Wednesday, 3rd August, 2005

The Tranniesphere

Have you ever started something and then, halfway through, realised just how big a task it is that you've actually taken on?

(Have you also, just in passing, noticed that because my RSS feed only shows the first line of what I written, I've started writing the first line as a bit of a teaser thingy? Just thought I'd mention it...)

Anyway, I was sat there, watching CSI: New York, when I got to thinking. "That Flickrgraph thing was really cool. I wonder if I could make something similar that catalogued all the weblogs that I link to — rather than my Flickr contacts?"

Don't ask me why that popped into my head while I was watching CSI: New York. It just did

Actually, I know exactly where the thought came into my head. I've been noticing amongst various weblogs across the internet, that little enclaves have developed. I don't know if this is a new thing or not — but it's the first time it's really caught my eye.

They're like cliques of blogs — so I'm going to call them Bliques.

(Which is really shit — but it will have to do for the moment)

If you look hard, you can see them all over the place — one blog talks about another blog, which then reciprocates, and so on and so on. Or perhaps it's in the comments — you find loads of blogs where the commenters are exactly the same people in someone's blogroll.

Anyway, this is probably No Big Revelation™ — I just thought it was rather interesting, that's all. Some people would probably tell me "Yes Siobhan, this is what we mean by Social Software"...

...but as much as I have a fleeting interest in Social Software, I'm not someone who spends their time thinking about it. I'm more of a person who likes to picture it.

So I'm making a map

All I'm doing, essentially, it going through my little (little by comparison to 2005 Bloggie Winner Francis Strand — I'm not still bitter ) list of weblogs that I link to, and finding which weblogs they link to. And making a big fat Illustrator file out of it.

But, as I hinted at, it's turning out to be a bigger job than I thought — so I'm going to link to the 'Beta' of it, and plough my way through the links sporadically over the next few weeks. (if you click on the image above, it'll load a PDF of it)

The rules keep changing in my head as I'm doing it What I'm hoping to make, is a map of the Tranniesphere — complete with its fringes. I'm kinda thinking that what I'll do is draw links from every trannie weblog, but stop at the non-trannie ones. As of half-past midnight, all I've done is me, Joanna, Rachel and Selina.

I've still got shit-loads to do.

Rules so far

1. A link has to be on the main page of a weblog, and it has to be in an obvious Blogroll

2. I'll try and find a Flickr Buddy Icon, a Gravatar, a blog profile image, or a favicon for the icon. Failing that, I'll use my little blank-face icon.

3. There must be a third rule, or it will break Kath's "Things Must Come In Threes" Rule

4. The links have to be to a weblog rather than just a website (otherwise I'll be doing this forever)

5. WHen I've followed someone's links, I'll colour them in light purple

6. Reciprical (?!) links are darker

7. Links to and from me are darker still. Because I Am A Princess™ and therefore very important

Meanwhile, your own blogroll seems to have imploded...

Aye — some problem with del.icio.us this morning

will it be clickable?

Definately — but let me get everyone on first

Rod for my own back? Yeah — I'm beginning to think that I've had in my head for a while now a notion that the enclave that I seem to be a part of couldn't be that hard to map out — especially if I stopped every time I came across someone who wasn't (obviously) a trannie.

But that was rather naive And it doesn't help (thankyouverymuch) Ms Nicholls and Ms K that you've linked to one or two people who've got massive bloody blogrolls

Ack well, I've said I'll do it, so I will. It'll just take me longer than I thought.

Current Interesting Observations

1. There's a rather nice little sub-enclave going on at the top left of the map — a little cluster of weblogs that link to each and every one of themselves.

2. I'm going to call the link between Joanna's Diary and Amy News the Trans Atlantic Link

3. Even though there are only nine trannie-blogs left for me to follow (as of 6pm), I've been saving these ones for last. Jen Burke's weblog links to loads, and Amnesia Sparkle's is going to open up a massive amount of links

4. I'm not entirely sure if I'm placing people in the right places — it's not always obvious if a blog has a trannie-slant to it

On the Subject of TVs

For a good while now, I haven't had a television downstairs in the house. Actually, for a while I didn't have a television at all. But I went insane.

It just occured to me, whilst feeding bits of ham to the kittens downstairs, that I hardly ever use the bit of the downstairs that's supposed to be a living room. During the day, I'm wedged tightly into my studio, splipping out only when my cup gets empty or I need a wazz.

Ack, I dunno why I'm writing this Maybe it was just to get away from the map for a wee while.

Basically, I think I'm going to put a telly downstairs. That way I won't get so many crumbs in the bed.

Jon, Your Timing Sucks

Great. Cheers Mr Hicks. Post it now after I'm already over halfway done

Safalink 0.1

SafaLink is an applescript that creates a list of all links of the frontmost Safari window and displays the result in a two-column view.

[Pimp My Safari]

Blade Trinity

Right. Seeing as every single one of my RSS subscriptions is as dormant as Mountt St Helens after a particularly violent magma-fart, I'm going to subject you all to a film review. It's not something I do normally, but, I thought, seeing as I just had to indulge in a little clandestine Sky-Box-Office-Surreptitiousness thanks to every lazy blogger I know, you've only got yourselves to blame.

Blade Trinity: A Review by Siobhan Curran.

Bleurgh. Pish. Twaddle. Pants. Disappointing arse-wipe of a film. Lame. Meh. Pah. *pfft*. Yawn. Wesley "Oooh, I can say 'Motherfucking'" (yawn) Snipes. Plot? What plot? I've had venereal diseases that were more enjoyable.

Sorry In all seriousness though, I thought it was a turgidly dull film. I got all excited when I saw that it was on Sky Box Office (although, if I actually think it through, I spend enough on that to warrant subscribing to Sky Movies*) because I really enjoyed Blade II.

That was full of things that I thought that The Matrix II and III should have been filled with.

But Blade Trinity? Nah. At no point did I feel for any of the characters. At no point did I slightly believe that there was any substance to the plot. To be honest, the entire plot was that episode of Buffy where Dracula appears, crossed with a School-play-based version of The Matrix.

...

In short, It Was Poo™

(* Does anyone know if Sky do a package where I can get Sky Movies without Sky Sports?)

Budweiser Frogs

My favourite thing ever of the Budweiser Frogs was on the Simpsons when a big crocodile ate them and said "Coors".

But that's beside the point

This just popped up from Snopes:

Budweiser Frogs
The computer virus warning hoax that keeps on giving. [New Urban Legends]

Usual thing, of course — some random brain-dead warning about a virus, that turns out to be a hoax. But I almost just wet myself at this:

If you download it, you will lose everything! Your hard drive will crash and someone from the Internet will get your screen name and password!

OMG! No! Not someone from the Internet?!

Those people are scary