1 year, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Busch Gardens, fatblogging, Williamsburg
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Last weekend was the first real slip as the Fatblogging train rolls on. It was opening weekend at Busch Gardens, and we took the kids to break in the Fun Card. That meant a trip to Das Festhaus for sausages and sauerkraut, which a hike through the park couldn’t counteract. Then we visited the new Second St. for dinner (steak salad, which was not sinful, and a few bites of the kids’ chocolate cake, which was).
Back on the horse for this week. I still hop to see 19x real soon.
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1 year, 5 months ago,,
by Fred (,
CrystalX, themes, wordpress
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I haven’t been posting for a while, but I’m still around. I’ve been coding the theme you now see on this site. It started as a port of CrystalX, a free CSS theme by Nuvio, and went from there. Should validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS 2. Some features include:
- Fully functional breadcrumb navigation (no plugin required).
- Famfamfam’s Silk icon set, with changing icons in breadcrumb.
- Built-in support for Christine’s Ultimate Tag Warrior, Alex’s Share This and Binary Bonsai’s version of Dunstan’s Time Since plugins. These are not required, but the theme looks to see if they are installed. If UTW is found, it hides categories and the category archive tab.
A little more bug testing and I’ll do a public release. It will come in a variety of color schemes.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Gene Nichol, religion, William & Mary, wren chapel
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As I predicted yesterday, some of those who opposed Gene Nichol’s decision to remove the cross from Wren Chapel are not happy with the College’s decision to display the cross in the sacristy along with other religious objects. Although the Save the Wren Cross site is still not updated, two of the activists behind the petition drive were quoted in the article in today’s Times-Dispatch
An Internet petition called savethewrencross.org garnered more than 17,000 signatures calling for Nichol to restore the original policy.
Benjamin Locher, a W&M senior from Pittsburgh and co-founder of the site, said he is satisfied with the compromise.
“Hopefully, this gives us enough common ground that we can all rally behind it,” he said.
Joe Luppino-Esposito, another co-founder of the site who is also chairman of the student Senate, said he has some reservations and would prefer the original policy. “Putting [the cross] in a glass case makes it museumlike,” he said.
Locher and Luppino-Esposito said they spoke only for themselves and would need to consult with others before reaching any decision on the future of their Web site and petition.
It’s just delicious that Luppino-Esposito is now arguing that the compromise is unacceptable because it makes the cross “museumlike,” given that his website exists to “Defend and Honor William & Mary’s History.” If the cross should stay to honor the College’s Anglican history, then making the cross “museumlike” is entirely appropriate.
The T-D’s comments section contains lots of commentary objecting to the compromise as well. Like this one:
I doubt that ACLU, Brown-Shirt Nichol would have been offended by a swastika or hammer and sickle in the Wren Chapel upon his initial arrival to the W&M campus.
Or this one:
Get real President Nichol! Placing the cross in a glass display case does not in any way, shape or form return it to it’s place of honor in the chapel. It must be returned and displayed in the manner which was in effect before the ACLU entered the case. Maybe in years to come it will be seen proper to inter the remains of Gene Nichol in a glass display case somewhere on campus as a memorial to political correctness gone awry. What the heck! It worked for Lenin!
These people want the College to say that Christianity is superior to all other beliefs. It simply shouldn’t do so. The compromise adequately addresses the history of the building without endorsing religion.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Christianity, cross, Gene Nichol, religion, William & Mary, wren chapel
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From an email I just received from William and Mary President Gene Nichol and Rector Michael Powell:
Following its meeting yesterday, the William and Mary Committee on Religion in a Public University unanimously recommended a compromise practice on the display of the table cross in the Wren Chapel. We accept and will immediately begin to implement the Committee’s recommendations, which we quote in full:
THE WREN CHAPEL CROSS SHALL BE RETURNED FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY IN THE CHAPEL IN A GLASS CASE. THE CASE SHALL BE LOCATED IN A PROMINENT, READILY VISIBLE PLACE, ACCOMPANIED BY A PLAQUE EXPLAINING THE COLLEGE’S ANGLICAN ROOTS AND ITS HISTORIC CONNECTION TO BRUTON PARISH CHURCH. THE WREN SACRISTY SHALL BE AVAILABLE TO HOUSE SACRED OBJECTS OF ANY RELIGIOUS TRADITION FOR USE IN WORSHIP AND DEVOTION BY MEMBERS OF THE COLLEGE COMMUNITY.
The cross will still be available, of course, for use on the altar during appropriate religious services. This practice is similar to that used by other universities with historic chapels, including the University of Virginia. Other religious symbols, which may be stored in the sacristy when not in use, will also be welcome during the services for which they are appropriate. Under this policy, the Wren Chapel will continue to play its unique historic and affirming role in the life of the College: a place of worship for our students and a site for our most solemn occasions.
This compromise is eminently reasonable. The response to the new policy will be telling. If those who opposed President Nichols’ decision to remove the cross oppose the compromise as well, then it means they will oppose any policy that does not place Christianity in a superior position to all other beliefs, which is a completely unacceptable position for a public university to take.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Tags: none yet
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Om Malik points to the new webcasting royalty regime announced by the CRB:
Till recently, the royalty rate was about 7/100th of a penny per performance, allowing many small webcasters to thrive and build sizeable audiences. At 14-15 songs per hour, it worked out to about penny an hour – one of the main reasons why Yahoo could offer music-streaming services at affordable prices.
However, now the equation has changed – the royalty rates will increase every year through 2010 when it is going to cost about $0.0019 per performance. While not much when taken as a single performance, the amount does add up if you are a company that streams millions of performances per day.
It’s actually even worse for most webcasters, as many were operating under a percentage-of-revenue model that will no longer be available. But put them aside for the moment, as such webcasters will almost certainly disappear, as the RIAA thinks that they should:
Dr. Nagle rested his overall analysis on the fundamental assumption that the current webcasting industry consists of a large number of marginal or insignificant entities (see, e.g., Tr. 13393 (Nagle); Nagle W.D.T. 5) and that a dramatic “shake out†must and will occur. See id. This, in his view, is both inevitable and desirable because it will bring about market consolidation, which will result in the emergence of a far smaller number of viable webcaster companies. These, in turn, will be able to prosper and endure (operate at a “sustainable scale at this future point of viability†(Nagle W.D.T. 6)) and, not incidentally, be able to afford significantly higher royalty payments to copyright owners. [emphasis added]
The CRB’s job is to consider only what royalty agreement a hypothetical marketplace would produce, so the fate of small webcasters is not within its purview. But what marketplace would produce contracts that no purchaser could afford to pay?
What about the big players, like AOL Music, last.fm and Pandora? Pandora says that the new royalty rates will kill their service:
The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has recently released a revised fee schedule for internet radio. Left unchanged, these rates will end internet radio, period. The RIAA has effectively convinced this federal committee to establish rates that make online radio a non-viable business.
It’s an utterly ridiculous ruling that renders any form of internet radio non-economic. We are continuing in the belief that sanity will return as everyone involved, including the 50 million avid online radio listeners, realize just how outrageous this is.
Bluster from a webcaster that just doesn’t want to pay? Hardly. As Keith Hanson points out, the 2006 rates alone amount to 100% of the total revenues of a well-run web radio station:
In 2006, a well-run Internet radio station might have been able to sell two radio spots an hour at a $3 net CPM (cost-per-thousand), which would add up to .6 cents per listener-hour.
Even adding in ancillary revenues from occasional video gateway ads, banner ads on the website, and so forth, total revenues per listener-hour would only be in the 1.0 to 1.2 cents per listener-hour range.
That math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers’ royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.
If that weren’t bad enough, the new rates include a minimum payment of $500/channel/year. In the case of last.fm and Pandora, what constitutes a channel? Is every channel created by each listener a channel for purposes of royalty payments? If so, then the news is even worse. It’s not clear to me how many Pandora stations there are, but six months ago Pandora was reporting 2.5 million users. Each user can create up to 100 stations, but even 1 station per user is a minimum royalty payment of $1.25 billion.
The CRB royalties apply only to non-interactive webcasters operating under the statutory license. It’s always been questionable whether Pandora qualifies for that license - would they be better off under a negotiated rate? All in all, the decision is a bad one. Bad for webcasters, bad for customers, and bad for the music industry (even if they don’t realize it yet). The only winner appears to be terrestrial radio stations, which could pick up a handful of listers if webcasters go away. And what’s good for Clear Channel and the NAB is almost certainly bad for you and me.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
data retention, flickr, fourth amendment, surveillance, youtube
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According to Declan McCullough, the Justice Department is expanding its data retention push to include image and video-sharing sites:
The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned.
That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes. The discussions were described to News.com by several people who attended the meeting.
As always, this encroachment on your fourth amendment rights is “for the children” a justification that is the last refuge for scoundrels. Missing (as usual) is any actual justification for the push based on the argument presented. Law enforcement already has the right to get a subpoena to force Flickr or YouTube to turn over user information — have there been cases where police did so, only to be told the data had been deleted? Is there any evidence that YouTube and Flickr have been used for illegal activities (copyright infringement notwithstanding)?
Of course not. Because this isn’t about fighting terrorism or stopping child pornography, both offenses that can clearly be addressed via available tools. It’s about compiling databases of information on law-abiding citizens that can be mined by government computers. Its about compiling information, not about investigating ongoing criminal enterprises.
Lest you think any of this is based on principle, check out the rationale for excluding schools and libraries:
Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. “There’s a PR concern with including the libraries, so we’re not going to include them,” the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. “We know we’re going to get a pushback, so we’re not going to do that.”
So it’s all about protecting the children, unless it raises a PR concern. Then we’ll just move on to other lower-hanging fruit.
The Bush/Gonzalez administration seems to have a serious surveillance jones, and it would be nice to see some “pushback” from average citizens. Of course, the Clinton administration wasn’t any better (remember the Clipper Chip?), and a Hillary administration would probably be even worse than Bill’s was.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
digerati, Robert Scoble, web, wordpress
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The 50 Most Important People on the Web. Other than ranking Steve Jobs an absurdly high #2, the list seems OK. And Matt is higher than Scoble!
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
usability, web design
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Metro Business has a piece today (reprinted from a Steve Johnson column in the Chicago Tribune), discussing presentation of hyperlinks.
Most sites show hyperlinked text in blue and underlined, but some just boldface the text that is your portal to someplace else. Or they use a different font color.
Within text, some links highlight a key phrase, others a verb, and many prefer the very literal, “for such-and-such an article go here,” with the “here” being the blue, underlined, linking word. Still others prefer that links live within graphic elements: a picture, a drawing, a logo. Sometimes you don’t know where a link is until you roll your mouse over the spot.
Hyperlink theory may seem like inside baseball, but the stakes are high. The ad revenues of many Web sites depend on how many times they can get you to put your mouse on a link and click it, thus spending more time within the site, racking up more page views, seeing more ads.
More than that, links are the very fabric of the Web. The easy connectivity they provide is what defined the Web and made it so popular. And the number and quality of a site’s links are what most search engines use to determine which ones they will display when you type a search term.
Yet there really is no standard link-presentation theory, no bible of Web style to lay it all out for people building their own blogs and designing their own Web sites.
It’s certainly true that there was a time when all links were underlined and blue. Visited links were purple. Make an HTML page without CSS or inline styles and they still are. Back when the Ultimate Band List or NCSA were cutting-edge design. Of course, back then we also thought the blink and marquee tags were novel, so what did we know?
But now web design has brought people with actual design skills to the table, and link presentation is not, nor should it be, uniform. Does anyone actually think Daring Fireball is better this way?
Steve Johnson touches on this, but it bears repeating — as long as visitors can tell a link is a link, the actual presentation of the link doesn’t matter much. Far more important is that the link text indicates what is being linked. Don’t just link the word “here”. Don’t link to several related sites by hyperlinking each word in a sentence (or, god forbid, each letter). This does far more to promote usability than some de facto hyperlink standard.
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
Tags: none yet
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Been away from the blog for a while, busy working on a site for a friend and looking for a job. But the fatblogging shame kept me on track. I managed a visit to the in-laws, where much bacon and sausage, eggs and biscuits are usually waiting. I even made it through another family movie-and-pizza night.
Another tenth of a pound down, and I’ll be halfway there. Yay!
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1 year, 6 months ago,,
by Fred (,
fatblogging, me
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To my readers (both of you) - posting has been light lately, as I’ve been working on a project coding a new site for a friend’s business. This has meant teaching myself Joomla, which I had never used on a live site, as well as a bunch of PHP and CSS hacking. Hopefully I can post a bit later today.
For you fatbloggers, 218.1!
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