Those two or three people who actually visit this website may have noticed that I haven't done much with it lately. I think it's time to declare it over and done with - though I'll leave the archives here indefinitely should anybody wish to see the timeline of happenings. 

Blogging is so 2002. Social nets are so 2004. I'm tired of it all. Seems the world has tired of my writings as well (or more accurately it's just another channel of stuff amongst the 200+ million channels of stuff to choose from on the web). Thanks to the RSS fiasco and a host of other factors (e.g. search behaviour, PageRank changes, my use of a 'non-standard' community platform, etc.), traffic has plummeted way beyond rock bottom. We're now down to 3 visitors a day on average, down from 100,000 back in October and even the 20-30,000 around Christmas.

There's no point anymore writing into space - as I mentioned a few weeks back. The photo albums for friends and family are largely unseen. Except for two of you, friends and family are too intimidated by online spaces to touch the place.

The community site has been a dismal failure - a lot of hard work wasted. 

It's coming up on one year since I arrived in Australia, and so much has changed. Work and family consumes my time, as it should (at least family). Work is what it is. Blogging and social nets are a thing of the past, and tremendous time-wasters at that.

It was fun. Now onto the next chapter - of a book which probably won't be written online.

I'm pretty much ranted out.

The school start of session turned out to be a non-event thanks to all the preparatory work we've done in the last few weeks. Yawn. Whew!

Gas prices in San Francisco hit $3.35/gallon. Which infers that peninsula prices are probably closing in on $3.50. Whatever. Don't whine. We pay a bit over $5 here. 

The U.S. shoots down its errant Keyhole satellite. Seems that a load of hydrazine fuel may or may not be the hazardous substance they were warning us about - if indeed there was one. Likely this had something to do with posturing vis-a-vis China who shot a satellite to smithereens (actually large chunks) recently. If the thing smashed up over a major city it wouldn't really matter if it had a full tank or not. The death toll would be about the same either way. The real motive is probably that it was headed for a crash somewhere that the US couldn't get to and lock down the site. 

Nader jumps into the presidential race. Why now?  OK, better question - why at all?  The media never took him seriously enough to do their routine mudslinging probes. Let's quickly figure out what skeletons are in his closet and get rid of him before he screws up yet another election. 

Getting ready for the start of session next week so my postings have been and may be irregular for a while. Imaging lab machines, importing accounts, installing software for lecturers, that kind of thing. As soon as the students hit it'll be flat out for another few weeks as they all need to know how to set proxies and set up their mail accounts and every other system question that they come up with. 

But just so y'all don't feel totally neglected, here's a public service announcement from the anti-fur society. 

Remember folks, wearing animal fur is bad and makes you look ugly. See what I mean?   

via itnews: 

Terrorists may be using virtual worlds such as Second Life to meet and exchange ideas, security experts warned today..

...

The CIA already has a presence in Second Life which it uses it for meetings and training.

-----

Careful, the person you have virtual sex with might be either a terrorist or spook. Maybe they'll implant you with a virtual bug. Maybe they'll blow up your virtual house or suicide bomb your virtual store front. The mind reels....

I mentioned in an earlier rant that CNN is now figuring out where you are in the world, and expressed some concern that they would eventually use this to limit or control what news you view based on where you came from.

That day arrived. If you're outside the U.S. and now go to CNN.com you are now redirected to 'edition.cnn.com', which is titled 'CNN.com international'. You see something totally different from the default U.S. page - which if you're looking for it, can now be found at 'us.cnn.com'.

...Though one could legitimately question whether either site will have newsworthy content, regardless of where you're at. 

We went to the city today (Sydney) to visit the Viking furniture warehouse. You know the place. Large warehouse, all the products have Nordic names.

I started thinking about the modern Vikings and their contributions to the world. Ikea, Linux, Nokia. They're pretty impressive warriors in the modern world just as they were in the past.  

Super Bowl Sunday is here! Yay!

Oh wait a minute. The game doesn't start for another 24 hours. Roughly 8AM tomorrow (Monday) morning, about the time I'm chugging some coffee and driving down the cliff. Bummer.

Oh well, I haven't really been that big on the Super Bowl since back when Joe Montana and the Niners showed us how the game is meant to be played.  

Microsoft is making a bid to buy Yahoo!. Surprise, shock... What words could describe my emotion on hearing this?

I can see the motivation and the reasoning behind it. They want to put a stop to Google ("I'd like to buy a noun, please."). Still I believe this is the wrong way to do it. The only way for them to stop Google is to buy Google. Don't laugh. They are ideologically more closely aligned than you might realize. I don't believe that they've thought through the consequences of this decision - or maybe they have but just don't care. It is a culture clash of epic proportions that will result pretty much in the destruction of Yahoo! and all they've ever done - and do nothing to harm Google. I suspect many of the employees will quit outright, and there's not much place for them to go in Silicon Valley except to side with the enemy (Google), the largest employer in the valley that's still adding significant headcount.

But I also believe that this move can't be stopped, so it doesn't really matter what I think about it. I would however like to share with you the exact image that popped into my brain on hearing this.

Sometime later this month "Diary and Other Rantings" (i.e. my weblog) will turn 7 years old, and I'll start my eighth year doing this activity called 'blogging'. Perhaps I'll mark the day, perhaps not. We'll see. Maybe I'll just stop doing it altogether. Maybe not. We'll see.

This all started in early 2001. I was at AOL making lots and lots of money from my Netscape stock options. I had a Netscape employee home page that was visited hundreds of thousands of times a day, but this was slowing. AOL no longer linked to it. I had started running a new server in the spare bedroom in 1998-1999, and later moved it to the garage. It took almost two years to get a working DSL link so that I could actually run a public website off of it. High-speed internet to the home was still an experimental technology. DSL wasn't yet ready for prime time and ISDN had other issues which plagued it. Leased-line required somebody to sell you an end-point on the public net and nobody was doing this, besides being limited to 56k which was now the speed of most modems. Web 'hosting' in those days was mostly for big business and costed big money. I could certainly afford it, but decided to spend my cash on more important things (like buying  a music store a year later).

Running a Linux box with an internet link isn't very expensive in the overall scheme of things. So once the DSL was finally working I made a new home page and started improving it.

I think it was Cindy at 'Off the Beaten Path' (now at 'dustingmybrain.com' ) who first introduced me to the concept of a rambling page. Instead of replacing your 'Current Interests' web page every week, you just keep adding to it. Drop in a date. Write what's happening. I started doing this. I was writing HTML in emacs. I called it an online diary. I didn't have titles, categories, RSS feeds, etc. These would come much later. I wasn't writing 'articles', I was just rambling. Why do you need a title for it? That makes it look so structured. The only important thing is the date, so somebody knows when it was that you thought this way. This was important. After several years of living on Netscape time, I firmly believed that one didn't think the same way for very long, and technology was always changing - so information had to have a date.

The other thing that I did was to take a cue from some of the large online news sites, which were the best model available for presenting information that had timestamps. I started writing in reverse chronological order (recent first). This was born of necessity, since nobody wanted to load a large page and scroll to the end to find recent stuff; which was how we did things previously (logfile format).  

In fact I maintained this format for a few years until it became unmanageable. Then I looked for ways of automating my monthly (or whenever) process of moving the current entries to an archive page and starting fresh. So after looking to see what programs were available and trying a few of them, I instead wrote a program to do it myself. Over time that evolved from a simple diary 'archiver' to the thing that you see today - a mega social portal that does everything but make coffee. (I miss this incidentally, I had my computer turn on the coffee pot from an online request in the early 1980s using my first homebrew social portal).  

I still wonder whether anybody reads these pages. Does anybody care? I don't subscribe to the current notions of SEO and affiliate marketing and trackware and all the other ways to improve one's blog ranking. Most notable these days are the pages and pages of 'widgets' attached to every blog, selling everything from online communities to soap. Why bother? Your only visitors will be other bloggers that are all trying to get you to visit their own blog. They aren't really reading what you have to say, they're too busy 'selling' their own wares. Still even after the RSS fiasco a few months back, I manage to pull in a few thousand humans a week. They come and read a page and leave again. This is the state of the modern internet.

It may be of some interest that I've managed to serve up a few hundred million pages since this all started - mostly to crawlers and robots; however last year activity peaked with about 100,000 daily hits (30,000 human visitors) and we've had six or seven days with over a million hits. I've written close to 1500 articles and there have been about 6600 total articles at one time or another from various feeds - before I was forced to nuke them for legal reasons. Only about 250 comments total, which I attribute to my decision a couple years back to do away with the daily spam cleanup and only allow website members to post comments. [I've since revised this policy.]

The 'community portal' (which I started writing a couple of years ago) doesn't have much community and I don't know if that will ever change. Community folks like big parties and unless you have one, you're late to the party. Bloggers only like communities where they can sell their blog.  I don't know how to convince them that a long-running website with several thousand non-blogging human visitors a week is actually a good place to drop a link. Yeah, I could put you on my blogroll, but I read thousands of blogs. It would quickly grow to be unmanageable and you'd be lost in the noise. 

But you can add your own link and profile page and whatever - you don't need me to do it. Hint, hint.  

Anyway - we'll see if this lasts or whether I just decide that there are better things to do. Write into space everyday and maybe a couple of people will read it. Maybe not.

That's what it's all about.

Don't ask yourself if it is actually relevant or important or whether anybody cares. You might not like to hear the true answer. It's one blog amongst hundreds of millions, all trying to be visited. All thinking they should be relevant to somebody. It's like asking if one star in the entire universe is relevant. Maybe one is relevant to somebody. But the big question looms, is it yours? Unless it's the sun and brings life to this planet, it's likely just another star in the vastness of space.  

In fact, nobody really cares whether you blog or not when all is said and done. Well maybe one or two folks. In my case those are the same one or two folks that cared back in 2001. Everybody else is just passing through on their way to somewhere else.

Still every day (sometimes two) I go to my website and ramble about what's on my mind. I tweak the software to make it better. Even knowing that it is all an exercise in futility. Strange.  

The school's weather station webpage seems to have stuffed it sometime around Thanksgiving. Today somebody finally noticed and alerted the support staff.

My boss asks "where's the documentation?".

Right.  There is none. This system has been in place for ten years or more and fails occasionally.  When that happens we go in and fix it.

Start with the webpage that actually displays the data. It's pulling the data from a file that is supposed to be automagically updated. Except we don't believe in magic. The file didn't get updated. Now to find out why.

Since this is a scheduled event, cron has to be involved. Let's have a look at the crontab file. Hmmm. It's pulling the changes from another file that is supposed to be automagically updated. That one hasn't been changing either. What changes that file? It isn't cron. Or is it? That file is symlinked to a file on another computer. Let's go have a look at the other computer. Ah, I see. There's a crontab running there which generates the contents of the update file from a data file via a collection of python scripts. Let's have a look at those. 

As I suspected, they are pulling data from yet another file that is automagically updated. Right. It hasn't changed since November either. What changes this file? Time to scan the logs. Nothing.

OK, it's time to start from the other direction. The weather station is connected to a PC in the corner of a lab. Let's have a look there. It's hung and totally unresponsive. OK, maybe that's the problem. I reboot it. Then go back to the webpage. Nope. Nothing has changed.

OK, somehow the data has to get from the weather station computer to the other computer where the python scripts can munge it. Let's have a look at the logs.

The logs say everything is fine, but it isn't fine. Nothing. It's not happening. Well this is interesting. I check connectivity and network connections. They're OK. We've got an IP addess and pings work just fine. A closer look reveals that there's a Windows task scheduler which occasionally FTP's the weather files across the net to the second Unix box. The logs don't show any errors. Hmmm. The files aren't being FTP'd though. They aren't making it. Then I see a notice at the bottom of the screen. Updates were applied some time since the computer was last powered on - six months ago. OK, what updates? Windows firewall. Right. So I have a look, and sure enough the computer's FTP connection has been firewalled because of an automatic update. The FTP's are silently failing - and indicating success. This is pure evil. After several minutes I'm able to get in with an administrator account that can fix the firewall and do so. 

Then have another look. Still nothing happening. What could be the problem now? Ah, on reboot FTP is automatically disabled on the weather station software - again without any warnings. The logs again say everything is working and files are being transferred. More evil. What's the use of having log files if they lie to you? I turn on the FTP. Bingo - now the files get through. Now back to the second computer to manually process the files and dump them into the directory where the third computer can pick them up. Then back to the third computer to manually update the processed files.

Yay! It works.

Back to the documentation. How would somebody document stuff like this? There's just too much that can go wrong. I could use up a tree or two writing it all down. This is why we've got systems folks. 

Meanwhile, Russia shows off their new military uniform.

Interesting to see what this does to their next military campaign. Opposing forces will be lining up outside the Kremlin to surrender - especially if the Russians promise to torture their captives.    

This morning on talk radio they were discussing the power grid selloff - and one of the callers mentioned seeing on a website the 'California perspective', wherein it was claimed that prices would almost certainly rise. Hmmm. Wonder if that was my website...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said.

----

Hmmm. Hazardous materials. Highly unlikely. What would be likely is if this claim were being made to keep 'visitors' away from the crash site until any secrets can be secured. Wonder if it's one of the Keyholes? That would certainly be a prize to any foreign government. It'll be a race to see who gets there first in any case.

I didn't used to care about these things - living largely outside the normal orbit trajectories, but that may not be true anymore. Skylab rained down over Western Australia, and I'm certain the U.S. government would classify anything outside Sydney as 'sparsely populated'.    

Yesterday I was walking on the path between buildings and a lady walking nearby stopped me.

"Watch out for the spider!"

Yikes. Yes, I do want to watch out. Where is it?

"Look right there, you can see the web..."

Yes. I see a web. Thanks for letting me know. Little did I know that I was now hopelessly caught in her web.

"It's one of those Asian spiders ... jibber jabber ... they were responsible for the burning of 7 million witches in the middle ages ... jibber jabber ... of course the Catholic church knew what was really going on ... jibber jabber ... Carl Sagan warned about what would happen if the DNA sequence was leaked ... jibber jabber ... Now the aliens have our DNA and they're using it to ... jibber jabber ... Prime Minister Rudd  met secretly with the church and they're ... jibber jabber ... You're an American, aren't you? Bush has had secret meetings with the aliens ... jibber jabber ..."

Finally I could take it no more and politely told the lady that it was fascinating listening to her talk non-stop, but I really had work to be doing.

"Oh, I understand. I hope you learned something and it sunk into your sub-concious... jibber jabber ..."

No. I've really got to go. Yes, I learned something. Bush has secret meetings with aliens who stole our DNA from the catholic church and it was all because of those darn spiders and the witches.

Thanks.

"Don't mention it."

How can I not mention it? This is all fascinating. It explains a whole lot of things.   

A bit of drama out on the F6 (Highway 1) this morning. A car smacked a cyclist near Kembla Grange. The authorities closed the freeway just about 1km north of me. This turned out to be a rather unfortunate place to be. In order to get off the freeway, the entire freeway behind me had to be emptied out, so that myself and the cars ahead could turn around and get back to the nearest off ramp. This took about an hour.

Once turned around, everything was diverted to surface streets to go around the accident. This of course choked them up as well.

But the real drama was just beginning to unfold. I was moving in a corridor of traffic along the Princes at 2km/hour (it certainly beats 0km), when it became apparent that my bladder couldn't hold out much longer. But there were no turnoffs, no place to go, because doing so would involve getting back into the slowly moving chain. The only option was to hold and grit teeth.

Finally was able to pull off in Figtree (another hour later) and found a Wooly's. I stepped up to the customer service desk shifting quickly from one leg to the other and clenching my teeth. The girl was busy finding a discount coupon for the older fellow ahead of me. After several minutes of this I finally went over to the nearest checkstand, interrupting the transaction in progress and proclaimed that there was going to be a rather embarrassing moment ahead if I didn't find a toilet very quickly.

Luckily she was sympathetic and fumbled around for a key and pointed me towards the toilets.

Just barely made it.

Finally arrived at work almost 2.5 hours late, to confront a panic in the server room. What a day!

I felt a bit nostalgic about Bayshore freeway traffic; though this same situation probably wouldn't have unfolded there. In the states, it is common practice in situations of death on the road to take a few pictures and roll the body off to the side. It is much more important to keep the freeway open than it is to investigate the accident. Sure, one or two people's lives have been severely disrupted, but contrast that with shutting down an entire regional economy for a few hours. Yes, I'm being a bit overly dramatic now... but it's not too far from the truth. 

Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first person to set foot on the top of Mt. Everest, died. He is arguably the most famous kiwi that ever lived and I believe put the phrase 'Because it's there' into the social vocabulary. It's hard to imagine that only 50+ years ago Mt. Everest had never been conquered by anybody. One of the last parts of the earth to be touched by humans. Nowadays it seems every aspiring mountaineer has left candy bar wrappers (and sometimes their bodies) on the trail to the top. 

So would you buy a used car from this woman?

The FBI is re-opening the DB Cooper case to try and figure out if anybody is willing to talk after 30+ years of mystery. 

For those too young to remember, a man known as Dan Cooper hijacked a plane in the Pacific Northwest (U.S.A.) in 1971 and demanded $200,000 cash (a large fortune in those days) and a parachute or the plane would be blown up. The ransom was paid, the plane flew towards Mexico and Mr. Cooper bailed out - possibly somewhere near the Oregon/Washington border.

He (and the money) vanished without a trace, although a kid found a few thousand in tattered $20 bills in the woods several years later that presumably came from the ransom loot. Whether he lived or died after the jump has long been the subject of speculation. 

Mr. Cooper - if you're out there,  hope you're doing well; and a toast - "You took the money and ran". Cheers mate.

Was just going through some of the top rated 'blogs' in the world. This was a fascinating eye-opener. The top rated blogs are all about telling people how to write top rated blogs.

I'm deliberately overlooking sites such as boingboing and laughing squid, as these aren't really personal blogs per se, but rather content compilations assembled by teams of writers. As far as personal blogs, the most prominent content featured amongst the market leaders is about blogging itself.

So if you design a site that tells folks how to use wordpress or blogger, you too could be a blogging superstar. 

Marshall McLuhan would be proud.  

I found the news of Ms. Bhutto's assassination a bit troublesome. Where does Pakistan go from here?

I think it's time for Musharref to go away. Did he have something to do with the assassination? They're currently rounding up the 'usual suspects' and doing their best to paint this as an al-Qaeda operation. It is the Musharref regime however, which by virtue of being so virulently anti-democratic - lies at the root of the incident. I seem to recall that it was a military government that first deposed and later murdered Benadir's father as his populism was a threat to their hold on power.

Deja vu?