I Am Not a Terminal Blogger

In the last 24 hours there has been a flurry of posts in reaction to an article on The New York Times, basically saying that the bloggers lifestyle is a fatal one. The article goes on to chronicle the recent deaths of a few more prominent bloggers and near misses from heart attacks mostly. In addition to the details about what it is like to be a corporate blogger and how much it is worth. They even mention a quote from Michael Arrington saying:

“This is not sustainable”

This may well be the case with the global giants such as TechCrunch, Gawker Media, ZDNet and others who are in a constant 24/7 race with each other to break the latest news. Even with a huge team and massive financial resources these guys don’t aways win. Yes it is nice when the little guy scores. Despite the fact that they will pretend that he didn’t.

Truth is that there is no point in trying to beat these blogging machines at their game. Why torture yourself? These machines have inside knowledge and get “tipped off” plus they do insane amounts of just poking to see if it moves and then speculate. Their reader numbers and influence makes people take notice regardless of the truth. A search for “rumor” on TechCrunch is a perfect example.

In addition if your a blog that has millions of page views a day and can generate a lot of traffic for companies, the fallout is that these are the blogs that are going to be sent emails about new start-ups, news or “insider information”. The “A-listers” are being used as another cog in the marketing machine. They are making money so everyone is happy.

I think that this means you can’t really have that great a relationship with your readers. Your too busy getting the next big story. Sure they might have a comments section and the “share this” plugin (or some variant) in order for you to participate in the “conversation” but they care more about you talking about them than they do about what you have to say.

In contrast I take a genuine interest in the communities around me. This for me has been the most rewarding part of blogging and podcasting. I actually allocate time and make a point of interacting with our community, especially with regards to the podcast. I have many listeners that are a part of my Skype contacts, twitter, Facebook not only as listeners but as friends. They all have something valuable to say and how much more valuable is that when they know that you have read it and responded to it. I care about them and the fact that they took the effort to say what they think.

But then I am not doing it for a living, maybe things would be different if I was. But to my thinking it is the community that follows you that matters, without them you don’t have much value. Either monetary or the satisfaction of knowing that what you are doing is appreciated. Some bloggers don’t even need this, they are happy with self contentment.

I also agree with what Steve Hodson said about the article. Steve detests the concept of the “A-listers” considers himself a realist and writes like one. Stating that there are plenty of bloggers (the majority) that are adding more value to the conversation by adding substance that the “A-lister” can’t because they are off getting the next story. And they are making a decent living doing it!

So for me the take home message is that death by blogging is not unique to blogging. There are plenty of individuals out there in many occupations that work too hard and forget about life. There are plenty that are dead as well. It is the corporate machine that applies this pressure or themselves. Sure follow the machine just don’t try and compete with it. Ignore the pressure and carve your own niche and community, make them matter and the rewards will come, if that is what you want. Add value to the conversation by providing substance, I get more by reading and hearing about reactions than I do the original story anyway.

I am going to let the machine do it’s own thing, kill em selves in the process and have an opinion about it when they do. I could even write for the New York Times one day.

Play Chess and Watch the Computer Work it’s Moves

Not a huge player of chess. But this is chess with a difference.

In this version of chess you play as you would expect, but after you take your go the computer starts to calculate it’s move. Normally when this is happening you wait around, not with the Thinking Machine. Lines start to draw all over the board while the computer calculates 1000’s of possible moves and future plays. You keep playing until you loose, or at least that’s what I do.

Interesting concept and makes for interesting waiting time. The pieces are not the usual representations and this makes it a little more difficult (I lost my queen because of this). I could not tell you how good a player the computer is because I am crap. I am also not sure what the transparent circles are surrounding the board while you are thinking.

Still I think it is worth a look at the Thinking Machine 4 just because it does something that I have not seen before, even if you don’t play a whole game.

“Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine.”

Thinking Machine Homepage

This Post In Binary

Not sure what the value is in this is other than to be able to say that here is some text in binary. I found this site that does just that, creates binary code. Wack some text in and it spits out the same thing but in binary code.

Maybe it should be regarded as the code language for geeks (yes pun intended). The only problem with it is that it would be a pain in the butt to write it long hand. In addition the the fact that it means nothing to humans. Not only that miss a zero or a one in the wrong spot and it will probably change the whole thing. I have no idea mind you. But never fear this is where the site Binary comes in.

All you have to do is type some text in the text box or just copy and paste it and hit encode. It spits out the binary code in the adjacent window. You can also select from various formats. Anyone know what this is good for, because it has me stuffed?

Here is this post in binary code:

01001110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110110 01100001 01101100 01110101 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101111 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00101100 00100000 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010111 01100001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01001101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100111 01100001 01110010 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101110 01100111 01110101 01100001 01100111 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011 01110011 00100000 00101000 01111001 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110000 01110101 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00101001 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101100 01100101 01101101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110000 01100001 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00101110 00100000 01001001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01100100 01100100 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100110 01100001 01100011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100001 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101000 01110101 01101101 01100001 01101110 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101001 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01111010 01100101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01100001 01100010 01101100 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101111 01101100 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01101001 01100100 01100101 01100001 00100000 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01000001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01111001 01110000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01111000 01110100 00100000 01100010 01101111 01111000 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110000 01111001 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110000 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110000 01101001 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100100 01101010 01100001 01100011 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101110 01100100 01101111 01110111 00101110 00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110011 01101111 00100000 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01110110 01100001 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110101 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01101101 01100001 01110100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01000001 01101110 01111001 01101111 01101110 01100101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100011 01100001 01110101 01110011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110101 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100100 00111111

You’ll just have to take my word for it that it is this post, or just copy and paste it into the right hand box and hit decode.

You feel better knowing that now don’t you?

Also check out similar associated sites that do the same thing with Hex and Octal