Nintendo wins anti-piracy suit against Lik-Sang
Nintendo wins anti-piracy suit against Lik-Sang. Hong Kong retailer sold game copying devices
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Entries for June 2003
The Internet Under Surveillance
The Internet Under Surveillance. Extraordinary 150-page breakdown of global Internet censorship, by country
The power of weblogs, blogging Mt. Everest
The power of weblogs, blogging Mt. Everest. How 2 links at Kottke and The Presurfer growed to 840 links and 200.000 visitors in 24 days
Google launches AdSense, context-sensitive text ads that
Google launches AdSense, context-sensitive text ads that even small sites can use. Perfect for weblogs
Who owns the conversation on my web site?
Back on May 15th, I wrote a 221-word entry on my first impression of The Matrix Reloaded. At last count (mid-afternoonish on June 17th), people have left 700 comments in the thread attached to that entry (7 of which are mine). Those 700 comments comprise a total of ~125,000 words (~180 per entry); that’s about 3.3 150-page books. The HTML file is in excess of 1.3 MB in size, has been viewed about 5000 times in the past two weeks (during which about half of the comments were left), and is responsible, all by itself, for 5.3 gigabytes of data transferred from kottke.org this month.
In comparison to the rest of kottke.org (just a few more stats here), the most comments on previous thread was just over 200 (a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon thread that is no longer online), there are around 3500 comments that have been left on the site in dozens of threads, and over the past 5 years, I have posted around 2500 entries to kottke.org, 27 of them since the Matrix post. My total bandwidth usage for June thus far is about 14.6 GB.
In short, the Matrix thread is unexpectedly large, and depending on how you look at it, is anywhere from 10% to 36% of my entire site, and significantly more than 50% of the total output since May 15th. If you were to look at all the content of the site in the aggregate, you might come to the conclusion that kottke.org is a Matrix Reloaded-related site even though it’s been chugging along Reloaded-free for more than 5 years.
Given that the thread is still active (25 posts today alone), how do I deal with it going forward? I haven’t read any of the conversation since around comment #200, and if it hits 1000 comments (which, 2 weeks ago seemed unlikely but now seems inevitable), the file approaches 2 MB in size, and sucks up 15 GB of bandwidth a month, it seems prudent for me to close the thread.
On the other hand, it continues to be valuable as a forum for a small number of participants and a larger number of readers…and from what I can tell, is a relatively high-quality conversation. Who am I to shut down a conversation that I’m not involved in? This may be my site, but the participants own the conversation. As much as it makes sense to shut it down, I’m inclined to let the participants go as long as they want. Who knows, maybe they’ll even let me know when they’re done.
Related: Sam Ruby’s experiment of moderating discussions on weblogs.
Oh, and just for fun, I pasted the entire thread into Word and used the AutoSummary feature to come up with this 100 word summary of the thread:
The Matrix 1.1?
Wake up Neo…
Real vs Matrix.
Sorry, no “matrix within a matrix”. “Wake up Neo.”Neo is human.
RTFB Neo!
Rewatch The Matrix.
Neo: Yeah.
Neo: Ahhh.
Neo: What?
Neo: Morpheus.
Neo: What?
Neo: Stop.
Neo: The Oracle.
Trinity: No, Neo.
Neo: Yeah.The Matrix Overloaded
Matrix Within A Matrix?
3. DOUBLE MATRIX theory.
NEO: No.Regarding a Matrix within a Matrix:
Aren’t 2 matrices sufficient?
Neo: “No.”
Neo: “No.”Morpheus: “Rest, Neo.
Morpheus: “Rest, Neo. (of the matrix)Enter the Matrix
Matrix within a Matrix…
Matrix within a Matrix…
Matrix within a Matrix…
That’s just begging to be set to music. Or to be included in a anthology of philosophical poetry.
Ads supporting targeted, one-person weblogs
Ads supporting targeted, one-person weblogs. IWantMedia and PaidContent as case studies
Radiohead announces North American tour
Radiohead announces North American tour. tickets go on sale June 21
Iranian weblogs popular but controversial
Iranian weblogs popular but controversial. Blogging threatened as conservatives attempt to restrict Internet usage
Gamecube games dumped and distributed online
Gamecube games dumped and distributed online. A hack to play burned minidiscs is reportedly in development
A roundup of what one might expect
A roundup of what one might expect from Apple at their developers conference next week.
Spurs win NBA title as Duncan almost has a quadruple-double
Spurs win NBA title as Duncan almost has a quadruple-double. He finished with a mere 21 points, 20 rebounds, 10 assists, and 8 blocked shots.
Ceci n’est pas une guerre (c’est l’amour)
Seeing U.S. President George Bush and French President Jacques Chirac get all buddy-buddy at the recent G8 Summit inspired me to make a silent film about the sometimes-tender / sometimes-turbulent relationship of these two powerful men. Witness the giddy highs and depressing lows of a very public love. The film is called Ceci n’est pas une guerre (c’est l’amour), or This is not a war (it’s love), and I hope you enjoy it. (Flash 6 required, ~580KB, best viewed with sound on.)
Thanks to Andre, Matt, Meg, Leonard, Mouser, and Caterina for their help with this. :)
Remaindered links bibliography
In an effort to keep things as uncluttered as possible around here, I don’t provide a lot of metadata for the remindered links in the sidebar: no posted by, no time, no dates, and no attribution. In order to adjust for the lack of attribution, here are some sites I regularly draw excellent links from:
Gulfstream, Muxway, Anil’s Daily Links, BoingBoing, Slashdot, paranoidfish, lightningfield.com, The Morning News, What Do I Know, brushstroke.tv, ex machina, and Magnetbox.
If you’ve got some time today, give them a visit.
Popular Mechanics revisits Roswell
Popular Mechanics revisits Roswell. Newly declassified documents and a deathbed confession conclusively debunk UFO claims
Finding Nemo
Pixar has found what Disney lost in the early 90s…the something that makes animated movies actually watchable. I think it may have something to do with the lack of singing. IMO, as soon as Pixar gets rid of Disney as the distributor of their films, the sooner they’ll start pumping out even better movies.
O’Reilly is finally inlining their comments by
O’Reilly is finally inlining their comments by default after their articles.
Dave Winer celebrates one year of non-smoking
Dave Winer celebrates one year of non-smoking with a flat panel TV. Congratulations!
Worth1000 owes $4000 in bandwidth fees
Worth1000 owes $4000 in bandwidth fees. Photoshopping community uses 1.4 terabytes over their monthly quota
Three-dimensional filesystem browser for OSX
Three-dimensional filesystem browser for OSX. Pretty, but impractical
The Believer’s Idea Share
The web site for The Believer has a feature called Idea Share. Here’s a sampling of ideas that people have shared:
There should be a tax break for perfect attendance at the voting polls. Unlike the law in Australia, which forces you to vote, this would just award those citizens who are consistent participants in our democracy, kind of like a bribe. Small but noticeable: $25?
Invite different kinds of people—architects, cartoonists, plastic surgeons—to attend a lecture on an undisclosed subject. Tell them that they will be tested on the information. Instead, take their notes, doodles and all, and display them as an exhibit, perhaps in conjunction with a transcript of the lecture itself, or perhaps with the subject of the lecture remaining a mystery.
There should be more novels about sentient animals.
There should be a device hooked up to your car’s stereo system that displays whatever song and artist you’re listening to—whether it be tape, CD, MP3, even radio (it would look it up using the Internet)—in a scrolling LED ticker tapetype display on your bumper or running boards.
Animated shows for adults a big hit
Animated shows for adults a big hit. Adult Swim beating the late night talk shows with the 18-24 demographic
Supreme Court ends Sex.com battle
Supreme Court ends Sex.com battle. Domain goes back to its original owner
George Bush wrecks on his Segway
George Bush wrecks on his Segway. expect to see this photo all over the web in short order
Duke Nukem Forever vs Take Two Software
Duke Nukem Forever vs Take Two Software. 6+ years of vaporware hell leads to a public battle between developer and publisher
OJR on Gawker and other localized blogs
OJR on Gawker and other localized blogs. Can they succeed where local city guides failed?
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