Book recommendation for Rattle.
Nick, I just picked it up. I suggest you get your hands on a copy too.
-Jess

The Sea's Bitter Harvest: Thirteen Deadly Days on the North Atlantic

Groton — The captain of a submarine under construction at Electric Boat was relieved of command over the weekend when the admiral at the Naval Submarine Base lost confidence in his ability to command.

Another Sub Captain Relieved Of His Command

My company blocked Memestreams today. So I won't be posting much anymore. I'll try to do so from home (like I am right now SINCE MY COMPANY BLOCKED ME) but I won't be around much :(
This sucks.
Anyway, you can e-mail me or I.M. me...
Let's all hope they unblock it. Soon!
-Jessica

Rattle's comments:

For several months now, work has been underway building the next version of MemeStreams. It has been necessary to recode most of the site from scratch, so its taking awhile. At any given time the trials of life, lack of funding, bad timing, hardware failure, and general bad luck is screwing up the works. However, we _are_ making progress.

Just before the new year, I hit the point in the development process where new capabilities of mining and graphing social network data were becoming available. I decided to go off on a little tangent, embrace the milestone, and do something to show our technology's progress. The result is the Year in Graphs 2003. Over the course of putting this together I've wound up fixing all kinds of problems with our database conversion code and wrote much of what will become the new graphing engine. I even had a really good "eureka" moment in relation to some of our network theory.. Its been time usefully spent.

That being said, this is all very kludgy. I did not spend that much time crossing I's and dotting T's.. The fonts in the nodes are hard to read, some of the graphs look "squished", its missing the "Show Links" feature the current Social Network portion of the sites has, etc.. There is much room for improvement with our graphing. I look forward to additional feedback.. :)

While these graphs may be fun to look at, the data they are built with is what's really exciting.. The same thing that allowed me to make these graphs is what's going to lead to improvements in the capabilities of the Reputation Agent.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy browsing through this review of the past year!

MemeStreams - The Year in Graphs 2003

] This collection of web pages documents Brad's activity on
] the system and the people who's lives he effected, from
] the first day he logged on MemeStreams to the day he
] passed on.

I had just finished the Year in Graphs when we heard of Brad's overdose. The idea of putting this together came to me immediately.. However, it took me about a week to get my shit together enough to actually do it.

I'm not sure what to say about it. I wasn't sure what to write on the intro/index page either. I spent a good afternoon of staring at a blank copy of VIM trying to come up with something. Then it dawned on me that the community could speak for itself, so I just started cut and pasting whatever made sense. It felt like that was a copout at the time, and it still does now..

However, I still can't think of anything to say about the matter. I can think of a few things I want to scream.. Really fucking loudly.. All of them at Brad.

For now, I'll say I miss him.

... and stay away from Heroin.

Brad

] NEW DELHI (Reuters) - It's not quite the goose that laid
] the golden egg, but an Indian diamond merchant's prize
] cow is producing bejeweled dung.

Farmer's Diamonds Go to Waste But Are Recovered

http://gallery.attack11.com/PV%20500Kv%20line%20opened%20under%20load.mpg

Watch it with the sound on.
How's that for a Jacob's ladder?!

] Ever come out to the parking lot and find your car
] sandwiched between two large and towering sport-utility
] vehicles, the big wheels and bulging side panels
] protruding over the white lines of the parking space,
] leaving you mere inches to squeeze into your vehicle, and
] then only after checking to see if those huge neighboring
] doors have left a ding?

Check the ages of the people they interviewed for this article. The people who can't seem to park their cars because of SUVs.

SUV squeeze prompts calls for bigger spaces

] Doug Z's Art is a mixture of thought, creativity, spray
] cans and imaginations. His work is unusual, ethereal and
] even mind warping.

One of Rattle's friends does interesting things with krylon...

Doug Z Art Gallery

] CHARLOTTE, Iowa (AP) -- People around the world watching
] live on a Web cam as a horse gave birth called for help
] when the mare -- in pain and confused -- kicked her owner
] after delivering her foal.

Internet = good!!!

Web cam watchers help woman kicked by horse