Monthly Archives: January 2008

Wikia Search-It’s an Alpha Guys, Lighten Up

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Wkia Search Logo hit the streets yesterday to rave…well…massive criticisms actually with blogger’s and prominent news sites lambasting the poor thing before it even made 10 paces out of the starting gate. And after one whole single day for public testing too! Come on people, it’s and alpha, okay? The developers make the choice as whether to release the first draft to the public for the benefit of feedback, offer it up for as a “private whatever” for “by invite only” testers or let it bake until it’s beta 1 quality depending on their needs. So they decided to release as soon as they had a working alpha 1 build and why would they do that you ask? Because a large portion of what powers Wikia Search is going to be based on USER FEEDBACK! Everyone get that? So how are the developers supposed to get constructive public feedback if they don’t release it? By what I understand Wikia Search is being built from the ground up and part of that process is heavily based on receiving human type feedback right from the start instead of waiting until it’s too late and indexing and more mature algorithms are already in place.

For those that already realize this please ignore the previous bold type, for the others, lighten up already.

This fact that the current results of any given search query in the new engine is basically going to be lousy is made quite obvious in the rather small blurb that’s Wikia Search’s “About” page as you can see by the excerpts below:

Wikia is working to develop and popularize a freely licensed (open source) search engine. What you see here is our first alpha release.

We are aware that the quality of the search results is low..

Wikia’s search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.

And at the bottom there’s this…

This site, which we have been working on for a long time now, represents the first draft of the future of search.

Looks pretty plain and simple to me. The rest of the blurb isn’t much longer so there was obviously no attempt to hide what this first offering actually was inside of a long, drawn out, multi-paragraph, say nothing “About” page as sometimes happens with other more finished offerings that are rather awful upon first release.

Sure there’s been a lot of hype about this new search engine but then again there’s a lot of hype about any new product that comes out and rarely does any new product live up to it’s hyped up image, at least not in my experience. It’s been that way for years now so who the heck pays attention to hype nowadays? For me it’s always been a “Show me the money” thing and with Wikia Search it’s going to have at least one year under it’s belt before I’ll pronounce judgement on it.

If it works it works and if it fails it fails. The idea of a search engine that combines the usual (or unusual) algorithms and user feedback appeals to me for some reason. Probably because I’ve never been all that comfortable with having a vast array of servers thinking it knows what I’m looking for. I also like the idea of this being open source but that’s me. Why shouldn’t we have a of search engines?

Don’t get me wrong here, I depend on and very often in my daily research and I probably always will but in the meantime I’ve already joined the Wikia Search Community (and I’m not exactly what you might call a “social animal”) and I’m going to work on that feedback they’re calling for. Wonder how many other folks will stop complaining and start offering their experience and knowledge in this latest search engine endeavor? Time will indeed tell.

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So Now I’m a Disaboomer?

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I banged into site today to see what His Foolishness was up to and low and behold I found out through one of his latest posts that there’s a site for Disabled Boomers called kicking around. Well what do you know? I actually qualify as one of these Disaboomers so there’s another typification I can add to my growing list. Seems like the older I get the more labels I attain which is another future post entirely. The ironic thing is that I never gave the term "boomer" any real credit as it might apply to me in fact, I rather ignored the premise that I was ipso facto, a boomer, altogether until this morning when I read Sixty’s post. Now why the term Disaboomer should finally bring my mind to a screeching halt and instead of pursuing more useful undertakings, end up pondering this boomer conundrum the rest of the day is beyond me.

It could be said that I’m experiencing some sort of late blooming middle age crisis or something to that effect but I think not. Nor do I believe it’s a denial of anything relating to the aging process at all since I’ve never considered myself immune to that sort of thing. Actually I think it’s more of a "hmm, guess I haven’t bothered to give it much thought" kind of thing similar to the rather rude wake up call I received when the VA slapped a "70% disabled" sticker on my forehead and sent me on my way. Yes, I think that about sums it up alright. Seems like I’m getting a lot of rude awakenings of late.

Be that as it may, I’ll guess the proper thing to do now is to give that Disaboomer site a good looking over and who knows? I might actually find that other folks my age might possibly feel the way same I do. Stranger things have happened.

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The Mad Sunday Night UNO Game

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Help! We’re addicted we are! We just can’t stop playing UNO!

It’s all my (almost) son-in-law’s fault. It’s become a family tradition of sorts that every Sunday we head up to the upstairs apartment (our second floor) to have dinner with my lady’s youngest son and his family and after dinner we usually play one of the many board games we have kicking around. It’s amazing how many of these games one can acquire in a lifetime so there is always a good variety to choose from. Now everything was going well, just a dinner and a game is all, so what’s the big deal here? Well nothing really, as long as we stuck to those silly board games everything was just peachy but then came that fateful evening when her son dropped an UNO deck on the table and none of us has been the same since.

Now anyone who’s really played UNO before will probably verify this when I say that this particular card game has to be one of the most addicting card games in existence that isn’t played with a standard deck of playing cards. Especially if you play by backyard rules. Even more so if you play by cutthroat rules but I can’t seem to talk them into that. It’s the ultimate "screw your neighbor with a smile" card game and once you start playing you just…can’t…stop. Now I don’t mean we’re doing all night marathons or anything like that, it’s just one game on Sunday night. One game that has been lasting an average of 4 hours a piece and every time we play we tell ourselves that we’ll play something else the next Sunday but it just doesn’t happen that way. Out comes the UNO deck and we’re off on another 4 hour stretch.

We play by those "backyard rules" you see. The same type of rules can apply in  a game of horseshoes. If everyone played by regulation horseshoe play, the game wouldn’t be any fun for your average backyard horseshoe player so most domestic horseshoe games go by backyard rules meaning; no pits are built and "leaners" and "sliders" always count. In UNO it basically means that you can play your wild cards anytime you want rather than having to save them until you run out of the color you wish to play. This makes the game much more fun and apparently longer lasting as well. Cutthroat rules add the ability to use your "Draw 2" cards in succession which basically means you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a 4 player "Draw 2" run and end up having to pick up 8 cards. I like playing that way but they won’t hear of it.

So here it is Sunday again and we’re scheduled for dinner at 5:30 this evening and this time Laurie and I are bringing something to the game…A genuine original UNO dual bin card holder circa 1982. That’s 25 years old! A genuine UNO antique if I ever saw one. Okay, it’s still a piece of black plastic but still…

Now my (almost) son-in-law won’t go mental every time someone doesn’t place a card on the discard pile in a neat and orderly fashion. One of these days we might actually play something else…but not quite yet I’m afraid. At least not until I get them to play one cutthroat game.

There’s no point or purpose to this post for those of you wondering where this bit of silliness is going, it’s just something I felt like writing about which is the whole beauty of having a personal blog isn’t it?  I can sit here on a Sunday afternoon with a whole world of controversy raging about like it normally does and write up an absolutely meaningless post about our Sunday night UNO game simply because I wish to. Ain’t life grand though?

Have a nice dinner.

WordPress Skipping a Version for Quality’s Sake

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WordPress 2.4, which was scheduled for a January 24th release date has been skipped over in favor a instead. This decision was made by the developers due to all the new features that are scheduled to be added, a redesign of the admin plus more streamlining overall in the form of bug fixes and enhancements.  In other words, they have a lot they want to throw into this next major release and the end January was simply not enough time to accomplish all that needs to be done.

So all you WordPress-ers out there who dread doing upgrades or just can’t seem to wrap their minds around the technical end of things can take a breather for awhile. Hey look…nothing wrong with not being a "tech head" when it comes to your WordPress install, nothing wrong at all. I for instance, am the other way around. I love to play around in the back end of my install looking for new ways to spruce things up. I enjoy helping out other WordPress blogger’s with problems they encounter and doing the upgrades and such for them. I’m great at that kind of stuff. But I’m a lousy writer you see so it all balances out–sort of.

I’m sure the crew at WordPress.org will churn out a couple of security updates between now and then so you folks won’t lose practice but personally I’m rather glad they made this decision. WordPress 2.4 was going to be a major upgrade and I’d much rather wait for a fully cooked 2.5 than a half baked 2.4 any day of the week.

USA-Worst in Surveillance and Privacy?

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How do you like this folks? In this years the good old US of A has attained an absolute bottom of the barrel rating for privacy and surveillance of it’s citizens. Looking at this report would make you think that posters of George Orwell’s “Big Brother” are being put up on sides of buildings as we sit here and read the news. Check out this map and legend from the report:

Source:

Big Brother is watching you?

What it all means

Well doesn’t that just make ya’ proud though? Funny, taking a look outside just now I don’t see any police armed with assault rifles standing on every corner with shifty looks in their eyes. Don’t see any camera’s hanging off the trees either. I don’t have any chips hidden in my driver’s license so that my whereabouts is always known to the authorities (yet). My television doesn’t have two-way monitoring capabilities at all and I can even turn it off if I wish. We don’t even have a cable or satellite hookups and I certainly don’t own any sort of webcam (and never will by God!). I don’t work for the good of the “State”, I’m not followed around when I run my errands (that I know of) and I don’t have the authorities suddenly throwing me into a vehicle and interrogating me in some dark room with the light from a single lamp shining in my face because they saw me talking with an “undesirable”.

I can’t say that I like the looks of the map at all though. Especially in light of the fact that I ruined my health defending the US and the rest of the world for that matter from that very country that’s colored as black as we as we are!

Well, I tell you what. I have eyes that still see okay and a brain that still functions mostly or at least that’s what the the VA tells me so I am aware of all the surveillance camera’s that surround the outside of and plastered on the inside walls of just about every business, bank, school, State and federal building that I encounter in my travels these days. In fact I’ve grown quite used to watching my gorgeous self displayed on flat screen monitors every time I turn down another aisle in my local supermarket and all those funky purple and mirrored domes hanging from the ceiling like some sort of monstrous ceiling pimple with cameras pointed at me stuck inside of them. I also know very well that I can’t go anywhere in just about any good sized town and most certainly any city without knowing that somewhere on some building or utility pole a camera is feeding a signal to some monitor and/or video recorder inside some booth in some building where someone is taking notice of the color shirt I’m wearing or will at one time or another.

Does this report upset anyone? Does it make you want to look over your shoulder to see if the cat is staring at you or anybody else for that matter? Well, if it does then there’s only one thing to say and that’s we the people let it happen so don’t complain about it. Can’t blame the current President either since we put him there as well. The only ones who can control this problem is us. But do we really have to?

I have a gun at home, an old rifle. This rifle is aligned and bore sighted to two hundred yards at which point the bullet drops exactly one inch. I know how to use this rifle and I always hit what I aim at. So what keeps me from using this rifle for hunting down the troublemakers, drug dealers, child abusers or some asinine troublemaking neighbor myself? It’s called a strong sense of personal responsibility that’s what and that same type of thing applies to all of this surveillance and the other abilities the various authorities might have to pry into our lives just because they can. As far as I’m concerned, the “Black” rating for China for instance is simply not the same thing as the “Black” rating for the US, not in the least. If you don’t believe me, go live on Beijing for a year or so and let me know how you liked it when and if you come back.

It’s not the fact that we have the ability to do something, like nuke the entire globe when we had the chance, it’s the fact that we chose not to that really matters and the the same applies to this report and the USA’s current rating which really ain’t that much better than last year’s rating (the pink one–second from the bottom). As long as we use this for the protection of our people instead of for control, we’ll be alright. In the meantime, keeping a sharp eye on the authorities and their doings is always prudent.

Cold Enough and a New Baby is Born

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It’s almost cold enough to freeze tourists out there. Not the worst we’ve ever seen for sure but definitely not the kind of weather for wearing shorts…except possibly for Canadians. It was -12 degrees this morning when the sun peeked over North Country High School’s sports field and so far it’s been a bright and crispy day with a blistering high of zero.

These are the kind of temps we usually get around here this time of year but according to the long range forecast, it will be 25 tomorrow and by Monday we’re looking at 42 and rain? The temps for the next 5 days after that are all going to average above freezing, half those days in the high 30′s to 40. Snowiest December on record and in the 30′s and 40′s the second week of January. Hmmm–I don’t know about this. Makes me wonder a bit.

Anyone ever see ? Are we actually on the brink of a major climatic shift?

On another matter entirely, remember that lady blogger and the possible New Years baby I mentioned in a short post earlier on? Well I’m happy to report that she is now the proud Grandmother of a beautiful baby granddaughter (I think it’s her first Grandchild too). Mother and baby are doing fine also last I heard. Now since this friend of mine and her husband can’t get to a computer at the moment I probably shouldn’t say anymore lest she be angry at me for spilling the beans prematurely and send me hateful and abusive emails. In fact I probably shouldn’t even tell you who I’m talking about should I? No absolutely not.

Alright, it’s Elaine but don’t tell here I said anything okay? :D

Ripping CDs for personal use Illegal? I don’t think so.

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By now I’m sure just about everyone who reads the news have come across the suite brought against for illegally sharing copyrighted music over the peer-to-peer network. And if you have been following this story then you probably also know the uproar caused by that RIAA lawyer that’s handling this suite saying that just ripping a CD (that you legally own apparently) to your computer is illegal.

Well, no that’s not correct. In fact he’s just plain wrong on that one and should be heartily slapped on the wrist for saying it. Who says? The RIAA says! Right there in their rules and regulations they say it. To wit:

Copying CDs

  • It’s okay to copy music onto an analog cassette, but not for commercial purposes.
  • It’s also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R’s, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them) – but, again, not for commercial purposes.
  • Beyond that, there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:
    • The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
    • The copy is just for your personal use. It’s not a personal use – in fact, it’s illegal – to give away the copy or lend it to others for copying.
  • The owners of copyrighted music have the right to use protection technology to allow or prevent copying.
  • Remember, it’s never okay to sell or make commercial use of a copy that you make.

Source:  

Yup! The above or various forms thereof has been tacked onto just about every form of audio media since I bought my first record way back when. For personal use only! Not too hard to understand. Now does that mean I’ve been the good little angel as far as The Law is concerned? Well…for the most part, yes…absolutely which I believe I can attribute more to my years as a sound and recording engineer back in the days when I could hear properly then to anything else of a personal nature. One can gain a very healthy respect to "Rights of Property" in that business to be sure. Doesn’t mean that The Law wasn’t violated now and again it’s just you knew how to do it without getting caught. That was called being smart. And if anyone thinks this is something new, that pirated music is getting way out of hand, think again. This has been going on ever since recorded music was invented. Cylinder to Cylinder, Vinyl to reel-to-reel, vinyl to cassette, cassette to cassette (I refuse to include 8 tracks, sorry) CDs to cassette, CDs to CDs, CDs to MP3 (or whatever format you prefer) and for whatever comes next, rest assured someone we’ll develop a way to copy it. You just didn’t attempt sell your copies on the street that’s all. You waited until you were out of site instead.

These days, sharing copied material of a musical nature on the Internet, you’re blatantly out in the open so  it’s just not worth it since the RIAA’s existence and prosecutions thereof are based on a system that’s decades out of date and nearly obsolete. Unfortunately it’s a system that’s still strongly enforced despite it’s gestapo-ish way of doing business.  While the medium that audio rides upon has evolved and matured over time as it should have, the RIAA is still operating on rules and regulations that were written not in stone, but in mortar. Mortar that’s been crumbling since it’s inception. There’s nothing wrong with the above quoted section of The Law, nothing whatsoever. Rip your legally owned CD’s to your heart’s content but just make sure you follow the unwritten, common sense type law called; Don’t be Stupid and take 54 of those ripped songs and stick them up on a very popular peer-to-peer music sharing network that lives in the only successful anarchy on this planet–the WWW. The music industry’s version of the secret service will be on to you in the time it takes to copy that CD onto your computer.

Oh, and for heavens sake, don’t put that copy in a shared folder whatever you do. They’ll take on another $10,000 to the fine.

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A New Year’s Baby?

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Pssst! One of my fellow blogger whose blog resides in my my sidebar under Friends and Neighbors, a blogger whose been waiting anxiously for her daughter to go into labor…just got the word last night that the slightly late but inevitable event has suddenly happened and passed the info on to me before she and her husband went tearing off on a 800 mile or so trip  (I feel so trustworthy). I myself am betting on a New Years baby.

I’m not going to say who it is yet until I hear word on the mother and baby and how they’re doing but as soon as I know everything’s alright and she says I can…

Think good thoughts folks.