Chuggnutt!

Category: Blogging

  • Light posting

    Sorry for the light posting lately. I’ve just been swamped at work and busy with sick kids at home and not really feeling like writing anything. I’m still swamped at work but of course I’m taking a minute to blog this :).

  • Klamath Falls

    In my previous post, a fellow named Kirk wrote in the comments:

    Hi Jon my wife and I will be relocating to the Klamath Falls area soon from the Spokane,Wa area. I have become quite fond of talking with bloggers in the Spokane area and found that there is much information to be learned from them. Not knowing the area very well I was wondering what you could tell us about Klamath Falls and surrounding area.

    Seemed like a good idea for an entry all its own, except for one thing… I don’t really know all that much about Klamath Falls! :)

    Here’s what I do know: It’s a nice area, located in beautiful southern Oregon, though economically worse off than much of the rest of the state. The population is just over 19,000. It’s about 60 miles or so from Ashland (which is my favorite southern Oregon town) and about 20 miles from California. I know that, some time back, they were pushing to make the area a high-tech mecca, even coining the name “Silicon Basin” for this purpose—though I don’t know how it turned out. (Not entirely well, I’d guess.)

    Since Kirk sounds like he’s looking for bloggers, I did a quick search online for some in K Falls. Not many; ORblogs doesn’t have a page for them, and a Google search turned up nothing. Then I figured I’d browse Blogger’s regional blogs, with some luck: Klamath Falls Bloggers, 30 of them. I can’t speak to how current they are, though. What’s up with that? Where are the Klamath bloggers?

    Anyway, Kirk, welcome to Oregon!

  • 552

    Wow. I just did a quick check and found that, counting this post, I’ve made 552 entries here on this blog. I had no idea I’d written that much… that’s kind of scary.

  • Bandage Man

    A bit of Oregon esoterica for everyone this Friday morning, and it’s a ghost story to boot: The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach.

    The Bandage Man is a phantom of a man completely wrapped in bandages that haunts this small community. The bloody figure, who smells of rotting flesh, jumps into vehicles passing on a road outside of town, notably pickup trucks or open-topped cars, but also sedans, station wagons, and even sports cars. Sometimes the mummy breaks windows or leaves behind bits of bloody or foul-smelling bandages. One legend has it that he is the ghost of a dead logger cut to pieces in a sawmill accident.

    The Bandage Man is sometimes said to eat dogs and may have murdered several people. He appears on the short approach road connecting US Highway 101 to Cannon Beach, between the town and where Highway 26 intersects with 101. The phantom always vanishes just before reaching town.

    I first came across the story of Bandage Man in the book Ghosts, Critters & Sacred Places of Washington and Oregon, and it stood out because it’s not the typical “sounds and thumps in the night” type of ghost story that fills books like these.

    Not surprisingly, there’s not much on the web about Bandage Man; digging around only reveals a handful of sites, with pretty much the same one or two paragraph description. However, I did find this post on the MysteryPlanet MSN Group that sheds light on the origin of the legend:

    I was googling on the chance that I might find some mention somewhere of the Bandage Man. I have been aware of this story for over forty years. For I was a child in the community where it got it’s start. I knew some of the family of the kid that first encountered the Bandage Man. There is an old road, that for all the years I was growing up was known as “Bandage Man Road”. It was just an old section of Highway 101 that had been bypassed when a new section put in place, but it was still accessible and wasn’t very long-just a short loop off of the highway-the whole thing from end to end could be driven in maybe five minutes or so.

     

    This loop of road was a popular place for local kids to go park and makeout.

     

    That is where the story started. One night, two of the local kids were up there doing just what teenaged boys and girls do when they are parked on dark lonely roads. The boy had an old chevy pickup and his girl and he were sitting in the cab. All off a sudden they felt the truck sort of lean, like something was moving around in the bed of the truck. They turned to look out the rear window and there looking back was a bandaged face, with only some wierd looking eyes showing through eyeholes in the bandages. The bandaged figure started beating on the glass, and the top of the cab. The kid started his engine, got it gear and tore out of there-his girlfriend screaming in terror as the man in the back continued his pounding. Any of you who’ve been to Bandage Man road, or Cannon Beach, know how curvey the roads are and to drive them at highspeed is dangerous. On they went-after what seemed an eternity they made it to downtown Cannon Beach, where the boy’s family owned a service station that they lived next door to in green house. Once they got there, they looked in the back and the Bandaged figure was no where to be seen.

     

    I first heard this story back in 1960-61. And it’s the original version. Some of the family of the kid still lives around here too, I know two of his brothers.

     

    I have never heard of a repeat appearance by the Bandage Man.

    I guess you’d better watch out if you’re driving around Cannon Beach, if you believe that sort of thing…

  • Comments were down, now back up

    Jake clued me in to the fact that anyone trying to add comments here was getting big, ugly PHP error message. D’oh! I figure it’s been down for three days, when I was last futzing around with blocking comment spam. Go figure. But on the bright side, I haven’t gotten any comment spam for three days.

  • Now under a Creative Commons License

    As promised, I’ve changed this site’s copyright to a Creative Commons license; specifically, an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license. What this means is, anyone is free to make derivative works of my stuff, or to copy, distribute, display, and perform it, so long as they give me credit, distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one (if they alter, transform, or build upon this stuff), and not use the work for commercial purposes.

    Basically, in English, this clears up any copyright legal issues that might arise with things like aggregators or the Google Toolbar that reuses/remixes my content. I may try out different CC licenses from time to time, but for the most part I think it’s covered.

  • Google’s AutoLink

    Lots of invective and rhetoric being written about Google‘s new Toolbar functionality, AutoLink. Originally I probably wasn’t going to write anything about it, it’s really such a non-issue, but I’m growing irritated by the number of bloggers—mostly A-listers—who are speaking out against it. I’m not irritated as a knee-jerk reaction in defense of Google, but because most of what I’m reading is just plain wrong.

    Quick background: Google’s new Toolbar (which is in beta, only runs on Internet Explorer for Windows and which you have to knowingly install to use) has a new function called “AutoLink” which, when manually invoked, searches for certain types of text on a web page and will automagically turn them into links, if there weren’t any links there already. The type of text it search for seems to be:

    • Addresses. These will create links to Google Maps.
    • ISBN numbers. These will create links to the product-specific page on Amazon.
    • Shipping tracking numbers.
    • Vehicle ID numbers (VINs).

    Right off, I have to say I agree 100% with what Cory Doctorow wrote about this on Boing Boing:

    It’s not a service I’d use, but I believe that it’s the kind of service that is vital to the Web’s health. The ability of end-users to avail themselves of tools that decomopose and reassemble web-pages to their tastes is an issue like inlining, framing, and linking: it’s a matter of letting users innovate at the edge.

    I think I should be able to use a proxy that reformats my browsing sessions for viewing on a mobile phone; I think I should be able to use a proxy that finds every ISBN and links it to a comparison-shopping-engine’s best price for that book across ten vendors. I think I should be able to use a proxy that auto-links every proper noun to the corresponding Wikipedia entry.

    And so on — it’s my screen, and I should be able to control it; companies like Google and individuals should be able to provide tools and services to let me control it.

    Of all the sites I read, I think this was the lone voice of reason on the topic. Instead, you have people like Robert Scoble and Dave Winer calling this “evil” and a “slippery slope” that will lead to the end of the web as we know it and mass censorship by Google.

    I’m not kidding. This is what Winer wrote:

    And if links are changeable, is text subject to change as well? Might Google correct our spelling? Or might they correct our thinking? Where is the line?…

    What’s next? Could they link it to Gmail, and where ever the name of a Gmail user appears in a page, change it to a mailto link so you can send them mail? If you’re in the widget business, might they change the links to your widgets to links to your competitors’ widgets? (Aren’t they already doing that to Barnes and Noble?) Would they add discussion software so that any Internet user can mark up your page with their comments, no matter how inane or immature?…

    The AutoLink feature is the first step down a treacherous slope, that could spell the end of the Web as a publishing environment with integrity, and an environment where commerce can take place.

    What’s funny is that email programs already autolink email addresses and web addresses—often wrong, I might add—in messages I get. And—get this—on any blog with comment functionality on it (like mine), users can already mark up that page with their comments.

    (A note on the Barnes and Noble reference, though—yes, AutoLink does link a plain ISBN on Barnes and Noble’s site to Amazon. I confirmed it myself. Personally, I find it rather amusing; I know B&N will successfully lobby to get this fixed, so I’m not worried about it.)

    And here’s some of what Scoble’s written:

    I believe that anything that changes the linking behavior of the Web is evil. Anything that changes my content is evil. Particularly anything that messes with the integrity of the link system. And I do see this as a slippery slope….

    The fundamental building block of the Web is linking. Linking is MY EDITORIAL CONTENT….

    My editorial is sacrosanct. Linking is editorial.

    Ironically, Scoble runs a linkblog where he reposts other authors’ blog entries, with his name highlighted, and adds a “Related” and “Comments” link to other people’s writing even as he writes the above.

    It’s even more ironic that people like these guys who are all about innovation and are outspoken user advocates would come off like this. I see a “slippery slope” all right, but it’s going the other way.

    How? Well, AutoLink is basically simplifying this process:

    1. Highlighting a piece of text on a web page (like an address).
    2. Opening a new browser window, going to Google (or MapQuest or Amazon, etc.).
    3. Pasting that copied text into the search box, and clicking the search button.
    4. Done.

    No one should object to doing this, right? Well, the way I’m reading many of these arguments, pretty soon they will be. There’s the slippery slope, pretty soon the “content producers” are going to object because you might be using their text to search somewhere else on the web. So, let’s ban copying text from the browser. But wait, someone could just retype the text in without copying-and-pasting. Better take away the users’ keyboards so they don’t infringe on your content.

    See? It’s a fun game.

    The arguments almost all object to a third-party tool changing the content of their web pages by adding links. Okay, but what about the many pre-existing toolbars, plugins, extensions, and browsers themselves that already do this? Hell, the ability to do this is even built into the browser—you can turn off images, JavaScript, and stylesheets, and I guarantee doing that will alter the content of many, many sites—I’ve developed sites myself that depend on JavaScript and/or images, so I’m not exaggerating. This is a ridiculous argument.

    In fact, the only good argument I’ve seen comes from Rogers Cadenhead: the copyright issue. By essentially altering a work (a web page, in this case) that is copyrighted for public consumption, the AutoLink feature may be in fact violating the copyright of that page. That’s a reasonable, intelligent argument and is something that should be addressed.

    Until then, jeez. C’mon people, like Cory said, it’s healthy for the web. It’s innovation. Instead of whining about it, why not be productive? I’ve seen suggestions for an opt-out feature on web pages, that’s a good start; make it a META tag.

    Or what about this? Make the toolbar smart enough to not change copyrighted pages, only those that are using an appropriate Creative Commons license, or are public domain. How would it know? META tags, again; Creative Commons licenses already embed RDF inside the content, so it’s not a stretch.

    In fact, this is a good incentive to do something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile: convert my blogs over to Creative Commons copyrights. I personally have no qualms about toolbars or other software altering my content for a particular user’s display, so I’ll make it totally legal for them to do so. Within the week.

    In the meantime, everyone complaining—take a breath and get over yourselves.

  • ORblogs growth

    I’m amazed every week at how much growth ORblogs keeps showing; as of right now, there are 605 blogs in the directory, and 18 were added over the past seven days alone. (Check the ORblogs Recent Additions page to keep up to date on new ones.) Oregon bloggers, we’re a growing bunch. And kudos to Paul, who developed and runs the site. Excellent work!

  • Development in Bend

    It’s crazy how much development is going on around here these days. Downtown, they’re just about to tear down the old post office and start erecting a new parking structure. The “Firehall” is ongoing, with a giant plastic bag over the top of it (it’s truly surreal). The new building on the corner of Wall and Franklin looks mostly finished. Something’s going up on the old Eagle Lodge location, on the corner of Greenwood and Hill. The Old Mill District continues to grow and change. Up north, there’s of course talk about the Super Wal-Mart, but good grief, Bed Bath and Beyond is already open, Best Buy can’t be far behind, CostPlus and PetSmart are going up. Target is expanding, I hear.

    And everywhere you go, residential development is gangbusters. You can’t swing a dead cat in this town any more without hitting construction. (Ironically, I work for a builder that’s contributing to all this mess. And live in one of their homes.) I know growth and change has kind of been the theme for Bend and Central Oregon this past decade, but right now it seems like there’s more going on than ever before. Or is it just me?

    And of course the one thing Bend really needs—a mass transit system—is nowhere in sight.

  • Another (good) article on blogging

    This article from the Wall Street Journal online is actually rather remarkable. It compares and fits blogging with mainstream journalism, and is maybe the fairest take on it I’ve seen.

    6. It is not true that there are no controls. It is not true that the blogosphere is the Wild West. What governs members of the blogosphere is what governs to some degree members of the MSM [main stream media], and that is the desire for status and respect. In the blogosphere you lose both if you put forward as fact information that is incorrect, specious or cooked. You lose status and respect if your take on a story that is patently stupid. You lose status and respect if you are unprofessional or deliberately misleading. And once you’ve lost a sufficient amount of status and respect, none of the other bloggers link to you anymore or raise your name in their arguments. And you’re over. The great correcting mechanism for people on the Web is people on the Web. [emphasis mine]

    There are blogs that carry political and ideological agendas. But everyone is on to them and it’s mostly not obnoxious because their agendas are mostly declared.

    7. I don’t know if the blogosphere is rougher in the ferocity of its personal attacks than, say, Drew Pearson. Or the rough boys and girls of the great American editorial pages of the 1930s and ’40s. Bloggers are certainly not as rough as the splenetic pamphleteers of the 18th and 19th centuries, who amused themselves accusing Thomas Jefferson of sexual perfidy and Andrew Jackson of having married a whore. I don’t know how Walter Lippmann or Scotty Reston would have seen the blogosphere; it might have frightened them if they’d lived to see it. They might have been impressed by the sheer digging that goes on there. I have seen friends savaged by blogs and winced for them—but, well, too bad. I’ve been attacked. Too bad. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t be thinking aloud for a living. The blogosphere is tough. But are personal attacks worth it if what we get in return is a whole new media form that can add to the true-information flow while correcting the biases and lapses of the mainstream media? Yes. Of course.