Twelve Black Code Monkeys

It was only maybe a year ago when I first started looking at Digg.com, a “social bookmarking site” which lets users submit links to articles of interest that then get “dugg” (rated) by others. The idea was that if your story were very interesting, it would get dugg by many other Digg users, and then become more visible by getting on Digg’s “front page.” This seemed to work well for the most part.

In the last few months, however, there have been numerous controversies possibly due to the increasing popularity of Digg.com. First there was talk about how the top 100 users of Digg submitted more than half of the stories, and so had more influence than the rest of the community who could not spend 10 hours a day submitting stories.

More recently there has been a slew of commentary on how Digg’s system for dealing with duplicate entries has been breaking down. This most recent one got to Digg’s front page and generated a huge amount of comments.

Personally, I’ve found the duplication problem getting worse. I used to go to Digg and it would take me a while to get through just the first page of stories, so much so that I often didn’t even get to the second page. But more and more, I’ve been going to the second, third, and fourth pages. Part of this is due to articles on things I’m just not interested in, but a lot is due to repetition.

I’ve also been trying to submit articles here and there and when I do searches before submitting I sometimes find not one or two, but half a dozen or more articles on the exact same news item. And these weren’t even items in the top (and up until recently only) category on Digg, technology.

The problem, I think, lies what gave Digg its initial power - that “social” in “social bookmarking. People are submitting articles so that they are dugg and recognized by others, be they friends or strangers. It’s been called “ego” but whatever you call it, it worked well when there were fewer people because the chance that you were creating a dupe was not as high. Now that Digg is so popular, chances are that if a story has only been out for an hour, it’s already been submitted. I think this makes some people desperate (since they can’t find good articles that haven’t been dug) and so they don’t search for duplicates and ignore Digg’s own warning that their story might be one.

Digg’s other tools to prevent duplication don’t seem to be working either. One can mark an article as a duplicate, but what isn’t clear is how many of such actions it takes for the duplicate to be removed, or if they are removed at all? It must be a lot because we still see many of these. One can comment in the article itself that it’s a duplicate, but chances are this won’t do anything, other than possibly getting your own comment “dugg down” meaning that your overall rank on Digg goes down.

The problem seems to stem from the idea that people want to be recognized as being special, and that this impulse has superceded the idea of making Digg a better place for the community at large. I think part of this has to do with what’s probably a fairly young demographic at Digg, and we all know that when we were young, we tended to think about ourselves a little more than when we got older and realized the world didn’t revolve around us. Then again, there are plenty of people for whom age has not meant added wisdom in this area! Anyway, you can be recognized on Digg in at least a couple of different ways. You can do this in a couple of ways on Digg. One is to have a high ranking of diggs; the second is to get a story you submitted onto the front page.

If we agree that the motivation is simply to get recognition, then I think the only way to solve the issue is to remove this recognition. Otherwise, people will always figure out ways to “game” the system, and given a finite number of new things happening every day, and new articles published on the web, people will simply post duplicates hoping that they can some how pump up their ranking and get their submission on the home page by getting their friends to digg it, or creating duplicate accounts, etc. But how do you remove recognition from a social site like Digg.com?

Well, one way to do it is to make the ranking system specific to the person ranking you. So, for example, if I rank X as being digger whose articles I think are reliable and like to read, then I give them a digg, and if I think they are obnoxious, then I “bury” them (give them a negative digg). But my ratings are only for me. They don’t get posted anywhere else, save at most on my profile page, but maybe not even there. The point is, that removing the ranking removes one of the purely selfish reasons for people to submit stories. You could also opt to make invisible those stories that have been submitted by users who you’ve previously buried, and highlight stories of those you’ve dugg. Or simply have a color-coding scheme to easily pick out the buried users’ stories from the dugg users’ stories and all the rest. As for users overall ranking, I think Digg could still tally this, but it would only be for their internal use. Possibly, people could see their own rankings, but not those of others.

The second idea is to remove credit to the person who posted a story as soon as it goes on the front page. That way, no one could say - “hey look, my story was posted to the front page, aren’t I great? Love me!” However, you could still be dugg or buried by a given user, so your articles might be seen by more or less people depending on how reliable you are.

Whether these suggestions or something else entirely are adopted, I think the problem needs to be addressed by Digg. We are now seeing “duplicates” submissions of articles about duplicates! And this blog entry itself is contributing, of course! Kevin Rose or Jay Adelson, the founders of Digg, need to come out and talk about the issue, be it on Digg, or wherever, or if not talk, then simply do something. The latest news is about how they are in negotiations now to sell Digg, so this issue, even though it seems to be escalating daily, may not be the first thing on their minds! If Digg is sold to a large company like News Corp, or another, the problem may get worse before it gets better. Then again, if we see a massive influx of cash, these guys may have the resources to get their programmers some reinforcements to make some necessary changes.

David Sedaris is a humorous writer and speaker who got his start on the radio. He really gained recognition with his reciting of his writing on the public radio show This American Life. He subsequently has come out with a number of books and also writes articles for The New Yorker.

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is Sedaris’s penultimate book (his latest being Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules). I listened to an unabridged audio version of it via Audible.com, which has various plans allowing you to purchase full, unabridged versions of a huge-selection of books (many best-sellers) for as little as $6 each, and download them for immediate listening either on your computer or onto a large selection of compatible players (including iPods). Sedaris’s books, in my opinion, are best listened to rather than read. He has a unique, high-pitched voice with a slight hint of an accent from a childhood spent in North Carolina. As with his brand of humor, I’m sure his voice is something of an acquired taste, as most “unusual” things are. But in addition to the voice itself, the comic timing, intonation, impersonations, etc., all are helped greatly by this author who is used to performing for audiences be they radio or live theater audiences. Of course, you can still buy the book in print if that’s more your cup of tea.
Most of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is about Sedaris’s odd family. Stories about them are accounted both from his childhood and adulthood. Sedaris is gay, and often makes fun of his clichéd feminine proclivities growing up. Even so, this oddness seems to pale in comparison to the personalities of some of his (heterosexual) brothers and sisters. Possibly it’s because we are all used to these clichés by now from TV and movies, but even so, the Sedaris clan all seem to be exceedingly odd. One can scratch ones head and wonder a bit about this, but then most families have their oddities, and sometimes that accounts for most of the family! Of course Sedaris makes even the most bizarre and repugnant characteristics cutely funny ones.

A few of the stories Sedaris relates are about his current life with his partner in France, and while I loved his stories in “Me Talk Pretty Some Day” about his trying to learn the French language, and just trying to make sense of French culture, in this book, I preferred the family stories to these. The main exception to this was his relating how he uncovered the Dutch version of Santa Clause and how bizarre he seemed compared to the U.S.
version. This particular story, as well as one or two others, was taken from recordings in front of a live audience, as opposed to the rest of the book, which is your normal, studio-produced audio book.
In the end, if you love Sidaris, you’ll probably love this book, and if you hate him, you’ll hate this book. If you’re unfamiliar with him, here is a selection of audio featuring him on Nation Public Radio.

This was the first book I’ve read of Pat Conroy’s, author of numerous books made into movies, such as Prince of Tides, the Great Santini, and Beach Music. Unlike those books, which were either mostly fictional with big chunks of Conroy’s persona thrown in to thinly veiled autobiographical works, My Losing Season is straight autobiography.

It was largely an entertaining read. It covers Conroy’s history as a basketball athlete from
the first time he handles a ball (at 10 or so) to his last game as a player for his college, The Citadel. While it’s primarily about basketball, including lots of play-by-play reporting using sports lingo which isn’t always explained but still understandable, there’s
also a lot of about Conroy’s life that has nothing to do with basketball per se - his incredibly cruel father, his discovery of literature and finding his own voice as a writer, his ordeals as a Plebe at The Citadel, and much more. I like the way Conroy mixes in some poetic flourishes into hid descriptions book - kind of like dabs of florescent color on an otherwise straightforward, albeit very interesting picture.

I listened to this book via my subscription to the online audio book service, Audible.com, which has various plans allowing you to purchase full, unabridged versions of a huge-selection of books (many best-sellers) for as little as $6 each, and download them for immediate listening either on your computer or onto a large selection of compatible players (including iPods). The book is available in print as well, of course. The narration is skillfully handled by Chuck Montgomery, who is also an actor and composer in addition to narrating many audio books.

I only have two minor quibbles with My Losing Season. The first is that about halfway through the book, I realized that Conroy loves superlatives. Everything is “the best” or “the most” of his life. Most of this has to do with a particular game standing out in some way or another, or a particular performance by himself or another player. Someone I mentioned to, said something to the effect of, “well of course he loves superlatives, honey, he’s Southern!” This was said by a Southerner, of course.

The second qualm is that the ending takes a little while to come. Conroy doesn’t just end on his last game at the Citadel, but goes on to talk about players and coaches in subsequent years. The book was written in 2002 and his last game was in 1967, so there’s a lot of ground to cover. He talks about the history of his relationship to The Citadel, about his changed relationship with this father over the years, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I was certainly interested in finding out about all of these things, but there’s gotta be over an hour, maybe two of this “afterword” stuff. I suppose when you’re reading a book, you can see clearly something marked “afterword” and you understand that it’s seperate from the book itself. But listening to it, either it wasn’t marked as such, or I missed it.

These two complaints are pretty minor and I’d definitely recommend it to most people. I know almost nothing about basketball and never watch it, but it does give you a great deal of appreciation for the game and even a desire to learn more about it - although the book is more about how the game was played in college in the 1960’s rather than how it’s played today, either in college or in the pros.

I listened to this book via my subscription to the online audio book service, Audible.com, which has various plans allowing you to purchase full, unabridged versions of a huge-selection of books (many best-sellers) for as little as $6 each, and download them for immediate listening either on your computer or onto a large selection of compatible players (including iPods). The book is available in print as well, of course.

For those who enjoy non-fiction, Mountains Beyond Mountains is a fascinating look at a Doctor who’s devoted his life to curing disease in one of the poorest countries on the planet - Haiti. Dr. Paul Farmer and his organization, Partners In Health, have been involved for 15 years or more not only in Haiti but in treating multi-drug-resistant TB in Peru and Russia, as well.

The author, Tracy Kidder, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Soul of A New Machine, covers Farmers life growing up, going to college, and his initial experiences in Haiti. He also covers the perspective of some of the other principles of Partners in Health, including the director, Ophelia Dahl, and others. The different personalities of these people as compared with Farmer (who it seems is a unique individual), makes for some interesting interpersonal reporting, so it isn’t just a story about a saintly doctor who came to a poor country and made everyone well.
I didn’t really know much about this book when I started listening to it, since it was one of my wife’s selections. I just started listening and thought if it was interesting, I would continue. I did. The narrator, Paul Michael, does an excellent job as usual - he narrated The Da Vinci Code, and as with that one he has lots of fun with the various accents from different nationalities in the book.

I’ve never been one to watch the commercials for charities showing all the malnourished kids. I find them incredibly depressing, and the underlying issue to be one of such huge proportions that it’s all but insurmountable. While this book was similarly depressing in some ways, it was also very hopeful. It detailed many of the improvements going on in world health, concentrating on those pushed ahead by Farmer’s group. I found myself routing them on like a sports team, even though I haven’t been a real sports fan since I was a kid and following the New York Yankees in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

As for Farmer, his life sometimes does seem at times to be that of a saint. On the one hand you admire everything he does, but on the other hand you sometimes wonder if he’s actually human. While he’s someone you would might want to emulate, his selflessness, courage, and dedication are so superlative as to be almost unatainable, at least by most of us.
It’s probably a great listen for when you might be feeling a bit sorry for yourself, and realize that there are so many people who are living in such wretched conditions that you should be grateful to live in a country where all your creature comforts are taken care of - even if you happen to be within the poorest 10% of us. On the other hand, it also could induce a lot of guilt for not wanting to devote your life, or at least a fair chunk of your time and money, towards helping those who are so less fortunate for the simple reason that they were born in a horribly poor and mismanaged country…

I know the entries haven’t exactly been spilling out lately. Chock that up to parenthood I guess, which tends to take up most of the free time at home I used to devote to blogging, and the time that is left over is just an opportunity to catch up on sleep!

However, I have been up to some other things besides parenting, specifically as it relates to what I am listening to these days vis-à-vis digital audio. First a quick bit of history:

I got involved with audio books and what might be called a forerunner of podcasting (at least in terms of subscribing to feeds of magazine, newspaper and radio shows) about 6.5 years ago when I subscribed to Audible.com. I’ve listened to a lot of books and other programming, but after I got involved with my now wife back in late 2001, the listening slowed somewhat.

Then in late 2004, I started listening to what was then the very new phenomenon of podcasts. Because there were so many, they completely pushed out my audio book listening. Sure, I could have alternated. But as kind of a news junky, it’s hard to start reading history books when there’s lots of current event non-fiction or news articles, etc. I also have this tendency to want to complete lists of listening, and the method that seems easiest is to do the shortest things first, thus getting through a large number of list items right away. Unfortunately with podcasts, they just keep piling up! You can subscribe to just a couple, but I was subscribed to 20-30, and even though these were on average a small fraction of the length of an unabridged audio book (and also that I was speeding these up by 50% or so), I was still barely keeping my head above water. All this time my audio books sat dormant, and continued to pile up. I was also spending a considerable amount of time just doing the processing that would speed these podcasts up, organize them in the proper folders, downloading them and transferring them to my iPod, etc.

Back last December I finally axed my Audible account because I simply wasn’t listening to books at that point, and didn’t want yet another growing pile of content that I was ignoring. Several months later, though, I took advantage of an offer to become a member again for $10/year with a free audio book offer. There was a book that had just come out, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dillema, that had just come out and was available unabridged at Audible. I thought I’d spend $10 on it, or half the price I would have had to normally, and gain back some of the priveleges of membership - such as the ability to take advantage of sales, to gift audio books, etc.

In August, I burned out on my podcast habit, and felt like the only thing to bring back a bit of calm was to quit cold turkey and go back to my kindler and gentler days of mainly just listening to audio books. It’s odd, since I now have over 100 audio books that I haven’t read, most of them unabridged, that I wouldn’t feel the same compulsion to finish them as soon as possible. But I guess the difference is that these are not podcasts of news events that I feel compelled to be familiar with or else be “out of touch.” Many are novels, but there are plenty of non-fiction titles as well.

I think the seed for this move was generated when I bought my Treo 700P back in May. I was surprised to see that it had come with a $100 off coupon for some types of Audible memberships. I was resisting the temptation because at the time I was still totally committed, nay addicted, to podcasts, and so feared digging myself an even deeper hole! I wanted to have some chance of actually finishing what was on my plate! But by the time I had burned out on podcasts, I think I had given up on the thought I’d ever be able to keep up.

The $100 off an Audible.com makes each book “credit” cost about $5.42 (most books are 1 credit), at least if purchasing Audible’s Annual Platinum plan. This price is great when you compare it with what you would normally pay at a bookstore or online, save for maybe a used version of some book on eBay. Then when I was actually trying to sign up when I looked a little more closely at the offer. There’s some fine print at the bottom which says “Offer valid for new Audible customers only.” Doh! The only way around this is to actually create a new account with Audible and apply the coupon to that new account. Yes you can do this. Theoretically you can have as many accounts with Audible that you want. I don’t think Audible cares, as I know many who have multiple accounts. The one problem with this scenario is that if you want to have all your audio books on your iPod (or other compatible player), you can’t. Well, unless you have only one, or at most two accounts. You can’t activate more than two accounts on a given player. I suppose you could buy two or more iPods and then rack up accounts in order to take advantage of these discounts, but the added price of the player would kind of defeat the purpose. In any case, my problem was that my wife had an account as well, which had a number of books I hadn’t read and really wanted to. So I managed to dedicate most of my free time towards reading some of those books, and a few others I ended up skipping after I determined that I wasn’t enjoying them enough after the first hour or two to devote another 10+ hours.

So I signed up for the new account that gave me 24 credits. What do I do with those credits? So far, the only ones I’ve used were for a podcast! Well, that’s what Audible calls them anyway. They are basically the same type of subscriptions that Audible gives you the choice of downloading in the old more manual way or via a feed address. Unfortunately, as I’ve found, when you set it up in iTunes as a podcast via the feed they give you, it downloads a file that cannot be sped up as all other Audible content can be on the iPod. Yes, I still speed things up! Although I do this via the iPod’s built in ability that will only speed a file up by 20% or so, not the 50% I was doing in a much more belabored process with my podcasts earlier. I signed up for a subscription to The New Yorker magazine. Then I discovered a couple of free audible shows, one of which only comes out every month or two called Ear to the Ground, the other which comes out twice a week, called This is Audible. Both of these contain excerpts of audio books, interviews with authors, publishers, and others who talk about the books. Then just a week or two ago I discovered that my new account came with a complimentary subscription to the New York Times! So now I have around 27 hours of subscription/podcast content via my Audible account! I can’t escape the podcasts!

In an effort to try to organize things better, I went through my very long wish list on my old account to look for stuff that I could get rid of. I hadn’t done this in a while and I had lots of old stuff, and as it turned out a good amount of abridged stuff which Audible never did offer an unabridged version of. I made the rule that I wasn’t going to have anything abridged on the list, nor books that were more than 100 or so years old, since that would put them in the public domain and I could possibly get versions for free via Libravox or the Guttenberg Project. I used to add books to my wish list because they seemed interesting, and that’s fine, but after 2 or 3 or more years if they had no reviews and a rating of 3.5 or less, I didn’t have the confidence that these were books worth listening to. I was able to get my list down from a whopping 308 to a much more manageable 60 or so. Of course, I’ve also been adding new ones to this list due to hearing some of the books on This is Audible or Ear to the Gound which really interested me. But I’ve also paired things a bit by actually buying a few titles via special sales that Audible has had in the last month or so - they seem to be having sales pretty regularly now, maybe gearing up for even bigger ones towards the holidays in an effort to make some big sales numbers by the end of the year?
The point of this is that I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff, and have even managed to post a bunch of short reviews on an Audible Yahoo Group, but I thought I’d start posting them here as well, since I’m not posting much else these days! So watch for a bunch of these reviews as I have time to find them, spruce them up slightly and post them here.