Disqus - Latest Comments for Forrest

Re: NASA Turns Two Unmanned Warplanes Into Environmental Scouts

Forrest — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:30:33 -0000

This is an interesting story. I'll have to dig for more news about it ... I wish I understood this type of subject better. I can see how this would be easier than satellites when it comes to making repairs, etc. On the other hand, I know that certain GPS satellites can become "unhealthy" and be repaired remotely. There's probably some reason why that's not relevant ... but I don't know it.

More and more cameras these days have a feature called "image stabilization," which uses gyroscopes ( or accelerometers these days ) and servo-motors to keep the image steady without a tripod. This technology was developed by the Air Force during World War Two, to drop bombs more accurately. It's good, at least, that these military technologies are finding civilian uses.

Re: Remove Negative Publicity Online: How Difficult Is It?

Forrest — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:20:25 -0000

You really can't just remove negative content about yourself from other sources. When Consumerist posted the infamous confessions of a Dell salesman and Dell responded with a DMCA takedown notice, the community justifiably went crazy. People with no real interest in Dell one way or the other, who might have bought one on sale, saw this as an example of a big, evil corporation crushing free speech to protect its bottom line. They apologized a few days later.

That's not to say you shouldn't deal with criticism, especially when it's unfounded ... just be extremely careful!

Re: Isn’t Everyone A Consultant These Days?

Forrest — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:16:33 -0000

I've definitely noticed that people are too hesitant to say goodbye to a job when that's what they need to advance. This isn't a generational issue, either; you'd expect people who grew up in a time when job security was of the utmost important to cling to a particular employer, but that just isn't the case.

Re: How To Get Language Help

Forrest — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:18:15 -0000

It really doesn't seem obvious, at least at first blush, but stock photo houses are hiring linguists like there's no tomorrow. I think Getty has more lexographers than photographers...

Re: Jason Calacanis – Wikia Mailing List Troll

Forrest — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:21:26 -0000

Wow ... that's class. Getting called out for horse trading turns into a pretty remarkable act of back peddling.

Re: Jason Calacanis – Wikia Mailing List Troll

Forrest — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:21:26 -0000

Wow ... that's class. Getting called out for horse trading turns into a pretty remarkable act of back peddling.

Re: How to Find Your Strongest Web Pages

Forrest — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:39:45 -0000

How does this actually work...? It says "This tool generates a list of pages on your domain that have the highest potential (in terms of links & authority) to rank in the search engines," but in broad terms ... how is/could-that-be coded into a web programming language?

My 'strongest' post is the one I made yesterday; #2 and #3 are from August. It's certainly not counting links ... the newest post obviously has had the least amount of time to earn them, isn't even crawled yet.

It's interesting, but I wonder how much this actually tells us...?

Re: How to Find Your Strongest Web Pages

Forrest — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 23:23:59 -0000

I don't think the PR value reflected in the toolbar is of any value. It's entirely possible that your page with the highest toolbar PR gets the least traffic; mine is somewhere in between. Newer posts, ones that haven't been assigned any PR, get plenty of search traffic. Remember that PR is one of many factors that determine where a page lands for a given search.

Re: The Strange Truth About the FBI Logo

Forrest — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:31:52 -0000

This is incredibly frustrating. My own problems with content thieves are of no importance to anyone beyond myself, and any lawyer I hire. That FBI logo didn't create the situation ... but it's a jab in the eye.

Re: Why I Embed My Images

Forrest — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:45:09 -0000

Maybe it was just wishful thinking ... but reading the title of this post, I assumed you would be tackling the question from the other point of view: that of the image creator. I've still managed to learn a bit, though.

Re: Why I Embed My Images

Forrest — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:44:11 -0000

Well ... if you're taking suggestions ...

I embed a © mark in each of my photos, which is most of where my misunderstanding came from. A person took one of my portrait images - a close up of a lady's face - and posted it on a public site in the UK, along with a couple dozen sexually explicit photos and drawings. While I managed to change the .htaccess file to take my image down from the offending site, I got a shocking email. The person claimed ignorance on the matter, told me that "just because a picture says it's copyrighted doesn't mean it is," and that they assumed I've been adding the mark - marring the images - for aesthetics only.

I hinted at my frustration in your FBI Logo post, and this is the source for much of it. The internet is essentially the Wild West, a lawless black hole into which personal and commercial work both fall. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of confusion in this arena...

Re: Video: Jason Calacanis on Internet Pollution

Forrest — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:59:40 -0000

This sounds a great deal like other pressing issues of our time:

It is only after spam begins to hurt the immediate bottom line that we are going to see a real change in course. However, by that time, it might be too late.

I agree that Usenet isn't a good comparison ... on the other hand, there really has never been a historical analogue for the internet. Maybe a little bit of grasping at straws should be allowed? I don't know of anyone who takes Squidoo seriously ... and for generally the same reasons as Usenet, most of Craigslist, and broad sections of Wikipedia.

Re: Why I Embed My Images

Forrest — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:11:09 -0000

I realize that trademarks can be weakened through 'neglect' while copyrights can't. That said ... is it paranoid to worry about something like adverse possession might be happening slowly? Your FBI piracy logo post struck a chord, knowing that there are two tiers of copyright holder. I wonder if it's that people have more respect for the fact that copyrights apply to the web ... or that people fear a lawsuit from a corporation with a lot of staff attorneys? Keeping a reasonable amount of control over a person's own work can feel like Sisyphus trying to push a boulder up a hill...

Re: A Dirty Spam Trick

Forrest — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:57:10 -0000

I'm curious what my reading level might be ... certainly not enough to embed spammy links into my blog, though. I wonder if this gives more exposure to scrapers, hackers who would try to find editable files or weak passwords, or anything else, by entering your URL into the form...? No particular reason to, except that these peoples' trustworthiness has already been demonstrated.

Many of these online questionnaires will try to get you to link to their site, or to have you disclose your email address ... but this is beyond the pale.

Re: Attributor Dubs Megan Fox Hottest on the Web

Forrest — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:27:55 -0000

I'm a photographer, and have been waiting for this for many years now.

I'm also a software developer, from 9ish to 5ish ... and this is fascinating, well beyond the pretty girls aspect. It would be easy to compare two images bytewise, and get false negatives. If they're the same size, it would also be easy to compare the individual pixels, and compute the overall % match. A system could even scale an original down to match copies at different sizes to compare them ... which is going to demand more raw computing horsepower than Google has at their command. How to decide quickly whether or not to spend the time analyzing the images, letting the application scale to a usable level ... just to keep pace with the internet of today ... is a more daunting task.

Re: Using Reverse IP to Track Spammers

Forrest — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:26:40 -0000

I want to re-iterate something I was going to 'correct' ... your first caveat. Most web legitimate sites are personal in nature ( at least that's what I expect a census would find ) and most people tend to go with the $5ish hosting plan. Economics dictate the host put a lot of these sites together on the same box: to make a profit, and to utilize each server to [near] capacity.

Re: The Obama Plagiarism Scandal

Forrest — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:42:13 -0000

It's a shame the www ( wild wild west? ) won't learn these lessons. Attributing obsessively would put half the social networking sites out of business; you can find a lot of gorgeous photographs and literary passages, and have no idea who wrote any of them.

Re: The Spread of Spam

Forrest — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:53:37 -0000

I've noticed a lot of .edu spam myself lately. Whether it's true or not, there's a perception that they get special loving treatment from search engines

But that's a drop in the bucket compared to the flood of comment and trackback spam I seem to attract. Today a comment got past Akismet from a sex blog on a legit seeming domain. The comment itself was questionable, so I had a look at the site. What's interesting, to me at least, is that the text wasn't just stolen from somewhere else, like a lot of the trackback spam I get; it was pure gibberish. Almost certainly created by "content generator" software. This is a lot less irritating than someone stealing my work ... if it would just stay out of my corner of the network, I'd be happy.

Personally, I've read reports suggesting as many as 93 % of the blogs hosted on blogspot are spam. This always seemed a little shrill ... again, with that perception, I'm not surprised they're cracking down and causing a mass exodus.

Re: Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Pornography: The Good, The Bad and The Creative

Forrest — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:02:33 -0000

When did creating avatars become an example of an "interesting feature?"

A white-list can't work. No amount of distributed, volunteer effort will be able to cover a per cent of the sites on the internet. New web sites are being created faster than they can be reviewed. More troubling to an initiative like this, there's a market for people to build a web site, attract a reputation to it, and then sell the thing. Which means a previously acceptable web site may stop being acceptable...

Re: 22 Surefire Marketing Predictions for 2K8

Forrest — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:28:47 -0000

Hysterical! Most of these have already come to pass ... I love that there's web 2.0, even if nobody ever called it v 1.0 ... and where are the incremental versions, anyway.

The barb at Apple is great. And probably true.

Re: 10 Psychological Sales Tactics

Forrest — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:18:58 -0000

This is interesting; I've never thought of myself as being in sales. And yet I do want to attract more readers to my blog and build "name recognition." Your fourth tip, make readers feel smart, is something I've been trying to do with subtlety. It's good to see professional reinforcement for this...

Forrest's last blog post..A King?s Ransom

Re: 11 Ways to Take Advantage of Private Label Rights

Forrest — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:21:16 -0000

Derivative creations are pretty common in the photography and graphics industry I've never heard of this referred to as "Private Label Rights" before, but that gives me some thoughts for my own site...

Forrest's last blog post..A King?s Ransom

Re: 10 Psychological Sales Tactics

Forrest — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:24:00 -0000

Neighbors, are we? Where are you located...? I didn't see mention of that anywhere on your blog, and normally I don't go looking. ( There's something interesting about reading good advice that could be coming from the building next door, or from thousands of miles away; easier to simply focus on the 'content.' )

Thanks, about the photos! It's ironic, I've asked other photographers for their thoughts on psychology before, and always got the answer "you're over-thinking things." This is a great example of why it's important ... and I hadn't even delved into questions like you're answering, about after hitting the shutter.

I'm curious if you've read The Tipping Point? The few people I've talked to who've read that one seem pretty insightful. Not knowing much about you, you come off as insightful, so naturally I'm curious where that comes from? Some people are naturally gifted when it comes to dealing with people; others learn it to whatever extent they can...

Forrest's last blog post..A King?s Ransom

Re: Pajama Professional: New Theme Means New Ads

Forrest — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:45:33 -0000

I'm surprised a quality blog like this doesn't have more visitors...! Don't get me wrong, 400 page views a day is nothing to snub one's nose at. This is my third or fourth comment since discovering you yesterday; that's because out of the billions of blogs in your niche, this one is worth reading. I'm sure you're well aware of how many blogs post things a three year old should already know; by comparison I've already learned here.

I'm not selling anything at this point, but when I can afford to start advertising, you're already on my list. Our sites aren't "relevant" (SEO buzzword) to each other, but I think quality is far more important!

Forrest's last blog post..A King?s Ransom

Re: Four Ways to Create Blog Timelines

Forrest — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:31:27 -0000

This is a great idea, maybe even a fascinating one. I've always been attracted to visual ways to present information, being able to understand things at a glance, make the difference between useless data and understandable knowledge. I think I might have to give this a try.

Simile sounds like the best choice. Photoshop ... there are so many options it can almost be daunting.

Forrest's last blog post..Epic vs Intimate Landscapes

Re: Timelines: A Fresh and Engaging Blog Element

Forrest — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:33:37 -0000

When do we get to see the timelines you've created? This will be fairly easy in photography, and sort of fun to go so quickly from ancient analogue technology to modern Photoshop and FTP ... I'm curious to see other uses, though.

Forrest's last blog post..Epic vs Intimate Landscapes

Re: Meme: 5 Questions About You

Forrest — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:06:20 -0000

Since 2000, wow! That explains a lot...

Forrest's last blog post..Vivid Color in Photoshop

Re: The Most Important Marketing Skill

Forrest — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 23:13:39 -0000

This is a lot like the advice in The Tipping Point, except tailored to marketing. It's a lot more complicated than it seems at first blush.

Forrest's last blog post..Vivid Color in Photoshop

Re: The Most Important Marketing Skill

Forrest — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:32:43 -0000

A lot of people call it a marketing book, but it's really not ... it's a sort of social theory about how information spreads. Not really about marketing, but the kind of stuff that helps to know in this field ( which is a new one to me ).

It came out in 2000, before the term "viral marketing," but sort of described the phenomenon. He wrote that information is spread a lot like a common cold or even an STD. The way there are people who might spread a cold to two or three others, and there are super carriers who might give it to a hundred people, word of mouth is more about the people with social graces than people with special knowledge.

Throughout the book he keeps talking about The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere as an example of all of the factors that help information spread coming together perfectly ... and being remembered centuries later.

Forrest's last blog post..Vivid Color in Photoshop

Re: Introducing… Gosh That’s Green

Forrest — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:20:27 -0000

What a beautiful logo! Did you make that yourself?

I'm glad to see another member of the green "movement" ... out of respect, I'll leave my comments about that on your new site.

Forrest's last blog post..Vivid Color in Photoshop

Re: Trip Around the Blogosphere 11-26-2007

Forrest — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:37:24 -0000

I'm looking forward to the new design, too. Your new site "Gosh that's Green" is very nice on the eyes, so I'm sure the new theme will be as well...?

Forrest's last blog post..The Columbia River Gorge

Re: Google PR: The Sh!t or Just Plain Sh!t?

Forrest — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:57:45 -0000

I just noticed this in your favorite posts with the new theme. On that note, we seem to have something else in common, other than geography: sql and in my case asp rather than php. Having written code somewhat like page rank ( mostly fraud detection ) I don't put much stock in algorithms like that one. I think development work has changed the way I look at a lot of things.

Also, if you look into the webmaster console, at your highest pr page, it's never the one with the most traffic from search engines or all sources combined. It's a view from 10,000 feet, but it's just too little information.

Forrest's last blog post..The Columbia River Gorge

Re: Goals for December

Forrest — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:29:58 -0000

You might think about dropping your "sharing" thing, and going with the latest version of AddThis? You've been to my blog a few times; the image thing with a flyout menu at the bottom of a post lets people add your work to different social bookmark sites without ever leaving your page. I don't even have a Digg account, and they're sending me traffic.... I don't think the version I have lets people add to many more social networks easily, but it has a nice statistics package ... and it's free.

Forrest's last blog post..The Columbia River Gorge

Re: 12 Essential Wordpress Plugins

Forrest — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:53:18 -0000

What a great list ... I didn't know about most of these. I also didn't realize RSS subscriptions were so essential. I don't use a feed reader, so this has really never made sense to me. Maybe I'm a Luddite?

Have you tried AddThis? I haven't played with AntiSocial ( although it sounds pretty interesting! ), but I like the little flyout thing, and the stat package it comes with. On that note, what do you think of Google Analytics? I'll have to check Short Stat out, another I hadn't heard of, but I've been enjoying the keyword effectiveness and also just the map showing where visitors come from.

Forrest's last blog post..Multnomah and the Waterfalls of the Gorge

Re: Trip Around the Blogosphere 12-09-2007

Forrest — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:14:06 -0000

The reading list is great! It's pretty often that I'll come to an article or post that I intend to read, but not at that particular moment. I tend to leave the tab open until I get to it, which makes a nice visual reminder, but until today I've been on a hideously slow desktop ... this is really a much better solution.

I just read Mrs Scarborough's post, and it would seem like it's time for me to move to the next level. I'm not sure exactly what that is in my case, but less important probably than recognizing it. ;-)

Forrest's last blog post..Snoqualmie Pass Through the Cascade Mountains

Re: I Want to Win the USB Memory Watch

Forrest — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:07:01 -0000

I might prefer the backpack, but a USB watch would be pretty convenient. I just finally moved away from my antique desktop system, and unfortunately I don't have a crossover cable or a DHCP server, so I can't just share/migrate data between the two machines over a network. That's not really an every day thing, but computers are becoming so central in every day life that being able to quickly and easily move data around is probably more essential than having a television.

Forrest's last blog post..Snoqualmie Pass Through the Cascade Mountains

Re: Blogging Basics: The Three Cs

Forrest — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:20:11 -0000

I can't agree more on the importance of good, unique, and innovative content. For all my faults, one thing I'm not too bad at is finding new ways to frame things, or to connect seemingly disparate ideas. Ahhh, if only that were enough...!

This is interesting, but I thought I would disagree with your consistency section ... the evolution you mention writers going through is exactly why. And yet, reading it, I need to figure out how to better follow your advice.

So ... when there's nothing jumping out at you to write about, how do you deal with that?

Forrest's last blog post..Snoqualmie Pass Through the Cascade Mountains

Re: Is Honesty the Best (Selling) Policy?

Forrest — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:27:47 -0000

I'm sure there's been some A/B testing done on this ... it's actually pretty fascinating to look at the scientific research going on into sexuality and, well, other things. Sexuality is a lot like economics ... everybody is individual in their tastes and situation, but there's a much larger pattern, a formula you can use to describe aggregate decision making. ( I don't happen to know that formula, or at least all of it, but ... )

Somebody convinced me to start a myspace profile, put up a small handful of photos, and point back to my site where people could see more. Every week I get emails from Sarah's and Jenny's wanting to be my "friend" ... enough I set up a filter to dump them directly into my spam folder.

Forrest's last blog post..Snoqualmie Pass Through the Cascade Mountains

Re: Blogging Basics: The Three Cs

Forrest — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:19:05 -0000

This post inspired me to try something different, and try a radical stylistic change in my content. I'd been considering a smaller one, and to try to get it to circle back to my chosen subject matter ... whether deciding against it was a good idea or not, I got something out the door in time!

Forrest's last blog post..A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Re: Looking Toward 2008 Part 1: Better Organization

Forrest — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 02:26:17 -0000

This is interesting to see that you're using a calendar to manage your blog posts, after your three Cs post - consistency in posting schedule.

I've never used the scheduled posting feature in WordPress. It would have been pretty handy a few times, especially the second to most recent post of mine ... a quick, slightly autobiographical rambling I wanted to "go live" on my birthday. I'll have to look into both of these ideas, although if I decide to use a calendar, it'll probably be a desktop one.

Forrest's last blog post..Blue Winds Dancing (by Tom Whitecloud)

Re: ‘Twas the Morning Before Christmas…

Forrest — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:10:42 -0000

I hope actually getting to open everything lived up to the anticipation?

Forrest's last blog post..Blue Winds Dancing (by Tom Whitecloud)

Re: ‘Twas the Morning Before Christmas…

Forrest — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 01:08:29 -0000

I hadn't heard of them, either ... and I have to admit, it really does sound like a great system. If it had GPS I'd have to wait in line for my own system...

I come from a family of atheists, so for me the holidays were a nice break from work, giving me a chance to head out to the peninsula. My birthday is the winter solstice, though, and I got some hiking gear. I'm so tempted at this point to head back west across the sound to ring in the New Year.

Forrest's last blog post..US 101: The Olympic Peninsula

Re: Looking Toward 2008 Part 1: Better Organization

Forrest — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:20:37 -0000

Question ... I just got myself a laptop - my last one died more than a year ago! - and it came with Windows Vista, which is new to me. There are a lot of built-in widgets, like a calendar and "sticky pad" that hang out on the right edge of the screen. How do you feel about paper vs digital for scrap notes and such?

Forrest's last blog post..Blowing up the Space Needle (New Year Fireworks)

Re: What Everyone Ought to Know About Linkbaiting

Forrest — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 18:10:41 -0000

Has anyone ever shown any conclusive proof that too many links in a short time actually brings down the wrath of Google? I've heard this a number of times, but not seen any examples. Considering competition in general, the varying quality of links, and algorithmic shakeups ... it would be easy to see something like this once, and blame it on having got a number of links recently.

Forrest's last blog post..Blowing up the Space Needle (New Year Fireworks)

Re: Happy New Year!

Forrest — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:36:34 -0000

Good to see you're not abandoning your faithful readers! I hope it's been a nice break, though?

Forrest's last blog post..Construction of the Emerald City

Re: Blogger Unleashed: Honest, Straightforward Advocate

Forrest — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:30:04 -0000

Long time no see!

I've heard a lot of hype about Vic; I read his blog briefly, left a few comments, and haven't returned since reading his response to them. There's a danger in vigilance ... I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful, but Vic strikes me as a person who's so used/eager to calling out fakers, that he sometimes sees them where they don't really exist. But more to the point: like anybody, he occasionally makes a factual error, but unlike most people ( the ones who've earned my respect, anyway ) he doesn't take kindly to having these errors pointed out to him. As you said ... it rubs me the wrong way.

Forrest's last blog post..North Lake Union

Re: Free Tax Sites: A Lesson for Bloggers about Advertising Balance

Forrest — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:02:08 -0000

This is one reason I do mine the old fashioned way ... in Excel! :)

My thoughts are that if a site is that aggressive about monetization, they're a lot more likely than, say, the Pajama Professional, to take my personal info and sell it to the highest bidder. When you're doing your taxes ... a lot of personal info is involved. I can obviously trust you with my email address, but can I trust this free tax service with my social security number?? Without knowing for sure, it seems safer to err on the side of caution. Obviously, they make nothing in that case ... so it's an example not to follow.

Forrest's last blog post..North Lake Union

Re: How to Develop Mad Skills and Market Insight

Forrest — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:32:48 -0000

The scary thing is, this works offline, too. Somebody was asking me for advice in finding a job; I offered to introduce the person to a hiring manager at a software company that needs a junior level q/a. Somebody to click links on web pages, and send an email when one is broken. My friend declined, saying that he's not capable of working with computers ... that it's a left-brain / right-brain thing. As a person who's paid for my camera gear mostly by writing T-SQL, this is hard to accept. I'm not wonderful at accounting, either, but having a bank account has forced me to be competent enough not to find myself on the street.

Anyone can learn a new skill. Not everyone can master it. In your list ( photography, writing, coding, design ) I think I have a pretty good handle on the first three ... but I'm terrible at the last. I've put in a lot of work, and know a great deal more, but I'll never design the look and feel for the next iPod. But then I don't need to, either.

I wasn't born with any of these skills. I'm guessing you were born with an aptitude for marketing, but probably knowing a great deal less than you do today. Chances are you learned most of what you know as the need arose...?

Forrest's last blog post..North Lake Union

Re: Occam’s Razor: Making Web Analytics Sexy

Forrest — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:21:41 -0000

I'm reading his blog now ... it's fascinating stuff. At least as much as you can call a discussion about numbers "fascinating." But he's highlighting the complaint I've always felt about stat packages, from Google Analytics on down to awstats. I haven't used Click Tracks, but I really like the look of that "What's Changed" report!

Forrest's last blog post..North Lake Union

Re: Giveaway Alert: Lightning Giveaway 4

Forrest — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:44:18 -0000

The link isn't working, at least here in the office ... it's telling me "Sorry, you supplied an incorrect member value."

Sorry for a randomly off-topic comment, but I wonder if I could talk you into sharing your thoughts on term extraction in a future post? Yahoo has a free ( but limited ) engine, and I've been writing my own. Mine is for non-marketing reasons, but a few SEO people have been telling me there's an immense value ... so I would love to hear the opinion of someone who knows this stuff better than I do, if you ever find the time. :)

Forrest's last blog post..North Lake Union

Re: A Quick Note about Akismet and Comment Spam

Forrest — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:19:37 -0000

Looks like you got a great conversation started.

You mentioned bloggers pruning their comments to make themselves look better ... I don't really understand this. I don't doubt that it happens; it just doesn't seem to be in anybody's best interest. I delete everything from my blog that's obvious spam, and I get my share. If there's doubt, I tend to look into things - the site somebody signed with, the history of their posting, etc. And then make up my mind after some thought. Luckily, I don't get so many in-between comments, so that's actually feasible.

Real spam - the kind that everybody in the world will agree is spam - is a huge turn off. It looks unprofessional, and I don't doubt it chases the users away. And it looks unprofessional. The problem is, so much of it isn't quite as obvious. You could take a few dozen PhDs and not get a consensus. Which makes the job of the who who writes Akismet code pretty difficult...

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Five Reasons (and then some) to Purchase Link Luv Post Builder

Forrest — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:31:36 -0000

It sounds a bit like one of the recent changes to either wordpress hosting, or at least some of the hosted blogs I read. They're starting to show links to related posts at the bottom, near the comment form. It's ... interesting ... to see the chain. A lot of them are only tangentially related, but, still, you can find things you'd never read otherwise.

And I think "that's the rub;" finding new information, on the edge of your niche, can be a huge asset. New ideas, new inspiration, new sources of raw information, can break you apart from the pack. You mentioned everybody writing exactly the same thing, just rewording what everybody else is writing ... it's a sad state of parts of the blogosphere, but it's also the opportunity to stand apart from the pack.

Ironically, I really don't have much use for the software itself, and yet I'm very curious about how it works internally. I've been doing a lot of work along similar lines, with term extraction, Bayesian inference, and the like. I doubt that's how this works, but there are some fascinating ways to model relevance inside the computer. And learning technical details on this stuff makes you put a lot of thought into the basics of writing, that most of us haven't even considered since third grade.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Build a Niche Store: Three Free Tools for Creating Professional Headers

Forrest — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:44:43 -0000

I'm curious ... which bells and whistles of Photoshop do you find missing in The GIMP? Other than the GUI ( which is pretty sweet in CS 3 ! ) I haven't really found it lacking. There are even some things that it beats PS in, hands-down. They're probably all esoteric ones, but true 16-bit histograms, and the like, can be invaluable in challenging photography. In CS 2, the curves adjustment was a dialog box with a spline; in CS 3, they seem to have borrowed the idea to show a histogram in the background from the GIMP.

You might give Paint.net a try. It's open source freeware for Windows, designed to mimic Photoshop Elements. It does a decent job ... this one really is missing a great deal, but it has the basics. The two things it does better than GIMP, in my ever so humble opinion, are resource utilization on the PC, and having a user interface that doesn't intimidate.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Always Have a Spare Key or Why I Should Not Travel

Forrest — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:08:34 -0000

I keep a spare to my car in a jacket pocket, and then try my best to forget about it. Obviously, I haven't done such a good job forgetting... I was driving through the Cascades with some family, on one of the ( dirt ) forest service roads, when we lost the car key for a while, and the experience stuck with me.

So you aren't very impressed that Scott McClellan started telling the truth either, huh?

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Getting Things Done Part 2: Software

Forrest — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:18:13 -0000

Very very interesting. I just sent this on to a friend who's fallen in love with Outlook - I think she could benefit from the Jello Dashboard. I seem to have a pretty strange workflow, between not using RSS readers, Outlook ( gmail does everything I need ), and the like ... it's hard to personally see the appeal of a lot of the software other people fall in love with, but that doesn't change the fact that most people do.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Call to Action : Protest Against Whale Slaughter

Forrest — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:16:49 -0000

This is incredibly sad. "Research" seems to be a code word, the one thing a lot of people won't complain about. I sent Canon a letter about the matter, as a faithful customer, since they advertise about 'shoot it with a camera' ...

Stephen Pinker is one of people who's been talking about moral progress. In the Dark Ages, in Europe, they used to burn cats to death in public for peoples' amusement. Today, it's a struggle, but a lot of people in the world believe it's wrong - immoral - to inflict suffering on another creature if it can be avoided. That seems to apply more to people like everyone reminding this, than the people who decide that whaling for "research" is ok. But the more of us believe it, the more that belief spreads, like a positive feedback loop.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Call to Action : Protest Against Whale Slaughter

Forrest — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:58:13 -0000

@Monavie;

Two things:

(1) Japan isn't trying to drive whales extinct. How would it benefit whalers to kill off the last of their pray? Extinction is one possible outcome of whaling policy ... but nobody in their right mind thinks Japan is trying to drive whales out of life. To say they are, is to set up straw men.

(2) The Yangtze-River dolphin is probably extinct ... in China! You can't say "Japan is trying to make whales go extinct just like their Yangtze River dolphins."

If we want to be taken seriously, we need to start by clearly speaking the truth. The #1 thing people can do to derail an effort like this, is to make the people behind it look ignorant. We all need to be careful not to provide good sound bites for anybody who has an interest in whaling.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Is Ubuntu for You?

Forrest — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:19:40 -0000

I don't actually use Linux at the moment, apart from my web hosts. I'm not doing much, at home, in the software industry lately ... the weather is, at least sometimes, too nice to be indoors. But Linux is one of the reasons Google was successful out of the gate, and we can all take advantage of that.

For most, IT is a cost center. Software and computing are "enabling technologies," or stuff we need ... but nobody buys your product because you use Excel 2007. That contributes to a business, but isn't the cause for its success. On that note, if people are able to get the same work done as efficiently, but spend less, they have more profit, or can lower their prices to be more competitive, or ...

Google needed a lot of computing power, so they gathered a lot of cheap computers, and ran free Linux instead of expensive Windows on each of them. If I had dozens of servers, I'd be looking to do the same. I prefer Windows on the machine I do my work on, but for specific reasons that don't apply to everyone else. That means I'm burdened with a cost others don't need to take on.

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: A Brief Note Regarding Political and Religious Discussions

Forrest — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:46:42 -0000

I think this is much less of a big deal than you seem to ... I'm not sure how most people feel these days, but I'm curious?

We all know we should save money, and we all know a bank account isn't a very good way to do this. There are any number of "socially responsible" mutual funds. I read about these when The Economist covers them, but that's not often enough.

Anyway, I think most people can agree on most political "issues." Your whales post helped prove that, and it's wonderful how many people went out of their way to get involved! As long as you stay away from the third rail, I think most people really do agree on the basics. We all want to make the world a better place; we might disagree on some of how to do that, but common sense ( hopefully! ) pulls most people together on most questions, other than the very controversial ones. SIDS seems to be another case where everybody agrees we should do something...

So: thanks for doing your part in the world! And good luck, as far as integrating this into your blog without changing your focus too much, or alienating everybody. I have a feeling you'll manage to do both pretty well...

Forrest's last blog post..God Beams

Re: Trip Around the Blogosphere - June 29, 2008

Forrest — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:26:52 -0000

It's funny; the four traits post seems to agree with your own advice, about my own blog's biggest weakness: posting often enough, consistently. I don't think many readers are going to accept it being summer, and finally nic out, as an excuse...

Forrest's last blog post..Talapus Lake in June Snow

Re: 10 Great Search Engine Optimization Articles

Forrest — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:22:40 -0000

If you ever get a chance to work with a piece of software called Autonomy, give it a shot. It's not free or open source ... not even close. But Autonomy, and other software like it ( Lexalytics ) give strong hints into what can be done with software. There are a lot of seo myths about different ways Google might punish a web site; most of them are obviously not true, because it would be impossible. But it's almost frightening what's possible these days.

Forrest's last blog post..Talapus Lake in June Snow

Re: Getting Things Done Part 1: The Basics

Forrest — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:07:06 -0000

This is a lot bigger and more complicated than I had expected! But ... I've been meaning to read this article for a few days now, and procrastinating. If that isn't a sure sign I could use some help in this area, I don't know what is!

I hope you don't mind, but I just sent this to a friend who's been talking for years about building a consolidated knowledge management system. The workflow you described is almost exactly what he's been talking about, but in far more general terms ... I think this will be tremendously helpful. ( Clearly, it must be, if you're able to write this blog on top of a full time job. )

Forrest's last blog post..Talapus Lake in June Snow

Re: A Brief Note Regarding Political and Religious Discussions

Forrest — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:57:57 -0000

Tread lightly, my friend! You're completely right ... but you're also dangerously close to the third rail.

I think when a person advocates a belief, that should stand on its own. Religion can be a powerful force ... but it's not so much of a justification. And it's also not as monolithic as people make out. If somebody wants to discriminate against somebody else, and claims religion as their reason ... chances are everybody else in that faith doesn't agree about discriminating against people. Still, whether it's because of a sacred book, or because of something they read on the internet, people need to evaluate the idea on its merits. And if we manage to do that ... people will have no choice but to become more tolerant, because that's the only thing that logically makes sense.

Forrest's last blog post..Talapus Lake in June Snow

Re: The Secret Formula for Re-Purposed Content Fortunes

Forrest — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:42:51 -0000

A friend asked me if I'd be able to write an application that will take a text file or dump of some sort, scrape an online thesaurus, and then replace some of the words in his document with synonyms. I think I just figured out why...!

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Seven Questions: Interview Yourself for Your Home Business

Forrest — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:26:06 -0000

I don't suppose you have any advice for ad hoc situations? I'm finding myself in one, taking on a site project to raise money for a very worthy charity ... not because I want to or feel especially capable, but because it needs to happen.

Sorry for the largely off topic digression! A friend of mine found a kitten on Bainbridge Island who'd been drop kicked, and I've agreed to help raise money for an MRI and whatever treatment the cat winds up needing. It's not what I'd choose to be doing, but the cat is suffering, and my friend, who found it, needs help. I've tried this once before, but if you have any advice, I'll be eternally grateful.

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Eight Resources to Improve your Writing Skills

Forrest — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:35:09 -0000

I love The Economist ... I don't know that many people who subscribe, but I find the unique perspective, different choice of what to cover, and their semi-poetic writing style are almost music to my ears. I'm sure part of this is being British, with an air of formality ... but other than The Economist, the last time I read a sentence that began with "Your correspondent ..." must have been Dickens.

They say good writing shouldn't be noticeable, like good acting. But that's one thing that draws me repeatedly back.

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Questions about Desktop PCs, PDFs with Hyperlinks and iPod Transfer

Forrest — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:16:40 -0000

Exact computer specs probably don't matter all that much ... certainly not enough to lose sleep over. I think most of it falls into two buckets: good enough, and not good enough.

I've run plenty of AMD and Intel chips, and write pretty intensive server software for a living. Both are up to snuff. AMD has some great technology. The new Intel chip is fantastic, too. I wouldn't hesitate to get either one of them.

I'd recommend Vista, mostly just because the writing is on the wall. There's Vista only software, and without knowing your personal and professional life very well, all I can say is that in my line of work, knowing how to use new software is a good thing. But, if you go the Vista route, make sure you get a real graphics card. I've never needed one before, but the difference between my home and work laptop is pretty amazing, and it all comes down to this reason.

For a hard drive, they're pretty cheap at this point, and you shouldn't have a problem with any of them. I'd highly recommend getting ~100 GB in a laptop drive, with an enclosure and USB cable, so you can carry it around, for example to client sites.

Feel free to shoot me an email if I can clarify anything.

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Two Ways to Not Build a List

Forrest — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:38:56 -0000

You had asked:

If you haven’t signed up for my list, please let me know why. Is the incentive too lame or are you just avoiding extra email? I would really appreciate any feedback you can give.

And the interesting thing is, you touched on the main answer in your question. I don't want the email. I have two addresses: one for personal correspondence, and the other, which seems to be down, is more of a honey pot. My Excite email address gets hundreds of messages a day, and has become useless, apart from having an address to give out at will.

The other reason - and I mean no offense by this - is that, as you mentioned, the reason for building these types of lists is to sell them. I have respect for you, based on everything you've expressed in your blog. I wouldn't be offended in the least if you decided to write me. But that respect doesn't carry over to partners you may have ... again, I'm not trying to single you out, but this general line of thinking is why I don't join lists at all.

In terms of incentives, I've joined the Union of Concerned Scientists' mailing list a few years ago, when my best friend stood to win a nice prize by recruiting enough people. I guess that's really the only type of incentive that would convince me ... making a personal friend happy.

I hope that reasoning and feedback is even a little bit useful?

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Spam Free Outlook

Forrest — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:48:25 -0000

Have you used gmail? It's a lower tech solution ... but a better one. In the interest of full disclosure, though, I'm not sure why anybody uses Outlook? I use it, at work, because I'm forced to, and have to admit the calendar integration is pretty nice. Gmail has the same feature, but when an entire office coalesces around a particular system ... it's hard to change that.

Anyway, gmail has the best spam filter I've ever seen. I've been using it for close to five years, and have only ever seen one false positive ( legitimate email flagged as spam ), out of countless thousands. This includes email from random members of the public, as one of the comments above me is worried about.

It's also much faster than Outlook running on the desktop.

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Introducing Write Right

Forrest — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:59:29 -0000

Interesting ... thanks for pointing this out. I've been looking to do a little bit of moonlighting in my spare time, and while I'm still evaluating this place ... I like that the first thing I see is writing tips on their front page. Their advice really strikes a chord; "read everything" has contributed as much to my career as actually working.

Somewhat off topic, but do you read Language Log?

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Free Download: Michael Moore’s New Film “Slacker Uprising”

Forrest — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:36:28 -0000

I'm not a fan of Michael Moore; my impression is that he tends to do more harm than good.

You're right about the timing of this release ... and I think he did the same thing for the last election? I hope it helps. Maybe it will rally the faithful, excite the base, and get people who don't want McBush, Term 3 out to the polls. On the other hand, M&M preaches to the choir. Bringing a million more voters to the polls in Washington won't change the fact that Seattle overpowers Yakima and we're going to vote blue, regardless ... the state-by-state Electoral College is fairly anti-democratic. But now I'm starting to rant on your blog ... sorry!

Forrest's last blog post..4th of July Fireworks on Lake Union

Re: Time Sensitive: A Call for Feedback

Forrest — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:53:00 -0000

I think there's something essential missing ... and even if I'm fascinated with linguistics, I'm usually not this nit-picky. But I think in this case, you need to include how it's used in the definition. By the definition you have, above, any music file on any bit torrent network would be a podcast ... I don't think any 'casters would agree.

I'd add something to the definition to explain the word itself. "[...], usually in MP3 format" might be a nice start. That tells savvy users it will work on an iPod, and explains half the word. The 'cast or 'casting part, I'd connect somehow to talk radio. At least that's what it reminds me of.

Podcasting is essentially audio blogging; I'm not sure how you're going to put that into words and sound eloquent. But that's really the most important thing to communicate in the definition.

Wikipedia's introduction starts this way ... and is public domain. :D

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.

Like the term broadcast, podcast can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

The term is a portmanteau of the words "iPod" and "broadcast", the Apple iPod being the brand of portable media player for which the first podcasting scripts were developed (see history of podcasting). Such scripts allow podcasts to be automatically transferred from a personal computer to a mobile device after they are downloaded. As more devices other than iPods became able to synchronize with podcast feeds, the term was redefined by some parties as a backronym for "Personal On Demand broadCASTING".

Forrest's last blog post..The Joys ? and Pains ? of Moving

Re: My Favorite Web Host : Quality Host Online

Forrest — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:28:54 -0000

Interesting ... I know a lot of people struggle with host reseller accounts; planning to have a hundred of your own sites is a new twist, at least for me. I hope it works out for you!

How many of your sites are WordPress based? I'm guessing QHO has never given you trouble over that? My own web host caps CPU, etc, and apparently has notoriously low caps, so I've been thinking about moving.

Forrest's last blog post..The Joys ? and Pains ? of Moving

Re: GOP Says: Don’t Blame Us, Blame Palin

Forrest — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:37:33 -0000

... and what about "g-dropping?" Or maybe that should be droppin'?

You're a writer, yes? Spend an hour following the results Google will show you for natural language processing (NLP). Google uses their own in-house algorithms, but, the exercise will give you a much better idea about the state of the industry, and what's possible.

There's a "maximum entropy" model, which doesn't seem to be widely used in search engines. If you wrote "Mr. Goldman spent $46.87 this morning to park his car." your readers would see this as one sentence; the period following Mr, and in the dollar amount, don't terminate the sentence, or even the lexical term. Plenty of other examples.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, search engines generally ignore stop words: the, of, in, etc. Google seems to have that one both ways, at least in their search index, but anchor text is an open question: is "dentist in Wisconsin" treated the same as "... dentist. Wisconsin ..." in your example, if it showed up in a text link?

Forrest's last blog post..Ghostly Photographs

Re: Zoc Doc: New Technologies Simplifies Finding Health Care Providers

Forrest — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:54:41 -0000

Ohhhhh! I hope they expand this to Seattle! Customer reviews are a wonderful idea ... health is more important than home improvement ( etc ), so much that we tend not to look at doctors and dentists as "service providers" who "work for" us, and entirely fail to do the kind of diligence that goes into buying a car. Even though the stakes are so much higher.

Great find!

Forrest's last blog post..Ghostly Photographs

Re: Reseller Rights Membership Sites: Smell a Scam

Forrest — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:28:27 -0000

I think whenever somebody tries to get you to make a decision right now and doesn't want to give you the chance to think it over, that should be a red flag. Knowing that you can buy something today for $97 but tomorrow it will cost $697, is a pretty salient experience; it tugs at your purse strings. If somebody with a car or a couch to sell you tried that, most people would leave the store...

But of course charging for something that's advertised as free is what makes it obvious this is a scam.

Most beta testing gigs are bad deals for the tester, and great deals for the company. At least that's been my experience, working in the software industry.

Re: Using a Thesaurus: Four Subtleties of Synonyms

Forrest — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:01:49 -0000

I read a Steven Pinker book, The Language Instinct, that touches on something you wrote in this post. You mention that the best way to improve one's vocabulary is to read ( a lot, and from varied sources ) but that a thesaurus will do in a pinch. It's important to distinguish between two "kinds" of vocabulary:

* An average American "knows" about 50,000 English words, in the sense that she will recognize them when they're encountered, and know their meaning. ( Fascinatingly, people are quizzed on random samples from the OED to find this out. )

* The number of words a person can think of, ie that "spring to mind" when somebody is trying not to repeat themself, is far smaller.

That's important because, like you said, the point of using a synonym isn't to confuse the audience - it's to make your text more readable and engaging, or at least better able to hold the reader's attention. If you ( the generic you, meaning any writer ) don't recognize a word, it's probably best to avoid using it ... for the same reason that it's best to leave writing to native speakers.

An interesting ( to me ) tangent, is that linguists seem to be the one and only group where experts are allowed to use profanity. For example, I read an article about an HBO western series, where the characters would apparently put a sailor to shame. The linguists discussed how curse words evolve over time, and how you can tell what would have been offensive at the time, mainly by the way people avoid using them ( tarnation to take the place of damnation, for example ).

I love ThinkMap's Visual Thesaurus.

Re: Work at Home Businesses » Inoweb Marketing

Forrest — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:53:01 -0000

I've noticed a generation gap with regard to working at home, at least around Seattle. People beyond their 30s seem to have a much harder time working from home ... a few of them have told me it comes from living there, being used to more freedom ( ie not having to work ), and that they just aren't used to having the discipline to work when they're at home. I don't think it's anything magical about being 40, more that we gave up on cottage industries a century ago, so this is a new idea again.

Personally, I can do either. I love the scheduling flexibility that comes from working at home, although it can feel isolated after a while.

You aren't going to like this, but you might consider changing your WP theme. It looks WAY too much like a Mac.

Re: Four Letter .COM Domains ALL Registered!

Forrest — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:36:45 -0000

This is just amazing! How long until the five and six letter domains are all snatched up? How many of them will be of value in ten years?

All of this reminds me of schoolboy math; remember learning about exponential equations? I wouldn't be surprised if the one letter domains got snatched up with in the first year ... and then more and more in less time as the web becomes more central to every day life.

Re: Free SEO and Domain Tools by DotSauce

Forrest — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:38:09 -0000

Have you tried PCNames dot com? It's an ajax tool that suggests keywords, alternate domains, and so on ... after you type a few characters a report is generated. Very handy!

Re: Social Icon Sharing, Free Pixelated Goodies

Forrest — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:06:29 -0000

Wow ... thanks for pointing this out! I'm going to sign up in the morning. I do a lot of web work, but also write desktop applications, and icons are amazingly powerful for any type of UI design.

Re: Plutter Kite: The Ultimate Micro-Blogging Service

Forrest — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:02:15 -0000

It's funny you'd say Plurk is missing major features. Maybe I just use these things in a limited context, but it seems more feature rich than Twitter by far ... the time line is especially interesting. The main thing that seems missing from Plurk is the community and visibility a lot of other sites have attracted.

Re: Google Page Rank Fallout – Possible Legal Action?

Forrest — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:18:13 -0000

The search market and the advertising market are two different industries. Kodak does fairly well in the film market, but that has zero effect on Starbucks' position in the coffee market ... right?

Text link "ads" were selling page rank and not legitimate advertising. Essentially changing other peoples' grades for a fee. Google's own ad sales use javascript in the client to prevent any seo benefit; they're simply asking other web sites to do the same in exchange for free inclusion in the index and the free traffic that brings.

Honestly, I don't see anything unreasonable, let alone anti-competitive. Sorry to disagree; that's just how I see it.

Re: Google Brings the Smack Down with PR Changes

Forrest — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 02:40:23 -0000

My blog - the one I'm signing this with - went from 0 to 3. The site on the main domain went up: the home page and lots of internal ones. I'm writing this because you said:

Iâ€™ve been reading up on this for 2 days now and have yet to hear anything good about this situation. I have heard rumblings from people that they have seen PR upgrades, but havenâ€™t found any proof. Iâ€™d love to hear from anyone who has seen an increase. Maybe we can learn from exploring these sites what has really happened.

Re: Google Brings the Smack Down with PR Changes

Forrest — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:34:32 -0000

@Matt: That makes perfect sense; Google only tends to update the toolbar page rank every three or four months.

@Walls: The quality of each links is far more important than the total number of them.

@Mike: Page rank, while not very useful, is a measure of links, not visitors.

@m07: I don't see anything anti-competitive going on. Google encourages people to give $300 a site to Yahoo, one of Google's oldest competitors.

Re: Data Center Equipment Getting \"Miles-Per-Gallon\" Measurement Standard

Forrest — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:15:34 -0000

This would be progress, even if the internet wasn't proliferating faster than nukes. Not everyone will care how much power their servers use, but I suspect most will at least take that into consideration with other factors that are important to them.

And you're right ... having a familiar metric for fuel efficiency in cars has driven a lot of innovation, along with letting people make informed decisions.

Re: Yellowstone Proposes Expanding Cell Phone Coverage: Readers, Should National Parks Be Cell Phone Free Zones?

Forrest — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:08:13 -0000

Wow.

I don't like cell phones much, so I don't use them very often. Same thing goes for land lines. But it would be absurd to think my personal taste gives me the right to prevent other people from using their phones!

Along the same lines, I prefer to appreciate nature without a lot of artificial noise, whether it's trucks backing up or something else. People having a conversation is the same whether those people are both in the park, or not; if anything, a cell phone at least means one less person talking within earshot!

And please don't tell me hikers are too lazy to walk an extra hundred yards for quiet?

On the other hand, a cell phone isn't exactly a safety measure. I tend to bring one and stuff it in the bottom of my pack ( with the ringer turned off ) in case anything happens, too, but this assumes I'll be in a place with clear reception, and that I'll be able to communicate my whereabouts to someone on the other end of the line. ( "Somewhere up the trail, laying on my side..." )

Building a new tower is another question, of course. If there's a legitimate reason not to ( and "nature is for elite people who love nature the right way" doesn't cut it ) I wouldn't object to not building new towers. I don't think people are entitled by god to use their cell phone anywhere they could ever want to, any more than people are entitled to expect to never have to be near anything they disapprove of.

Re: 45 Days in Jail for Driver who Rode Around with Cyclist on the Hood of his Car

Forrest — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:35:44 -0000

A month and a half is a pretty light sentence for trying to kill people. The driver demonstrated that he or she isn't responsible enough to use a car. Being impatient is natural, but when a person fails to control their anger to the point that it starts to become dangerous to others ... it's a problem.

Re: BLM Issues New Rules for Oil Shale Development: Last Minute Bush Administration Environmental Trashing?

Forrest — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:19:06 -0000

Mission Accomplished!

I don't think it's that anybody specifically wants to destroy the environment; it's just that the people benefiting from this don't care whether that happens as a side effect. And if this type of legislation didn't pass now, it might be an eight year wait...