Category: Links

Links for 5/14/2021

What the ephemerality of the Web means for your hyperlinks

The fragility of the Web poses an issue for any area of work or interest that is reliant on written records. Loss of reference material, negative SEO impacts, and malicious hijacking of valuable outlinks are among the adverse effects of a broken URL. More fundamentally, it leaves articles from decades past as shells of their former selves, cut off from their original sourcing and context. And the problem goes beyond journalism. In a 2014 study, for example, researchers (including some on this team) found that nearly half of all hyperlinks in Supreme Court opinions led to content that had either changed since its original publication or disappeared from the internet.

Hosts control URLs. When they delete a URL’s content, intentionally or not, readers find an unreachable website. This often irreversible decay of Web content is commonly known as linkrot. It is similar to the related problem of content drift, or the typically unannounced changes––retractions, additions, replacement––to the content at a particular URL.

This is a HUGE problem as I work my way through the J’s Notes archives and add old content back into the site. So much of the old Internet is dead and gone. The Internet Archive has captured a lot of it, to be sure, but there are many pieces that are never to be found again. Which is a huge loss of knowledge, especially when so much is never put to print anymore, leaving it dependent on digital archiving before things are deleted or domains aren’t renewed.

Just 12 people are are behind 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote “natural health.” Some even sell supplements and books.

Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what’s been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation.

“It’s almost like conspiracy theory Mad Libs. They just inserted the new claims,” said John Gregory, deputy health editor at NewsGuard, which rates the credibility of news sites and has done its own tracking of COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation “superspreaders.”

From the Archives:

Sixteen years ago the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote an article on this newfangled “blogging” thing and asked for my input, which I happily shared. Then the world opened up and a slew of other bloggers chimed in, which introduced a lot of folks to each other and helped spawn some great conversations and communities through the years.

Times-Dispatch on Blogging (4/30/2005)

RTD Blogging Follow-Up (5/1/2005)

Blog Elitism (5/1/2005)

Even More On That Blog Article (5/2/2005)

Somewhat Relevant To This Weekend’s Blogging (5/2/2005)

(Note: Not all links are currently working at the moment, need to do the whole Internet Archive linking thing.)

Dang, I’m old…

Where To Find J~ On The Web

I’m one of those people who has sites all over the place for assorted purposes. Some are used regularly, others are forgotten, but at one time or another I’ve probably joined most of the big sites for at least a little while.

Knowing that a good number of you all out there on the Internets are members of assorted sites and like to find other people on those sites, I’m gonna share with the world a list of places you can find me on the web. Social networking at its finest.

MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/sloopyster – I use this mainly to keep in touch with friends new and old who can’t find me through other means. A lot of old high school folks are on here as well as family. I don’t use it as much as I used to.

http://www.myspace.com/kenneyboy – this is my musical side. It’s a little underwhelming, but it’s a presence.

Facebook
http://vcu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=25508638 – I just keep this around to keep in touch with folks at the radio station and school in general. I’ve found myself visiting it more and more but I just haven’t been hooked like so many others.

LiveJournal
http://www.livejournal.com/lifeofjason – The personal supplement to J’s Notes, really. Nothing too spectacular, but it’s the way I keep in touch with my internet based friends.

LastFM
http://www.last.fm/user/jasonkenney/ – What I was listening to last time I was hooked up to the internet while listening to muzak.

Writing
http://www.writerscafe.org/profile/kenneyjs/ – This is a neat little site where you can read and share stories and have folks review and rate and all that jazz. Sort of a MySpace for writin’. I haven’t written anything worth posting as of late, but there’s stuff to read there if you’re bored.

http://ficlets.com/authors/kenneyboy – Ficlets is another writing site but it works with smaller stories and promotes a round-robin type of storytelling. You toss up a small story and others can write sequels or prequels to it. Or you can write off of someone else’s work. And so on. I hit this once in a while, whenever I feel inspired but don’t have the drive for a full story.

Non-Social Networking (not that it’s anti-social)
Artifice Comics – What can I say, I’m a dork. And as a dork I write comic based fiction. Yes. Superhero stories. In particular one called Bush43 about a guy wearing a George W. Bush mask kicking bad guys in the jimmy in Austrailia. The series as it is is done now but I might revisit the idea in the very near future.

WVCW.org – VCU’s independent student radio station. I’m the General Manager and also host a show with Bryan on Wednesday nights at 8. We haven’t named the show yet. Despite being on the air for three weeks now. Ah well.

So if you happen to be a member of any of these sites (or join up after seeing me there), shoot me a friend/buddy/whatevertheycallit request and you can be part of the ever expanding Network Of J~. Granted, the last two sites you can’t “join” or anything, but check there they are if you’re interested. See ya around the web.