Reasons to watch "The Simpson's"

Remember when we learned about Homer Simpson's AOL email address? Well, tonight we learn of Abe Simpson's (aka Grandpa Simpson) Web site. He said it was Old Coot dot com and the screen showed a snapshot of the "site." Of course I typed it into my trusty browser and got some site registered to Samuel L. Bowman of Sharpsville, IN, NOT Abe Simpson. *Sigh* It wasn't a Simpson Net goodie after all.

i respect youngpup

youngpup.net: schemata, and other diversions.

Remake

What are the rules (if any) on movie remakes? Can anyone remake a movie after a certain period of time? I understand that royalties or some sort of compensation would be made to those responsible for the original but is there a specific amount of time that must pass before a remake can be made?

I ask this question because after debating The Matrix Trilogy with several friends I've decided that it would be nice if someone in Hollywood remade the last two films. And while we're at it, let's remake the first two (Episode I & II) Star Wars flicks. Is the only thing preventing remakes of recent works the unwillingness of the creators to part with their work at any price? Or is it something else? Maybe this is a dumb question but it is something I've wondered for a while and now I'm asking. Anyone have the definitive answer?

To read or scan?

sometimes a blog post can just be a pure jumble of words arranged during some ill-advised effort to be "artsy" or "literary" or whatever the kids are calling it these days the real problem with most blogs is that we don't really read them but then is that really a problem I mean, isn't the real beauty of blogs the fact that we can simply scan through most of the content to find the nuggets worth reading and aren't the worst blogs those that just ramble on and on without any clear visual cues that something good or interesting or profound is only a bullet point, bold word or blockquote away and as we become acclimated to the blogging style don't we begin to expect other forms of information to behave in the same manner at least I have caught myself thinking that a certain magazine article or passage in a book needed a few bullet points to make the page more scannable and then what happens when morons like me just throw all of the blogging conventions out the window and try to be cute and make some stupid point about blogs and how blogs are maybe primarily structure and brevity and secondarily content because I've caught myself reading some really crappy blogs simply because I knew they'd be short and easy to digest in under fifteen seconds instead of something that was much more profound but also lengthier and not quite so easy to scan and so I pass it by and just move along kind of like you're doing right now my cell phone number is nine oh one two one two three five nine seven but since that number appears in the midst of a giant block of almost meaningless text it really hasn't been published at all in practical terms because information is only really information when it can be formatted and digested and understood and that's why structure is so important for content and especially when dealing with blogs and how blog posts are structured this nonsensical, rambling rant was inspired by julia

ATHF

How is it that I've been watching StrongBad for almost a year but have only just now learned about Aqua Teen Hunger Force? Note to self: Watch more Adult Swim.

Taking care of comment spam

I installed MT-Blacklist for the blogs at the office today. Well, technically our IT folks at the corporate office installed them because we don't have r/w/e permissions in the cgi-bin. Anyway, the Blacklist was installed and now I guess we just wait.

What is the Blacklist? Well, it's "A Movable Type Anti-spam Plugin" that works to block comment spamming. It looks through a list of pre-defined terms and URLs and deletes comments with those words before they get published on the blog. Pretty cool huh? I thought so too. I haven't installed it on my personal MT blogs yet but I think I will soon. It was really simple to use and very easy to install (or so I am told).

One great thing about running blogs in the office - I get to try out cool things there, get familiar with the details before applying them on my personal blogs. Actually, it works both ways. There have been some things I've tried out at home first and then ported to an office blog.

And, while on the subject of MT, I must sheepishly admit that today was my first experience with Trackback. I've read all the hype and explanations of how to use it and why but frankly I just sort of ignored it until today. I still don't fully grasp what trackback is or does but here's how I implemented it today:

I found an MT powered blog that had a post I liked. I hit the "Add to MT" button on my browser and typed in my message. Then I hit the Trackback drop-down and the blog post I was reading was listed there (how'd they do that?). So, I select this guy's blog post from that list and then select the "allow pings" box before I post.

Voila! Now my blog post appears in the other guy's trackback page on his blog. Pretty cool. If you're reading this and don't have Movable Type (or TypePad) then maybe you should look into getting it. If you do have MT then this is probably some pretty boring observations. Never fear, this site is still Blogger-Powered and so no trackbacking is available.

By the way, I'm a Memphis Tigers fan. They're in CUSA. Right now I'm watching TCU (yes, that undefeated juggernaut promising to rain on the BCS parade) try to make a comeback against Southern Miss in Thurs. night football on ESPN. Former Tiger coach Rip Sherrer is now offensive coordinator for USM. I'd like for him to get the win but I really would rather have TCU win and screw up the BCS somehow. So, I'm still not sure who to root, which is partly why I'm blogging during the game.

Donation explanation

Trying to find the best wording for a blog "donation campaign" is not easy. I knew that. I just didn't know it would be this hard. Sheesh.

Oh, and we're starting another blog at work on Sunday. That's three in total and I think we may start a fourth next week. Who said blogs are dying? Well, they're not.

Maybe I'm just lonely

I have not put my home phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry list. I'm not really sure why. Maybe I'm just suspicious about the government keeping some giant list of phone numbers. Not that they don't already have a giant list of numbers but my paranoid fantasies imagine that one day, some renegade judge or idiot legislator will somehow remove the protective nature of the list and allow its use as some sort of telemarketing Holy Grail. Or, maybe I'm just lonely.

Anyway, the truth is that we're not home enough to get a lot of telemarketing calls. I think we actually speak to a telemarketer once a month (we don't have caller ID either). However, lately I've fielded several calls from people wanting me to participate in a survey for such and such company or organization. As soon as they explain the nature of the call I immediately ask how much money they are going to pay me for my participation. What is odd is that most of the time they just hang up without replying. I'm not sure what the laws are regarding those type calls but I don't think it's appropriate to just rudely hang up when a legitimate question is posed.

Why do they behave so rudely to my question? Isn't my time worth something to these companies and organizations? Won't they just take my opinions, add them to their data and sell it to someone else? Why should I hand over my time and opinions to a complete stranger without some sort of compensation? The larger question is why would anyone freely supply data to companies that trade in information? I don't mind participating in some Web survey if I get some freeby or maybe my feedback will help improve my favorite Web site. That's a fair exchange. However, just freely providing info to some random phone call is simply ridiculous and hanging up on me when I ask for money is not only rude but ethically wrong (if not illegal).

Another idea I've had recently is to start charging acquaitances for boring phone conversations. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a call from some "friend" and ended up agonizing through 30-45 minutes of excruciatingly boring conversation. Some people just interpret non-answers and comments like "I'm gonna be late for work" as meaning "let's talk for another 20 minutes." Those people should be sending me a check for wasting my time. And yeah, I guess I could just hang up on them but that would be rude and I hate being rude more than I hate enduring long, boring conversations.

Is there a God?

Yes there is.

(a bit of context)

I need a simple solution

I just spent more time than I care to admit trying to make some "easy" modifications to a phpBB powered forum. First of all, the documentation was less than helpful. Secondly, I want some universal, free and code-friendly application that can edit ANYTHING as text. What about NOTEPAD you say? It choked. Wordpad seemed to work but it kept stripping out my space tags. I moved the whole opperation to the Mac and TextEdit just screwed everything up. I'm just really frustrated right now. Deep, cleansing breaths. Crap.

Introductions, etc.

Hi,

My name is Eric. I'm a blogger. I live in Memphis. Sometimes I do interesting things but most of the time I don't. I ate frozen, rising crust pizza for dinner. Today is not my birthday. Once I hit a cat with my 1977 Pontiac Catalina and in the rearview I saw its tail pointing skyward, twitching like the raised arm of some hyperactive third-grader who finally knows the answer to some history question. I've never been to Paris. I often wonder if it's possible to bleed to death from a simple nose bleed. I mean, let's say you don't lean your head back and shove tissues in your nose. Will the blood just continue to pour out until you faint or die? If I were an American Indian I probably wouldn't have to shave my face quite as much.

Thank you,
Eric

Happy Birthday

I was born the day after Richard Nixon was elected to his second term as President of the United States. Actually, since I was born at roughly 3 a.m. and my parents had not yet gone to sleep, you could say that I was born on election day... sort of.

Matrix Revolted

Saw Matrix Revolutions this morning at 11 a.m. It was playing at 8 a.m. but I'm not into the whole "breakfast and a movie" thing just yet. Much like Reloaded, I went to this flick with no idea of what to expect. I hadn't read a single review and had only seen a couple of the trailers (I love going to movies "RAW").

This isn't really a review so I won't go into any details of the film. I will say that this movie DID NOT have a 20 minute techno-dance scene with Neo and Trinity doing the horizontal bop. Thank God. So, the movie is over and I'm leaving feeling very happy. I'm happy for two reasons.
1. The movie did not end like I expected.
2. The movie delivered almost all of what I'd anticipated.

All day I'm thinking to myself that this was a really great movie. And then I read some reviews. Most of the reviews give points for the Special Effects but subtract points for plot and lack of character development. The most common element in the reviews was describing why "WE" liked the first Matrix. Most discussed how "WE" liked the first Matrix because it expanded on the whole "is life real or a dream" thing for the next generation and we all thought that this was some elaborate mish-mash of reality... or something.

Well, they're wrong. Reviewers are paid to tell us why we like a movie but they're just wrong. I never liked the whole "reality or dream" thing. I mean it was fine but I've seen it many times so it was nothing new and not really newly done. I liked it simply because it kicked serious ass. Scene after scene involved some serious ass kicking. And it all looked really cool and the "reality vs. dream" thing kind of added to the atmosphere but get over it, most folks (excluding all the Matrix-obsessed teenager angsters) just like the sheer coolness of all the Matrix movies. This latest one is no different.

A better way to explain it is to compare the Matrix to Cowboy Bebop. You don't watch Cowboy Bebop because of the great stories, you watch it primarily because it looks cool. The Matrix (all of them) is a live-action Anime that is increasingly cartoonish as the series progresses. So what if the characters are two-dimensional, what matters is that those two-dimensions do cool things and look good doing them.

If you're one of those folks that thought there was some deep, philosophical message to the Matrix movies then you'll probably be disappointed. People who believe that are the same ones who search for meaning in friggin' Star Wars. Both the Matrix and Star Wars are just kick-ass movies and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Go see the Matrix Revolutions tonight.

Online Communities

Online communities have been studied almost since the beginning of the Internet. Different communities often share the same character traits and function similarly even when dealing with extremely diverse subject matter. Sometimes the medium binding the community together (email, message board, blog, chat room, etc.) plays a role in how the community behaves and develops but more often than not, the communities evolve along similar lines regardless of the medium.

I'm not trying to add new insight into the well documented studies of online communities but I just want to share my own observations. What I've noticed is that the value of discussion in an online community seems to almost always be directly proportional to the amount of accountability required from the community members. As accountability increases, so does the value of the discussion. This seems to hold true within all communities, from the highly professional to the low-brow and absurd. But of course, this is not a new revelation though it does strike me as curious, especially when speaking about the highly professional communities. One can expect nonsense in a community discussing Buffy The Vampire Slayer but one is less likely to suspect such nonsense in some discussion about Usability Standards. Yet I've seen it happen in arenas where there was little to no accountability.

What this says to me (and maybe I'm wrong in assuming this) is that the message is closely tied to the messenger and ultimately the messenger's reputation. A message without any context (no known messenger, reputation or accountability) behind it has less value to the community and is often not provided the same amount of respect as messages with a reputable messenger to give it context. This message disrespect seems to occur regardless of the truth or value of the actual message. Without accountability a great message can become ever so slightly less great.

But these are just my observations as I sort though various online communities. Maybe I'm flat out wrong. I don't know. I'm just increasingly fascinated by the way these communities function.

The Wonders of Donations

I received my very first PayPal donation yesterday. The donation was to help fund the costs of one of my other sites. After receiving it I felt a great sense of gratitude and also an enhanced sense of responsibility.

THOUGHTS: "This person really likes what I'm doing here. This person likes it so much that he decided to part with his hard earned money to encourage me to continue doing what I'm doing."

That's a powerful statement. More powerful than an encouraging email. More powerful than being added to a blogroll. More powerful than a locomotive. Ok, not quite THAT powerful.

I guess this is sort of how Freeware developers feel when someone sends a few bucks their way for that cool file sharing app or some nifty browser add-on. It's a very tangible endorsement for all the blood, sweat and tears (cliche alert) poured into a specific endeavor.

So, I'm sitting here thinking about all the Web folks I've donated to out of appreciation and in exchange for a link or some goodie. Here's the list of folks I've donated to in the past year. This is from memory so I apologize if I've omitted anyone.

The end of referrer logs?

To most bloggers (and Web site operators in general) referral log spam is nothing new and I've basically learned to live with it... until now. Where I generally see 5-10 bogus referrers a month totalling maybe 50 "hits" in the past, there has been a noticeable spike in the spamming activity in the last two months. Today, the second day in November, I had the following spam dumped in my referrer logs (a "hit" is defined here as a server request and not necessarily a page view):

Old news but so very poignant

Most of us are aware of the recent court ruling that set the legal framework for opening up Cable-Modem Internet service to competition. The ruling basically states that the FCC rules declaring Cable-based broadband as an "information service" were pretty much bogus. The ruling upheld an earlier court's findings that Cable-based broadband should be viewed as both an information service AND a telecom service.

What does this mean? Well, to make a LONG story short, once Cable-based broadband is legally classified (in whole or in part) as a telecom service it immediately falls under federal telecom regulations. Those regulations were created back with the formation of the AT&T monopoly and reworked in the early days of the ARPANet (the grandaddy of the Internet). And those regulations say that you (in this case the Cable Companies) can't restrict competitive access to what is a publicly sanctioned monopoly.

I'm trying to simplify this but I may just be needlessly complicating the issue with my explanation. The real point of all this is that it is SUPPOSED to introduce competition within the Cable-based broadband sector. Competition is almost always good for the consumer (note I said almost) and it is this thin hope of competition that I cling to as I deal with the Morons at Time Warner's RoadRunner Internet Service.

There, I used a legitimate news story to set up a wonderful rant. Yet, I'm not really into ranting anymore so maybe this all worked out for the best. Anyway, for the last month my net connection has been intermittent. Calls to RoadRunner don't seem to solve anything. I'm compiling a list of names and will soon start looking for their home phone numbers but tonight really set me off when all my passwords suddenly quit working. And since DSL is not available in my area (and never will be from what I understand) my only hope of being able to satisfactorily FIRE RoadRunner is for those Cable pipes to get opened up to some good, old-fashioned competition.

See, that wasn't even a rant. I think I'm getting better.