Linkspam for 26-4-2008

[matgb]

• synecdochic: \"sex-positive\". what a loaded term.
  I've not really commented on the whole 'Boob project' mess, but this is a pretty good summary of both the ideal and the problem with it as presented. Bloody long though, Dee really could do with learning to edit herself and/or put some subheaders in. Worth a read.
  (tags: sexuality subcultures)
• Whacking Google :: The Snow In The Summer
  Iain Weaver in 'Taking off our go(g|o)gles' restates and summarises his objections to Google, their privacy policies and the abuses thereof. His analysis is sound, but I take it on board and continue to prefer their services, cost/benefit is strong.
  (tags: google blogging privacy)
• Grumpy village wants to move to Wales | Metro.co.uk
  I hope they count the votes Caerphilly.
  (tags: wales politics localism devolution)
• theweaselking: Yay, tattoos.
  Warning: it's a spider, if you're one of those weird "AAAH! SPIDER" people then you really don't want to click. Everyone else should though
  (tags: tattoos spiders)
• Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island
  So very very cool: 'Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows.
  (tags: Evolution science)
• Country Codes of the World
  This is rather cool, map of the world TLDs, scaled to population size (not usage). Which means .tv is tiny and .us is huge, should be t'other way around...
  (tags: internet maps domains)

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Iain Weaver is a lovely bloke, but I find myself unable to read his blog so often due to his weird locking system and stuff that I have taken the RSS feed off my list in frustration. I therefore find it ironic that he makes the point he does about about losing readers via using software they don't like in the post you link to...

That tattoo is amazing, and I want it.

[matgb]

Most of his posts (tsitsoss_rss) are open though, the private ones are the equivalent of what he used to post as daweaver, it's similar to a semi-friends locked journal and people needing to log in to read your private stuff.

Only he doesn't trust OpenID either, thus you need to register with him...

But he's also never really been bothered about size of readership, merely quality, whereas a lot of blogs using Feedburner are doing so as they think it'll increase exposure, which it will, but at the cost of some privacy.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

That's the feed I had. I reckon at least half of them are locked. It's very annoying.

[matgb]

Must've been a spike, of the ten on the current frontpage of the test filter I just made:
http://matgb.livejournal.com/friends/Weaver

only one is restricted, and that clearly says so with the request access link. It's possible one of his referral blockers was stopping it from going, he blocks all links from Google, including Gmail. The ubiquity of Gmail makes it thus even harder to share his posts with other bloggers...

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

That's just bizarre. I can understand not using Google - I have great reservations about them myself, though at the same time I still use things like Gmail because the service is very good. And I can understand not allowing Google to archive your site. But not allowing incoming links from some sites defeats the whole purpose of the web, the open access to information.

Unfortunately, Google's power appears to be essentially an emergent phenomenon, and there's not much you can do about it short of reprogramming everyone's brain. And the fact is, despite what he says, Google is still the best search engine around - I still remember the days of using altavista or Yahoo, or Ask Jeeves, and Google just *works*, unlike those sites... and a search engine at least as good as Google is *necessary*. I'll be the first to start using something better when something better comes along...

[foxfirefey]

It's possible one of his referral blockers was stopping it from going, he blocks all links from Google, including Gmail. The ubiquity of Gmail makes it thus even harder to share his posts with other bloggers...

Wait a minute, wait a minute--is that supposed to accomplish anything other than annoy people using Google?

[fearmeforiampink]

The synecdochic thing was interesting, reasonably balanced, and thankfully free of overwhelming anger; I read ferret's stuff, and while I definitely see the existence of flaws in what he posted, I did find much of the reaction to it to be such that I bit my tongue and didn't comment, despite a level of disagreement to their arguments and the way they portrayed it.