Chuggnutt!

Category: Blogging

  • Ebay as Weblog

    It struck me yesterday as I watched my wife surf eBay and eBay-related sites (like DisturbingAuctions.com) that eBay et. al. functions as a vast weblog for some people the same way that “traditional” weblogs function for people like me. Or more precisely, eBay fills the same needs for some people that weblogs fill for others.

    (What needs? Well, the first thing that pops to mind is social needs, the kind of social needs you find satisfied by participating in an online community of some sort.)

    Probably this has been obvious to many people long before I realized it. But this metaphor of eBay-as-weblog (or perhaps more than a metaphor) has been staying with me, nagging around the back of my mind, so I figured I’d put words to some of the ideas and see what comes of it.

    It might be more fair to say eBay can be considered a meta-blog, categorizing and listing the individual entries (auctions) of thousands of bloggers (sellers) (side-note: perhaps eBay is more like an aggregator?), providing means for users to comment (feedback, ratings). Popular auctions are peer-reviewed and the cream rises to the surface, much the same way as in the weblog world.

    It would be trivial to graft typical weblog services, like RSS, onto eBay’s services. I’ve toyed with this idea before, I think it would be a great example of the killer app RSS wants to be.

    But it makes me wonder: why doesn’t eBay have RSS feeds? They already offer a saved searches feature that emails you notifications when new items appear matches your search criteria; that should be a no-brainer for a feed. Or perhaps feeds to supplement the services that many third-party sites offer: collective views of items you’re selling, with current hit counts and bid prices.

    One problem I do foresee, though: eBay is highly time-dependent. Users want to know what’s happening with auctions now, via a browser refresh or an up-to-the-minute email; RSS as it’s implemented now is not enough of a “push” technology to make this happen. Sure, you could fake it by setting your aggregator to poll eBay every 5 minutes for a feed update, but what happens when 100,000+ users retrieve an XML file 12 times an hour? Bandwidth dies, of course. EBay would brown-out.

    Anyway, that’s enough for tonight. I’m still finding the eBay/weblog idea intriguing; I may try to merge both worlds and produce some sample RSS feeds based on eBay searches. If I do, I’ll post them here.

  • Alternatives

    I got so caught up in finishing Cryptonomicon this past week that I didn’t really go online to post stuff. Damn good book. Longer than hell, but it was worth it.

    What else? Oh yeah, bought a PlayStation (the original, not Two) from my brother, along with several games. It’s pretty sweet, even though I’ve only played a few times. I know, I’m way behind the curve, but I’m always behind the gaming curve; before the PlayStation, the most advanced console I have (aside from the computers) is a Sega Genesis. Then a Nintendo, the original one. At the rate I’m going, I should be up to a PS2 or XBox in 2007 or so.

  • Navel Gazing

    I’ve been reviewing the web server logs for my site, and decided to self-indulge and post some interesting stats here online to bore you all. Read on if you’re interested.

    The 10 most popular pages, in order:

    1. Free Palm Reader eBooks
    2. Home page
    3. What’s Your Matrix Name?
    4. rss.xml (syndicated XML feed)
    5. HTML to Text Converter
    6. HTML to Text source
    7. Word Stemmer
    8. Stemmer source
    9. Geographic Codes
    10. Geographic Codes source

    Interestingly, none of those (except the home page) have anything to do with the actual blog. Plus, the ebooks page gets about 3 times as much traffic as all the rest.

    The top 5 most popular blog entries, in order:

    1. New Urban Legend
    2. What’s Your Matrix Name?
    3. Friendster
    4. What are all the colors of the rainbow?
    5. Palm Reader eBooks

    Odd queries people type into search engines to reach my site (exact phrase entered, my commentary in italics):

    • how to beat darth bandon (This puzzled me quite a lot, since Bandon is a town in Oregon, until I figured out “Darth Bandon” is a Sith character in one of the Star Wars video games)
    • hustler channel
    • what’s your name?
    • Richie Sambora wallpaper
    • old lady sex (Not what you think. They got here from this because of this blog entry)
    • portland english townhomes
    • what’s your samurai name
    • definition of “parts unknown” (seems pretty self-explanatory to me)
    • scrappy doo patterns
    • Most important things in a operating room
    • effects of too much television
    • batsuits from the movie are sale (???)
    • animation Misery Loves company… from a little worm (What in the hell…?)
    • You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die (Out of context, this is awful but terribly, terriby funny to me… in context, it’s again this blog entry)
    • braille wallpaper border (yes, the blind CAN enjoy wallpaper)
    • napoleon comic strip (Hmmm… maybe I’ll do one)
    • survival tips sinking car (#1 tip: better type faster)
    • samurai homebrew bumper (Sounds like a badly translated anime series, or something along the lines of “All your base are belong to us”)

  • Arnold is Governor

    So the freak show in California is over and Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new governor.

    Lovely.

    Reminds me of an old California joke: California’s like a bowl of cereal; once you get rid of the fruits and nuts, all you have left are the flakes.

  • Article on blogging

    Interesting story on weblogs here. Good introductory overview on blogging, worth reading if you’re new to it and are curious, and even if you’re not.

  • Gradual

    Obviously I’ve not been very motivated to write much lately. I’m up to my elbows in Cryptonomicon and loving it, so that’s been eating up much of my free time. But today I updated several parts of the site, most notably the ebooks page, where I’m rolling out a better layout and feature set for people viewing the free ebooks. It’s time for it; my ebooks page is by far the most popular page on this site and most of the site searches are for ebooks, but the search function looks at the blog content only.

  • More Fun Links

    A large part of the process of writing, I think, is just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks. Doesn’t matter if you’re writing online content (like blogs), or fiction, or news, or whatever.

    Anyway. Some more fun links from around the Web.

    Tha Shizzolator is another one of those goofy translator sites, only this one is from Snoop Dogg and translates to “shizzle”. It’s pretty funny. Try it on my site.

    Textfiles.com is a site that is dedicated to collecting and archiving (you guessed it) text files from old BBS systems from 1980 through 1995. Those of you who remember the old Bulletin Board System days (like me) should have a good time with this. Plus, it’s important; as is eloquently stated on the site, “everyone finding themselves drawn online should know what happened before, to see where it all really started to come together and to know what went on, before it’s forgotten.”

  • A Few Things

    So yeah, I haven’t been able to think of anything to blog about lately. Sue me! Anyway, here’s a few things:

    Stealth Disco. I’m behind the curve a bit on linking to this, but who cares? It’s definitely out there. Something I could see myself doing back in the day.

    Garth Ennis’ Marvel comic “Thor: Vikings” is really freaking me out. Zombie Vikings. ‘Nuff said.

    Urban exploration—I first read something about this on Kuro5hin, and while it’s not exactly the same thing, I remember exploring old buildings and such growing up in Central Oregon—the rural equivalent. Pretty interesting stuff.

  • Comic Book Rant

    This rant is something I mentioned here some time back, and I’ve been mulling it over in my head for a while now; if you’re not interested in comics, then you can safely pass this up. It’s one of those highly geeky topics that make many people shake their head in bemusement whenever it comes up.

    Also, it’s long. Consider yourself warned. (more…)

  • RIP

    Passing of an American legend: Johnny Cash dies at 71.

    Much more suprising, no less tragic, John Ritter dies at 54.