GrassRoot's thoughts

Oh I love you! Yahoo snail mail!

2005-12-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

OK, to be most accurate, it's Yahoo China's snail mail that I love.

I registered my yahoo account while in China, when registering, I entered that I was in China, and my account was assigned to yahoo.com.cn, even after I came to the States. OK Yahoo, you know people move, don't you?

Now when accessing my Yahoo mail, I need to wait for 2 minutes for the page to load. No, I never waited more than 2 minutes, after 2 minutes it times out.

Another thing I love Yahoo snail mail is it's most-smart junk mail blocking mechanism. Last week I replied someone's email (serious content, no porn, no spam), and to keep a record I cc-ed to myself (you know how important the email was), and you know what? I never got my cc-ed email. I found it in the junk folder today (man, I sent myself a junk email!), and along with my home-brew junk mail, I found other mails from my friends lying in the junk folder...

Oh Yahoo I love your snail mail! And when I tried to register the same user name at yahoo.com, it told me the name is already registered.

乌鸦嘴还是未卜先知?

2005-11-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

www.donews.net遭到DDOS攻击,

keso的blog和读者也一起受苦,目前只恢复到今年四月份.

我可能是比较早知道这个消息的人,当时我在自己的blog和给keso的评论里刚说过"网站不能保证always online",刷新的时候就发现donews数据库出问题,先吓了一跳.

数据和访问,管理等都是集中的网站,受到攻击的时候压力也是集中的,当受到分布式攻击的时候,最有效的防御就是分布式的防御.

What BSP website can and cannot provide for bloggers and readers?

2005-11-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

// This is the English version of my thoughts about websites, this is *not* a word-by-word translation.

I am trying to list what a BSP's website can provide to bloggers and readers, and I listed the services BSP website cannot provide.

Please, please comment and enrich the list.

Relatively safe storage, backup is by-default. Data will not lost in the near future.
Accessibility. Users - either human or robot - can access, if they can find it.
Name space. A username on a BSP is unique. When I say "I read keso's blog", actually I mean: I read a blog named keso @ donews.com, rather than I read a blog named keso @ whatever.
Trust is a direct result from name space, the need to trust a real person is transformed into trust in a unique name in the virtual space. This trust is critical in online community.
Filtering, sorting and referral. Saves time for readers.

What BSP website cannot provide:

Always online: website may go down. And it does happens!
Data consistency: blogger may delete posts.
Data integerity: This is largely replying on the reputation of the website or BSP, but data tampering still happens.
Users' perference. Editors may skip an interesting post, while readers just forget to recommend after reading it.

This is getting scary...

2005-11-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

Right after I submitted my thoughts about "What BSP website can and cannot provide for bloggers and readders?", which contains my comment that "a website cannot always be online", I cannot access www.donews.com, seems their database is taking a Thanksgiving vacation.

On Wednesday I asked my friends about what they love and hate about craigslist, and just now I found Wang Jianshuo is asking the same question.

This is getting really scary... Or maybe it's just that information is travelling at speed-of-light?

BSP网站能为bloggers和读者提供什么?不能提供什么?

2005-11-26T08:30:00.000-08:00

这是对BSP网站向bloggers和读者提供服务的分析,选择BSP是因为本文是个blog.
欢迎补充.

提供相对安全的存储空间,缺省的备份服务 - 数据短期内不容易丢.
访问许可,其他用户(人,机器)可以访问 - 如果找得到的话.
命名空间,在一个BSP上的名字是唯一的 - 比如我读keso的blog,其实是读keso @ donews.com 的blog,而不是 keso @ 随便什么地方的blog.
由命名空间产生的是用户信任,把对个人的信任需求转化为对特定名字的信任 - 这在虚拟社区非常重要.
筛选,分类和推荐 - 节省用户时间.

BSP所不能提供的:

永远在线 - 天要下雨,网要断线.
数据的一致性 - 天要下雨,网要断线,人要删贴.
数据的真实性 - 只能靠网站的信誉来迫使用户相信,文章没有被过分的修改过,那么那些***原来是什么东西?
用户投票 - 编辑不是超人,挂一漏万总是有的,用户看过就算,懒得投票.

Keso, I have a question: Is website a must?

2005-11-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

// English version of my question to keso, this is *not* a word-by-word translation.

Keso, I have a question: Is website a must? Seems no matter what one wants to do, startup or non-profit or blog, a website is one of the first things one thinks about.

Is it because we need centralized storage? But is there a last-forever website? Hot as those once-hot companies like DEC, Wang's, SGI... Netscape was hot, will Google become next Netscape? Or maybe Microsoft is the next Lotus? You mentioned network storage is more reliable, but there are many who do not believe.

Is it because we can only trust something with a central-control? We trust Google's not-to-be-evil motto, we present Google with everything, from our family to our job to our own deepest desire, and then start worrying about "What if Google..."

Is it because we need decent information source? Then why for many, the first thing online is reading news at CNN.com or sina.com, and the second things is saying or typing "bull sh!t"?

Is it because we are all same-old web 1.0? Then why BSP is also a centralized website, and blogs are posted to old-style websites?

Is it because the Internet is born like this? I thought the Internet is designed to be nuke-safe, so far there's no nuke on the Internet, but everyday there are websites that are "nuked", and I cannot find stuff I need.

Is it because websites own the content? Then why those newspapers are starved by websites? Does your blog belong to donews.com?

Is it because websites can do a better job hosting our content? Then why there're forum masters who can delete my post that many people love? How dare some web forum owner crash the server and leave me with a "404 not found", when I'm searching for my *own* post?

Now it's clear to me, getting online is just self-torturing: I post my valuable content to someone who I never know, let he/she/it put the content somewhere, without knowing if it's backuped or tampered, and then I go to see other people's content he/she/it recommends, and I may even get charged...

Keso，我有个问题：为什么我们一定需要网站？

2005-11-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

昨天发在keso blog下的评论. 本来在donews建了自己的帐户,但是连过去太慢了,只好在blogger再弄了个,好在是新手,也没有包袱,转过来就是了.blogger上eraera已经被人占了,只好换个名字.有了上面两个理由(慢,名字被人占),于是更加痛恨网站.

Keso很快,马上转载"[转]十万个为什么之互联网为什么 ",敬佩.

Keso，我有个问题：为什么我们一定需要网站？所有创业的人，做公益的人，都要去弄一个网站先。

是因为我们需要集中存储吗？可是又有哪个网站肯定是长久的呢？老的IT公司就不提了，95年netscape多么火，如今呢？gmail也可能会成为昨日黄花。你说过网络存储更可信，不过也有人不相信。
是因为我们只能相信集中控制吗？我们相信google“不作恶”才去追捧它，捧上了天把老婆孩子亲戚朋友内心都交给它，然后回来开始担心“万一google作恶怎么办？”
是因为我们需要可信的信息源吗？为什么总有那么多人上网第一件事是看新浪，第二件事就是骂新浪？
是因为我们都是web 1.0吗？那为什么BSP也是网站？写blog也发到集中的网站上？
是因为网络就是这样吗？当年设计internet就是要被nuke了一样用，现在nuke还没有，网站倒是经常倒一下，弄得什么都找不到，还以为真的被nuke了。
是因为网站拥有内容吗？那为什么传统媒体骂新浪？你写的blog也归donews所有吗？
是网站能帮我们更好的管理内容吗？那凭什么我写的好贴大家都看，板主上来一个铜猪蹄就都删了？就算放到精华区，站长把机器弄瘫了我连自己的东西也不能看？

我怎么想怎么觉得上网好象是有那么点自虐的意思：把好的内容交给一个我根本不认识的人，任凭他她它随便改随便弄随便放哪里，也不知道备份了没有也不知道什么时候就丢了。然后我还要去看他她它要给我看的东西，弄不好还要钱，凭什么呢？