Solipsism Gradient

Adam Atlas is modifying phpBB to support trackback:

Eventually, other TrackBack-compatible programs will be able to ping posts on phpBB forums with this mod, phpBBs with this mod will be able to ping other TrackBack-compatible programs, posts on phpBBs with this mod will be able to ping other posts on the same forum, and posts on phpBBs with this mod will be able to ping posts on other phpBBs with this mod.

Adam, I’m curious how you went about this. Let’s exchange code and publish the merged result? What’s missing on my side is only autodiscovering trackback ping URLs for post that I’m referring to.

In related posts, Tom Coates at Plastic Bag is campaigning for trackback autodiscovery. I’m amazed how many Movable Type weblogs don’t have this turned on; trackback is certainly a hard feature to grasp, even though MT does make it quite easy.

Tom also has a great article, the excesses of social software, where he says (among many other things):

But there’s something about the abandonment of concepts of ‘online community’ and the complete rejection of familiar terms and paradigms like the message board that worries me. There seems to be a bizarre lack of history to the whole enterprise – a desire to claim a territory as unexplored when it’s patently not. And more importantly a remarkable lack of implementation and experiment around the place

I must agree. I’ve been following the development of bulletin boards like phpBB, and of weblog software, and it’s interesting how they proceed to discover similar things in (mostly) complete isolation. For instance, the whole trackbacks are comments movement is an attempt to make weblogs more like bulletin-boards. On the other hand, phpBB hackers are now discovering that it would be nice to respond to trackbacks, to offer RSS feeds, and do other things that weblog software is doing.

Certainly I don’t advocate a complete merger here, but as I need (admittedly simplified) forums to support my shareware users, and I also need a weblog, this convergence is only natural for me.

Posted by schwartzdc:
Embora isso já tenha sido dito, não posso ficar indiferente e também preciso dizer: “Que texto incrível”.

Não apenas expoe com clareza um conjunto de idéias que muitos de nós talvez já conhecíamos, porém de maneira desconexa, como indica o caminho para conclusões esclarecedoras.

São estes conceitos que, uma vez consolidados, fortalecem ainda mais as pontas. Claro que o conjunto das pontas não é -nem poderia ser- homogenio, mas as pontas vivas e que entendem o espirito da coisa é que fazem o conjunto brilhar.

Só para avisar quem não está seguindo meu weblog, mas vigiando este tópico aqui: minha tradução foi republicada no WebInsider, com a ajuda de Vicente Tardin; reinseri várias correções dele no meu post original. Obrigado, Vicente!

A Renata Aquino da Magnet republicou em três lugares: Yahoo! Notícias – Tecnologia, Magnet – HotBits e Play – entretenimento eletrônico. Obrigado!

Enquanto isso, Doc Searls colocou um link para cá no site do World of Ends. Paolo Valdemarin traduziu para o italiano. Também saíram as traduções em francês e hebraico.

Obrigado a todos que linkaram para cá: Ronaldo Ferraz em Superfície Reflexiva, Sinistras, Aleksander Mendes em [LkM], Cora Rónai em internETC., Jean Boëchat em TelescOpica 2.5, Daniel Pádua em The Flux, bArafuNda, Pedro Dória em no mínimo, Paulo Bicarrato em Alfarrábio, Mahna Mahna em Don’t Believe The Hype, Edney Souza em Informação e Inutilidade, Rossana em Wumanity, hdhd em Marketing Hacker, Gato Bandini em Mercado Hype, VentoNegro, Lorrene em Apenas Palavras (sem permalink), Luz Fernandez em /diumtudo/, Félix Felicato em Lucubrando (no blogroll), Cris Fernandes em livre expressão, Lisandro Gaertner em Dog God, DMadrid, Javé em Prosopopéia Ignara, Patrick Berlinck em Areias ao Vento, e o grande MarioAV. Me avisem se esqueci de alguém.

Aliás, vários de vocês não avisaram ao Weblogs.com que fizeram alterações, assim muitos sites como o TechnoRati não ficam sabendo que vocês existem! E é tão fácil… eu fiz um bookmark com meus campos já preenchidos.

Enquanto isso, ainda não vi nenhum pio nas publicações “mainstream” – bom, era de se esperar

My translation of WoE has been republished in 3 more places:

Yahoo! Notícias – Tecnologia

Magnet

Play – entretenimento eletrônico

My thanks to Renata Aquino of Magnet!

A print version will appear in the May 2003 issue of Revista W.

French and Hebrew translations are now up, joining Italian.

New links: VentoNegro, Lorrene at Apenas Palavras (no permalink), Luz Fernandez at /diumtudo/, Félix Felicato at Lucubrando (in the blogroll), Cris Fernandes at livre expressão, Lisandro Gaertner at Dog God, DMadrid, Javé at Prosopopéia Ignara, Patrick Berlinck at Areias ao Vento, and last but not least MarioAV.

Ronaldo of Superfície Reflexiva pointed me at the Schmies Vocabulary Test, which I of course had to take immediately.

This test consists of 200 obscure word pairs which are either (almost) the same or (almost) opposite in meaning. I got 184 right (16 errors), putting me at #15 in the site’s “Top 100”.

Here are the pairs I got wrong:

11. adminicular/corroborative

16. tempestuous/halcyon

18. busybody/quidnunc

42. weaken/enervate

46. truckle/withstand

65. hebetate/blunt

84. nimiety/paucity

96. precocial/altricial

109. Croesus/Dives

115. concave/gibbous

146. diaphoretic/sudorific

152. apopemptic/valedictory

153. prospective/quondam

161. litotes/meiosis

169. extended/compendious

174. telamones/atlantes

and I must say that 42, 46, 115 and 169 I should have gotten right, but I was in a hurry… the other pairs comprise words I’d never heard before. On the other hand, I guessed 6 other such pairs right, where I could reason from cognates in other languages.

In my defense, I didn’t have a classical education (meaning, no Greek or Latin)…

Unbelievably, David Weinberger, co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, World of Ends, noted weblogger and so on and so forth, is actually (in his own words!):

…addicted to plastic surgery, faces accusations of fathering three children, and became America’s Most Ignored Sideshow…

Read all about it! I have, with great willpower, avoided linking to, or even mentioning, other similar celebrities (one word: “plastics!”). Thanks to the Devine Betsy Devine for the link.

Posted by Lorrene Carolline:
Vocês já viram o contra-manifesto? O link é aqui, chama-se World of Assholes.

Lorrene Carolline – http://lorrene.kit.net

The original article is still #1 on TechnoRati, #1 and #2 on DayPop, and (briefly) #2 on Blogdex. Meanwhile, my translation was #30 (also briefly) on Blogdex and #1 on TopLinks.

Paolo Valdemarin wrote an Italian translation (with all proper formatting and links!).

Thanks to the folks linking to the translation: the World of Ends main site, Ronaldo Ferraz’s Superfície Reflexiva, Sinistras, Aleksander Mendes’ [LkM], Cora Rónai’s internETC., Jean Boëchat’s TelescOpica 2.5, Daniel Páduas’ The Flux, bArafuNda, Pedro Dória at no mínimo, Paulo Bicarrato’s Alfarrábio, Mahna Mahna at Don’t Believe The Hype, Edney Souza’s Informação e Inutilidade. Vicente Tardin will post a copy at WebInsider.

Doc Searls has more links to comments. Stavros the Wonder Chicken at EmptyBottle wrote a mordant satire. Russell Beatie‘s comments are wonderful. The TechnoRati link cosmos is up to 487 links!