snowdeal.org > ex machina

ex machina

i've commented before on my ruminations as to whether or not i should enable comments on the vast wasteland and i think nick denton hits the nail on the head with "comments and communities" :

"Nope, this is the way to deal with flamers: let them post on their own damn sites. And then let everyone else ignore them. Weblogs are a gigantic interlinked discussion forum, in which it's trivially easy to route around idiots.

One day, everybody will have a weblog, and a place to comment, and indexing systems will track the discussion as it reverberates around the web."

proof i think is in the pudding of mark pilgrim's "Further reading on today's posts" feature. the generally high-quality of the comments indexed from other sites provides a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than traditional commenting systems.

i guess some of my skittishness comes from the very brief period in which i enabled comments on the photo gallery . it took exactly one hour before clever readers starting leaving spam comments. and while photos of dogs may seem like an open invite for inane comments, in the words of nick, "...let them post on their own damn sites."

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1/06/2003 10:51:00 PM 0 comments

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[ rhetoric ]

“"it is hard to be brave," said piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal." rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: "it is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us."”

the complete tales & poems of winnie the pooh

[ about ]

this site chronicles the continuing adventures of my son, odin, who was unexpectedly born on the fourth of july at 25 weeks gestation, weighing 1 pound 7 ounces.

he's quite a fighter and you can always send him a postcard to the most current address listed here if you're inspired by his adventures. see the postcard project/google maps mashup to see a map of the postcards.

if you're new, you can browse the archives to catch up. and don't forget to watch a few movies that i made while we were in the neonatal intensive care unit. or if you want the abridged version and you can find a copy, you can read about his adventures in the november 2005 issue of parents magazine.

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