Halley wonders why maybe 3 of the top 100 bloggers are women:

It’s clear that the top male bloggers are not denying women their blogroll inks, for the most part. It’s clear that the top male bloggers take every chance to list women bloggers and engage the topics that they raise. These men are too smart not to take us seriously. We are their colleagues, friends, girlfriends, sisters, bosses, moms, daughters. They want the best for us. Guys, feel free to blogroll us anytime.

Still we are almost invisible and I want to know why. What are we doing wrong?

I doubt the women are doing anything wrong. But something is not right. I’m aware of the usual things that lead to gender inequality, but I honestly don’t know why it’s showing up so strongly in the Top 100 (aka the “A-List”). Is it a function of the broadcast model since, as Halley points out, “56% of hosted blogs” are created by women.” Or is it the fact that even the best-intentioned men can’t full exorcise their inner pig? Or both? And more? I don’t know.

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Over the past few days, I’ve gotten more telemarketing calls than I have in a long time. Except none of them are technically telemarketing calls. And some of them start off by telling you that they’re not soliciting sales. Instead, they’re “taking a survey” that turns out to be an ad in question form, or they are “introducing themselves” by telling me about the services they can perform for my company.

Has anyone else noticed the Do Not Call list causing telemarketers to reposition themselves so that they can continue to achieve the mission stitched into their shoulder badges: “To Interrupt & Annoy”?

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Bill Seitz is waxing provocative about metadata. (I’m happy to say that something I wrote instigated it.) Among other tidbits: “We need a semantic analyzer to tell us how much ‘new information’ is contained in the full content relative to that predicted by the metadata” That is — as I understand it — because the metadata abstract is more general than that which is being abstracted, the abstract may well hide what’s new and interesting. It’s the old genus-species approach where the genus tells you what it has in common and the species tells you what’s different.

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Arnold Kling was at Pop!Tech and instead of simply spewing into his blog (as some of us did), he thoughtfully expounds on what he learned.

And here’s the beginning of Ernicle the Attornicle’s excellent Pop!Tech bloggage.

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Richard MacManus usefully pulls together some of the threads weaving about on broadcast, conversations and the future of blogs.

He cites the latest from Clay which continues to make a point that strikes me as clearly right: At a certain point, a blog may have so many readers that it can’t be as interactive with them as a less-read blog can be. Why this idea ruffles feathers puzzles me, although I have seen people (mis)take Clay as saying that all small blogs are necessarily interactive. People also seem to think Clay is saying that the “tail” isn’t as important or interesting as the A-List, which I highly doubt he’s saying.

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USAToday reports that a protestor outside the hospice where the brain-damaged woman in Florida is kept responded to Jeb’s decision to reinsert a feeding tube by saying, “It’s restored my belief in God.”

While I strongly support the right to die, I am nowhere near close enough to this tragic case to have an opinion worth the air to express it. But I do think that if allowing a woman to die after being basically brain-dead for 13 years is enough to make you believe there is no God, well, you just haven’t been paying enough attention.

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If you’re flying on ATA and you see one of the bathrooms sealed off with duct tape, for God’s sake before you walk up the aisle put your shoes back on, people!.

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Trevor Bechtel’s wife has started a blog with her second grade class. They are asking questions about eating animals. This blog is a sweet experiment.

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For Immediate Release: Tuesday, October 21, 2003

DIEBOLD TARGETED WITH ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Swarthmore, Pa. — Defending the right of a fair, democratic election, Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons (SCDC) announced today that they are rejecting Diebold Elections Systems’ cease and desist orders and are initiating an electronic civil disobedience campaign that will ensure permanent public access to the controversial leaked memos.

Earlier this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that it will defend the right of Online Privacy Group, the Internet service provider for San Francisco Indymedia, to host links to the controversial memos. Going one step further, Why War? and SCDC members are the first to publicly refuse to comply with Diebold’s cease and desist order by continually providing access to the documents.

“These memos indicate that Diebold, which counts the votes in 37 states, knowingly created an electronic system which allows anyone with access to the machines to add and delete votes without detection,” Why War? member Micah explained.

The documents are currently available here:
http://why-war.com/memos/

More information about the campaign of electronic civil disobedience:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html

Electronic Frontier Foundation press release:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/20031016_eff_pr.php

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Daniel Luke has a plan for getting away from relying on the private ownership of cars to get us around. The plan would require a wrenching change, which is both an argument for it and against it. Frankly, I think the odds are stacked just too high against it, but since when have I ever been right?

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