Beyond 2008, a review of the websites
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/16/2007 - 18:06Recently, I saw a Facebook status update that said, “Arielle Reich is www.danmalloy.com”. It got my curious and I went to look at www.danmalloy.com. It redirected to a Wordpress blog which is described as “a forum for discussing progressive solutions for Connecticut's future.” The most recent post on the blog was written by Arielle. There is no ‘Paid for by…” line at the bottom of the pages and the contributors are people who are contributing posts, instead of money. The lists includes former members of Mayor Malloy’s campaign staff, as well as union and elected officials. It isn’t a campaign site, right now, but it is a wise move. Get people in the habit of coming to your site. Build the traffic. The problem, however, is that since it redirects to a Wordpress site, it doesn’t really do anything to boost traffic rankings in Google or other systems.
So, I thought I would look to see what other possible candidates for elections after 2008 might be doing. www.nedlamont.com remains an active site. There is a recent post about Ned’s trip to the Middle East. It retains a high Google Page Rank rating, but is only getting minimal traffic.
George Jepsen, who has been making the rounds of notable Democratic events still has his domain, which was originally registered in 1999. However, it is due to expire later this month. The domain does not currently point at an active server. I’ve spoken with George and the domain isn’t going to expire and he’s thinking about what his website should have going forward.
At first glance, it appeared that Dick Blumenthal hadn’t registered a domain. DickBlumenthal.com is currently available. Dick had better grab it soon, before someone else does. However, www.richardblumenthal.com is registered. The registration was updated last month but the website is listed as ‘Coming Soon.”
Susan Bysiewicz, who, like Dick and George is a regular at Democratic events, has not grabbed the site SusanBysiewicz.com That might be because too few people know how to spell her last name.
John DeStefano’s domain is still registered. It expires February 2008. Like many of the other sites, it is ‘Under Construction’.
Also on the list is Audrey Blondin. Her website, www.AudreyBlondin.com still points to her 2006 Secretary of State run. Audrey is clearly interested in the Secretary of State position if Susan decides to run for another office, and keeping the old site as is, is probably a good move.
Mayor Malloy and Ned Lamont are being smart in keeping alive their presences online. Will other potential candidates do the same? It will be interesting to see.
Building a pseudo real time Second Life Stock Exchange Ticker
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 22:15Today, I received an email letting me know that the Virtual Stock Exchange on Second Life (VSTEX) had added a data feed, http://www.vstex.net/export/ticker/. They join the Second Life Capital Exchange (SlCapEx) and ancapex.net in providing this sort of data.
For sometime, I’ve been taking advantage of the SlCapex and Ancapex feeds, so the new feed from VSTEX was a welcome addition. Initially, I took my script for parsing the Ancapex feed and modified it to handle the Vstex feed. However, that left me with three different scripts running at the same time; three different windows showing what was going on in the Second Life markets.
I just killed someone
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 14:50Yes, I worried about whether or not it would come to this. I’ve been struggling with my novel and in my frustration, I killed someone. It was an accident. He was driving home from football practice and I caused him to drive off the road.
It provides a minor subplot that will help me reach the 50,000 words, and actually works well to help develop the characters and set things up for the culmination of the novel.
When I went to my first NaNoWriMo write-in, I was given a cheat sheet. “NaNoWriMo Novel Rescue Companion”. It lists six different things to do in case of a plot emergency. I didn’t really have a plot emergency, it’s just the accident happened. It moves the story along, and fills up the pages. It is close to the first plot emergency idea.
“Give one of your characters a fatal illness.” Okay. It wasn’t a fatal illness. That just wouldn’t have worked. It was a car accident. It was a minor character that I introduced and killed off all in the same chapter.
“Add a talking animal to your novel.” Well, my novel takes place, in part, in Second Life. One of the key characters avatar is a ‘furry’ in Second Life. That is about as close to a talking animal that I can get to in my novel.
“Have one of your characters suddenly discover that they are a superhero.” Well, everyone in Second Life can fly and can teleport. Not quite superheroes, but as close as I can get.
“Have one of your characters suddenly become naked.” Well, there are scenes in the mature regions of Second Life. I’ve got that covered, or I guess I had better say, uncovered.
I’ve now broken 35,000 words, so I’m hoping that with events leading up to the conclusion and all that will happen there, I won’t have any other plot emergencies. The last two suggestions I just can see using.
Watching Sicko
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 12:49For months, Kim and I have talked about watching Michael Moore’s documentary ‘Sicko’, but never gotten around to it. When it first came out, we invited various State Reps near where we lived to come see it with us. They all declined. Perhaps they were embarrassed about having failed to pass meaningful healthcare reform last session. They should be.
What got us to do it this time, was Democracy for America holding Sicko Houseparties. We didn’t try as hard to invite State Reps to attend this time. We had too many other things going on. We did managed to contact one State Rep, who did not attend.
Yet we ended up crowding between 15 and 20 people in our living room to watch Sicko, to discuss healthcare reform, and to join in a conference call with Michael Moore. The group ended up being a lot of the same old activists that we met when Dr. Dean was trying to get Americans to focus on healthcare reform during the 2004 Presidential campaign.
One new face to me was Paul Wessel. He is a campaign organizer for www.healthcare4every1.org. He spoke about efforts here in Connecticut and former Speaker of the CT House Irv Stolberg offered insights into the legislative process.
If you haven’t watched Sicko yet, please do. If you haven’t signed up on healthcare4everyone1.org, please do. Most importantly, find time to talk with friends, family and neighbors about the importance of meaningful healthcare reform.
(Cross-posted at MyLeftNutmeg)
Dealing with Missing Investors in Second Life
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 11/14/2007 - 15:46Back in October, I suggested that maybe it was time for a Bankruptcy Court to be established in Second Life. At issue when I wrote that was the disposition of Investor Merlin assets following the collapse of Merlin Investment Bank. When I wrote this, I was not suggesting that I should be a judge in such a court, but since such a court does not exist, people have been turning to me for my comments on these sorts of issues. It is also worth noting that given the nature of Second Life, my comments do not have any enforcement mechanisms.
All of this leads me to my comments on the recent efforts of reviving SLC. Investor Merlin was one of the major investors in SLC. According to a release by VSTEX, he held 135,060 shares. Spontaneous Rich has been leading an effort to revive SLC. In the proposal, shares of SLC would be exchanged for shares of a company that is currently privately held, CCI. This company would then be listed on VSTEX. A sticking point in the discussion has become what happens to those 135,060 shares, as well as shares of other investors that are no longer listed in Second Life or have been idle for an extended period.
