It seems to me, that I need to figure out how to figure out what specifically I enjoy, and focus upon it. I don’t know what I like, I’m not the same colorful boy I used to be, at some point I’ve gone gray. Everyday is the same, nothing changes, it’s the same stories, the same fights,and the same discussions; the only thing that is different is the characters.

I’ve been blogging for just over four years, July 27, 2006. I’ve been writing stuff on The Innovationist, for almost two and a half, March 11, 2008. Finally, reaching my 100th post — this is it — and realizing that my spirit died about a year ago. I’m not passionate about what I write here anymore, the majority of posts in 2010 have been about me.

I never meant for this to be about me, I meant for it to be about the ideas; about the thoughts; about the change. Social media, that requires quick, stirring remarks, and rewards open-ended, low-intellect hype, to promote discussion and other forms of interaction, has proven less than productive, but plenty entertaining. This doesn’t mean that I think the people weren’t worth it, quite the contrary, but it does mean I think I need to cut back. I need to go back to what I was focused on originally, when I had momentum in my life.

I need to step back into the real world, as last night showed me. I had the best time at an impromptu HS reunion. We all graduated in ’07 and have gone separate directions in those 3 years, not that we were the closest of friends, which made it even more like a reunion. We walk our own paths, but somehow managed to come back around to the same places. I’ll always have the memories, but I need to make more.

Regret is an after-thought, it won’t help you change the decisions you made; just walk away from it.

Anybody who knows what they want to be is lying.

You’ve got brains, and you have a thumb.

Today, you’re twenty. Tomorrow you’ll be thirty, and the next day you’ll be forty.

The person you have to provide for, first and foremost, is yourself and your children.

No one understands, your sentimental values, unless they experienced or know why there is sentimental value.

You have to live for you, you can’t always take care of others; the stress will kill you. Make it a goal to get away and have periods of enjoyment, even if only short.

Things can change in a heartbeat, for better and worse, but we’ll get by, and we’ll be there in times of need.

You can bend, and you can break, but never fake.

I hope that everyone who reads this is doing fine, and enjoying life, as that seems to be the key.

Microsoft has before it a golden goose, it’s up to them to decide whether to continue starving it or to feed it. The first step is to look at where they have already invested: everywhere, from the enterprise through to the cloud and mobile systems. They have a wide base and a tall hierarchy, but they aren’t capitalizing as successfully as they could or even should be.

Why are they failing? It comes down to 3 reasons: horrific marketing, horrific web presence, and lack of integrated focus.  The one I’m primarily wanting to touch on is their lack of integrated focus, because without it they are gone, but I’ll touch on the other two.

A few weeks ago, Microsoft released an update to their Office Live system, something that has been around for nearly 3 years, and yet many people still have no clue about. Why; why doesn’t anyone know about this? It is common for people to bash Microsoft, because they don’t offer a cloud alternative for the desktop Office Suite, but it’s simply not true. Who’s fault is this? It’s the marketing department, they haven’t bothered to promote the platform; it’s also partly due to how confusing Microsoft’s web presence is, it’s anything but simple. Their presence exists in two ends of the spectrum: a mangled mess of links to variations of systems on their main domains and a group of domains that can be hard to find, because of a lack of directions to them. So what they need is a simplified interface, and user direction, from both marketing and a user experience standpoint.

Microsoft, regardless of their poor marketing and website design, has a unique opportunity. Microsoft, is the only company to have an operating system on 4 platforms(enterprise, desktop, mobile, and consoles), a web presence that includes search, email, and cloud systems(enterprise & consumer), high-quality desktop software, and near-universal hardware support. The one thing they are missing in integration across all of these levels, and it makes them look like they are wandering aimlessly. The need to figure out what to focus on, and how to make the entire system more seamless.

My first recommendation to them is to start with the future of the desktop, quick boot systems that allow near instant access to the internet. I propose that they provide a hybrid-OS offering using an instant-on system, that provides access to a browser and several other basic applications. The next recommendation, is one I’ve already made, clean up your web interfaces to make them more user-friendly, and make your cloud systems more prevalent. After you’ve dealt with these issues, you’re ready to more actively promote systems like Live Mesh, that will allow you to integrate and sync cloud data, across multiple systems; I recommend purchasing DropBox to help with this.  The should continue to work on integrating Office and their cloud systems, during this.

In the foreseeable future, the majority of what we will be doing, will be on the internet, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t need our fully developed operating systems. Using a hybrid-OS approach, they will be able to provide both instant-on support for average use case, while still providing the ability to switch over to the full system for heavier workloads. This is what we need in the next few years, ChromeOS can match you in the first, but not the second, except via remote-desktop support. One issue with instant-on systems, is trying to get universal support, but Microsoft is at an advantage as it’s already worked with low-level compatibility, are there going to be hitches, I’m sure, but they should still have some ability to solve this problem, along with manufacturers.

Next step is to make their web presence more coherent and simple.  Promote your integrated services together, rather than splitting them across different domains, you have two live office platforms, three email services, and a search engine, and none of them are connected in a highly sensible way. You’ve also failed at promoting these from your main website, because of the kludgy method of navigation and association among your many many products. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. It’s all about simplification so that your users can find what they are looking for; help them out.

Now, you’re doing okay on this next thing, you’ve got Skydrive and Live Mesh, as well as Office 2010 integration with Office Live, but you can still do so much more to make it simple. Google is kicking your ass as simple collaboration, you need to get this right, and make sure you’re doing it better than they are. You need to get syncing to both the cloud and to other devices down, that’s why I recommend you purchasing DropBox, it would provide a great starting point.  This is going to be one of the key changes you need to get right, and get it right, now. The sooner you get people  using your system and having it seamlessly integrated between the desktop-mobile-cloud the better you will be.

Maybe they’ve been working on this in the background, and they’re just failing to compile the parts, or they have failed to have vision as to what they actually have, and how it can be connected. Either way, it seems that Ballmer is stumbling in providing his teams the ability to create a fully integrated system, either he has the vision or he doesn’t; I’d go with the latter. Now, is when they need to make the move, get to work on bringing your teams together, so they can create a seamless experience, and hire new marketing people.

Normal class times are generally in the 45-90 minute range, depending on how the school defines it’s periods, I’d prefer a 45 minute course daily. Working with 15 minute intervals makes it simple to repeat the process and to make sure pupils grasp and understand concepts. The key to understanding is simplifying to a key point of information that you want them to understand. This is particularly necessary in Elementary schooling, to build up a foundation of understanding, and problem solving skills.

Minutes: 1-3

Prepare the topic with the pupils, so that they have a basic idea of the concept, you are working on. Provide the pupils with a couple test problems, non-multiple choice, to test their understanding.

Minutes:4-8

This is time for  the pupils to work through the problems to show how much they understand.

Minutes:9-10

Check pupils responses to this work, so you can see  who had issues, and where the issues were. Make sure you are interacting with all of the pupils as a group, and as individuals.

Minutes:11-14

Have a class discussion calling on those that did particularly well, and unwell, to help gather learning concepts that some pupils gathered and others did not, this will help in the future.

Minute:15

Take those that did well and partner them with those that didn’t do as well.

Repeat this process until the end of class or until all but possibly one or two pupils grasp the concept, if they do this give them a 5 minute break, and an example problem for tomorrow’s concept. While most of the class works on this, you should interact with the remaining pupils, that don’t grasp the concept, and help them to understand that concept, as well as the new concept in advance, to help prepare them for tomorrow’s work.

If you can’t get a child or even an adult to understand a concept within 15 minutes, then the problem is most likely with you, and not the pupil(s). If there is a problem, you need to look at how your teaching, what they don’t understand, and what you can do to improve. You have all the data in the work the pupils did, so you can go through and check for where they might be missing the connection.

One benefit to this, is you aren’t overloading the mind with brand new concepts simultaneously, this helps prevent the pupil from feeling overwhelmed.  A second benefit, is that you get to interact with the children one-on-one this is something that is lacking in most classrooms, and likely why the parental influence is a so much greater determining factor. Another benefit is that it is quick, it lets you know if there is a problem that you need to focus on or not, it is also quite fluid.

The fluidity, is the final benefit, which allows you to do a weekly, biweekly, monthly, recovery of knowledge quickly, by recovery I mean returning memory. Memory degrades over time, but if it recurs even slightly enough to re-jog it, it becomes wholly new again, and will last longer, this is the forgetting curve. Following the concept of the forgetting curve, you can cover 4 concepts a week, and still fit a day for recovery for all four concepts into your plan, to help increase retention. Another benefit is that you get to gain more data into how the pupils have retained the concepts, so you can better predict when you’ll have to cover the information, again.

This post is complete conjecture, and isn’t based on any significant facts.

As for what I’m referring to, is my current situation, financial, physically, educationally, and “professionally.” Financially, I’m done, I have about 2 months left to handle my bills, which also places me in a position, where I can’t risk it all on the web, the risk to see a turn-around that quickly, isn’t feasible. So in the upcoming months, the blog might shift, sites will go away, but they won’t die or be lost, I have contingencies in place. Physically, a few months ago, I had doctors tell me that I needed to get my thyroid checked out, because it was enlarged, and I had lost close to 20 lbs. in the course of  six months, I failed to make that appointment, and two months later, I’m down another 12 lbs. I’m not a big guy, I’ve never been over 150, so this is a bit of an issue.

Educationally, this has stalled as well, even though I constantly learn something, it’s becoming more and more of a struggle to learn something that is actually of value. I need to make a change, and become more focused in my learning, this is probably my biggest issue, I research topics, as doing so I follow tangents; which is a very interesting way to learn of a new thing, but it doesn’t help with actually learning. Another issue, is I have very broad interests, one second I can be reading up on Accounting or Marketing, the next I could be reading a text on Algorithm Design, or just doing Calculus, this obviously leads into the professional situation.

I don’t have a clue what I want to do professionally, I know what I wanted as a kid, I know where my interests lie, and I know what I’m good at, but that doesn’t help me figure it out, it just makes it murkier. As a child I always wanted to work with computers and robots, I never thought that I’d step back from this position. My interests over the past five years have been in programming, cryptology, economics, finance, business, and design. What I feel at least somewhat competent at is financial analysis, and architectural design.  This of courses, raises issue with what I should do, because I, honestly, don’t have a clue, finance or trying to make my childhood dream work. I don’t know, but I’m leaning toward the financial aspect, and letting the programs slip to the side, which brings me to the project.

The past two years, I’ve focused into  understanding how to analyze data to create semantic content, one of the biggest moves in my thinking was to take the initial load off of the machine, and place it in the hands of a human, the biological entity that understands the semantics of an item. Let the user build the connections, let them do all of the heavy lifting, and then use these seeded inputs as an ever expanding learning set for the machine. This meant making something usable  for a user to interact with, first it was an RSS Reader, then it was a URL shortener, that handled multiple links, then the idea grew into a distributed network of bundled connections. All of these I’ve managed to fail on in some way, except for the last, I’ve just hit a wall as far as I can go on it, with my understanding.

I thought hard over the past week, about seeking a more technical person, or just releasing the current source of the project, after it’s cleaned up a bit. The first way would have the possibility for a good return, but I oddly feel bad about it, it makes me feel like I failed. So I’ll be working to clean up the code, write out lots of the mental documentations I have, as well as collect and clean up the digital and physical documentation, so that others can take the idea to the next level. Currently, there is already a working model of what I saw it being about three-months down the line, at BagtheWeb, they did some things better, mainly having a fully functional product, not just a prototype, but their product is still in early enough stages that it could be caught and surpassed. I just don’t have time, with having to deal with these other issues, to devote  wholeheartedly to the issue.

So I apologize to the people who did play with the project, and provided quite valuable feedback, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to what it is, even as little as it is without you. It won’t be going anywhere for now, but I also doubt updates for the indefinite future. I just have stuff to sort out first, maybe one day I’ll come back to it, with the passion I had, when I was creating a research tool, with a semantic future.

Update: The rest of this article is a bit technical, if you would like a less technical description, you should go read Adobe and Google Sitting in a Tree.

Below is the source of the issue:

document.write('<!-- Template Id = 2,593 Template Name = Banner Creative (Flash) - In Page --><!-- Copyright 2006 DoubleClick Inc., All rights reserved. --><script src=\"http://s0.2mdn.net/879366/flashwrite_1_2.js\"><\/script>');document.write('\n');

function DCFlash(id,pVM){
var swf = "http://s0.2mdn.net/1295336/Adobe_Flash_WeLoveTechStandAlone_300x250_std.swf";
var gif = "http://s0.2mdn.net/1295336/Adobe_Flash_WeLoveTechTandem_300x250_img.gif";
var minV = 8;
var FWH = ' width="300" height="250" ';
var url = escape("http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/399a/f/16c/%2a/z%3B224918296%3B0-0%3B0%3B48697163%3B4307-300/250%3B36759992/36777870/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=B7rXGceHsS9PODOThlQfNrvjSDe_sysIBAAAAEAEgr86-CjgAWM_pofIUYMnO7Y2ApfgRsgEOdGVjaGNydW5jaC5jb23IAQnaATRodHRwOi8vdGVjaGNydW5jaC5jb20vMjAxMC8wNS8xMy9jaHJvbWUtb3MtcHJvZ3Jlc3MvmAJkwAIC4AIA6gISVGVjaGNydW5jaF8zMDB4MjUw-AL00R6QA-ADmAOsAqgDAeAEAQ&num=0&sig=AGiWqtxB0NIJCJR5KJ5OngVkuvd_Qw20Dw&client=ca-pub-6181816114362650&adurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.adobe.com/choice%3Fsdid%3DGXRVD");
var wmode = "opaque";
var bg = "same as SWF";
var dcallowscriptaccess = "never";

var openWindow = "false";
var winW = 600;
var winH = 400;
var winL = 0;
var winT = 0;

if(typeof(encodeURIComponent)=="function"){url=encodeURIComponent(unescape(url));}
var fv='"clickTag='+url+'&clickTAG='+url+'&clicktag='+url+'"';
var bgo=(bg=="same as SWF")?"":'<param name="bgcolor" value="#'+bg+'">';
var bge=(bg=="same as SWF")?"":' bgcolor="#'+bg+'"';

function FSWin(){
 if((openWindow=="false")&&(id=="DCF0"))alert('openWindow is wrong.');
 if((openWindow=="center")&&window.screen)
 {winL=Math.floor((screen.availWidth-winW)/2);winT=Math.floor((screen.availHeight-winH)/2);}
 window.open(unescape(url),id,"width="+winW+",height="+winH+",top="+winT+",left="+winL+",status=no,toolbar=no,menubar=no,location=no");}this.FSWin = FSWin;

ua=navigator.userAgent;
if(minV<=pVM&&(openWindow=="false"||(ua.indexOf("Mac")<0&&ua.indexOf("Opera")<0))){
 var adcode='<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" id="'+id+'"'+FWH+'>'+
 '<param name="movie" value="'+swf+'"><param name="flashvars" value='+fv+'><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="wmode" value="'+wmode+'"><param name="base" value="'+swf.substring(0,swf.lastIndexOf("/"))+'"><PARAM NAME="AllowScriptAccess" VALUE="'+dcallowscriptaccess+'">'+bgo+
 '<embed src="'+swf+'" flashvars='+fv+bge+FWH+' type="application/x-shockwave-flash" quality="high" swliveconnect="true" wmode="'+wmode+'" name="'+id+'" base="'+swf.substring(0,swf.lastIndexOf("/"))+'" AllowScriptAccess="'+dcallowscriptaccess+'"></embed></object>';
 if(('j'!="j")&&(typeof dclkFlashWrite!="undefined")){dclkFlashWrite(adcode);}else{document.write(adcode);}
}else{
 document.write('<a target="_blank" href="'+unescape(url)+'"><img src="'+gif+'"'+FWH+'border="0" alt="" galleryimg="no"></a>');
}}

var pVM=0;
var DCid=(isNaN("224918296"))?"DCF0":"DCF224918296";
if(navigator.plugins && navigator.mimeTypes.length){
 var x=navigator.plugins["Shockwave Flash"];if(x && x.description){var pVF=x.description;var y=pVF.indexOf("Flash ")+6;pVM=pVF.substring(y,pVF.indexOf(".",y));}}
else if (window.ActiveXObject && window.execScript){
 window.execScript('on error resume next\npVM=2\ndo\npVM=pVM+1\nset swControl = CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash."&pVM)\nloop while Err = 0\nOn Error Resume Next\npVM=pVM-1\nSub '+DCid+'_FSCommand(ByVal command, ByVal args)\nCall '+DCid+'_DoFSCommand(command, args)\nEnd Sub\n',"VBScript");}
eval("function "+DCid+"_DoFSCommand(c,a){if(c=='openWindow')o"+DCid+".FSWin();}o"+DCid+"=new DCFlash('"+DCid+"',pVM);");
//-->

document.write('\n<noscript><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/399a/f/16c/%2a/z%3B224918296%3B0-0%3B0%3B48697163%3B4307-300/250%3B36759992/36777870/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://adclick.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=B7rXGceHsS9PODOThlQfNrvjSDe_sysIBAAAAEAEgr86-CjgAWM_pofIUYMnO7Y2ApfgRsgEOdGVjaGNydW5jaC5jb23IAQnaATRodHRwOi8vdGVjaGNydW5jaC5jb20vMjAxMC8wNS8xMy9jaHJvbWUtb3MtcHJvZ3Jlc3MvmAJkwAIC4AIA6gISVGVjaGNydW5jaF8zMDB4MjUw-AL00R6QA-ADmAOsAqgDAeAEAQ&num=0&sig=AGiWqtxB0NIJCJR5KJ5OngVkuvd_Qw20Dw&client=ca-pub-6181816114362650&adurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.adobe.com/choice%3Fsdid%3DGXRVD\"><img src=\"http://s0.2mdn.net/1295336/Adobe_Flash_WeLoveTechTandem_300x250_img.gif\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" galleryimg=\"no\"></a></noscript>\n');
</script>

<script src="http://s0.2mdn.net/879366/flashwrite_1_2.js">
function dclkToObject(id) {
 if(document.layers){
 return (document.layers[id])?eval(document.layers[id]):null;
 }
 else if(document.all && !document.getElementById){
 return (eval("window."+id))?eval("window."+id):null;
 }
 else if(document.getElementById && document.body.style) {
 return (document.getElementById(id))?eval(document.getElementById(id)):null;
 }
 }

function dclkFlashWrite(string){
 document.write(string);
}

function dclkFlashInnerHTML(htmlElementId,code){
 var x=dclkToObject(htmlElementId);
 if(x){
 if(document.getElementById||document.all){
 x.innerHTML='';
 x.innerHTML=code;
 }
 else if(document.layers){
 x.document.open();
 x.document.write(code);
 x.document.close();
 }
 }
}
</script>

Adobe pops up on a Mac

The interesting thing I spotted quite quickly is that it is also going after Opera, don’t ask me why, that’s pretty obscure. I immediately tested it out, just to see, and ended up getting the pop-up.

After looking at the code for about a half hour, I still don’t know what everything is, and exactly how it’s getting past Google, I also don’t know how ad’s are created, because I’ve never bothered to look at it.  So I’m not sure, if this is something anyone could execute, or if Google is allowing it. So it’s possible that there is a vulnerability in Adsense.

What I can tell after looking at the code, is that they are targeting Apple, and Opera, users, as well as using javascript to activate flash, in the background.

First they are setting the DCid as either DCF0 or DCF224198296, this should always validate as false and the will set DCid as DCF224198296. Then, it goes on to check if the browser uses plugins and has at least any values, if it results in true it attempts to setup ShockwaveFlash and perform a version check on it, setting the variable pVM to the version number. If that statement failed, it assumes you are using IE and initializes using ActiveX.

I don’t understand exactly what is going on in the eval, so I can’t say much about it, besides it calls DCFlash with the DCid(“DCF224198296″) and the pVM(“Flash Version”).

I apologize if the rest of this is rushed for now, I’m getting a bit tired.

The DCFlash function then initializes an assortment of variables, before setting up the FSWin function.
FSWin checks to see if the window is already open or the DCid was set in error to DCF0, it then checks to see if the window is centered and gather your screen size for offsets on the window border. Following FSWin is the window initialization, which disables all navigation, in that window.

Next,  is the User-Agent analysis, which first check to make sure that your current Flash version is at minimum Vers. 8, it then checks to see if you are using either a Mac or Opera, if you aren’t the value is less than 0, returning true, this then compares in with window==”false”, which is true, in an or statement, which will return false, if both are set. If this test of the browser conditions fail, either using an old version of Flash, or using a Mac, or Opera it will default to just the default hyperlinked gif. Otherwise, it sets up Flash to be displayed in the window pain.

During the course, of writing this the test ad I was using has disappeared, but I’ll see if I can gather any more of the code. One thing I found odd, is that the ad was stored within an iFrame, which I couldn’t find with any of Google’s other Adsense ads, I managed to find a representation of using an iFrame, after I woke up.

Homogeneity, in nature, it is as common as a step in the evolutionary process. As species adapt, the mean difference, across the whole corpus of the species, becomes smaller, and the species pick up both positives and negatives, that affect the species future. The huge negative for homogeneity is that the corpus, minus the mutated(outliers), is that susceptibility to a common tragedy. A tragedy, by contagion,  can be common, if a disease does infect one entity, it can easily spread to those that are also susceptible, though the entities with mutated genetics, assuming theses genetics, increase resistance or provide immunity to the disease, or any common tragedy.  If the tragedy is large enough, it can cause the mean difference to go up, or even hit an maxima,  which it comes back down from in favor of the  mutates.

Homogeneity, in business and our daily lives, occurs quite frequently, and it is an influencing factor over choice. To look into the idea of choice and homogeneity, you don’t have to look further than skin deep, or in this case clothing. Every one of us has a desire to fit in, and this desire results in us commonly grouping, even, subconsciously with those who are like us. From this desire, we find ways to look, sound, or interact the same way; our desire also has a side effect, it removes the necessity of thought in many circumstances, just go with what everyone else is doing. Of course, there will always be a few who don’t want to be classified, or collated with others, sadly they create their own group, through these actions: non-conformists.

To see the corporate side of homogeneity, look into the restaurant/fast food industry, or supermarkets. Mom & Pop’s have been gobbled up by the McDonalds and Wal-Marts , because the layperson doesn’t know what they have to offer. If you go with one of these household names, you have a good idea that the food is going to be decent, or that the store will have what you’re looking for within its doors. This homogeneity, decreases local competition, but it’s okay, because it saved the average consumer time and money, because these chains get reductions for ordering extremely large amounts of goods. Of course, some people will stick to the Mom & Pop’s, to be contrarian, or because they know it just as well and it has become ritual.

When it comes to the web, however, the steps toward homogeneity become much easier, but there is even fewer checks and balances, than in any of the other cases. We interact with the web on a time basis, and this time is limited, so we find a subset of sites to stay in constant contact with, normally staying within a triumvirate: search, networking, and news-history. However, the common solutions for these problems are reduced to a common set of sites, there are alternatives, but it requires more rigor on part of the consumer. So what do we do, we choose, by what provides the most tools, where are my friends, and how can I find out more.

What happens when you’re playing this zero-sum game of choice, Louis Gray says there is no zero-sum game?  You end up selecting those that might not be the best, but save you time and trouble. Want to use e-mail, read blogs, or just IM with friends, you can go use any random email host, any old RSS-reader, or link walk the sites, or anyone who offers an IM service, OR you can just use Google, and get all of these services simultaneously, plus several dozen other services.  Do you see what just happened? Multiple services where just reduced, they were hit by a common tragedy, and now there is one hyper-efficient service provider, which most people are going to use because it’s simple, and they don’t have to think about where they are going to go, or what they are going to do.  Where can I share images, discuss things with my close friends and family, and provide a set of personal information for people that people can use as entrance sources? Well there are a large number of services that will let you share images, and any number of places and ways to share that information, but to truly access everyone, without making them do work hard, and that site is becoming Facebook. The case is you don’t see a corresponding 1-1 gain loss, gains are primarily individualistic, while losses are primarily distributed, there are cases where the inverse occurs, but they are few and far between.

These companies are becoming goliaths, that are going to harm the web, if they continue to grow, it won’t happen immediately, but even now Facebook is trying to change the rules. And you can say all you want that there are other services out there, I’ll admit that, but when you’re playing a zero-sum game, based on how much time you spend interacting in different locations, you have to focus on where you’ll get the optimal return.  There will always be alternatives, for those who truly want them, but for the general public, they don’t mind as far as they know, everyone does the majority of the same things on the web. Until, something happens that causes the homogenous species, to see what the mutates have already seen and adapted for we’re looking at an interesting ride for the next 2-3 years.

I haven’t thought it out fully, it’s only been a few hours, but using APMLs as the starting ground. You sum the weights, per topic, for all of your followers and then divide by #number of followers, to get the APML for your Social Graph, per network which I’m calling GAP currently. I see this as an extended OPML format for APMLs , handling not only weights of relevant interest, but also handling access to the APMLs monitored by the graph.

One thing that would conflict with the APML format, which the GAP could stay very close to, is what is deemed Explicit Data. You aren’t the one determining relevancy, so it isn’t necessary. I’d either use or replace it for something that handles the APML list being monitored, the list becomes the explicit data for the weighting, but it also allows you to weight the APML’s individually as well, I don’t know that this is necessary, but it allows accessibility to possibly increase relevance to your graph, based on who is likely to interact more with you.

So this is just a thought, about a open-method for sharing graphs and relevance between services, rather than every service handling a proprietary model of the graph, and a proprietary model of relevant data. First things first, is that we need support for APML, which we have Chris Saad to thank for, then we can handle how we manage our networks relevancy.

One final issue with the GAP is that it has a specific use case, is that it is a way to share graphs and relevancy to exterior networks, but the file size for the GAP if it handled all the networks simultaneously it would become quite large, implicit data would be 1 line per topic, per network, and explicit data would be 1 line per person, per network. For early adopters and people with large following bases this could become quite large, even for a regular user on one network it would likely be 300-1000 lines.

*= MyLikes already uses a similar model, influenced by clicks per ad and number of ads you share. MyLikes Influence Rank

It is only out of ignorance that people are cruel, because they really don’t think it will come back. ~ Maya Angelou

This quote, is extremely fitting to this tale. Recently, I saw an indirect, independent action that could be seen as a return of karmic justice, not because I was particularly cruel, but because I was ignorant at a prior time. For many of Friendfeed’s more active English speakers, they may remember the racial slur topic, which cost the service some of it’s best intellectuals. Sadly, I must say that I was one of the “very few” people who kept stoking the fire, long past the point of which it should have been ash; I stoked that fire, and the results of the blaze is some people were singed, but a few were charred.

Do I have regrets for being involved? Absolutely.
Do I think I had reason for being involved? To a point, but I stepped far past what that was.
Was I cognizant of all the rammifications as I made my decisions? No, and I will admit many of those remarks were made in defense, though an unreightous defense, to what  I though were attacks to  my and others credibility.

One thing that I did not completely understand, though I thought I did, was the power of words. I bore that if they were used in good fun and jest, that they shouldn’t have such intensity, the ability to cause pain. Well all that changed last weekend, when I felt attacked directly, by words that I was likely not to see, but happened upon them anyways.

These words may not have been directed upon me, but they were forged from an intense hatred, and were likely set off by something I said haphazardly and in a way mocking my own ignorance. These words not only included that of hatred, but those of compassion, which seemed very cold and insincere when they were breached, and sarcastic thoughts of violence. I can now say that I was, or at least feel as though I was, on the recieving end of a racial hate crime, even if it was only words, from thousands of miles away.

I can also say that to say that you understand, to say that you have compassion, after supporting or standing up for any form of bigotry, even if it was only words spoke in jest, will be called into question. You should not fight when this question is raised, because you, too, are part of the problem. You will stand along side me; you will wait until that suffering returns, to show you its effects. We all need to remember that there is a line, but we must also realize that what lies on either side is the same.

Sadly, it is with this that I have also chosen to step away from friends, all of whom I’ve shared great moments with, and who will share great moments without me. I may stop to observe how they are doing, but my interaction, has caused quite huge losses, not just for myself, but for them as well. I feel now it is better for me to resign, as a member of FF, of course I still reserve a position to be involved with the argumenting about domo’s and the “fat kid.”

Still here? Good. This post may be a bit vague, I’m going to try and keep it simple and understandable, for you as well as myself, I’m already a bit confused after several hours of trying to map this. If you would like to discuss this, for a more in depth, though possibly less coherent form, feel free.

To begin, we have three entities: data, meta-data, and users. These entities all have various ranges of relationship, which go from near to distant, and occasionally don’t exist. To describe the range as an example of friends, “Those best-friends, with very similar taste, are near(1), friends, much different taste(2), acquaintances, similar taste(3), acquaintances, different taste(4), and people you’ve never met(0).” We’ll approach range using this method, based on relational distance, between entities.

Data is, in my view, the front facing objects, whether that be text, images, video, or even tactile objects. Data itself exists in a weak presence, as far as to what value it represents, when coupled with meta-data, it becomes stronger.

Meta-data is data about data. It is the entity that is manipulated and understood, to provide us with relationship information, on any level. There are many forms of meta-data, temporal, location, authorship, topics, etc., that provide us with fantastic ways of connecting data, but often times it includes disparate entities, that aren’t necessary.

The user in my case is a human which interprets the regular data, and may create tags of meta-data, but can be a machine in which case it is likely to work with meta-data, either directly or in composition of meta-data from data sources.

Now that the entities are somewhat defined, I can get into the discussion of how these various entities are connected in creating relevant connections, both in basic terms, and user specific terms.

Often times, the simplest way to construct a relevancy map between data objects, is to use meta-data about the objects, social-bookmarking tools work this way by way of topical tagging, the distance between objects is the range of 4. Making the system a bit more complex you add methods, you take your tagged set, and add in user selection, by how much a user likes various items to manipulate what topics they are likely to see, this is in the range of 3 because it is still picking out items by topic which is a very wide. Or you can provide what your user’s friends have read recently, this is still in the range of 3, because by adding in what other people read, can narrow the area of focus, it’s possible to be in areas that the user doesn’t care as much for. If you add in what the user’s friends like, rather than just what they read, you get closer to the range of 2.

In order to get to the optimal range 1 you have to add two more things to your system: direct relations between data-objects and concentrated interaction between users, these can both be defined explicitly by users, and can be shown as a simple social-graph, with one object/user in the center, and the closest elements near by.  Direct-relations, which are somewhat like Techmeme, can be created on a broad scale by a user-based system of bundling links to content, based on relationship. Concentrated Interaction is a bit more complex, because it requires an analysis of interaction, but presents an interesting system, helps reach the range of 1.

Note: If you treat Users like data-objects, which they are in a database, you can apply meta-data, to make the concentrated interaction, more specific by what topics the user is most familiar.

So I’ve discussed 5 ways in varying levels of implementation to reduce the range of relevancy.

The use of tagging to create a quick reduction in the range of relevant data.
User selection to narrow down what topics the user likes, or aggregate content that the users friends are looking at.
Further narrow it down by what these friends like.
Allow Bundling of content that is directly related.
Analyze the concentrated interaction graph to narrow down trust sources.

I’m sure I’ve lost someone in this antithetical pile, as I had to get this off my head it was driving me crazy, and I’m going to call it the beginning of a new arcling, to be adjusted down the line. So if  you are interested, I’m sure that we can possibly make it a bit clearer by having a discussion.