Erdos Had The Number First

OK, so I just got my blog back online. Talk about feeling like an idiot.

I did one of the things that smart admins never do: I upgraded without backups. I thought hey, what could happen. My hosting provider gives me this little button to upgrade wordpress. And I’ve been so impressed with Wordpress that the upgrade should go smoothly.

And it didn’t. Oh boy did it didn’t. It didn’t so badly that it makes me think real hard about chaning blog servers. As you can see, I got everything back, but it wasn’t easy or (quite frankly) intelligable what I did. All I can say is that I thank god I didn’t try to upgrade my wife’s blog, too.

I think one of the main problems with bloging is the lack of context. You can read my posts, but often I will not really provide any context to what the discussion I’m having really is.

It’s more like reading peoples letters than reading someones journal. It is not like a journal largely because it is meant to be read by others. Journals are often not really meant to be read by others. While there are those who want their journals to be read, by and large a journaler is writing for themselves. Blogs, on the countrary, are to be read by others. In fact, not having your blog read is a sign that you are unpopular or unintersting.

But back to my original point: given that blogs are meant to be read by others there is a problem in that so many blogs lack context that allow them to be read by those who are really other. Sure, if you know me, you can read almost all of my blog entries and they will, within reason, make sense. If you don’t know me, however, some of the will most certainly not.

This lack of context is a real problem for me when the world has begun to view blogs in a more serious light. Bloggers are now journalists in some instances. I think I would prefer that the whole idea of blogging be removed from a special case of writing and treated more like traditional publishing. We are already (as Americans, at least) comfortable in using our feelings about publishers to color or desire to read a given work.

If we do this, then no-context blogs will be finally reduced to what they are: bad writing. Like this, for example.

CNN.com - Post editor: Woodward ‘made a mistake’ - Nov 16, 2005

You can bet that the press will fall on Mr. Woodward like vultures. The Post has been pointing fingers at the other journalists on the playground for a while about the
whole Plame-gate thing, and now the others have something on Mr. Goody-two-shoes Woodward.

Or do they? Woodward didn’t tell anybody about the conversation. He didn’t write a story about the CIA out of it. When the grand jury asked, he told them what he knew. That all sounds like what you are supposed to do with confidential sources that may or may not be newsworthy. I think that the Wolf-man has forgotten that having a classified operatives name doesn’t make it a story. The story here is that someone destroyed the career of a CIA agent because her husband said some things that powerful people didn’t like. The story here is that the NYT helped them do it.

Bob Woodward didn’t. You go Bob.

So, everybody and their brother is looking at metadata these days. Why don’t any of the blog engines have good support for metadata?

Movable Type (which is what I use)
doesn’t seem to have any to speak of.

The whole reason why I’m even interested is that I’ve recently been working on some blogger-as-report functions at work. There is still some amount of hesitation, and I’m don’t think it’s a problem to discuss it.

So, we have a group of peole doing research and producing reports. We have another group of people who consume these reports and make comments, suggestions, etc. They are currently using email. This use of email, I think, is dumb. We should use blogs.
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Everybody’s talking about it, I might as well too.

I feel bad for the guy. He’s done two things that will probably haunt him forever.

1) He will be known as the man who killed 3000 blogs
2) He has started the trend of audio posts for important things. You
heard it here first, folks. Text only blogging will now be passe
when you have something really important to say. The technorati
will now post audio missives to communicate to the Great Unwashed
of those who were not there when it started.

But I do feel bad for the guy because he is a person. He even says that in his sermon.
speech. What will audio blog posts be called, I wonder?

You can read more from Doc Searls
here and see what he has to say.

Lastly, without people like Dave, nothing
would ever get done in society. I mean that without irony. It is they who always co-operate
who allow the free-riders in every game to still function, keeping the game playable.
Without those who always trust, games of scarce resources would be unplayable, and
the incubator of great ideas would always be cold and empty.

I had a disasterous interview the other day. it’s hard not to take rejection personally when, you know, you’ve been rejected.

But I need to be an adult about it, since not being an adult put me into the worst job I ever had.

but thats another story.

first, I’d like to tell you that in the one hour I was there I got a feel for exactly what problems they were facing. I also knew that the main guy in the interview was a problem. In the words of my HR prof, he didn’t get it.

but here’s the thing, this guy isn’t a problem for them, no matter what I think. He’s a problem for me, and that is the important thing. He’s not a problem for them for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that he’s been promoted and he is the guy who holds things together. He’s the wizard there.

In every company there are the people who make the company work, no matter what (well, in sucessful companies, at least). He’s one of them.

It ties into my theory of minimum effort. The theory goes that all companies degrade into a state where everyone is doing the minum effort. Minimum is defined by the culture the organization has. It is at that equilibrium point that the organization is optimized as a system. the key goal for managers is to insure that minimum effort is high enough and, like predators, weed out the weak and sick.

But thats, also, another story. There were three people in the interview, and the one guy really didn’t care because I didn’t have any skills that mattered to him. The woman didn’t care either, and the one guy who did care only cared because he didn’t want to hire me. I think I’m pretty good at spotting that, especially because this guy asked all the same questions I did and generally had the same interviewing style. If you’ve ever interviewed with me I just want to say I’m sorry now, and that I have learned a harsh lesson.

the lesson is cast in especially sharp reliefe by my MBA. I am a little more than half done with my MBA, and I’ve learned a great deal already. it’s just too bad I didn’t learn it sooner.

I’m conflicted about the change in licensing for Movable Type. I like their software a lot, but I don’t know if I like it enough to pay for it.
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