Austin, personal, ramblings

Port-Based "Sangria"

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Ok, it doesn’t really taste like sangria. But it’s a similar drink. And it’s pretty nice, IMHO.

A bit of ruby port, some fresh ginger, lime juice, and orange juice. Haven’t measured the proportions but the result is pretty close to what I thought it’d be. It’d work rather well with “Christmas spices” like dry ginger and cinnamon.

While living in NoHo, MA, I bought a bottle of very inexpensive ruby port at Whole Foods. Can’t remember the brand but it was simply delicious. Better than most Tawny ports, IMHO. And much less expensive than almost any wine. So I became interested in ruby port.

Tried a few other rubies. Including some that was sold in Quebec. For almost three times the price of what I bought in Massachusetts. And not as pleasurable.

Today (Christmas Eve), I went to a liquor store right here in Austin with the definite intention of buying ruby port. Got some Taylor and some Fairbanks. The Fairbanks was even cheaper than the Taylor and, as it so happens, I prefer it. There’s something to these ruby ports that I find quite nice. Can’t quite put my finger on it but it’s related to “freshness.” They do taste “green” but in a nice way. This Fairbanks ruby port I got is still not exactly what I’m looking for, but it’s pretty nice.

I started mixing the Taylor with some lime juice. Then thought about sangria, so I added orange juice and fresh ginger. Quite a nice mix. Summery.

Quite fitting for my first snowless Christmas in years.

Anyhoo… As I’m here, all alone on Christmas Eve, I thought I’d blog about my experiments and experience.

Fun!

arrogance, nationalism, open-source, podcasting, podcasts, Radio Open Source, United States

Lydon at His Best: Comeback Edition

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Already posted a blog entry about Radio Open Source (ROS) host Christopher Lydon being at his best when he gives guests a lot of room.

I’ve also been overtly critical of Lydon, in the past. Nothing personal. ROS is a show that gets me thinking and I tend to think critically. I still could have voiced my opinions in a softer manner but blogging, like other forms of online communication, often makes it too easy to use inflammatory language.

At one point, I even posted a remarkably arrogant entry about my perception of what ROS should do.

But, what’s funny, what the show has become is pretty much what I had in mind. Not in format. But in spirit. And it works quite well for me.

Lydon posted a detailed entry (apparently co-authored by ROS producer Mary McGrath) on the thought process involved in building the new ROS show:

Open Source » Blog Archive » As We Were Saying…

Despite the “peacock terms” used, the blog entry seems to imply a “leaner/meaner” ROS which gives much room for Lydon to do his best work. Since it started again a few weeks ago, the show has been focusing on topics and issues particularly dear to Lydon including Jazz, American cultural identity, U.S. politics, and Transcendentalism (those four are linked, of course). It’s much less of a radio show and much more of a an actual podcast as we have come to understand them in the four years since Lydon and Dave Winer “have done the first podcast in human history.” In other words Lydon, a (former) NYT journalist, has been able to adapt to podcasting, which he invented.

What is perhaps most counter-intuitive in Lydon’s adaptation is that he went from a typical “live radio talk show” format with guests and callers to a “conversation” show without callers, all the way to very focused shows with extended interviews of varying lengths. Which means that there’s in fact less of the “listener’s voice” in the show than there ever was. In fact, there seems to be a lot less comments about ROS episodes than there were before. Yet the show is more “podcasty.”

How?

Well, for one thing, there doesn’t seem to be as strict a release schedule as there would be on a radio show. While most podcasters say that regularity in episode releases is the key to a successful podcast, it seems to me that the scheduling flexibility afforded podcasts and blogs is a major part of their appeal. You don’t release something just because you have to. You release it because it’s as ready as you want it to be.

Then there’s the flexibility in length. Not that the variability is so great. Most episodes released since the comeback are between 30 and 45 minutes. Statistically significant, but not extreme variability in podcasting terms. The difference is more about what a rigid duration requirement does to a conversation. From simple conversational cues, it’s quite easy to spot which podcasts are live broadcasts, which are edited shows, and which are free-form. Won’t do a rundown right now but it would make for an interesting little paper.

The other dimension of the new ROS which makes it more podcasty is that it’s now clearly a Lydon show. He’s really doing his thing. With support from other people, but with his own passions in mind. He’s having fun. He’s being himself. And despite everything I’ve written about him as a host, I quite enjoy the honesty of a show centered on Lydon’s passions. As counter-intuitive as this might sound given the peacock terms used in the show’s blog, it makes for a less-arrogant show. Sure, it’s still involved in American nationalism/exceptionalism. But it’s now the representation of a specific series of voices, not a show pretending to represent everything and everyone.

So, in brief, I like it.

And, yes, it’s among the podcasts which make me think.

café, Coffee, coffee scenes, journalisme, Montreal, plogue, shameless plug

Confessions d'un amateur de café

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Topo de Janie Gosselin sur le café à Montréal.
Janie Gosselin : J’aime ta couleur café | Actuel | Cyberpresse
Elle parle de Caffè in Gamba, Veritas, «Toi, moi & café»… et de votre humble serviteur.

En fait, ça me surprend un peu qu’elle puisse me mettre autant en évidence. Mais si ça peut donner la puce à l’oreille de plus de gens, qu’il se passe quelque-chose du côté café à Montréal, c’est peut-être pas plus mal. Surtout qu’on a encore peu parlé de la scène du café à Montréal, à part lors d’un épisode de L’épicerie.

Ah oui, pour préciser. L’«équivalent d’une quinzaine d’espressos par jour», c’est parce que je bois deux fois du café de ma cafétière moka de six tasses et plusieurs autres cafés durant la journée, y compris des espressos et du café de ma cafétière Brikka. C’est une façon de parler, mais on dirait que ça marque… 😉

J’imagine que je vais devoir faire plus de billet sur le café, y compris en français. La plupart de mes billets sur le café sont en anglais.

Ethnography, praises, satisfaction, surveys

Praises for AT&T

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Wow!

I’m impressed.

No, I’m not a shill for AT&T. And I’m not even an AT&T customer yet.

So, what am I impressed by?

Customer service.

Quality of customer service.

Customer service representatives who do their job well.

Instead of just assuming that it should happen all the time and complain when it doesn’t, I get really impressed when it happens. Call me weird or naïve. Really, I don’t mind. I’m funny that way.

So…

My wife and I are moving to Austin, TX in a couple of weeks. She’s currently in NoHo, Massachusetts while I’m in Montreal, Qc. Because she doesn’t currently have her “social” for the U.S., I was to order phone and broadband services. We basically don’t need anything else, besides electricity.

Shopped around a bit. Asked some people over there about alternatives. People who are currently with AT&T said they had no problem with it. Someone with MCI is thinking of switching back to AT&T. Some people gave me more specific advice on plans, including measured service.

For one thing, AT&T’s phone plans are very affordable. Hard to beat, even. Measured service is exactly what we need as we’ll be making very few calls. It’s mostly a way to get incoming calls and have a landline for emergencies. I might end up with a cellphone at some point, but not right away.

Broadband isn’t too different. As someone said, broadband is pretty much a commodity so, unless there’s a very specific issue, any provider would do. I’ve been using DSL with Bell for a while and it’s quite decent. AT&T’s DSL plans are, again, very affordable and quite flexible. Better yet, the plans have no term commitment.

So I was pretty much set. I wanted to get a measured line as our primary residential phone line and the “Pro DSL” package (3Mbps).

Started the ordering process online. Entered our new home’s address. Wasn’t in the database. Spelled out the street number instead of using a digit and the address was found. But with the wrong zip code. Not slightly wrong, as from a neighbourhood close by. Completely wrong. Hundreds of miles away. But the city name was right. Didn’t want to risk it so I decided to complete the order with some assistance.

While doing all of this, a floating box appeared on the page to allow me to chat with a CSR. Normally, such a box might be quite annoying. But, in this case, it was exactly what I needed.

So I chatted with a CSR named Rachel. Got straightforward answers to all questions I had. One advantage of doing this kind of thing through chat is that it’s easy to copy and paste. Plus, you don’t get issues with trying to perceive tone or anything. It works.

I still needed to call customer service if I wanted to check the address from the database. Seemed perfectly reasonable. I could have proceeded with an online order but I really wanted to make sure everything was set right.

So I called the toll-free number, using Skype. (My headset is quite comfortable.)

Contrary to the experience most people have on most occasions, the voice-activated system was actually quite good. Very conversational and natural. Did a good job at recognizing everything which would be in a restricted list (numbers, place names, yes/no answers…). The recognition of a free-form answer was trickier but the NLP itself was quite efficient. It’s just that it’s difficult to pinpoint an issue like the one I was having with a few words. What’s more interesting, though, is that the system “failed gracefully.” Not only did it allow me to try another way to phrase my issue but it provided different examples every time. The nice little added touch was that, the first time it failed to understand my query, it asked “Did I get that right?” and when I answered “no” it actually said “My mistake.” Sounds really silly, but little things like that do help.

I got my query right the third time (by broadening it) and, after confirmation that this was what I wanted, I was directed to a CSR. Waiting time was less than a minute.

At this point, I just wanted to get information about the database entry for our address. My expectations were fairly low. But the CSR did exactly what he needed to do. (Didn’t catch his name. Given his accent, I would be very surprised if he weren’t from the U.S.) While I was just calling to make sure the address was right, I ended up ordering the services directly through the CSR. I may have missed on a deal but I really think it was worth it. The CSR was that good.

What did this CSR do so right? Simple things.

  • He adopted exactly the right tone with me, neither patronizing nor “salesmanish.”
  • He adopted the appropriate “colloquial yet respectful” form of speech.
  • He solved the database issue very efficiently.
  • He understood exactly what I wanted. Right away, he understood that the phone line I wanted was the most basic one.
  • He never tried to upsell me on anything. In fact, he reassured me that I might not need a protection plan for the lines in our new place.
  • He was frank about what the complimentary calling card would be. (I’m still getting it and I’m sure I’ll use it in an emergency, despite the ridiculously high rates charged.)
  • He explained everything he was doing.
  • He never put me on hold.
  • He explained every detail of each plan I was ordering.
  • He answered questions I didn’t even realize I wanted to ask.
  • He did everything his job required him to do.

I fully realize that many an administrator would look at this list and think that this CSR should get reprimanded or even fired. Especially since he was frank with me and never tried to upsell me on anything. But what many an administrator doesn’t seem to understand is that this quality of customer service goes a long way to bring in faithful customers.

I think that one key here is “basic psychology” and the importance of context. This CSR was able to adapt to my “style” right away. His strategy might not have worked with somebody else. But I’m actually convinced that he would have adapted his strategy according to my reactions. The exact opposite of “cookie cutter solutions.” Customized, personalized, tailored service. As if we were doing business in a small store.

Naysayers will say that my experience was positive because I was actually ordering a service. It will surely go downhill from there. That’s quite possible but, if it does, we will just switch our services to some other company. Not having a term commitment is very valuable, in this case. Besides, I will likely not have to do business with them directly very frequently, unless the services stop working. And the prices are low enough that our stakes in the matter are also quite low.

One reason I’m thinking so much about this is that I have done phone surveys about CSRs in the past. In fact, the surveys were about a phone company. When I completed the order and ended my call to customer service, I was thinking about my answers to survey questions (if I ever get asked). What is sad about surveys is that it’s impossible to give anyone any insight as to what, to me, constitutes excellent customer service. Sure, the ethnographer in me has to say this. But I think it goes beyond the differences in research methodology.

I just wish more people were to understand needs of different people.

Québec, WiFi

MuniWiFi in Rural Quebec

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Municipalité de Nouvelle Miguasha Gaspésie Québec Canada

Nouvelle, a rather small village of 2000 inhabitants in Eastern Quebec, is rolling out an inexpensive plan for municipal wireless using WiMAX.

MuniWiFi has often been criticised, especially in the United States. Some plans, especially in large cities, have been pegged as anti-competitive and “bad for business.” Sprint Nextel’s involvement in WiMAX  is possibly being reconsidered. But the Nouvelle plan seems different.

In this case, the municipality isn’t competing with a private provider since wiring up the region wouldn’t be profitable for a private provider anyway. According to a short report on a tech podcast over at Radio-Canada, the plan is to integrate the WiMax plan as a utility on residents’ tax bill. Apparently, the plan would cost 50$ (CAD) a year for each household.

Given the current economic conditions for remote parts of Quebec, this could easily be the beginning of a new trend. Not that a small village would suddenly be transformed into a hub of tech expertise. But opportunities for telecommuting can eventually reverse the trend toward “rural exodus.” Some comment writers on the Radio-Canada piece mention the possibility to bring young people back to rural areas in Quebec. In fact, there’s currently a government-sponsored campaign to get young people to move away from urban areas back into rural areas. Similar campaigns exist to get newcomers (immigrants and migrants) to move to those areas. Much of these campaigns might have more to do with employment than with anything else and the notion seems to be that the best way to attract anyone to those regions is to have good employment opportunities.

At the same time, some urbanites are moving to those regions. Gaspésie, where this WiFi-savvy village is located, is one such region which attracts increasing number of wealthy urbanites who move there to avoid the stresses of city life. The result is often that real-estate prices are going up for the most desirable places, making it more difficult for young locals to get their own propriety. It also seems that some urbanites fail to engage in the local communities to which they moved, thereby creating some tension between individuals in those communities.

Austin, Beer, Coffee, Places, Texas

Planning Austin

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Been thinking about our upcoming move to Austin, TX. We’ll be there by mid-December.

Looks like our neighborhood, Bouldin Creek, will be an interesting one. It’s close to the (apparently trendy) SoCo area as well as downtown.

Been putting dots on a map for places of potential interest.

Google Maps

Zoom map

Of course, much of my interest focuses on coffee and beer, at this point. But I often find out that this type of focus is a great way to learn a new place.

books, computers, Crazy Predictions, ramblings

Crazy Predictions: Amazon Kindle

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Yeah, I tend to get overly enthusiastic about new devices. And so does a large part of the “tech press.” But, once in a while, a device comes which pretty much everyone predicts will fail. So, recently, I’ve been thinking about playing devil’s advocate with those predictions. Basically, stating that some device which seems to be doomed from the start (”a dud,” “another DOA product”) will in fact succeed. Kind of a creative exercise.Case in point, Amazon’s just released Kindle eBook reader:Amazon.com: Kindle: Amazon’s New Wireless Reading Device: Kindle StoreThe consensus opinion seems to be that it’s “too little, too late” or that the product doesn’t meet its set goals. In other words, a big “hype factor” (hyperbolic language surrounding its release) for something which isn’t that revolutionary.  Tech enthusiasts aren’t impressed. But they do get to think, yet again, about books from a technological standpoint.I happen to think that the Kindle will likely fail. But if it does eventually succeed, what will I need to rethink?

  1. Screen readability trumps everything else.
    • I tend to read a lot of things (including student assignments) on computer screens. But many people keep saying that they can’t read from a computer screen for a very long period of time. If E Ink is in fact so much more readable than a computer screen that it makes a real difference, maybe the Kindle is one of those things you adopt once you try them.
  2. The hardcover’s form factor can work.
    • Looks like the Kindle is too big to fit in a pocket. “Conventional wisdom” (and experience with Newton MessagePad devices) says that handheld devices should fit in pockets. So, if the Kindle works, it means that the form factor isn’t an issue. And, in this case, there’d be some logic to it. Compared to a hardcover book, the Kindle is relatively small. And it’s incredibly small when compared to the number of books it could replace. I tend not to like hardcovers because of their form factor but having a single hardcover to replace any number of books and magazines could make me change my mind.
  3. There’s room for single-function devices.
    • What is already discussed with the Kindle is that multipurpose devices (say, Apple’s iPhone) can serve the “book-reading function” to a certain extent. If it is the case, then people are unlikely to spend as much on a device which only does one thing than on a device which can do a number of things. Yet, “book-reading” is among the trickiest things computer-based technology can do and a case is often made for a device which “does one thing and does it well.”
  4. Free wireless access is a “killer app” and Sprint’s EVDO (used by Kindle) could do. For now.
    • I tend to think a lot about free wireless connectivity, these days. In my mind, the stage seems to be set for the true “wireless revolution.” So I imagine convenient devices which do all sorts of neat things thanks to ubiquitous wireless access, either from cellphone networks or from computer networks. In fact, I keep imagining some kind of “cross-technology mesh network device” which could get connectivity through WiFi/WiMax and/or cellphone 3G, and redistribute it to other devices. Partly the model used for the OLPC’s XO, but brought to an even broader concept. Speeds are sufficient at this point for simple use and there could be ways to alleviate some bandwidth problems.
  5. People are willing to pay for restricted content.
    • I’m a proponent of Open Access and I really think openness is the direction where most Internet-manageable content is headed. But it’s quite possible that people are passionate about some compelling content that they will be willing to pay for access to it regardless of what else is available. In other words, if people really want to read some specific books, they are going to pay for the privilege to read it when they want. That’s probably why some public libraries have fees on best-sellers. I still don’t understand why people would need to pay to access blog content, but maybe paying for blog content will make blogs more “important.”
  6. Not needing a computer is a cool feature.
    • Some people simply don’t have computers, others only have access to public computers, yet others would prefer to leave computer use as a part of their work life. It’s quite likely that, as a standalone device, the Kindle could win the hearts of many people who would otherwise not buy any portable device. In fact, I kind of wish that other handheld devices were less reliant on computers. For instance, even MP3 players with wireless capabilities usually need to be connected to computers on occasion (though Microsoft’s new Zune firmware does eliminate the need for a computer to synchronise podcasts). The difference can be huge in terms of “peace of mind.” Forgot to add new content to your device? Easy, you can fetch it from anywhere.
  7. Battery life matters.
    • At this point, most handheld devices have pretty decent battery life in that you only have to recharge the batteries once a day. But, if the Kindle really does get 30 hours of battery life, it could have an excellent “peace of mind” factor. Forgot to plug in your device, last night? That’s ok, you still have a long time to go before the battery is drained. When you’re travelling for a few days, this could be really useful as it’s often annoying to have to recharge your devices on a regular basis. There’s also something to be said about non-volatile memory (that’s one reason I miss my Newton MessagePad).
  8. Design style needs not be flashy.
    • The Kindle looks rather “clunky” from pictures but it seems that part of this might be on purpose. The device isn’t meant as a fashion statement. It’s supposed to be as “classy” as a book. Not sure the actual device really looks “classy” in anybody’s view but there’s something to be said about devices which “look serious.”
  9. People don’t need colour after all.
    • Grayscale displays have been replaced by colour displays in most handheld devices, including MP3 players and PDAs. But maybe colour isn’t that important for most people.
  10. Jeff Bezos is a neat fellow
    • Maybe the current incarnation of the Kindle is just a way to test the waters and Bezos has a broader strategy to take not only the book world but also all the “online content” world with the Kindle. So, maybe the next Kindle will do audio and/or video. And maybe, just maybe, it could become a full-fledged “Internet appliance.”

So… Just for fun, I’m predicting that the Kindle will be a huge success.

Academia, academic publishing, comment-fishing, Ethnography, Facebook, Google, groupthink, linkfest, podcasts, ramblings, shameless plug, social bookmarking, workflow, Yulblog

Less Than 30 Minutes

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Nice!

At 20:27 (EST) on Saturday, November 17, 2007, I post a blog entry on the archaic/rare French term «queruleuse» (one equivalent of “querulous”). At 20:54 (EST) of the same day, Google is already linking my main blog page as the first page containing the term “queruleuse” and as the fourth page containing the term “querulente.” At that point in time, the only other result for “queruleuse” was to a Google Book. Interestingly enough, a search in Google Book directly lists other Google Books containing that term, including different versions of the same passage. These other books do not currently show up on the main Google search for that term. And blogs containing links to this blog are now (over two hours after my «queruleuse» post) showing above the Google Book in search results.

Now, there’s nothing very extraordinary, here. The term «queruleuse» is probably not the proper version of the term. In fact, «querulente» seems a bit more common. Also, “querulous” and “querulent” both exist in English, and their definitions seem fairly similar to the concept to which «queruleuse» was supposed to refer. So, no magic, here.

But I do find it very interesting that it takes Google less than a half hour for Google to update its database to show my main page as the first result for a term which exists in its own Google Books database.

I guess the reason I find it so interesting is that I have thought a bit about SEO, Search Engine Optimization. I usually don’t care about such issues but a couple of things made me think about Google’s PageRank specifically.

One was that someone recently left a comment on this very blog (my main blog, among several), asking how long it took me to get a PageRank of 5. I don’t know the answer but it seems to me that my PageRank hasn’t varied since pretty much the beginning. I don’t use the Google Toolbar in my main browser so I don’t really know. But when I did look at the PR indicator on this blog, it seemed to be pretty much always at the midway point and I assumed it was just normal. What’s funny is that, after attending a couple Yulblog meetings more than a year ago, someone mentioned my PageRank, trying to interpret why it was so high. I checked that Yulblogger’s blog recently and it has a PR of 6, IIRC. Maybe even 7. (Pretty much an A-List blogger, IMHO.)

The other thing which made me think about PageRank is a discussion about it on a recent episode of the This Week in Tech (TWiT) “netcast” (or “podcast,” as everybody else would call it). On that episode, Chaos Manor author Jerry Pournelle mused about PageRank and its inability to provide a true measure of just about anything. Though most people would agree that PageRank is a less than ideal measure for popularity, influence, or even relevance, Pournelle’s point was made more strongly than “consensus opinion among bloggers.” I tend to agree with Pournelle. 😉

Of course, some people probably think that I’m a sore loser and that the reason I make claims about the irrelevance of PageRank is that I’d like to get higher in a blogosphere’s hierarchy. But, honestly, I had no idea that PR5 might be a decent rank until this commenter asked me about. Even when the aforementioned Yulblogger talked about it, I didn’t understand that it was supposed to be a rather significant number. I just thought this blogger was teasing (despite not being a teaser).

Answering the commenter’s question as to when my PR reached 5, I talked about the rarity of my name. Basically, I can always rely on my name being available on almost any service. Things might change if a distant cousin gets really famous really soon, of course… ;-) In fact, I’m wondering if talking about this on my blog might push someone to use my name for some service just to tease/annoy me. I guess there could even be more serious consequences. But, in the meantime, I’m having fun with my name’s rarity. And I’m assuming this rarity is a factor in my PageRank.

Problem is, this isn’t my only blog with my name in the domain. One of the others is on Google’s very own Blogger platform. So I’m guessing other factors contribute to this (my main) blog’s PageRank.

One factor is likely to be my absurdly long list of categories. Reason for this long list is that I was originally using them as tags, linked to Technorati tags. Actually, I recently shortened this list significantly by transforming many categories into tags. It’s funny that the PageRank-interested commenter replied to this very same post about categories and tags since I was then positing that the modification to my categories list would decrease the number of visits to this blog. Though it’s hard for me to assess an actual causal link, I do get significantly less visits since that time. And I probably do get a few more comments than before (which is exactly what I wanted). AFAICT, WordPress.com tags still work as Technorati tags so I have no idea how the change could have had an impact. Come to think of it, the impact probably is spurious.

A related factor is my absurdly long blogroll. I don’t “do it on purpose,” I just add pretty much any blog I come across. In fact, I’ve been adding most blogs authored by MyBlogLog visitors to this blog (those you see on the right, here). Kind of as a courtesy to them for having visited my blog. And I do the same thing with blogs managed by people who comment on this blog. I even do it with blogs by pretty much any Yulblogger I’ve come across, somehow. All of this is meant as a way to collect links to a wide diversity of blogs, using arbitrary selection criteria. Just because I can.

Actually, early on (before I grokked the concept of what a blogroll was really supposed to be), I started using the “Link This” bookmarklet to collect links whether they were to actual blogs or simply main pages. I wasn’t really using any Social Networking Service (SNS) at that point in time (though I had used some SNS several years prior) and I was thinking of these lists of people pretty much the same way many now conceive of SNS. Nowadays, I use Facebook as my main SNS (though I have accounts on other SNS, including MySpace). So this use of links/blogrolls has been superseded by actual SNS.

What has not been superseded and may in fact be another factor for my PageRank is the fact that I tend to keep links of much of the stuff I read. After looking at a wide variety of “social bookmarking systems,” I recently settled on Spurl (my Spurl RSS). And it’s not really that Spurl is my “favourite social bookmarking system evah.” But Spurl is the one system which fits the most in (or least disrupts) my workflow right now. In fact, I keep thinking about “social bookmarking systems” and I have lots of ideas about the ideal one. I know I’ll be posting some of these ideas someday, but many of these ideas are a bit hard to describe in writing.

At any rate, my tendency to keep links on just about anything I read might contribute to my PageRank as Google’s PageRank does measure the number of outgoing links. On the other hand, the fact that I put my Spurl feed on my main page probably doesn’t have much of an impact on my PageRank since I started doing this a while after I started this blog and I’m pretty sure my PageRank remained the same. (I’m pretty sure Google search only looks at the actual blog entries, not the complete blog site. But you never know…)

Now, another tendency I have may also be a factor. I tend to link to my own blog entries. Yeah, I know, many bloggers see this as self-serving and lame. But I do it as a matter of convenience and “thought management.” It helps me situate some of my “streams of thought” and I like the idea of backtracking my blog entries. Actually, it’s all part of a series of habits after I started blogging, 2.5 years ago. And since I basically blog for fun, I don’t really care if people think my habits are lame.

Sheesh! All this for a silly integer about which I tend not to think. But I do enjoy thinking about what brings people to specific blogs. I don’t see blog statistics on any of my other blogs and I get few enough comments or trackbacks to not get much data on other factors. So it’s not like I can use my blogs as a basis for a quantitative study of “blog influence” or “search engine relevance.”

One dimension which would interesting to explore, in relation to PageRank, is the network of citations in academic texts. We all know that Brin and Page got their PageRank idea from the academic world and the academic world is currently looking at PageRank-like measures of “citation impact” (“CitationRank” would be a cool name). I tend to care very little about the quantitative evaluation of even “citation impact” in academia, but I really am intrigued by the network analysis of citations between academic references. One fun thing there is that there seems to be a high clustering coefficient among academic papers in some research fields. In some cases, the coefficient itself could reveal something interesting but the very concept of “academic small worlds” may be important to consider. Especially since these “worlds” might integrate as apparently-coherent (and consistent) worldviews.

Groupthink, anyone? 😉

A bilingual blog on disparate subjects. / Un blogue disparate bilingue.