I need to start paying attention to more important matters like continuing with my long-neglected ghost-written story about Rumya and stop paying attention to the little things in life like sex, drugs, and money.

 

Those and other little things have been consuming my time, psyche, and energy inordinately lately and it really is a shame.  Yet I’ve no one but myself to blame.  I cannot exist as who I am, after all, unless I’m entirely self-disciplining.  Nor can I count on anyone to pick me up and nurture me when I fail to live up to my life’s visions. 

 

There was a book of poetry I remember from my youth called “The Man Whom God Forgot”.  That could well be me.  In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu proclaims: “I am different.  I am nurtured by the Great Mother.”  Maybe that’s my only hope.  The philosopher Santayana has observed that “it’s not the dark that kills, it’s the cold.”   The cold of unknowing, the cold of unfeeling, the cold of unloving.  The ever-unrelenting cold.  I wish people were warmer.  I wish they had it in their hearts not to project upon the macrocosm of us the coldness that kills (you and me). 

 

Just got done running 7 miles under a hot Dreamland Sun.  Feeling fantastic and wondering what state I’ll find the rest of the world in after I finish my post-run brewed potable and stealth back into the social milieu that constitutes the rest of you.

 

Oo oO  The dragonflies and butteflies and damselflies are all back at once on the wing in Dreamland.  Soaring on the breeze.  And my spirit’s now soaring with them.

 

Spirit.  It’s all about spirit (here in Dreamland, and for you-me?).

What am I doing this Holiday weekend?

Running...

Drinking...

Cavorting in the Sun...

Developing new paradigms for practical existence...

Ya know, just the usual same-old kinds of things.

Though far from being a scientific test, the popup Ratings module (code provided by Sean) I placed on this site a couple of days ago suggests that the only way to get Ratings due attention is by making the module visible.

# of site ratings on my site before visibility: 2
# of site ratings on my site after visibility:    6

So, in just two days my rating numbers tripled.

For the sparse traffic I get here, that 6 compares pretty well with the 18 site ratings number that TheTheologiansCafe currently has from his hidden Ratings module.  He gets about 10 times the attention that I do here but has only 3 times the ratings number.

Moreover, TheTheologiansCafe last five posts have a combined 1 rating, while my last post has 3 of itself.

Again, all of this is not statistically scientific, but suggestive.

Caution: Ignore everything written below unless you want your brain to hurt.  Take a shortcut for grabbing comment links and read Sean's solution to my convolutedness.   However, Sean's solution works only for comments on one's own blog.  If you want to feature comments from another's blog, convolution rules.

Unrelated note:  A couple of posts ago, I made a link to a specific comment by John.  Do you all know how to construct such links?  Here it is:

http://www.xanga.com/notforprophet/500376003/item.html?nextdate=1118297115&direction=n#1118297115

If you click on it, it takes you directly to John's comment on my post, not just the top of the comment page itself.  I think this is nifty (did I just use that word?) when you want to bring attention to another's comment in the original context without forcing your readers to search through all the comments on a post.

The first number (in this case, 500376003) is the unique number (uid) assigned to the post itself on the comment page URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).  If you click to comment on any post, you'll see that post's uid in the URI in your browser's address box. 

The second and third numbers (in this case, 1118297115) refer to the specific comment of interest (John's, in this case) on that page.  I obtained it by looking at the source code for the comment page (in most browsers, View, Source or View, Page Source), locating the specific comment, finding the number (maybe it's called a 'cid', comment id?) asscoiated with it, and then using it in the second and third number positions to create the link above.

You find the specific comment id # associated with a person's comment in the (example):

<a name="1118297115">

code that directly precedes the comment.  (As a side note, the first comment on a post doesn't get a number to reference but simply reports <a name="firstcomment"> !)

I only wish there were an easier way to identify a comment's id and to constuct such links dynamically.

Is Xanga a good internet neighbor? 

 

Xanga.com: The Conclusion (2), a follow-up story to Xanga.com: A Plagiarism Nightmare? (1) ,  suggests otherwise:

"In the end, we can not count on Xanga as an ally against plagiarism or, sadly, other kinds of abuse. This could mean bad things for the future of Xanga, especially as splogging branches out to new services, and certainly means nothing good for the rest of the Web." (2)

 

The problem?  According to the Plagiarismtoday.com, Xanga could do be doing some things better.  Like registering itself according to the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

 

“First, I discovered that they were not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, a requirement of the DMCA (PDF), and then sought out to contact their abuse team, the typical next step when official contact information isn’t available.” (1)

 

And mention is made that the fax number that Xanga has registered with its domain is misleading:

 

“It was then that I began to consider sending a fax to Xanga in hopes that leaving a paper trail my garter more attention. I returned to the whois page and made a startling discovery: The fax number is false. Instead of a legitimate fax number, Xanga listed simply "123 123 1234".

 

While a fax number is not a requirement to register a domain name and private registrations are common (Plagiarismtoday.com uses one for that matter) all contact information provided is supposed to be a valid means of getting in touch with the individuals in charge. So long as the service that handles my private registration is functioning properly, all information in my whois serves as valid contact data.

 

Large companies, generally, are held to a higher standard than private individuals when it comes to registering domains. Since they host content for other people, they have a higher responsibility to be transparent for the sake of copyright holders, law enforcement and anyone else that might need to contact them.” (1)

 

But the core trouble, according to Plagiarism.com, is that Xanga lacks the manpower to deal with reports of abuse.  Too many millions of accounts (45 million by some estimates) and too few employees (12 to 20 according to estimates) to investigate reports of abuse.

 

Let’s look at these claims.  

 

It does appear that Xanga is not listed with the Directory of Service Provider Agents for Notification of Claims of Infringement.   Is it really a legal requirement?   I don’t know for sure.  But it’s also clear that not all other major blogs and social networks are registered either.  MySpace is but Friendster isn’t.  LiveJournal is but Blogger isn’t.  So what is a realistic expectation for use of this resource?

 

And, yes, Xanga has a phoney fax number.  Personally, I don’t care!   But I suppose for some it might be more helpful either to remove it or provide a good number.

 

And the manpower issue?  Undoubtedly true.  Xanga is absolutely overwhelmed by abuse reports and violation of terms of use reports and concerned-with-my-child’s-safety reports.  But is the solution just to throw more ‘manpower’ at the problem?   Or, as John is hoping, will the “Wisdom of Xangans” , that is, the Xanga community en masse  rating and flagging itself, provide enough concise intelligence so that current staff (or just a modestly expanded staff) can come to grips with this controversy of non- or untimely response to complaints?

 

Technically speaking, I believe that John and the Xanga programming team can close some serious loopholes and make the Flag and Ratings systems viable.  But the real question is: how many Xangans will actually make use of these feedback systems? 

In talking of the wisdom of crowds, John mentions an example where 800 people collectively and accurately guess the weight of an ox.  But 800, statistically speaking, is a large number!   Large sample numbers, like 800, especially if they represent a random sample  of an even larger population are, indeed, accurate predictors of true population parameters.  But small sample numbers, like 1 or 10 or 20, are questionable as accurate predictors or indicators.

 

 Will the average Xanga site get 800 ratings?  Or 80?  Or 8? 
 

(The remaining discussion here below refers to the Rating System only.  The Flagging System has related but not precisely the same issues with response numbers.)

 

As a statistician (I was a stats prof in a college graduate program for many years), I knew and taught how response size has huge implications for statistical significance.  Really small sample numbers (most statisticians suggest this means less than 30) are notoriously less reliable for inferring accurate indications of values or trends from a large population.  So if only an occasional self-selected blogger leaves a rating, then ratings will not be accurate indicators of anything. 

 

Hence, the whole Rating System scheme is hedged on a huge (big number) response to it. 

 

I’ve only gotten 2 site ratings so far and that is statistically useless.  And if it takes me 2 or 3 years to amass 30 ratings or more, then that’s useless, too, since then you are averaging “too old” ratings with “too new” ones and, over that 2 or 3 years time, I might have transformed myself from current meekness to future EXplictness.

 

Can Xanga expect a huge response to Ratings?   As currently constructed, I don’t believe so.  The Rating module is hidden (only linked, not presented on the page) and 1 too many clicks away to ever really be popular.

 

Can Xanga structure a huger response to Ratings?  Well, yes, I suppose it could force you to rate a site and/or a post before you comment upon it.  That undoubtedly would make Ratings responses hugely more numerous, but would compulsory ratings seem too imposing and heavy-handed? 

 

As a compromise between the current ‘hidden’ Ratings module and a compulsory one, perhaps Xanga will decide to make the Ratings module a non-compulsory nag: something like a pop-up that says “You haven’t rated this site yet.  Please rate it now and contribute to the Wisdom of the Xangans.”

 

There’s a lot at stake here.  If there’s going to be any Wisdom, there’s got to be a huge response.  If there’s an insufficient response, Xanga will remain mired with too many complaints, too little staff, and not enough intelligence to deal expediently with the situation. 

It’s the second full day of summer and arguably still a match to being the longest day of the year.  This is, of course, the time of Midsummer that Shakespeare immortalized.

 

There have been wicked storms here on the North Coast for the last three days and nights.  The weather has broken open for the better now, however, and the sun in shine is reaffirming its preeminence.  I thus decided to spend the late afternoon and evening outdoors engaging in some rewarding activities 

 

Just finished running 7 miles in Dreamland.  I’m sweating like a hound that’s been chasing its tail around and around and around out in the noonday sun.  Haven’t sweated like that since I was in Scottsdale, AZ ten days again.  It feels good to be back to a sense of heat.

 

I’ve been feeling naughty and not feeling all so nice lately.  Certainly is due to the fact that I’ve been relying on externalities and projections for a sense of fulfillment rather than finding my own decency and worth in my own heart and soul.  Change.  Change does come.  Ever-change, never-end.  Time, as Thomas Merton once suggested, to sink my roots and not shake my branches so much. 

 

So I prepare to grow deeper, more studious, meditative, and intuitive,  Should the psychic winds of warpdom whip at me I shall not become alarmed.  I prepare to achieve all that I can imagine.  Yet I will guard against letting my imagination run amuck casting havoc recklessly about.   I prepare to come to full but not closing terms with my inescapable mortality.  And thus I will let trees of Dreamland speak to me and whisper how ephemeral indeed I am. 

Xanga Ratings and Xanga Flags are all fine and dandy (well, maybe fine but not dandy, sometimes dandy not quite fine...). 

However, it's obviously easy to defeat the intent of those tags at the top of the page by adopting a custom layout such as this self-proclaimed 12 year old on Featured Content has here.  Do you want to flag her as underage (Proof of Under-13 User flag)?  If you're really determined, you could still send xanga form-mail, I suppose.  But you'd think that Xanga could lock some code down that MUST appear on every page or have the page fail to display at all.

hrmm...EXplicit nudity.  Once again no rating or flagging capability.   This crap is easy to find: just use the Xanga search and some juicy conjoined terms. 

Here's another loophole:  A site self-rated EXplicit which can't be accessed by self-declared minors or anyone else not willing to provide proof of age eligibility.  However, this entry  on the site is viewable by minors since the entry isn't self-rated at all.  So a minor can't get to the portal page (www.xanga.com/x_a_n_t_h) but could, like I did, run across a particular entry that's indexed by and encountered in Xanga's own site search.

Yet another way to defeat the ratings system: Load so much EXplicit porn on your site page that it never does get finished loading and anyone trying to rate the site (i.e, the Wisdom of the Masses) has their browser hang forever.

Another concern is that even though a self-rating of EXplicit such as x_a_n_t_h has blocks frontal unqualified access to the weblog, the photoblog http://photo.xanga.com/x_a_n_t_h remains wide open.  Granted, there are no pics there is this particular instance.  But Xanga is providing a 'Site Rating' of EX that doesn't cover potentially the most graphically EXplicit outlet on the site.  Perhaps that's even why there are no pics there: x_a_n_t_h may realize the coverage is incomplete and is conscientious enough to avoid an indiscretion.

If someone out there is dying to talk to me and doesn't already have my number, they could use the info below to dial me up for 25 cents a minute!

notforprophet 1-888-MY-ETHER ext. 01660566

that's 1-888-693-8437 ( I hate it when someone mnemonics a number.)
(hint: click the card above for even more info)

Ha.  Ether is a new website with a business model that permits arranged anonymous calls between parties for 15% of a fee set by the recipient party.  Here's how they describe how it works:

How it works
We all have something valuable to say. Whether you're an accountant, a computer expert, a blogger, or a good gossiper, you can earn money selling what you say to others over the phone ...

1. Get your Ether Phone Number.
   
2. Set your rate.
   
3. Take calls only when you want to.
   
4. Spread the word.
   
5. Phone me the money.

The drawback if you want to make a call to a seller (like me) is that you have to setup an initial account with Ether yourself - either through their website or over the phone during your very first call - and provide a credit or debit account to charge (in this case, 25 cents a minute). 

hrmm...now why would someone want to pay to talk to me?  

Expert computer technology and computer security advice?  Nostradamus-like psychic insights into the future?  Phone-sex?  To learn about the many dark-n-dirty-Xanga secrets I harbor in my head but won't commit to public blog?  ha.

afterfthought, another use: 

Setting up temporary anonymous access at a purely token fee, say 10 cents for 2 minutes and then additional minutes free, so that you can talk to someone for a certain period of time (say a couple of days, 10 cents each call) and then either abandon the account thus terminating your availability to them or provide them your actual phone number.  Useful, perhaps, in very short-term business relationships where privacy of both parties is desired or essential.  Or useful in getting that "first" phone call from a potential romantic interest without immediately committing to sharing your permanent number with him/her.

note on usability: I was able to set up multiple different accounts with the same phone number, thus permitting abandonment of any one of them in either of the two afterthought scenarios above as a trivial concern.

Alas.  I have hit bottom.  Like a submarine at the bottom of the ocean.  But neither have the jagged bottom rocks scathed me nor has the pressure placed upon from above crushed me.  Challenged and self-challenged, yes.   Defeated no.

Look for a new freshness here soon.  To reflect new inspirations. 

*drinks a beer while disinfecting three computers in an unnamed location of a collective 60 viruses/torjans/worms and 200 items of other deleterious malware*

Just created X(anga)-Word One (hint: click, if you can't see it below).  No need to work it.  Magister Ludi be you.

Why the effort?  Cause 'a game' was the best metaphor for expressing the tempo of my life at writing time.  If no thunderstorm intrudes, back to running in the summer-like heat later on this afternoon.

While John is trying to assure the appropriateness of assorted Xanga posts for minors through implementation of the new rating sytem, SmutVibes, a new full-featured weblog startup, has gone to the other extreme of simply prohibiting minors (ineffectively, of course, through mere registration affirmation of being at least 18 years old) and strongly encouraging "adult" nudity, naughtiness, and nookie-pandering.

The funniest damn thing is that the parent company for SmutVibes is also the host of ChristianVibes, "a Christian social network.".  I guess it's the 'Vibes-thing' they have in common.

Leaving Arizona.  Going to miss the incredible inedible heat, the incredible sometimes edible (and hallucinogenic) cacti, and the Truth-Serum-of-Self  induced by running midday up/down a desert mountain.  That's all.

Going to be a long travel day today, a crazy re-acclimation day to Ohio tomorrow, and a reinvention, a revamping of self in the light of the clarity of realizations (self and otherwise) attained during the course of this sojourn.

Much love to you all.

I ran out of the Phoenician Resort (Scottsdale AZ—where I’m attending a Computer Security Institute conference) this morning, down Camelback Rd, left on Invergordon and on up to the Cholla Trail.  And then I proceeded on the trail up Camelback Mountain.

 

Going from the coziness of the oasis resort to starkness of the desert mountain was akin to transitioning from hell to heaven, with heaven residing on the sun-soaked, cactus-kissed mountain and hell remaining resident with the improvised, unnatural posh solitude of the resort’s air-conditioned accommodations where nature only invades as a cut red rose served with room service.

 

I stayed out, mostly running though sometimes simply hiking up (then down) the steep slopes, for a couple of hours in 100 degree heat.  Without any water.  (Please withhold all admonitions: I already know you think I’m crazy.) 

 

My weight dropped from 197.5 lbs to 189.5 lbs. during those two hours—a moisture loss of 1 pound every 15 minutes.  (I have already regained more than half back re-hydrating and eating.)

 

There were several other hikers on the trail, too.  Most were young, and if female, hot and muscular, and if male, buff.  Hint to me: they all had water!

 

I didn’t quite make it to the true summit of Camelback Mountain today—stopping at the steepest incline ¾ of the way up—due to time and water restraints.  Tomorrow morning I intend to make the same run/hike again but earlier and with water packed,  And then proceed all the way to the summit. 

 

I suspect there’s a hot girl hiker (with glistening muscles and organ-grinder baby monkey fuzz sun-shimmering on her forearms) up on that summit just waiting for me. 

 

Hey, I know it’s only my fantasy.  But I still have to disprove it.

Jottings while flying across the country today...

Someday there will be a major league pticher who's capable of pitching both left and right-handed with equal fluency.  That will spur the next revolution in participant functionality.  After that there will training camps for kids in dual-armed hurling. 

- while over Ohio

It is more important to be happy than to feel in love.  If in love but not happy, you may never, probably never will be happy.  But if happy and yet awaiting love, there remains high hope for you.

 

- while over Ohio

 

I had to refrain today from pounding and slapping and hitting infrastructure things as I typically do while touring on my daily travels.  For today I proceeded to the airport to catch a flight.  And I had enough sense to realize that while I can walk along a downtown block on the way to work and slap a building or punch a tree, hitting, kicking and pounding structures in the airport would likely run me into problems with security.

                                            

- while over Indiana

 

“Enjoy the flight.”  You have got to be kidding.  I am all tensed up.  I’m pretty sure there’s no air marshal on this flight so I’ve appointed myself sub-superhuman avenger.  Damn bumpy ride is terrorizing the crap out of me.  But how does on apprehend an updraft?

-while over Indiana

 

There’s an old Zen instruction that mandates “Never carry excess baggage.”  Accordingly, on my four day trip to Scottsdale AZ, I am carrying no luggage beyond strapping on my computer backpack (with my two computers, of course) and utilizing the rest of the space for some spare clothes.  Yes, it’s good to be a guy.

-while over Missouri

 

Surprise, surprise.  My flight had to return to St. Louis—where it had a stopover—ten minutes after it had taken to the air again.  There was an emergency—a malfunction in a baggage compartment door seal—which could have caused the plane to decompress had it become fully breached in the upper atmosphere.    The pilot claimed on the intercom that the return landing was the “hardest” he ever had—“exhausting all my brain cells”.  That due to the fact that the plane still had nearly a full complement of fuel and that passenger planes are designed to land much “lighter” with fuel stores relatively more depleted.  Hence, "heavy" they are harder to control and stop.  Lost time, but did not lose compression.  That was a fair tradeoff in my estimation.

 

- while over Kansas

 

There’s a 15 pound cat named Jack in New Jersey that chased a black bear up two different trees yesterday.  Now that story inspires me more than most anything I’ve heard lately.  In many ways, I can see myself, like Jack, intrepidly confronting challenges along my way.  Jack had so much heart that he prevailed despite his deficiency in size.  Here’s to heart, for God knows that my deficiencies vis-à-vis the challenges that await me are immense.

 

- while over New Mexico

 

Finally, over Arizona, and feeling light and playful.  Like being home once again.  But then, it was (once my home), so (in a sense) I am.

 

- while over Arizona

You must love the world in order to be free.

Now, fly me to the stars.

If Hong Kong is any indication, the brightest possible future for Xanga lies in expanding quickly to China.

See Xanga vs. Myspace trends here.  Then click on the 'Regions' tab.

Also, my undefined site, which holds the Xanga Best record (determined by the Xanga dashboard) for Most Footprints, displays a preponderance of hits as originating from Hong Kong.  So many, in fact, that I'm contemplating putting some click-thru ads in Chinese on the page in order to ride the Hong Kong wave.

I asked John in a phone conversation a while ago if Xanga had any plans in expanding to China.  And he indicated that negotiations with Chinese representatives were being considered sometime in the near future.  There's always the Chinese state-sponsored "censorship" issue.  hrmmm...a touchy subject.

I studied Chinese for several years some years ago.  I've been brushing up on my reading and speaking skills in this area lately.  By the end of summer, I should be ready for China.  Bring it on, Xanga!

Oh yeah, by the way, "Xanga" is the name of an ancient Chinese tribe. 

In my opinion, not a coincidence!

 

 

It (the sentence directly above) is completely true. 

And if you don't see it, it's because you were specialscript-excluded because I'm talking about you.

I know I don't keep the kind of blog here that let's you really know what's going on much in my personal life.  I'd rather aim for higher goals than that!

But stuff does go on.  Some of it significant.  Some of it shocking.  Some of it world-shaking (well, it shakes my world - and everyone is part of my world, so I'd suppose there are reverberations sensible, however minutely).

Just some personal "for instances" for a change...

I practically went blind in one eye a few months ago.  I had an ulcerative infection (probably caused by Renu's Moisture Lock product) in one eye that threatened to spread to the other.  I was immediately put on three antibiotics that created such light hypersensitivity in me the first day that I felt like a vampire seeking comfort in eternal darkness.

I'm going to a CSI conference in Scottsdale, Arizona next week.  Some of the classes I'll be attending: "Forensics Goes Mainstream," "The Insider Threat," "What Hackers Don't Want You to Know,"  "Back Hacking Live."  I'm looking forward to running in some 110° F heat.

I went for a one mile highly rambling walk in the cemetery yesterday before I realized I had lost my cellphone somewhere along the way.  In backtracking, I  tried to recall my precise footwork, struck a beeline accordingly, didn't directly encounter the phone immediately, but stopped suddenly at one headstone that seemed "sensitive" and decided to search around it in about a 15 foot perimeter.  Found the cellphone hidden in tall grass out of the immediate view!  And that was my first stop along the way back - about 3/4 of the entire distance.

For most of my life I've disliked sleeping.  Immensely.  In the last year or so, I've come to enjoy sleeping.  There's something in me I still dislike about enjoying sleeping.  If I can put my finger on it, I'll return to my old ways.

In transitioning from my workplace to Dreamland cemetery (where I run), I'll undertake a complete outfit change.  In my vehicle.  My vehicle is usually cluttered with clothes. And empty coffee cups.  And pennies tossed under the seats.  If cleanliness is next to godliness, it's clear that God is not, nor will He soon be, sitting in my passenger seat.

Although I don’t talk about it much anymore, I still do it.  And am doing more of it more often as the summer now unfolds.

 

And I still immensely enjoy doing it—actually in some ways more than ever before.

 

It’s not dangerous, but it’s taboo.  If detected doing it, I’d be sought.  If intercepted in the act, I could be arrested.  But likely as a first-time ‘caught’ offender I’d likely be chastised and advised to desist.

 

Many of you believe me crazy for doing it.  Many of you aren’t crazy enough to try.  I’m probably too habituated to stop.  But why should I?

 

Used to be, in a less constraining time and culture, that I could do what I’m talking about right up to the set of Sun with society’s blessings.  But anymore, now that money talks louder and laws squawk broader, I’ve crossed the line of impermissibility in keeping true to the old ways of “it’s okay until your shadow dies.”

 

Yes, I am running in Dreamland (Lake View Cemetery) toward and sometimes including of the Sun’s set.

 

Yes, running “until dusk” has been the central focus of my summertime activities since almost before blogging was invented in the last millennium.

 

Yes, running “until dusk” in the summertime here is now taboo because the cemetery association (read: business interests) have for the first time in forever determined that keeping the cemetery open “until dusk” in the summertime is not financially lucrative.  So the gates now clank closed, as they do the rest of the year, at 5:30 PM.

 

It’s okay.  Other than a rare and quite occasional after-hours ‘trespasser’, it’s just me, a majestic array of exotic flora, a quixotic expression of unusual fauna, a quarter of a million resting souls, and more beauty than a walking stick insect could shake all of you at.

Who needs Reality TV?   Soon you will be able to go online and catch illegal immigrants on border webcams and report them to authorities even while you drink beer and wait for the pizza delivery guy to ring your bell.  Story here.

Xanga's 'most popular' site is a freaking accident.  Literally.

Sean may remember me stumbling upon 'undefined' and employing it to enhance his reflective identity trick javascript.  That was a long time ago...

'undefined' is now on its own: more popular than ever and going nowhere.

6150 Footprints here so far this week as of post time (38% of Xanga's 'best').  Only 46 Comments (2% of Xanga's 'best').

A lot of walking.  But not much talking.