What are Blog Backlinks?

From http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42533 (paraphrased):

BackLinks enable you to keep track of other pages on the web that link to your posts, and, more importantly, allow a way for discussions (or dialogs) to occur across different websites (/blogs).

For instance, suppose Alice writes a blog entry that Bob finds interesting.
Bob then goes to his own blog, and writes a post of his own about it, linking back to Alice's original post.
Now Alice's post will automatically show that Bob has linked to it, and it will provide a short snippet of his text and a link to his post.
[This is intended to be] a way of expanding the comment feature
so that related discussions on other sites
can be included along with the regular comments on a blog-post.\

[Google Blogger's] default templates are already set up with the necessary code for BackLinks. However, if you have a custom template, you will need to add the code yourself. Instructions for that are [NOT] found here.

But you can actually find backlinks code here ...

Blogger Notification Settings

filed under [bookmarks], [tech support]; (2009-November)

---
The help page for Blogger Notification Settings:
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156642

the Joke that is Corporate Web 2.0

I got a new "aren't we hip" corporate spam* email recently from Discover Credit Card.
In a typically overexcited tone, it states "You'll now find new forums to discuss rewards, online features and many other topics, through a number of new blogs and social media networks."

Oh boy! Web 2.0! Twitter! Blogs! I LOVE engaging in simulated social-networking where the company gets to control the conversation!

Of course, if you actually waste your time checking these out, you'll quickly discover that they
- only publish positive submissions (or they delete negative comments if any get though)
- all submissions become the property of the company
- there's no real 'member-to-member' (customer to customer) communication
(et cetera)

Q: What do you call a pseudo-conversation where a company publishes only positive reviews?
A: ADVERTISING


*"corporate spam" is a term I created for all of the emails from companies I have to use. These
emails take over your inbox, but you are hesitant to try to stop each company from sending you emails because you are worried you might
miss the REAL communications you actually want (e.g. changes to account details, alerts, etc.)

In the 'good old days' I used to just get corporate junk mail in my (physical) mailbox (i.e. mail from a company you use that
looks like it's actually regarding your account, but isn't) -- now I get junk _email_ from them too!

Feuding Firefox Extensions: Adblock Plus and NoScript Resolve Differences?

[note: the following was copied from [http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2009/05/feuding-firefox-extensions-adblock-plus.html]; if you like lots of page crap and advertisements, you can read it there instead.]

Post Title: "

Feuding Firefox Extensions: Adblock Plus and NoScript Resolve Differences (?)

"
Post Date: 2009, May 5th
Claimed Author: "Technology Expert"

----

I've written about the Firefox extensions Adblock Plus and NoScript before, in positive ways, and I've also indicated that the extension system on Firefox is one reason I'm not looking to change to Chrome; I have too many extensions to do so. But one problem is that there's no current way, except for ads or donations, for developers to monetize their creations. And here we are.

Adblock Plus does just what it sounds like it does: blocks ads. NoScript relies is designed to block browser scripting and plugins, adding security to the browser, and relies on ads and donations.

You can probably see where this is going.

In a (prior to this) unprecedented move, after some back-and-forth where the NoScript dev, Giorgio Maone, kept changing the structure of his site to work around Adblock Plus, he finally decided to modify NoScript so that it disabled Adblock Plus when it installed.

This caused what should be expected: a huge uproar.

It also grabbed the attention of the Mozilla Foundation, which I'm sure didn't really want to be mediating between two of its highest profile extensions. Their response: a proposal for a new extensions policy that would require the following:

Changes to default home page and search preferences, as well as settings of other installed add-ons, must be related to the core functionality of the add-on. If this relation can be established, you must adhere to the following requirements when making changes to these settings:

• The add-on description must clearly state what changes the add-on makes.
• All changes must be 'opt-in', meaning the user must take non-default action to enact the change.
• Uninstalling the add-on restores the user's original settings if they were changed.

These are minimum requirements and not a guarantee that your add-on will be approved.

It seemed that people came to their (common) senses after that. Maone basically apologized to the Mozilla community, removed the changes that blocked Adblock Plus, and said:

So I had this crazy idea of retaliating against EasyList "from the inside", and in my blindness I did not grasp that I was really retaliating against my own users and the Mozilla community at large. Even worse, my hacker attitude led me to dig directly in the low level Adblock Plus internals where filters are enforced.

Let's be honest, all was "well" until for whatever reason Adblock Plus started to make changes to its filters that "fixed" the hole that NoScript was using to get around Adblock Plus, which started the back-and-forth that eventually led to Adblock Plus changes its filters to the point that users couldn't even download NoScript or FlashGot (another Maone extension). Of course, that in and of itself was already egregious.

But this last step eventually led to a final round of p****-waving, and here we are. It seems that if Mozilla implements its new policy, we'll be safe from such feuding again, but who knows?


Categories: [mailed-to-blog; tech]

First hand, second hand, third hand

First-hand versus second-hand vs. third-hand ; experience as a gauge for Truth.

• first-hand knowledge/information = information you have from directly experiencing the subject; knowledge from personal _experience_.
  
  
• second-hand knowledge/information = information from someone with first-hand experience; knowledge learnt from someone who _experienced_ the subject. For example, having an event related to you by someone who experienced it. Or, being taught a skill by someone with experience*.
  
  
• third-hand information = "story" ; information from people who did not experience the subject and who may not have learned that information from people with second-hand experience.
  

  Further degrees of separation can be classified (as "4th-hand", "5th-hand", etc.; see below), but generally "third-hand" is meant to encompass any knowledge/information that is not "first-hand" or "second-hand".
Because any number of intermediate steps (degrees of separation from first-hand experience) can exist in "third-hand information," such information should be assumed to be unreliable; even when presented as 'fact,' or with an 'air of authority', this type of indirect knowledge can be based on rumour or hearsay. Even with a source of information assumed to be reliable (e.g. a book), the information is often not even second-hand (from neither direct or indirect personal experience) and, furthermore, is modified (intentionally or unintentionally; by theory, opinion, rhetoric, similar experiences, et al.) by the third-hand source (e.g. the author).

= Why are these distinctions important? =

Thinking about how far away from direct experience (which could be called "knowledge") any information may be is supposed to be a way to remind yourself that what-you-think-you-know
may not be "truth," or may not be as reliable as it first seems.

One interesting and relevant example is Television News (broadcast journalism, as opposed to print journalism).

On news-shows, you will often see a "reporter" who has been sent to the location where an event took place. This is designed to give you the _impression_ that you are getting *first-hand* information about an event. But, in fact, you may not even be getting second-hand information, let alone first-hand.
The reporter almost always has arrived at the scene after the event has taken place. Furthermore, they usually don't have the time to find and talk to multiple people with first-hand experience. And do you actually know if information they are relating to you is from a first-hand source?

This is how the distinction of 'what degree of separation from experience?' can be a useful tool: you can better gauge what level of confidence you have about a "story" if you ask yourself if what you are hearing is first-hand, second-hand, or third-hand. For example, when the reporter says "We spoke to so-and-so at the scene, and he told us..." you could ask yourself "Does so-and-so have first-hand information?"
Or is 'so-and-so' someone like a Captain, or someone who's job it is to speak to the press?
If so, do you know if they experienced the event?
Do you know if the person questioned by the reporter received information from one, many, or no people with first-hand experience yet?
Because it could be the case that the person quoted is, in fact, another person without first-hand experience (direct knowledge) of what happened.

And thinking about whether the information is connected to direct experience, you may then realize that, even though it seems like you are getting reliable information--because the reporter is where the event occurred, or the person interviewed could be assumed to have gotten multiple first-hand reports--you don't actually know if you are getting second-hand or third-hand information. This can help you to realize you may not know the whole story, or may not know the true story.

= Further degrees of separation from experience (4th-hand, 5th-hand,...) ==

Theoretical examples of further "handedness": degrees of separation from first-hand experience/knowledge:

fourth-hand information : Learning from books (for subjects other than skills).

fifth-hand information : Information from someone who learned from books (including skills, unless that person also has first-hand experience [practice*]).

sixth-hand information : Information from sources like Wikipedia (where the authors do not have 1st- or 2nd-hand information, and have not even obtained 4th- or 5th- hand information; i.e. cases where neither the author nor the author's source have any connection to "experience").

= Footnotes =

* For skills/disciplines/studies of a subject, a good guideline for what constitutes "experience" is 'more than 300 hours of (first-hand) practice and/or study'.

** It used to be that "a reporter at the scene" meant you could assume that the reporter experienced, or was experiencing, the events he/she was reporting on. Or, at the least, that the reporter had spent some amount of time speaking to as many people as possible to try to get multiple first-hand reports. Now, however, you can see that having "a reporter at the scene" is often merely an attempt to exploit this pre-established viewer assumption: multiple news vans arrive; if they can't be filmed at the scene they try to stand close to the scene; and the "reporters" just read "copy" that was written for them back at the studio. Or you see something like reporters sent to Iraq, where they are limited in who they can speak to; it makes for good television, because of scenes from the location, but does not necessarily mean you are getting a more reliable "story", because they are still separated from people with important first-hand experience...

= About (Meta) =

I wrote this blog article in reaction to hearing Tom Cruise say "There's first-hand data, second-hand data, and third-hand data.... and third-hand data is way out there." Maybe it can , in some small way, help prevent such an unclear statement on the subject from ever being spoken again ;-)

define PVP

"PVP" = polyvinyl pyrrolidone;
[ POLY VYnihl PYR ROH LIH DOHnn ] [root= (vinyl pyr ro li done)]
aka
.... polyvinylpyrrolidone
.... crospovidone [ KROS- POHV - eh - DOHN ] (per wikipedia...)

PVP is a petroleum-derived chemical
used in hairsprays, wavesets and other cosmetics.

It can be considered toxic, since particles may contribute to foreign
bodies in the lungs of sensitive persons.

[[ originally from (page no longer available):
www.ecoshoppe.com/glossary.html ]]

MATERIAL SAFETY SHEET:
http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/p5290.htm

NOTES:

(from google search, quote:)
"Use the SPI-Chem nonionic polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) to make any
surface more wetable."