I think is one of the signs of the imminent arrival of the True FOAF!!

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Aha! Ever clever, miss ldy!

[mintygirl.livejournal.com]

you put the card in the bathroom?

heh, nice to "see" it again.

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

hee... no, it's in the hall, near the bathroom, on the window sill. Close enough to get steamed when I take a long, hot shower.

[rejectomorph]

I don't think Brad intended to limit communities to 3/5 posts per day. When he wrote "posts to communities count" I'm pretty sure that what he meant was "posts to communities count as part of total daily allowance of the individual making the post." So, if two or three hundred of the members of a community each chose to make one post to that community on the same day, there would be no problem. The community wouldn't "run out" of posting rights.

The fact that he phrased this so badly is a bit disturbing, though, since it demonstrated that he hadn't completely thought the idea through before springing it on everyone. Then, doing a "test" of it, with (as far as I can tell) no advance warning, was very clumsy. Generally, I'm willing to defend Brad's decisions, but this time I think he screwed up. Reading through four pages of the responses, I noticed a lot of paid users were ticked off, who normally would have backed Brad up. Even many of those who were supportive showed some reservations. And free users, about half of whom are usually supportive when there is a change, or some problem with the site, were almost universally hostile. I don't blame them, this time. It was pretty badly done.

Even with the higher limits, some free users who are active in free communities may find this regime too stringent. I know there are a lot of frivolous posters out there, but this change will also effect people who contribute a lot to the site, other than money. That needs to be dealt with. I also think that people who maintain communities ought to get extra posting privileges within those communities. I can imagine situations in which they might need to make more posts during a given time period. The plan is still not fully baked.

Re:

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

I think that his current thinking is that communities fall under the same dictates as people... though I could certainly be mistaken. As you said, his phrasing was really poorly done.

His "Surprise!" method was rather a weak one.

Hopefully a more legit plan will percolate into being soon.