Category: Business

— There’s a nice little feature on Blogwars at Protein Wisdom, a snazzy little blog from the groves of academe.

— Friday’s Blogathon between Instapundit and VodkaPundit was disappointing. The judges had to disqualify Instant for junk posting, noting:
3 posts on spam (one on phone-spam, of all things),
3 vanity posts on mentions from other sites,
2 posts from the British press on American subjects not pertaining to Italian food,
6 posts on the infiltration of the musical community by Capitalists (a “Sullivan,” which is 5 or more posts on a topic of no significance), and
2 additional Ken Layne references.

The judges want the boys to play hard, but to play fair, so they urge them not to let this happen again. Meanwhile, Vodka has a real ISP, and has survived a trip to the dentist. Only losers blog on weekends, so the competition will resume Monday.

On a related note, the trend of bloggers toward professional web site designer makeovers is disturbing. Professionally-done sites tend to highlight the designer’s own visual creativity, and typically result in the site’s text being harder to read. This is not going in the right direction. Whether you’re buying a makeover or doing your own, bear in mind that rule number one in good Blog aesthetics is to maintain high legibility for your musings. This means fonts that are workmanlike and large enough to read, and high contrast between text and background.

The default templates for Blogger and Movable Type both have design bugs with respect to fonts, specifying their size in pixels rather than the relative units (medium, small, or x-small) that are adjusted by the Browser’s View Text control. The pixel is not a unit of uniform size, since video display systems vary from 72 Pixels per inch all the way up to 144. So a 10-pixel font that may look fine on a medium-quality display shrinks to half the size you think it has when viewed on a professional-quality, high-resolution video card with a large screen. Movable Type also specifies line-height, an unnecessary thing that also interferes with user adjustment of font sizes.

It’s surprising that this design bug is so prevalent, but no more so than the lack of reliability on the Blogspot server. When the Professor moves to his ISP, I expect that Blogspot will improve however, since he probably accounts for half their traffic, if not more. Humble sites like this one entertain 1000 unique visitors a day, but the Prof has to be knocking down 10 times that many, if not more.

is still sulking about the porn discussion a few weeks ago (Ideas etc.)

If paid sex with strangers is so natural then why should anyone be ashamed of paying an attractive women to keep you company? Heck, I bet Mr. Bennet feels it saves marriages.

That’s Bennett with 2 t’s, Kevin.

— Wellberts (subscribers to an 80’s vanity publishing system) are stopping by the Omphalos in large numbers recently. Here’s a nice little treat for them.

is the subject of this piece by Jonathon Chait (The New Republic Online: Sullivan v. The New York Times)

Sullivan first condemned Krugman January 18, then continued on for days, posting twelve items. After that massive output, he wrote, “No more Krugman, I promise.” Alas, he failed to keep the promise, mentioning Krugman in 22 more items before once again promising, “I’m gonna lay off (unless I can’t help myself.).” Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t help himself and has since gone after Krugman in 17 subsequent items.

The use of the numerical method fits this case neatly. I commented on the obession some days ago, both here and elsewhere because it was so blatant. Joshua Marshall had an “All Enron, All the Time” theme for a while himself, though not nearly as severe as Sullivan’s. I pointed this out to Marshall, and he sent me a civil reply and cleaned-up his act. Sullivan’s response to a similar pointer was to send no reply and continue on his merry way. I used to respect Sullivan, despite his quirky ways, but I have to wonder when his behavior is so crude in comparison with that of a man whose politics I don’t even agree with. Intelligence knows no ideology, apparently, nor does boorishness.

Thursday’s line score in the battle of the Blogs: VodkaPundit 33, Instapundit 28

Reynolds upped the ante a bit, returning to his old form after a couple of days of slacking-off, but Stephen is in the Zone and will not be denied. Insta tried to catch the Newbie in the death-grip of mutual admiration by sucking-up to one of his posts, but it didn’t work.

Take heart, Professor — even Steve Austin couldn’t be champ forever.

Meanwhile, back at the Fox News ranch, pundits Breen and Jacobs discuss Andrea Yates. Breen says killer mom’s a loon, and Jacobs says it’s the man’s fault.

Megan McArdle says get your red hot videotapes right here:

Daniel Pearl Videotape

R Kelly Videotape

— If there’s one thing Salon’s chief censor and managing editor Scott Rosenberg knows about, it’s soaring debts. But somehow he manages to project Salon’s business practices onto the president of the United States. This is why I call these folks “The Sneering Class”. Salon.com Politics

Still, it’s incontrovertible that the government has a lot less money now — and will have less and less in the future — thanks to Bush’s ill-conceived tax cut. And it offends anyone who cares about honesty in government (a phrase that, during the Clinton era, was the rallying cry of impeachment-happy Republicans) to watch Bush continue to pin responsibility for his own fiscal mismanagement on the head of Osama bin Laden.

This is downright stupid. The tax cut has had no effect on tax revenues so far, and Democrats oppose the one tax cut that’s guaranteed to raise money for the government, the capital gains tax cut. Scott, son, go sell some more worthless stock and be done with it.

— VodkaPundit cements his domination of the Blogosphere by out-blogging Instapundit for the second day in a row, 29-21. The sudden drop-off in productivity on the part of the long-time King of the Blogs is hard to explain, unless the professor has been spending lots of time plotting with Rupert to take over (more of) the world. But the question is how long Stephen can maintain his blistering pace.

Meanwhile, the wall of silence on Sullivan criticism continues on the J-list blogs, and sharp-tongued computer industry pundit John Dvorak opines that the blogs are a massive web of interpersonal self-congratulation. But of course.

? Yesterday, for the first time in recorded history, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds was outblogged. Intoxicated by Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement, Prof. Reynolds let his output drop to a piddling 27 posts, while VodkaPundit Stephen Green blogged a solid 31 posts to take the lead and establish himself as the most prolific blogger of the day. Green posted an additional 4 past midnight, making his lead in the technical category all the more impressive. Green’s stuff is rife with wit and commentary, which earns him extra points with the judges in the coveted presentation category as well. Here’s one for the new champion, long may he reign.

? old bits of nothing says, vis a vis the snobbery of the J-Team:

If the journalism-with-a-capital-J crowd is calling it a fad, perhaps they are scared at the prospects of admitting there is something useful in weblogs, and it’s a smoke shield.

That they’re scared is a given; the challenge is to recognize that they’re using two tactics to undermine the threat: one is the snobbish put-downs in the print media, and the other is active co-option, or pushing the Blogosphere toward banality. Behind the high-profile banality you’ll often find Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, handing out cash and exposure; Fox News and the London Times (publisher of Sullivan’s linkless manifesto) are both News Corp properties. But that’s just a coincidence, of course, because News Corp has so many properties they’re involved in all things mediarific by necessity, from tabloids to dailies to networks to satellites and even to set-top boxes; they’re pretty big in James Bond movies too.