Sneak Peeks and Strikes

Hi folks -- for most of the day today, the team has been working on pushing out the updated People Connection pages, including the AOL Blogs main page.

The pages are still being tweaked (there are some fit and finish items that need fixing, and some elements are missing or will be added later), but there are also a few new features that I'll talk about tomorrow --  after things settle down a bit. In the meantime, take a look and see what you think.

I'm on Strike!
Also, here's a refresher on striking out using the strikethrough HTML font tag:

Buckyhoo, over at In My Mind I'm Goin' to Carolina, had a question about my previous entry about R11.

In that entry, I'd said something that turned out to be wrong. When I made the fix, I used the <strike></strike> HTML tags, to strike out the text. Buckyhoo wanted to know how I did it.

It's easy, check out my full instructions on how to use strikethrough font tags.

Why strike out text, instead of just making a correction? When used sparingly, strikethrough can show that you made a mistake (or that what you previously blogged is now out-of-date), and that you're making the fix, while at the same time, you're not running away from anything you said earlier.

There's a blogging canard that I don't fully subscribe to which says "Publish first, then make corrections later." That sounds an awful lot like "ask for forgiveness rather than permission," or "shoot first and ask questions later"-- I don't play quite that loose with things, and I try to be as accurate as I can, but everyone makes mistakes or posts stuff that gets superceded.

Especially for corporate or high-profile bloggers (or other folks who are just obsessed with accuracy and the appearance of propriety), the strikethrough tags can be valuable, if only to avoid getting "gotcha"ed when you need to change something.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, aol blogs, people connection, strikethrough, corporate blogging

Secrets Revealed: Inside the AOL Dulles Data Center

Okay, first off, I'm not actually going to be revealing any secrets (I'm generally happy with my current employment situation) -- I just wanted to make a few people nervous.

Last week, as part of February's focus on showing employees existing and emerging Internet technologies (the Valentine's Day thing was also part of it), the company conducted a couple of tours of the Dulles Technology Center (DTC).

A data center is pretty much a building with lots and lots of computer hardware in it. AOL has three of them in Northern Virginia (Dulles, Reston and Manassas).

I'd never been to an AOL data center, though I had visited someone else's colocation center.

Now, because Internet companies are nothing without their data, they tend to be very cagey about their data centers, and security is really tight. So I wasn't able to take any photographs. Of anything.

(I mean it -- they're really strict. A year or two ago, someone in Ops told me that one of the Journals servers was going to be decommissioned. I asked if I could get a picture. It didn't even have to be in the facility proper -- I would have been happy with it sitting on a loading dock or something. It took a while, but they finally gave me an answer: NO.)

So I don't have any pictures. Otherwise, I would have maxed out my memory card, because I saw a ton of really cool things.

(I was going to grab a photo of a power plant from 'The Matrix', and use that, but decided it was too much of a hassle to do it legal-like.)

After about 20 minutes on a shuttle bus, rounding up all the folks on the tour (the better to keep tabs on us), we got to the data center.

Physical security is paramount (Seen 'Sneakers'? Kind of like that, only with fewer shotguns.) so we weren't going anywhere until we were greeted by Alan, the facility manager, who gave us a quick briefing in the lobby. Then we went inside.

Loud, Clean and Cold
The DTC is solid. It's very spare and sparse-- lots of white-painted concrete. It's also very much a "form follows function" kind of place -- lots of big blue chilled-water pipes and cable runs overhead. It's very industrial-chic.

Also, most everything is neatly labeled.

Alan led us through a couple of server rooms. Each one was cavernous, noisy and filled with racks (so, like a Costco), only instead being stocked with cat food and paper towels, they were filled with switches, servers and other kinds of hardware.

Here's a public domain photo of a typical data center setup:

Not sure whose it is, but it's not ours.

The machines are mounted in racks, some like the ones you see above. The floors are raised so they can run air conditioning (gotta keep the machines cool) and power underneath. It's also the reason why you can't wear open-toed shoes. (It's posted. I asked. Answer: You don't want to stub a toe on the edge of a open floor tile.)

Fire is also a big concern. Overhead sprinklers are required by code (though it would be really, really bad if they ever went off), so there's another chemical fire suppression system (I forget what gas it is, but it's good for machines, bad for humans).

Since we're near the flight path of Dulles airport (just down the road), I asked if there were any additional special precautions for that. Alan said no, so I guess there aren't dudes with Stinger missiles on the roof. (When it was built, the prevailing rumor was that if a plane crashed into the building, the machines would be okay, but the people would be toast. Because you can always replace people. I know, not funny. And yet... )

Along the way, we learned a lot about the air conditioning and watercooling units, uninterruptible power supplies, battery backups, generators, fuel and power consumption, and even weather monitoring (in the facility control room, there's a weather monitoring system with a memorial plaque, dedicating it to the guy who originally set it up) -- everything you need to keep the machines happy.

(One of the mechanical contractors has a project page about the Manassas Data Center, with a few photos of the big, colored pipes and some very impressive sounding specs.)

And redundancy. They're very big on redundancy in systems. Primary systems. Backup systems. Backups to the backups. Spares for the backups. Backups for the spares. I was reminded of the saying "One is none and two is one" -- take that and double it a few times.

Of course, none of this comes cheap; according to the press release, the Manassas facility (which is newer, and incorporates some of the lessons learned from the other data centers) cost a total of $520 million (including the land, building, and all the computer hardware and other gear.)

NOC, NOC
After the facilities tour, we went to the NOC (Network Operations Center), and got handed off to Dave and Jennifer. The NOC is a room filled with computers they use to monitor the health of the hardware. This wasn't the big NOC (I've seen pictures: it's well on its way to being the bridge of the USS Enterprise), but there were still lots of screens, with lots of usage graphs.

Dave said, "People like the graphs."

They talked a little bit about what they do and how they're basically the gold standard when it comes to running a NOC (especially in terms of efficiency). They apparently give a lot of tours to folks (including the then-Prince of Jordan, NBC execs, and Ozzy Osbourne) who want to improve their own data centers.

I can't really talk about specifics, but they said the Pentagon uses one person to watch 7 machines, and that we used... significant fewer people.

Anyway, that's about all I can talk about without getting into RAIDs and hard drive failure rates and Linux adoption and support tiers and leasing vs. buying and custom monitoring tools and other interesting stuff.

I Know Where I'll Be for the Zombie Apocalypse
So, overall, I was very impressed with both the facility, and the professionalism of the people who run it.

If tours of the DTC or similar facilities are offered again, I think that every product manager should sign up for one, so they know what goes on when there's a hardware problem, or they wonder why someone can't just run to CompUSA to get more hard drives when they need more storage space.

Finally, when the zombie apocalypse or other catastrophe occurs, I'm going to head to the data center (well, first, I'm going to raid the Wegman's), because according to the short story 'When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth' [strong language], it seems like the best place to ride it out.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, dulles, dtc, dulles technology center, data center, redundancy, redundancy, zombie apocalypse

Why Bother With Social Bookmarking?

So, in a comment to my earlier entry about the new features of R11, Monponsett asked me (in her inimitable way):

"What is del.icio.us, and why should I use it?"

That's a grand question, which I probably glossed over because my brain has been saturated with the jargon of social media, Web 2.0 and social bookmarks.

The easiest way to explain social bookmarking is to show you a living example (in this case, del.icio.us):

If you click http://del.icio.us/JoeLoong, you'll see the shared booksmarks I have saved on that service (I just created that particular account recently, so there's still not too much in it).

del.icio.us is a "social bookmarks sharing" service, which just means you can save your bookmarks online (with notes and descriptions), and if you like, you can share them. That just means that other people can see them. (I'm sharing my bookmarks; you also have the option of creating private bookmarks that only you can see).

There are a variety of different and convenient ways to
save your bookmarks on del.icio.us (including bookmarklets and browser
extensions) -- their instructions are pretty good.

Even if you don't want to use the social sharing part, there are other reasons why you might use online bookmarks. For example, if you want to get to your bookmarks from different computers (if you're traveling, or have multiple computers) -- as long as you have access to an internet connection, you can get to them.

Also, they're searchable and you can organize them in a variety of ways (including the use of tags). And most of the services have a backup/export feature, so you can keep a copy on your local machine.

There are a bunch of different social bookmarking sites -- del.icio.us is just one of the more established and more popular ones. You just need to find the one that interests you and register for an account (which is usually free).

Also, once you get the sharing bit down, there are other social sharing Web sites out there that add a voting component to things, so that you can see the newest, most highly-rated or most popular links that people have submitted.

Just like many free Web services, you should play around, find the ones you like, and use them in the way that makes the most sense for you. Our job is to make it easy for you to do this.

(In a purely coincidental yet somewhat fitting turn, the song I'm listening to right now is Over the Rhine's "All I Need Is Everything", which would be a pretty good theme song for this sentiment.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: web2.0, social media, social bookmarking, del.icio.us, over the rhine

Journals Main Page Redesign Pending, 2/28

Hi folks -- just a heads-up: the People Connection team (of which I am a part) is planning to launch a redesign of the peopleconnection.aol.com site tomorrow, 2/28.

This redesign includes the AOL Journals main page.

It looks to be a phased rollout; it shouldn't impact your individual Journals at all, and we'll be probably be doing additional tweaks and incremental changes once it's live, add new functionality, etc.

I'll talk about it more after a successful launch.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, people connection, redesign

Tuesday Blogplugs

Hi folks -- here are some more blogplugs, which are items that folks have sent me or, even better, labeled with the tag blogplugs so that other folks can find them:

* Brand-new Journaler Aichabrenna06 is a moderate Republican who's a little skeptical about global warming (its cause, not its existence)

* Dawn, over at Carpe Diem, did an entry blogplugging a blog by Bill, the Wildcat. Be sure to check them both out.

* Guido, who blogs at Northern Trip, also blogplugs someone else, in this case, a prayer by Luddie343 in Dare to Think

* Ron, at A Journey to my Father's House... writes about Shutdown Day in March (and perhaps paradoxically, wants to know if anyone has any opinions on private file sharing site Tubes.com

* Leona, (who is also Journals Technical Project Manager), talks about house-hunting in Mountain View, California and a brother's campaign for postcards for his sister's dying days.

* Also, in a correction to a previous blogplug, Spay Day USA is actually today.

If you want to blogplug an entry of yours, or an entry of yours talking up someone else's entry, just send it to me or use the tag blogplugs

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

More Snow Photos From AOL HQ

Hi folks -- we got some more snow late Saturday night and into Sunday morning:

View from the parking deck.

It was from remnants of the big storm that hit the Midwest, though we were only supposed to get an inch or two of slush, sleet and snow.

Well, we got significantly more than that; here's a timeline of what actually came down. We ended up getting about 5 inches or so around here, though it's already melting away.

Tree on lawn, surrounded by snow.

Building CC2 on the right.

The roads and sidewalks were pretty clear, but some of the outer suburbs' school systems were closed (they got a bit more).

On a photo note, nearly all of the pictures I post here in Magic Smoke come from my AOL Pictures public gallery: I grab the HTML code by hitting the "Embed This" button from the top of each public gallery picture, and paste it into my Journal.

However, I haven't done updated instructions on how to do this yet, because it's a little finnicky; the embeddable HTML that AOL Pictures gives you uses single quotes, and AOL Journals doesn't like that (it's a standards thing -- I'm not sure who's more compliant), especially after you make changes, like add ALT text  (the normally hidden text that describes a picture; you'll usually see it if you mouse over the picture.)

This is why you'll sometimes see after I post an entry, there will be HTML code showing where the photo should be -- it shows up in text view fine, but after I hit save, something happens to munge the HTML, and I have to go back and fix it.

The Journals team is working on a better picture picker experience (which is why Stephanie wants your photos feedback), though, so I'm hoping people will be able to get by until it's ready.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: snow photos, aol pictures, aol journals, picture picker, stephaniebambam, aol hq

Having Problems With Journals Buttons Displaying?

Morning folks -- got a request for you: I'm getting some reports of Journaler owners' buttons not displaying when they're signed in (primarily the Add Entry button); I'm not seeing this myself (either inside or outside the AOL client), so I could use reports from people who are having this problem.

If you're having this problem, it would be helpful if you can tell me in an e-mail to JournalsEditor@aol.com:

* The address of your Journal

* What version of the AOL software you're using (I'm especially interested in what's happening with AOL UK folks)

* Whether clearing your footprint helps or doesn't help.

* Important: If you get the buttons normally when you use an external Web browser. If you can please try this, it will help narrow the problem down.

If you get your buttons when you sign in using an external Web browser, that not only tells us that the problem is probably some interaction of the AOL software with Journals, plus it gives you a workaround.

* A screenshot of what you're seeing would be nice, but optional.

* If you're having any other problems using other AOL Products (AOL Pictures, etc.), or any other Web pages.

* [Added 2/27: Also, how long has this been a problem for you? Is this a recent development or has it been a problem for a while? A specific date or timeframe would be most helpful.]

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals

The Wisdom of Anna Nicole and Britney

Finally, I've refrained from writing about the two big celebrity train wrecks/media circuses this week (the ongoing Anna Nicole and Britney Spears sagas -- remember, there are chlorine gas attacks going on in Iraq, but the important things to pay attention to are celebrity ODs and haircuts), though I found two take-aways we can salvage from all this:

1. My cow-orker JC sent me this, which we also passed along to some the other bloggers here, and now I'm sharing it with you: 6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging.

Blogger Kumiko takes some life lessons from Britney and applies them to ways that folks can keep up a compelling blog. Includes pictures!

2. Next, over at Al's Morning Meeting, Al Tompkins looks for a legit story hiding in the Anna Nicole story (scroll towards the bottom), and finds a lesson about "...the importance of things like an estate plan, a will, burial plans and awarding power of attorney to somebody you trust."

Hey, I'll take any pearls of wisdom I can find these days.

Don't forget, you can find more stuff from my del.icio.us slush pile of blogged and unblogged links.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile

Friday Blog Plugs

OK, so I refuse to end the week with an entry on truck gonads, so here are some items for blogplugging (items that you've sent to me or labeled with the tag blogplugs:

* Journaler Stray wants to remind us that Saturday, February 24 is Spay Day USA, and that February is National Prevent a Litter Month.

* Barbara says that we're all sinners.

* Guido wants to give everyone a heads-up for a total lunar eclipse in March.

* Ceilisundancer talks about her daughter's class trip to NYC.

* Julie, one of the Blogging Baby bloggers, shows off her personal blog, Bad Home Cooking.

If you want to blogplug something, just use the tag blogplugs -- that way, everyone else who uses that tag will be able find you, too.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs

They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Oversized Plastic Testicles

Hi folks -- I wasn't planning on blogging about this, but the story just kept getting stupider, so what are you gonna do?

According to today's Washington Post, this week, Maryland General Assembly Delegate LeRoy E. Myers, Jr. introduced a bill to ban oversized plastic testicles on cars.

If you don't want to read any further, I will understand.

If you've been fortunate enough to have avoided these on the road (I, alas, have not), they're big plastic or metal testicles (I guess they're actually scrota), available in a variety of colors, that people can attach (all dangly-like) from the trailer hitch or bumper of their car (or more likely, truck).

The company that came up with this is YourNutz.com [good taste surrenders when you click the link].

You should also check out the Frequently Asked Questions of BumperNuts.com, another plastic and metal testicle provider; it features questions like:

Q. Do they come with hair?
A. No.  We do not have any nuts customized with hair. Ewe!!!!

Because, you know, that would be silly.

Anyway, on behalf of a constituent, Delegate Myers submitted House Bill 1163, the summary of which reads:

"Prohibiting a person from displaying on a motor vehicle a specified item that depicts or resembles anatomically correct, less than completely and opaquely covered, human or animal genitals, human buttocks, or human female breasts; and applying a specified penalty to the offense."

Now, the bill only covers fake parts, so hunters with transporting deer would be exempted.

However, the glaring loophole would be to use an even grosser alternative: Having real animal gonads attached to your car.

Personally, I think plastic truck testicles are incredibly vulgar, stupid and tasteless (though also somewhat funny, in theory), but crafting legislation to outlaw them is just so much more stupid.

It's pretty obvious the bill won't pass (the question is how it will die); presumably, when it happens, there will be a lot of castration jokes (because, you know, those are hilarious).

I'm going to stop talking about this now.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: stupid, truck testicles, bumper nuts, yournutz, leroy myers

Check Out My Living Slush Pile

Hi folks -- as I've been threatening for some time, I finally created a new account on social bookmarking site del.icio.us, to house links that I may or may not get around to blogging about: See JoeLoong's bookmarks on del.icio.us.

Why use del.icio.us? Well, if I store links in a text file sitting on my computer, it's not doing anyone any good. This way, by checking my del.icio.us bookmarks, you can see what I'm working on (if you use a feedreader, you can even subscribe to its RSS feed).

Also, I figured that since we added the "Add to del.icio.us" links to the footers of each Journals entry, this would be a good example of what you could use it for.

If you didn't know, del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo! a while back. We don't have a deal with them or anything, it's just a good tool that lots of bloggers and Web users find handy. I also like Google Documents & Spreadsheets, but it's not the right tool in this instance.

Right now, I'm just using this for my slush pile, though I'm also tagging all my slush pile items with the del.icio.us tag slushpile in case I decide later I want to create other categories.

If you look through what's in my slush pile right now, you'll see:

* The AOL News guys have a new News Bloggers blog, featuring some high-powered news & political names like the righty author Dinesh D'Souza, the conservative Power Line trio, lefty radio network Air America's Young Turks, author Ben Greenman (not sure where he stands on things) and former Daily Show correspondent Mo Rocca (the MetaFilter article where I read about the new blog -- I knew it was coming, I just didn't know when -- focused on Mo Rocca)

* Looking through the latest results of the Monday Photo Shoot: Photos From High Places, I see a bunch of remarkably good entries. I try to link to a few from the AOL Blogs main page, but I don't have a lot of room or enough time to really give them their due. (Remember, using the tag Monday Photo Shoot helps other people find what you've contributed.)

* Lastly, there was an article last week about how banning smoking at work can be a security risk (after a smoke break, a miscreant could sneak in to the building with the other degenerates)

And so it goes.

Let me know if you find the idea of sharing my slushpile useful.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: slushpile, del.icio.us, aol journals, magic smoke, newsbloggers

When Digital Vigilantes Attack!

Hi folks -- I was watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Monday night (yes, I'm the guy; yes, I know it's pretty much toast), when I saw a promo for the local NBC affiliate's 11PM news.

It promised to be a breathless story on how digital vigilantes could ruin your life... assuming you were a bad driver, bad parker, or bad dresser.

Gee, how did I possibly know we were in the middle of February Sweeps?

Anyway, the promo worked -- I stuck around for the story, which you can read or watch online:

Photo of NBC4's Doreen Gentzler doing the intro for Digital Vigilantes.

The report was by Miguel Almaguer, and it was all about how regular folks, using the power of the blogs and the IntarWebs, could make uncorroborated, unsubstantiated accusations of your bad behavior and smear your good name, without you ever knowing or being able to respond.

For example, take driving: Say I'm driving to work, and someone yakking on their cell phone  makes an illegal U-turn in front of me and almost hits me.

Now, I will probably never flip them off or go all road-rage on them (because I might end up in a meeting with them some day, among other concerns), but I might post on about them and their license plate on Platewire.com (which, in a local note, is run by Mark Buckman of Vienna, Virginia, probably a dozen miles down the road).

Other sites mentioned in the story include BadDriving.com (a UK-focused site), and IParkLikeanIdiot.com (which is pretty much a storefront for bumperstickers that you're supposed to buy and not do anything with, especially not put on badly-parked cars).

Another site from the news recently (but not in the story) is Hollaback NYC [content warning], which is for women reporting street harassment.

Then there's pretty much all of YouTube and every other video, photo and blog site out there.

Now, I'm of two minds on this. The first is: Look, you're in public, where you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, and as Mr. Buckman notes, your license plate number is part of the public record. So it's legal, unless you start moving into libel, slander, defamation or stalking territory, which are already covered under existing laws.

On the flip side, it does have a very Maoist-denunciation, surveillance society, invisible informer kind of flavor to it. And that's not even taking into account the potential abuse from unwarranted or flat-out false accusations.

However, ultimately I think it's a pretty big fuss that will shake itself out. As I said, existing laws should cover most abuses, and even anonymous Web submitters can be revealed with technical know-how and the proper court orders.

Also, I think it's not as ominious as it might be if a government or other large entity were to do this. The playing field is pretty level --  individuals are on equal footing to report each other's behavior. And just as the internet makes it easy for people to spread this kind of information, so is it easier for people to find out what's being said about them (whisper campaigns are not new to the Internet).

Not to say that one of these snitch sites might not someday get sued out of existence. I just think it was portrayed as pretty sensationalist stuff for sweeps week.

What do you think of these digital denunciations? Would you ever report a bad driver or post a picture of a bad parking job on the Web? What would you do if someone did it to you (and you deserved it, or you didn't)? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Now you'll excuse me as I go look up my license plate...

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: platewire, sweeps, road rage, digital vigilantes, social media

Bigfoot Not Found, R11 and Other Humpday News

Hi folks -- here are a few updates on this balmy (51 whole degrees F!) Wednesday:

* Journals R11 Install: Journals Product Manager Stephanie reports that the Journals R11 release was successfully installed early this morning. The primary change you'll see is in the footers of your entries:

Following the red arrows from left to right:

1. From your blog's main page, the text for the direct link to an entry has been changed from "Link to this entry," to the more-common "Permalink."
2. "Add to del.icio.us" link added. Learn more about  del.icio.us here. (I'll probably start using del.icio.us or another social bookmarking or sharing site to store my blogging slush pile -- potential blog entries I haven't gotten to -- so you'll be able to see what I'm working on.)
3. "digg this" link added. See How Digg Works for more info. Also, as Stephanie suggests, see a Beginner's Guide to Digg.

Even if you choose not to use Digg or del.icio.us, it will still make it easier for your readers to highlight entries that they like and want to share.

There are a few open issues with R11, so please check out Stephanie's blog for updates.

Also, Stephanie wants to know which methods you guys use for putting photos in your entries, so please tell her.

* Bigfoot Not Found in Virginia: In local news, a few weeks back, some folks found what looked to be a severed human foot in a Spotsylvania County dump. Upon closer inspection, homicide investigators determined it wasn't a human foot -- it was just human-ish.

That's when the Bigfoot/Sasquatch speculation kicked in.

Anyway, today, the Washington Post reports that the foot was actually... a bear's skinned hind paw [features a kind of gross photo].

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, stephaniebambam, r11, aol journals status, bigfoot, sasquatch

Blog Battle: Joe Rogan vs. Carlos Mencia

[Content Note: Most of the links in this entry include strong language. That means cuss words. Except for the astronomy links, which are labeled. You have been warned.]

Feuding comedians Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia

So if you haven't been following along, comedian, actor, Fear Factor host and UFC color man Joe Rogan is in the middle of a dustup with comedian & TV show host Carlos Mencia.

(In a sign of the times, the entries on Wikipedia -- the online encyclopedia site where anyone can add or edit content -- for both Mencia and Rogan have been locked down, to prevent vandalism by partisans of either side.)

Now, Mr. Rogan is apparently something of a crusader when it comes to joke theft, and has been feuding with Mr. Mencia. (Radar magazine has a pretty good article explaining why joke stealing is important to comedians, as well as past and current accusations)

Things went up a notch on February 10th, when Rogan introduced a comic who works for Mencia; during the introduction, he referred to Mencia as "Menstealia."

Mencia was in the audience. He didn't like that.

You can see Rogan's side of it, as well as video from their verbal confrontation, on Rogan's blog.

After that, there was a flurry of activity, including:

• Mencia dropping a DMCA copyright infringement claim on Rogan, for posting the video (link via Digg)
• Rogan getting banned from the Comedy Store
• Rogan getting dropped by his agent (who also represents Mencia)
• On a radio call-in interview [mp3 file], Mencia saying about Rogan, "I personally think the guy is gay, he doesn't want to come out of the closet, and he loves me."

And so it goes.

Now, personally, I don't have a dog in this hunt. I've never seen Rogan's standup (liked him okay on NewsRadio, think he's annoying on UFC); I've watched Mind of Mencia once or twice and don't care for most of his stuff.

However, I can compare their Web sites, and how they use social media (like blogs, boards and profiles):

Web Sites:
CarlosMencia.com vs. JoeRogan.net

Both sites are professionally designed and fairly robust, with the standard sections you would expect from a comedian's site: tour dates, bios, etc.

Rogan's site has an annoying splash page, plus a Flash header that uses sound effects and has embedded music that doesn't stay turned off when you move around the site.

However, digging a little deeper, the Mencia forums are dead, while the Rogan forums are hopping. Also, Mencia's site doesn't even acknowledge the controversy (until you get into the forums) -- it seems unlikely that he's trying to take the high road (did you listen to the radio clip above?), so why the silence -- isn't any publicity good publicity?

Winner: Rogan

Blogs:
No contest here. Rogan's blog is pretty much the main page of his site (once you get past the annoying splash page), and you get the feeling that it's really him at the keyboard, swearing. Posting frequency had been about monthly, though he's increased his posting due to recent events.

He doesn't take comments, though he acknowledges people who have mailed him.

Mencia, on the other hand, doesn't even appear to have a blog. In fact, when you search on Carlos Mencia blog, the second result is... Joe Rogan's blog:

Winner: Rogan (by forfeit)

MySpace Profiles:
CarlosMencia vs. erm, TalkingMonkey

This one is tough for me to judge, since I have an equally low opinion of most MySpace pages.

Numerically, Mencia has a clear advantage, with 279,448 friends and 73,610 comments (dominating Rogan's 159,638 friends and 35,665 comments), but once you get past a certain point, I don't think the numbers of friends and comments really means much.

Rogan's MySpace blog content is the same as on his JoeRogan.net site.

Winner: Mencia (split decision)

Overall Winner: Rogan

I think Rogan is definitely more prolific and has a bigger presence in the online world (he also has a reality show/videoblog/podcast something-or-other), though this isn't necessarily a good thing, since it exposes other sides of you.

For example, in reading one of the discussion threads about him, we see that Rogan is a Moon landing skeptic.

That's right, Rogan doesn't believe men landed on the Moon.

I realize that it's attacking the man, and it doesn't have anything to do with stealing jokes, but come on: He thinks the moon landings were faked.

Phil Plait, of the great Bad Astronomy [clean link] Web site, blogged about debating Rogan about this [clean link] on Penn Jillette's radio show [also clean -- it's terrestrial radio, after all] -- you can listen to the broadcast here [mp3 file].

So, overall, I don't particularly care who's stealing jokes from whom, though I do think that Joe Rogan is making pretty good use of blogs and the social media space.

How about you -- whose side are you on, Joe Rogan's or Carlos Mencia's? Leave a comment below and let us know.

Also feel free to weigh in on the moon landing thing. Moon-landing denial wackjobs welcome, too.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blog battle, joe rogan, carlos mencia, comedy theft, joke stealing, myspace, blogging, comedy store, bad astronomy, phil plait, joke stealing, menstealia, moon landing denial, social media

Journals R11 Is Coming, Plus Tuesday BlogPlugs

Hi folks -- hope you had a good Presidents' Day
holiday. Here's an item from Journals Product Manager Stephanie about
R11, plus a few more blogplugs (items that people have sent to me or
tagged with blogplugs):

*
Stephanie lets us know that the Journals
R11 release will be installed early morning Wednesday, Feb.
21; see her blog entry for full details, but R11 gets
us:

• Social bookmarking links in
  entry footers, so it's easy for you or your readers to submit
  Journalers' blog entries to Digg and
  Del.icio.us; digg is a social links site
  with its own etiquette and rules of the road, and del.icio.us is a place online
  where you can store and share your bookmarks -- see Stephanie's entry
  for more info.
• Comment
  Pagination: If you have lots and lots of comments in an entry
  (like dozens or hundreds), they'll be broken up and shown on separate
  pages. It will improve page loading times, though this shouldn't effect
  most people.
  
  [Update:
  10:00PM -- Make that, it won't affect any people -- John
  Panzer tells me that
  comment pagination isn't one of the R11 features; it will be added
  later, so consider this a
  preview of a feature for an upcoming release -- Thanks,
  Joe]
  
• More back-end stuff, as well as setting up for an R11 patch (R11b?) for a
  little later on

* Also, Barbara
blogs a Chicken's
Story.

* Ewald over at
Citizen's
Veto incorporates economic charts and graphs into his blog. I
would probably understand them better had I not gotten a C in
Microeconomics in school.

* Ron
tests out a new
TV/computer tray.

* Dan
celebrates (well, celebrated) his
blog's one-year anniversary.

If you want
to blogplug an entry of yours, or an entry of yours talking up someone
else's entry, just use the tag blogplugs

Thanks
-- Joe

Tags: blogplugs,
stephaniebambam,
aol
journals, journals
releases, r11

The Year of the Pig and Britney Spears

Hi folks -- Happy Chinese New Year; as you might have heard, it's the Year of the Pig, which may or may not bring disaster.

That really doesn't help my long term planning.

I think I'll be heading into DC in a few minutes, but not for any Chinese New Year celebrations in DC's Chinablock (DC's Chinatown is pretty small, and is also full of traditional Chinese-themed establishments like Hooters and Urban Outfitters).

In other news, I was going through my morning links, and came across this section of popurls.com:

Video.aol.com's section on Popurls is all-Britney.

[Popurls is a links site that aggregates or "scrapes"
content from a bunch of other popular links sites; it can be a little
overwhelming, but it's awfully useful. It's similar to a feedreader,
except you can't customize the content. By monitoring popular links
sites, it's useful when you see that a bunch of different sites are
talking about the same stories.]

As you can see, the section featuring videos from video.aol.com is all-Britney (as of this writing).

I was curious to see if this was real or an error, so I went to "Most Popular AOL Videos: Now" category:

It was worse than I thought.

The first page of 12 videos was all-Britney.

Now, I don't know precisely how the most popular videos on that page are determined, and to some extent, we may be promoting Britney videos from high-traffic pages (influencing the results), but it still shows that despite wars, blizzards, genocides, terrorism and the like, we still do loves our celebrity meltdowns.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: chinese new year, year of the pig, britney spears, popurls, chinablock, aol video

It's a Radiation Vibe I'm Groovin' On

Reading the News of the Weird blog, I see there's a new radiation warning symbol, courtesy of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA):

Radiation warning symbol from the IAEA.

You may have heard of the IAEA -- they've been involved in many of the world's garden spots, like Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

After extensive research, the IAEA came up with this symbol, which manufacturers are supposed to put on radiation sources (and not on the outsides of machines, doors, or other normally visible spots), to keep people from accidentally irradiating themselves.

So if you're a scrap metal scavenger taking something apart and you see this symbol, you should probably stop what you're doing and walk away.

The IAEA says that they did extensive polling and testing (especially among the poor and illiterate -- must have been an interesting focus group session), and that people understood the symbol to say "Danger, Stay Away."

However, to my eyes, the symbol clearly says, "This Will Make You Run Faster."

If you have an alternate interpretation of the symbol, leave a comment below and tell us what it really means.

Now, since this is a serious symbol, with a serious purpose (saving people from accidental radiation exposure), you probably wouldn't want to scale down the symbol so you could fit six on an 8.5"x11" piece of sticker paper and start putting them on laptops and such:

"Radiation Inside."

In an interesting coincidencence (or is it?), the warning sticker completely matches the color scheme of the UnCut Video sticker also on my laptop.

Now, since I am apparently preoccupied with anything that could lead to the eventual creation of radioactively reanimated zombies:

... this kind of reminds me of another radiation-related story: Since the most potent radioactive waste is going to stay dangerous for thousands and thousands of years, how do you warn future civilizations, who won't be speaking English or any other current language, to stay away? (Assuming humanity survives that long, of course.)

That's the premise of the Message to 12,000 A.D., which was a study in concepts for how to label a nuclear waste site, so that future archaeologists, construction workers and tomb raiders don't try to dig it up.

Interesting stuff, because it has to be built to last, and it can't be too fancy, or else people might think it's a monument, or hiding something valuable.

More importantly, there's another graphic that would go great on a cubicle wall, dorm door, or other place:

Now, if you should happen to have an alternate explanation for the radiation symbol, or a photo of your own odd signs or warning labels, leave a link in the comments so the rest of us can see.

(Incidentally, the title of this entry is a Fountains of Wayne lyric. It's catchy.)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: iaea, radiation symbol, wipp, nuclear waste, magic smoke, iconography

Parking Ramp Ice Rinks, American Idol and Michelle Malkin's Lack of Friends

Hi folks -- here's a photo from the HQ parking deck, which explains why I didn't park on the roof this morning:

Treacherous.

As you can see, the ramp to the top level is iced over. Trying to go up or down would quickly acquaint you with the retaining wall and your insurance agent.

Things are pretty well hard-frozen around here. Some other local-ish items:

• Via dcrtv.com: The Washington Post reports that Antonella Barba, a junior at Catholic University in DC, is one of the 24 'American Idol' finalists. (Hrm...  how about '24: American Idol' -- Jack Bauer replaces Simon Cowell, and if he doesn't like your performance, he shoots you in the thigh. You've got to trust me! We're running out of time!)
  
  
• Boy, Doesn't She Make Blogging Sound Fun: See, this is why I don't talk about politics, and why not being an A-List blogger doesn't trouble me (much). The Post also ran a profile of conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, which ends thusly:

  "You have to accept that you'll never have many friends," Malkin says. "It's a lonely existence."

  Yikes.
  
  Malkin, whose blog is MichelleMalkin.com, has a certain propensity for harsh invective and namecalling, so there's a phrase that comes to mind (something involving living, dying and swords), but like I said, I don't get into politics.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, photos, 24 american idol, american idol, Michelle Malkin, Antonella Barba, dc

No One Cares What I Had for Lunch? Tough

Hey folks -- the title of this entry comes from a book by blogger & author Maggie Mason (who apparently had a baby just last week -- congratulations) that Editor Jeff mentioned a while back.

I still haven't read the book yet, but I'm ambivalent about the title, since it implies an over-sensitivity to reader opinions.

For better or worse, I'm not like most bloggers (at least in this blog), because I'm explicitly blogging for an audience (like most other corporate bloggers).

However, for regular folks, this shouldn't be a consideration -- if you blog about something mundane, it doesn't mean anyone else has to read it. I think there's a difference between caring about your readers, and writing for them.

So, yes, I'm going to blog about my lunch.

There have been signs on campus this month for fresh-made sushi at the HQ cafeteria:

Now, mind you, we're not Google (or "Googe", as some might have thought yesterday), so we have to, like, actually pay for our lunches. And the Wegman's mega-market across the street also has a sushi chef. But it's a nice change of pace:

Sushi setup.  The order tickets are stacking up.

Sushi chef at work.

Now, here I am, back at my desk with my Sushi Regular meal. You can see me using the miso soup container lid as a dish for my soy sauce/wasabi concoction. Clever, yes?

Of course, the predictable happened moments later:

Oh well.

On a photo note, I (mostly) went with 375 pixel-wide photos (depending on your monitor size and settings, your standard three-column Journal can take about 500 pixel-wide photos without starting to cause problems), since a post with 5 photos is going to get pretty big as it is. (As a rule of thumb, there are 72 pixels in an inch.)

The sushi was pretty standard, but good. It's pretty mainstream these days, but I know there are still holdouts -- anyone out there vehemently pro- or anti-sushi?

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, aol hq, sushi, lunch, corporate blogging, maggie mason, photos, spillage

Flowers, Sweets & Love Seats: AOL [Hearts] Technologies

OK, here's a scene from Valentine's Day, AOL-style:

This is violinist Miles Stiebel, who was roaming the halls to drum up interest in the "We [Heart] Technologies" fair on-campus today. (In return for the photo, I promised Mr. Stiebel that I would plug his CD, No Hassle Miles, available on indy music micropublishing site CD Baby.)

As reported by tech gossip blog Valleywag (they featured an internal, all-employees memo about it -- I'm not going to direct link it, for a modicum of butt-covering), AOL has deemed February "Technology Trends" month; it's meant to highlight popular and emerging technology trends to everyone in the company, including simple, non-technical folks like me. (Stephanie's presentation on blogging was part of the program.)

For Valentine's Day, we had a big love-in and road show, the "We [heart] Technologies Fair," which showcased work from groups inside AOL (like Accessibility, AOL Mobile and MapQuest), and also from some of our technology partners (Archos, Creative, IndustryNext, Intel, NetBlender, Nokia, Ombligo, and TopCoder)

More importantly, they also had flowers:

Sweets:

Note the We [Heart] Technologies candy hearts in the bag. I ate mine.

And of course, love seats:

Attendance was pretty good, considering that a lot of people worked from home today because of the icy road conditions:

One of the sponsors of the event is the new AOL CTO, Balan Nair; I don't know that much about him, other than he's pretty tall and I didn't take a photo of him (here's his bio).

For my part, I basically played with some of the gizmos. Oh, and I also I harassed one of the MapQuesters with a feature I'd like to see (either native to the application, or available from third-parties via an API) -- think directions that update dynamically when you drag the route marker line on the map. That would be cool.

Other than that, it meant that I ate dessert before I ate lunch. But I made it work.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! -- Joe

Tags: aol, balan nair, mapquest, valentine's day, photos, miles stiebel, technology trends

Cleared: SNS Authentication Problems

Hi folks -- forgot to post this update from earlier this afternoon -- the SNS authentication problems we were seeing today should be fixed. If you're still seeing problems trying to access AOL features (like Journals or AOL Pictures), try clearing your browser cookies. (See my instructions here -- clearing your footprint will also clear your cookies, though if you know where the "Delete Cookies" button is, you can just hit that.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, sns, aol journals status

Be My Valentine, Said the Private Eye

I guess this says a lot about me, but I find this pretty amusing: According to Al's Morning Meeting,  Valentine's Day is like the Super Bowl for Private Investigators, because 80% of cheating spouses try to spend at least part of the day with their "other."

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have to go to an, um, important meeting.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: valentine's day, cheating, caught in the act

Drama for Valentine's Day?

Hi folks -- Happy Valentine's Day. I will have a marginally Valentine's Day-related entry (with a special AOL twist) up later today.

It's been something of a dramatic morning for me -- let's just say it involved a shovel, a lost badge, and a balky heat pump, and leave it at that.

In other news, I'm getting reports of people having problems with Journals, including getting scary-looking "Forbidden" errors trying to view Journals.

First, don't worry, your Journals are still there. It looks like the Screen Name Service folks are having some problems today -- SNS handles authentication for a lot of products, including Journals.

As a possible workaround, if you're using the AOL software, try using a standalone Web browser (like Internet Explorer, Netscape or Firefox). I am not sure if this will actually make a difference, but sometimes the key to solving a problem is adjusting some of the variables.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol blogs, aol journals, screen name service, sns, aol journals status

Weather Update & Tuesday BlogPlugs (With a Question for You)

Hi all -- well, the Feds threw in the towel earlier this afternoon; also, most of the local schools closed early. People just wanted to leave before the Beltway turned into a big skating rink, though that just means the rush hour started earlier.

Unless something really notable happens -- or really, anything happens, period -- that's the last I'm going to be saying about the weather. So instead, I'll switch over to some Tuesday blogplugs: Blog entries that you've sent to me, or labeled with the tag blogplugs, because you want other people to see an entry (yours, or someone else's):

* Over in the UK, MrVinceCharming shows us his blog (recently featured by AOL UK), THE ADVENTURES OF THE WEST HOVE TERRORS! - The Celebrity Dogs of Hove!

* DPoem of The Wisdom of a Distracted Mind blogplugs the latest edition of Dornbrau's Blog Crawl, which features a theme of "Love Story": Take a story, photo, poem, or whatever else you come up with that fits in with the theme, put it in a blog entry and leave a comment with a link in her entry (submissions are due tonight)

* Ron wants you to know he picked up a blog of the day award.

* Ceilisundancer talks a little bit about what she does and doesn't write about.

If you want to get your stuff out there, consider adding the blogplugs tag to your entries; that way, even if I don't get around to writing an entry like this for your blogplugged entry, other people will still be able to find it, just by clicking on the tag link or doing a search on the blogplugs tag:

Now, I notice that there aren't very many people doing the blogplugs thing.  I'm curious as to why; is it because:

• You don't know how to tag your entries
• You don't see the benefit in tagging your entries (either with the blogplugs tag, or tags in general)
• You're simply not interested in getting your entries in front of other people
• Something else

I would appreciate any feedback you could give me, as well as any other things you'd like to see me write about (or stop writing about).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, blogplugs, dc weather

Someone Take That Damn Spoon Away From Stephanie

Hi folks -- now, I don't know if Journals Product Manager Stephanie had a spoon under her pillow, but it's snowing again today. Not a lot, of course: just about an inch right now:

Remarkably for around here, they didn't close the schools (though they're probably going to let out early).

Me, I decided to work from home today, so that's my backyard in the photo.

Why stay at home, considering I usually make fun of how the DC area deals with the tiniest bit of snow? We're expecting things to turn into freezing rain and ice over later this afternoon. Drivers around here... well, they kind of turn into morons whenever we get any snow or ice, and I can do pretty much everything I need to do remotely, as long as I have a secure connection to the office network. So there you go.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: snow, photos, working from home

This Time, a Photo of Stephanie That Doesn't Suck

Oy, what an awful picture that last one was. If you look at it, especially the background, you can see that it's really "noisy" (grainy). That's because I didn't use a flash (using the flash introduces problems of its own), and my new camera is supposed to have better low light/no flash performance (I'm still adjusting to it).

Also, Stephanie looks... orange.

Blogger Sepintx sent me a link to a helpful tutorial that the AOL Photo Editors did in their blog on Photo Tips: Color Correction. It assumes you have Photoshop. I do, but I'm pretty basic, and I overrely on certain tools to fix problems.

I didn't apply everything they suggest (so the photo is still a little dark), and the image on the laptop screen looks terrible (since it's a picture of a bad picture on a laptop screen), but it's a better photo than the one before, and I think the composition is kind of amusing:

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: stephaniebambam, aol photo blog, photo tips, photo tutorial

Stephanie on Blogging

Hi folks -- hope you all had a good weekend. Right now, I'm sitting in a meeting room listening to Product Manager Stephanie giving a presentation to internal AOL employees on blogging basics (it's part of an ongoing educational series):

Stephanie on blogging.

A lot of this is old hat to regular bloggers, but she's also answering questions from AOL internals who are interested in getting blogs of their own. Trying to get more AOL folks into the blogosphere has kind of been a hobby/crusade of mine, so even though I  promised that I wouldn't hijack her presentation, I did jump in a few times.

One of her more interesting points (I mean, they're all interesting, but this jumped out), was that the blogging behavior online is not new. In the early days of the Internet, game developers and programmers had .plan files, which was kind of like a text profile. Users would check those .plan files for updates on games that they were waiting for. The arrival of blogs just made things easier for people to publish and find that kind of information.

(FYI: I'm on my laptop, so I can't tell if the photo looks right. Does it look okay, in terms of brightness & color?)

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol, aol blogs, corporate blogging, blog advocacy, stephaniebambam

Friday Blog Plugs

Hi folks -- I'm done with the We Media Miami conference and will be headed back tomorrow. (I'm really looking forward to the 60 degree drop in temperature.) I'll try to blog some of my notes and photos from the conference, though you'll have to tell me what you find interesting and what you don't.

In the meantime, here's another batch of blogplugs -- blog entries that people have sent to me, labeled with the tag blogplugs (click to see everything that uses the tag), or that I've just run across:

* Paul reports that the results of CarnivAOL #32 are up -- CarnivAOL is a blog carnival -- it's where bloggers submit articles that they want to get in front of other people.

Conceptually, what I'm trying to do with the blogplugs tag is very similar to a Carnival. Only different.

* Blogger Guido has a J-Land Chat scheduled for Sunday, 2/11/07, 4pm ET. It will be in an AOL chat room that requires the AOL software -- see the entry for more details.

* Speaking of chats, the folks over at Userplane have started a new Journal, Userplane on AOL.

AOL bought Userplane this summer (er, they "joined the corporate family," I guess) -- they do Web-based community tools, including chats, so in the not-too-distant future, you should be able to create online chats where people with and without the AOL software can participate easily.

Check out their blog to keep up with status and updates on current betas.

* Journaler Barbara over at Life & Faith in Caneyhead plugs two other Journalers who are blogging entries inspired by the question of "True love vs. romantic love": Barbpinion and Lifesabench6.

Remember, if you have an entry you want to plug, just tag it with the blogplugs tag; that way, anyone who clicks on the tag link can see everything that uses that tag.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: blogplugs, userplane

I'm Not Trying to Gloat, But There's a Palm Tree Outside My Window

Okay, maybe I'm gloating just a tiny bit:

As mentioned, I'm in Miami for the We Media Conference, which is all about social media and citizen media (blogs, wikis, social video sharing/bookmark sharing/link sharing sites/profiles/etc.), and how they're changing the media landscape.

Since one of the hallmarks of social media is openness, lots of these types of events have liveblogging (which I've mentioned that I suck at -- I'm more of a listen-and-analyze guy) and even Webcasting, so even if you can't attend physically, you can still follow along, and even participate to an extent.

So why did I need to fly down to Miami? Um, there's a lot to be said for non-verbal communication?

Anyway, if you're interested, check out the conference program to see if there are any topics that you'd like to follow. Then, check out the live Webcasts, which start at 9:30AM ET on Thursday, and 9:00AM ET on Friday.

There's also a Web-based chat, if you'd like to participate that way.

Of course, the work doesn't go away (yes, cry your crocodile tears for me), but I may not be as quick to respond to your e-mails and comments for a little bit -- apologies in advance.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, blogging, citizen media, we media miami

Heading Off to the We Media Conference

Speaking of citizen media, I'm off to a conference to talk about citizen and social media and other stuff; it's the We Media Conference. (You might recall, I went to the 2005 conference in New York.)

Last year's was in London (I didn't go), but now I'm heading off to Miami.

The wisdom of the conference organizers to hold the meeting in Miami in February cannot be denied, though the presence of an arctic cold snap in the Northeast and Midwest is probably only a coincidence. But seeing the inch of snow we got last night, it looks like genius to me:

Actually, besides the non-frozen climate, the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation is in Miami (the Knights of Knight Ridder publishing), which is a pretty good reason.

This will be my first truly commercial flight since the liquid terror rules went into effect, so I'm hoping I got everything correct, and none of my precious fluids will get confiscated.

I will try to blog interesting and/or relevant items from the conference.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: social media, blogging, citizen media, we media miami