So long, and thanks for all the fish

Happy New Year, Snackers!

So ... it's been a little quiet around here lately. We know. Used to be, we'd post 4-5 times a day, but over the last year or so it's been getting kind of sparse. It's not you, really. We swear. It's just ... we've changed, baby. Or rather, babies: all of us all have at least one now, and man, do they ever cut into the web-surfing, post-writing time that we enjoyed back in 2003 when we started this thing. Not to mention, we all have different jobs, and none of us are in the, shall we say, blogging-conducive work environment we shared when ASS was born. We've each been blogging in other places, too. Our focus has shifted, and the New Year seems like the right time to call it quits. This blog has had a good run - 2,524 posts, which ain’t bad - and made us some good friends both online and off. We've enjoyed the hell out of it, and our readers are dear to our hearts. We'll keep the blog up for the archives (at least for now), but if you want to read newer stuff you'll have to come and find us at our other bloggy locales. Please do – we’d like to see you there, and we think you’ll find some ASS-y stuff if you make the trip. Thanks for reading and commenting.

You can find Christopher at Blowing and Drifting.
You can find Matt at Sanctioning Agent.
You can find Elise at The Snarky Squab.
We don't know where you can find Alex.

Vaya con carne!

Blogger in Costume

A member of my household is wearing the guest-blogger costume at a cool online mothering magazine, MotherVerse, right now. Go see!

The Internet Has Crashed

What About the Mint-Wafer Walls?

Best blog line of the day:

After all, when the construction crew has built a foundation of tissue paper in a pool of quicksand, by the time you get around to criticizing the roofers for using graham crackers for shingles, you're about out of outrage.

This comes from firebrand biology blogger PZ Myers, over at Pharyngula, where he's eviscerating another anti-evolution book.

Loose/Lose, Here/Hear

Matthew Baldwin, prop. of the great Defective Yeti blog, has figured out a way to use a CAPTCHA - those annoying little letter-number combinations you have to type out in order to leave comments on certain blogs or whatever - to keep people who can't spell from using the web. Having seen at least a dozen erroneous uses of complement/compliment this week, I support the idea.

To the Spam Commenter

You suck. Burn in hell.

Too Much Blog Posting

This has gotten some press already, but I keep thinking about the Alertbox post on "participation inequality" on the web:

There are about 1.1 billion Internet users, yet only 55 million users (5%) have weblogs according to Technorati. Worse, there are only 1.6 million postings per day; because some people post multiple times per day, only 0.1% of users post daily.

This is my 31st post in the last seven days (here and there), so I'm way ahead of the curve.

I'm not sure, though, what the problem with "participation inequality" is, exactly. Notwithstanding Web 2.0 nonsense about "onecasting" between individuals, isn't the point of having a superlative blog like this one to attract an audience? And by definition, doesn't an audience "participate" by consuming the good, not necessarily producing it ever or at all?

(Via Bruce Sterling, Beyond the Beyond.)

But ... but ...

Michael Bérubé is quitting the blogosphere. I feel the need for a black armband.

Tiny Icons

No, not Orthodox religious statuary for midgets - the Tiny Icon Factory lets you make itsy-bitsy icons for use on your blog or website - like the funky "B" (or is it an "E"?) at the left end of the Blogger URL. Use the little drawing area on the left side to draw something; you'll see the finished product off to the left side. When you're happy with it, hit "save" to add it to the archive on the right (immediately after saving, it'll be the icon in the upper-right corner of the grid. Then click-and-drag the icon down to your own computer as a png file and put it to good use.

Freakin' sweet! I can't wait to put one on my own blog.

(Browsing the already-created tiny icons, I'm im- or de-pressed by the number which are curses or nekkid ladiez.)

Happy 2007!

Hope everyone had a nice holiday season. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

The Rise and Fall of Blogging

From the BBC:

The blogging phenomenon is set to peak in 2007, according to technology predictions by analysts Gartner. The analysts said that during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million. The firm has said that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs. Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so. He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on... "Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

I don't think the problem is so much that people don't have that much to say, it's that there aren't really that many people who want to listen.

(Via Thegarance.com.)

Victory!

Well, partial victory. Hacked the template into three columns, and haloscan comments and trackback are now enabled!! Woot! If anyone else out there is interested, the three column hack came from Hackosphere, and the haloscan hack came from the Logical Philosopher. Both are well worth bookmarking. Now if I could just figure out how to get a space between the left sidebar and the main section ...

ch-ch-ch-changes

Migrated to blogger beta, which is generally a far superior beast to the old blogger. Still dinging around with the template (obviously). Only one thing I can't figure out, and that's how to get Haloscan comments to work with the new templates. Anyone out there have any words of wisdom?