Day: February 12, 2006

Michael Jecks’s The Last Templar is the first of a series of mysteries set in medieval England. I picked it up because I wanted a mystery, and there were a score of titles on the shelf with the same author and theme. Worth an airplane read, which is what it was… but this introduction to the characters doesn’t give me a sense they are the basis of a whole career. I suppose I’ll wait until my next flight before I return to the 1300s.

It was only six months ago that Gabe Rivera asked Is blog search big?, partially in response to my wondering whether we’re swimming in the mainstream yet.

Today, Scott Karp riffed on the Gallup poll which points out that the audience for blogs is relatively flat.
Blogging and the Elusive Mass Audience, which really should have been titled from this sentence in his post: “Is it possible that bloggers are the only people who read blogs?”

If there are more people blogging, but no increase in the number of people reading blogs, maybe blog readership has actually been siphoned off by blog writing. I know that the time I spend writing this post is time I might otherwise spend reading other blogs.

Yes, it’s either create or consume. The best at the former either limit their time spent doing the latter or just have more time than I can imagine!

Returning to the original metric about the mainstream, though, the top searches on Technorati this hour are more in the mainstream right now (just before 10pm PT on February 12, 2006). Only three technology topics in there by my count (#9, #12, and #15).

1. “Mohammed Cartoon”
2. Cheney
3. “Dick Cheney”
4. Krugle
5. Cartoon
6. Olympic
7. “Michelle Kwan”
8. Alicia Machado
9. Fon
10. Blizzard
11. Snow
12. Iran
13. Gmail
14. “Du Bist Deutschl…”
15. Zillow

I know I’m not in the mainstream. The blogs I read probably are not, either.

Two Years before the Mast, A personal narrative of life at sea by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. has been on the life list… and I’m glad it was. Published in 1840 for the first time, I read the 1946 edition from The World Publishing Company. I note the publishing details because I went to the Project Gutenberg edition (free, out-of-copyright books) site to cut and paste the quotes below. It was not an exercise in accuracy. Here’s a direct link to the full text (916Kb) where I found many missing a few clauses and sentences along the way. Frustrating. Perhaps the edition which was used to create it was elided, but what a challenge. Makes you almost long for Google Print, as long as we get accurate representations of printed material.

It’s a great journal, written by an educated youth taking some time away from his Harvard education because of his health. From 1834-1836, he worked on a merchant ship from Boston, gathering hides from the California coast. His recounting is matter of fact, but never boring. I noted three passages.

First, this one reminds me of the fake graduation speech which spread like a virus several years ago, with its line about “Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.”

Such are the people who inhabit a country embracing four or five hundred miles of sea-coast, with several good harbors; with fine forests in the north; the waters filled with fish, and the plains covered with thousands of herds of cattle; blessed with a climate than which there can be no better in the world; free from all manner of diseases, whether epidemic or endemic; and with a soil in which corn yields from seventy to eighty fold. In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be! we are ready to say. Yet how long would a people remain so, in such a country? The Americans (as those from the United States are called) and Englishmen, who are fast filling up the principal towns, and getting the trade into their hands, are indeed more industrious and effective than the Spaniards; yet their children are brought up Spaniards in most respects, and if the “California fever” (laziness) spares the first generation, it always attacks the second. [From p. 194]

Second, he made this observation 15 years before gold was found (and 161 years before the Netscape IPO). Prescient.

We sailed down this magnificent bay with a light wind, the tide, which was running out, carrying us at the rate of four or five knots. It was a fine day; the first of entire sunshine we had had for more than a month. We passed directly under the high cliff on which the presidio is built, and stood into the middle of the bay, from whence we could see small bays, making up into the interior, on every side; large and beautifully-wooded islands; and the mouths of several small rivers. If California ever becomes a prosperous country,
this bay will be the centre of its prosperity. The abundance of wood and water, the extreme fertility of its shores, the excellence of its climate, which is as near to being perfect as any in the world, and its facilities for navigation, affording the best anchoring-grounds in the whole western coast of America, all fit it for a place of great importance; and, indeed, it has attracted much attention, for the settlement of “Yerba Buena,” where we lay at anchor, made chiefly by Americans and English, and which bids fair to become the most important trading place on the coast, at this time began to supply traders, Russian ships, and whalers, with their stores of wheat and frijoles. [From p. 257]

Third, Dana walked the walk on this last one.

His is one of those cases which are more numerous than those suppose, who have never lived anywhere but in their own homes, and never walked but in one line from their cradles to their graves. We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the by-ways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought among our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or vice. [From p. 283]

The actual sea-faring was familiar after so many Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin novels, though those focus on officers rather than normal seaman. Quite amazing what these men did as a matter of course. The modern world has its horrors and problems, but manual labor for months on end with four hours sleep where a single rogue wave can kill you… glad that’s (mostly?) in the past.

My applicaton for an ISSN number a year or two ago was never processed, it seems. But with a bit of self-service, I was able to generate a QR code for this blog easily enough, following Steve’s instructions. Take 2 minutes, and make your own.

JetBlue’s DirecTV option sucks you in all too easily, especially when you finish a book (more on that later). I watched Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. You don’t have to be proud, you just have to have a sense of humor. Not a great film, but amusing moments, mostly in reference to the rest of the, ahem, oeuvre. Metacritic score of 51, but the user score is an 8.3 out of 10. Guess the fanboys weighed in.

I wouldn’t rent it, but as an airplane movie, it passed the time.

As Matt McAlister notes in Making your web site weigh less:

People have learned how to use more complicated user interfaces on the Internet, but I find it fascinating that people still gravitate toward the simplest interactions.  I like the idea behind CNet’s cluster cloud with each article, but I never click on it…it’s too heavy.

We still need to make The Big Picture more intuitive. Some love it as is, but many are looking for plain links still… which means we’ve haven’t proved that it’s more useful than the 1995 variation.

Matt, one thing… it’s CNET. 😉