Sunlight
Via kottke.org, I found this cool snippet about May 28th in Manhattan. I guess that’s the advantage of building cities based on grids.
This effect makes Manhattan a type of modern Stonehenge, although only aligned to about 30 degrees east of north
BlogTalk
I finally got around to registering for the BlogTalk conference this week. My flights and hotel are now booked, so I’m all prepped for a trip to Vienna in July! I’m looking forward to practicing some German which I’ve not really spoken properly since my GCSE days. My mate, Graham, who speaks good German has promised to help me along the way with some Deutsch MSN Messenger conversations!
Blogroll Links != Permanent Links
Having read Cameron Marlow’s draft paper “Audience, structure and authority in the weblog community“, I’m really glad I did! The paper is really interesting with a great introduction and summarised background on social network analysis. The most interesting part is that Marlow distinguishes between two types of weblog links – permalinks (links to individual posts) and blogroll links (like the links on the right hand side of this page). Apparently some of the bloggers usually assumed to be a-list bloggers are only a-list in analyses of incoming links from blogroll links. The permalink rankings are sometimes very different. E.g. scripting.com is no. 6 in the blogroll rankings, but only ranked 102 in the permalinks rankings.
The way Marlow distinguishes between a blogroll link and permalink is slightly dubious, but nevertheless, I really like the idea that the meaning of a link is inherently different when linking to a raw domain (e.g. http://www.overstated.net), and when linking to a specific post (e.g. http://overstated.net/04/05/24-weblogs-and-authority.asp). When linking to a specific post, there is an element of commentary or conversation; a specific interest in a specific point. The link to a raw blog domain is much more general, and does not assume a conversation, it is more of a pointer to an approximate area saying “this looks interesting”. Which I guess is why well-known bloggers tend to be high in ranks of links of this sort – “this looks interesting” might be purely because “this” is well-known, rather than having a particular post to read and therefore a reason to keep returning (and linking).
100th Post
I’ve been deliberately holding back from writing this, my 100th post on glottal stop. I was waiting for something amazing to write about. Then I just thought, “hell mark, you’re being dumb, just go ahead and write it.” So here I am and here it is. Number 100. The big one-oh-oh.
However, in a vague attempt to make this post slightly interesting, there’s a link about weblogs and authority together with a full paper, which I must read [via kottke.org].
In fact, I’ve just realised that kottke.org isn’t on my blogroll and it sure as hell deserves to there since I read it every day pretty much. So now it’s there. Jason Kottke must be throwing a party about it right now…
Blog Survey
As I’m constructing my blog survey to gather some data for my own research, in comes the results from the survey by blogads. It’s interesting that the main age group is 31-40 year olds – not the general accepted consensus. But it’s encouraging that a lot of fellow students are blogging, with education being the industry blogging the most – obviously blogging is a good way of discussing and disseminating research. I’d be more interested if the survey was answered by more non-US citizens though. It might give a more rounded view of blogspace – surely 91% of blogs aren’t American?
Project
About a month ago now a couple of musically-minded friends and myself were talking about venues where our bands could practice and play gigs. An off-cuff remark about buying a building for this purpose quickly turned into serious thought about buying a local disused church about turning it into a community arts centre. The centre could be used by ourselves, as well as other bands, and for music teachers, and even local artists for exhibitions. Last night we met with a member of another local group of people who are interested in a similar idea and are much further down the road than ourselves. The problem seems to be getting the money turning said church into a centre with lighting, heating and sound equipment and adhering to regulations, etc.
Frustratingly the local council does not see the need for such a centre (despite their being nothing like it locally, while in the next county, Essex, there is an extremely successful arts centre). I really think that Ipswich needs something like this. Recently, having a joined a band myself, my eyes have been opened to the huge number of talented musicians around this area and if a centre like this is what is needed to tap into this talent and encourage it then surely a relatively small amount of funding is worth it? I guess this is the situation that hundreds of similarly-minded organisations find themselves in every day. It is quite exciting being part of it though.
What people will do for an email address
I found a site this morning that allows people with coveted GMail accounts to trade goods for a GMail account – it’s just a matter of taking your pick! Now, it’s just a matter of deciding what I want…
The weekend that was
What a great weekend – the weather totally topped out, couldn’t have asked for better. I went out on my bike with my bro and my mate, Steve on Saturday for a great ride along the Thames, past Hampton Court and up past Teddington Lock and then stopped off for a well-deserved pint at a pub called The Weir. Met a great couple of people on Saturday night in Kingston and also won my auction for a mountain bike on eBay so I’m now the proud owner of an Orange O2 – had to pick it up from Brighton so was a great excuse for a drive down to sunny Brighton on Sunday. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take my camera with me on the ride, but my Dad got this picture of me about to fall off my new steed in the garden.
The trouble with great weekends is that it’s so hard to get back to work again. Well, baby steps I guess…
TFI Friday
Well Friday is here, roll on the weekend! I’ve spent the latter half of this week working on a web survey about blogging that I’m likely to distribute here, there and everywhere fairly soon – it’s probably about time I actually collected some data for my research!
I’m off to sunny Guildford (apparent max temp of 24C – woohoo!) this weekend to bike down a disused railway line with some buddies, also thinking of getting a new bike since my Specialized Rockhopper Sport is now 11 years old and probably in need of nice retirement. I might even try and post some pictures when I get back…oooh, the excitement.
Perhaps I’m a little late in the game, but I also saw this post about where people blog. Sounds like another excuse to post pointless pictures on my blog!
Conference
I gave a presentation last night to a great bunch of people about blogging. It was a librarians in the IT sector conference; I managed to find their website here. Just in case some of you that I was talking to last night visit this site, then the links I was talking about are:
www.instapundit.com – just about the most visited weblog around.
www.boingboing.net – another big blog
www.metafilter.com/ – a community weblog
www.kottke.org – another well-known blog
www.feedster.com and www.daypop.com – blog search tools.
Also try any of the links on the right of this page…
Weather in Ipswich today
jumpnut 