Author: Jason

Irish Road Bowling At Kent’s Store

Man I wish I’d brought my camera.

This past Saturday, in celebration of Kenney The Elder‘s birthday, family and friends gathered for our first attempt at Irish Road Bowling out at Kent’s Store. What is this Irish Road Bowling?

The basic premise is similar to golf. Participants, usually four person teams, throw a 28 ounce (800 g) bowl or “bullet” along a country road course, up to 4 km long, and the fewest throws to traverse the distance wins the contest.

Participants in or from Ireland traditionally bet during the contest.

It is a sport which suits all ages, although serious participants acquire styles and distances that casual bowlers can only imagine.

It definitely took some getting used to, some of us getting the hang of it pretty quick, others taking a bit longer. Once we got out of the gravel driveway the game got a bit more interesting with a lot more roll to the throw on the road and the banking really making shots interesting. We also ended up having a few spectators other than family after a while.

Lessons learned:

– Spray painting the cannonballs with bright colors would be quite helpful for when the ball goes off the road and into Lord knows where.

– A road shower would be helpful, not just for marking the best path but also making sure folks know where the ball is when it leaves the road. And maybe help avoid these situations.

– Once we hit the open road the rest of the Kenney Bros. just couldn’t compete. That’s right, I said it. You guys suck.

– Perhaps I should study this guy’s technique:

There was not only talk of doing this again sometime (you can bet it’ll happen again) but also talk of opening it up to anyone wanting to join in. I will keep the world posted.

Blogging Code Of Conduct

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.

The Art Of Hacking Your Life

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.

Threats In The Blogosphere

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.

What To Do After A Period

In writing, that is. Ha ha.

I was taught in typing class way back in the day that you ALWAYS double-space after a period. This is just the way typing works. More and more I’ve noticed that not happening so much, though, whether by a forced removal of the double-space by a program or people just not bothering with two spaces after periods when they write.

Dan Santow says it’s a habit worth breaking:

The practice of double spacing after a period is a holdover from the days when typewriters had “monofaced” type, meaning fonts in which every letter had exactly the same width (in other words, “m” used the same amount of space as “i”). Because of the monoface font, two spaces after a period made it easier to see where one sentence ended and another began.

Today, however, most fonts we typically use are proportionally spaced, meaning that characters take up an amount of space relative to their actual width (the “i” uses less space than the “m”), so that double spacing after periods is not only unnecessary, it mars the look of your text by scattering it with small gaps. Books, magazines, brochures, newspaper, desktop publishing, etc., use only one space after a period, as do both AP style and The Chicago Manual of Style.

Personally I’ve never found the double-spacing to be an issue unless it’s forced words to another line when I don’t want them to be (typically in webdesign and the like). Overall, the gap doesn’t seem awkward to me or that it mars the look but it seems natural, like there’s supposed to be that extra gap, because that’s the way you’re supposed to type.

I just can’t break myself of the habit, though. I’m sure that if I tried and worked on it that I could be rid of it over time, but why bother? Is it so bothersome to the reader that I must change what has been the industry standard since typing began? Perhaps I should just pick fonts that need the double-space so there’s no awkward spaces and the like. Or perhaps people should just not be so damn picky.

RVA Blogger Meet-Up Saturday, March 10th

Just a friendly reminder from Slantblog:

there will be an informal meeting at the Baja Bean to discuss putting together what would amount to a local blog convention, or “summit,” if you prefer that term. The gathering is open to all, but the point of it is for local bloggers to meet one another and air out their ideas on that topic.

…

As we all know, there are many motivations to blog. Some bloggers focus on politics and current events, others on their family pets. Some blogs are about art, or a hobby, others are about a neighborhood. Still others cover a variety of topics. What they all have in common is the desire on the part of the blogger to document some aspect of what they care about.

Accordingly, I see no reason for any Richmond blogger to feel unwelcome at this meeting. Please know, this call for a bloggers meeting hasn’t been made by corporate interests, or any existing group. No sticky name tags will be handed out, so if you want to wear one, make your own.

Talk “summit”, talk shop, talk about your dog, doesn’t matter, just c’mon out and enjoy the company. I’ll be there. But don’t let that stop you.