Just the same, congrats to West VirginIa for winning the NIT. I thought they deserved to be in the big dance, but winning the small dance is still a mean feat.

Have you written or seen any great posts by Richmond bloggers this week? I know I have. What to share those wonderful posts?

Submit them to the RVA Blog Carnival!

This week’s host will be Jeremy at Social Memory Complex. E-mail submissions his way or use this form and let the world know of all the wonderful things Richmond has to offer.

Anything goes, from politics to pets to gardening to love of money and all points in between and outside those lines.

Yesterday I wrote about threats in the blogosphere and really had no idea how bloggers could approach the situation with a viable solution. Some have dug up the old call for a “code of conduct”:

Among those calling for a bloggers’ code of conduct is Tim O’Reilly - one of the web’s most influential thinkers.

He told BBC Radio Five Live that it could be time to formalise blogging behaviour.

“I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn’t come through any kind of [legal/government] regulation it would come through self-regulation.”

Shelly Powers responds:

There is a code already: it’s called humanity. There could never be any form of legal regulation, because the internet is ubiquitous. What laws transcend borders, such as murder, terrorism, or child pornography, already have laws and regulations in place regardless of the form of interaction.

We do not need a ‘code of conduct’ other than respect for each other and a sense of fair play. Oh, and people learn to think before reacting–to read what’s sometimes behind the words, rather than only the words, themselves.

A Blogger Code of Conduct has been brought up for the blogosphere as a whole and even locally. Virginia bloggers have debated codes of conduct in the past. The problem with developing a code of conduct is that those who will most likely sign onto such a code already voluntarily follow it. Such a code does nothing other than create a voluntary level of bureaucracy in what should be an independent and free form of discussion on the web, whether political, technical, local or about your cat. Anonymous and pseudonymous bloggers would still be free to voice their opinions and violate such a code.

Perhaps the greatest code of conduct is simply a sense of community among bloggers. Whether or not you agree with one another’s opinion, if you are able to relate to one another as fellow bloggers or simply fellow human beings, you are less likely to find yourself decending into petty fights and threats that turn to calls for such codes. Gatherings like Sorensen and the Bloggers United Conference and especially meet-ups like the one recently held here in Richmond can go a long way to helping one feel like they’re part of something other than the internet (the purpose of which seems to be solely to anonymously denouce something as utter crap). Putting faces to names and sites make this more human and, ideally (if you have a soul), make one less likely to find themselves unreasonably aggressive toward one another.

Life hacking is an interesting phenomenon that’s been making its way through the blogosphere over the last few years. The term was presented by Danny O’Brien at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in February 2004. Via Wikipedia:

The original definition of the term life hack referred to quick and dirty shell scripts and other command line utilities that filtered, munged and processed data streams like email and RSS feeds. Examples of these types of life hacks might include utilities to synchronize files, track tasks, remind yourself of events or filter email.

As the meme spread, the definition of the term expanded. Today, anything that solves an everyday problem in a clever or non-obvious way might be called a life hack. The term became popularized in the blogosphere and is primarily used by geeks who suffer from information overload or those with a playful curiosity in the ways they can overclock their workflow.

O’Brien own site with life hacks failed to materialize but others jumped on the idea. 43 Folders launched in September 2004, January 2005 saw Lifehacker.com and May of the same year saw Lifehack.org. Each of these sites provide links and posts about how to better manage your time, your finances, neat little programs that provide all sorts of services, uses for random items and more. Combined it’s an interesting encyclopedia of helpful hits and tips that can apply to any area of life.

Blogger Kathy Sierra cancelled her appearance at an ETech workshop earlier this week after receiving not just hate mail but outright death threats on her blog. What makes this even more interesting is the players involved, like Cluetrain co-author Chris Locke (who responded here). The site that really caused a lot of the havoc, MeanKids.org, no longer exists (at the moment). Responses from tech-blogging big names like Shelley Powers and AKMA are certainly worth a read, especially AKMA when he speaks on the anonymous nature of the threats and the damage they can cause:

In this way, anonymity cuts more directions than one: It enables a mysterious assailant to terrify Kathy, but it also provides the grounds for Kathy suggesting that Frank, Chris, Jeneane, and Allan are complicit with a would-be murderer.

Dangerous indeed.

Unfortunately, this is a trend that’s rearing its ugly head more and more in the blogosphere (and, on some level, was brought up at the RVA meet-up earlier this month). While it may appear only to pop up in tech or political blogs, many blogging trends start in these areas and unfortunately see themselves spread to the rest of the blogging topics and community. How to best approach this and deal with it is really up in the air and something that will evolve as blogging itself does. But Shelley Powers provides a great reminder about the power of words:

When people write about you with loathing, for good or bad, you’ve touched their life. They don’t have power [over you] — you have power over them.

Today’s the day I ask you all to entertain me.

If you’re feeling saucy enough, ask me questions and I’ll answer them, thus creating content for J’s Notes and feeling like I’ve done something with the site. Or maybe you want my opinion on something. Or maybe you’re wondering my philosophical feelings on pie. I dunno, toss me a bone and let’s see what happens.

Wow, I’m popular.

Perhaps Senator Webb would like to play a game of solitare…

Virginia Virtucon has created a great round-up of links to donate to selected Virginia GOP candidates under Red Storm Virginia. Great idea.

WAS DIRTY BUT NOW IS CLEAN. I USED A DAMP TOWEL. At only $1,496.63 that’s practically a steal!

What better place to start than at the hub of the RVA Blogosphere. RVABlogs has a new look. Not only that, but there are now fancy features, future bells and whistles, and a preview of the slick RVABlogs shirt that’d make your grandma jealous! No, grandma, you can’t have one. Mwa ha ha ha ha…

Martin at MCT Images has an interesting post on 300 vs. Zodiac in terms of shooting digitally or on film. I’m facinated by this kind of stuff, especially since I (and everyone else in the world) have always wanted to shoot a movie.

Hopefully the weather’s nice April 7th so everyone can go out and enjoy the US Open Cycling Championship climb through Libby Hill Park. On cobblestones no less. It’s great to see cycling get national coverage again. Check out the USOCC’s site for more info.

In The Grim Future Of Hello Kitty There Is Only War.

West Of Boulevard has some questions for it’s visitors and they step up to the plate and answer. Community blogging at its best.

Timothy Bailey rocked Plan 9 this past Saturday and John Sarvay was there. And be sure to hit up Plan 9 on the third Saturday of every month for their local music showcase.

Do you like art? FT Rea’s selling off pieces all over the place. And ModernJune offers a tease of what she’ll be offering at this year’s Spring Bada Bing April 22nd.

If you happen to get hungry before then, PJPink has a nice review of Six Burner over at 1627 W. Main Street.

And that’ll wrap up this fun infested episode of the RVA Blog Carnival Join Jeremy next week over at Social Memory Complex for another episode. Send your submissions his way via e-mail or via form. And, as always, if you or someone you love is interested in hosting a future episode of the RVABC, hollar my way. All sorts of slots are open.

225p UPDATE: Lost in the mix but not to be left behind, Don has a couple tough questions for the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, continuing to outpace the Times Dispatch on the issue. Really, if you are at all interested in the fate of downtown Richmond, Save Richmond is a gem of a site for must know news.

It’s been a long and bumpy road for my bracket but here we are, all Final Four teams still fighting for it, and Georgetown still able to go all the way. Only issue I have is in the one contest I did sign up for, even if GTown beats Florida, I lose to one other person by ONE POINT even though he doesn’t have Ohio St. in the Final Four. BAH. Bah and fooey, I say!

Go Georgetown!

Not the most impressive two shelves off my library but I have to start somewhere. There’s a lot of books to catlogue there…

Organize and display your library at Shelfari.

(H/t to r.han in the comments of LibraryThing)

I’ve been using RecordNerd on and off over the last few years to keep track of parts of my music collection (because I’ve been too lazy to put the full thing up) and I’ve always wanted something similar for books. Now there’s LibraryThing, a service that let’s you catalogue up to 200 of your books for free. For $10 a year or $25 for life you can have an unlimited catalogue. I’ve started a list just to see how it looks (four books, all Lethem) but I like. I’m going to have to get a bunch of ISBN numbers down for this.