I suggest a new standard for blogs: custom RSS feeds. As far as I know this hasn’t been implemented anywhere in the way I’ll suggest it. I know that coming from me, a more tech-curious than tech savvy guy, a new technical web standard is sort of a weird thing, but bare with me.
Here’s the idea: the most popular/professional blogs all have categories. Some of those categories appeal more to certain readers than others. But when it comes to feeds most of the time the only thing you can get is the full feed. My idea is that when you hit the “get updates through RSS”-button you’re directed to a web-page where you can select the updates on the categories you want to receive (of course the full feed is still an option) by just checking them off. After hitting a “Done”-button you’ll get a customized RSS-feed.
I came to this while visiting CHUD.com (a movie website I enjoy tremendously). They have what they call a Master RSS list where you can select the categories you want to receive updates from. But if say you want to follow the news, DVD and film reviews you have to c/p three feeds into you RSS reader. Wouldn’t it be more convenient to check of the categories you want in a sort of web form and have the feed created for you?
I think this sort of customization can come in real handy for readers, plus it makes it easier for content creators to serve readers with targeted ads per category. Here’s hoping that this can be turned into a standard. And if this really is a revolutionary, never before thought-up idea, any company interested (I’m looking at you Feedburner) will be happy to learn that my idea-fees are very reasonable! Because remember: you read it here first…or..I think/hope you did.
As you may have noticed with me writing about it before, I try to keep up with Dutch politics. I know politics is not the most exciting thing out there, but the decisions those people make have an impact on our everyday life. That’s the main reason I keep up and go out and vote and last wednesday wasn’t an exception. The results of the elections made a few things clear: 1) there was a vast shift from the middle to the right or left (former a bit more) and 2) forming a coalition will be one heck of a challenge.
Our 2e kamer (house of representatives comes closest to explain its function) has 150 seats so in order to create a ruling coalition you have to get 76 seats. When we look at the results after wednesday I see 3 possible coalitions:
- VVD (31) + PVV (24) + CDA (21): total of 76 (most likely)
- VVD (31) + PVDA (30) + D66 (10) + GroenLinks (10): total of 81 (probably not)
- VVD (31) + PVDA (30) + CDA (21) : total of 82 (not going to happen)
I think the dark horse in all of this is the CDA who, before the elections, were the biggest party but lost 20 seats. This meant that (now former) prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende took his political responsibility and stepped down as leader of the party and member of the 2e kamer. This defeat (lowest total of seats ever) is a gigantic blow for the party and it remains to be seen if they’re still willing to govern or if they’ll take to the opposition and try to rebuild from there. If they do the latter things will be even more interesting.
As is custom in Dutch politics someone will be appointed (a so called “formateur”) by the queen to start negotiations with the political parties in order to form a government. As said before this will be quite the challenge and I would like to wish him or her good luck. He/she will need it.
With the Dutch elections coming up I’ve taken a look at all the different campaigns and positions of the political parties. And I have to admit that I’m a bit intrigued by the Dutch Pirate Party (Dutch link). But are they a viable option for me?
I first heard about the Pirate Party movement just before last years European elections where they won a seat with almost 10% of the votes in Sweden. When I heard there’s also a Dutch wing of this party running in our election I had to find out what they were all about.
As it turns out they’re focusing on privacy and copyright law in a technologically driven society as their main (and pretty much only) agenda. In my opinion their views are the type of legislation we need in todays digital life (reason why this blog is copyrighted under a Creative Commons license). However they also state that when they get elected and they have to vote on an issue that’s not part of their main agenda they’ll either consult with their member or don’t vote on it at all.
That’s the main reason why I would never vote for a single-issue party. Main stream political parties have specialists on all types of issues and make their intentions clear on all of them. With single issue parties you may find the party you’ve voted for votes different or not at all on issues you feel strongly about. And I like to have full disclosure as much as possible before I vote for someone. However, with Dutch coalition politics as it is, many main stream parties don’t exactly vote or act as stated in their positions before the elections as well after they’re voted into power, but that’s another story.
The Dutch Pirate Party has a few things going for it. I’ve voted on the left of the political spectrum ever since I’ve had a right to vote and am not persuaded to do anything else this year. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they get a few votes (mainly by the geek crowd, although I don’t think they’ll get a seat) and get some momentum going on their issues. Since their views on copyright and privacy are viable, I certainly hope that their views will get a look at by the established parties.
On a friday I had diner with 2 good friends of mine and when coming back to their place my friend asked if she could look at the results for X-Factor (one of the many Dutch talent shows; also one of the many I don’t watch) because she liked to see them live. Of course we didn’t mind. It seems the program was running a bit late and there were still performances going on. I wasn’t impressed with what I saw but despite that I thought one of the judges was particularly harsh while another was very mild. When I mentioned this I was told that the judges were also the coaches for some of the contestants. This seemed a little strange to me. They had to judge the people they coached and wanted to succeed themselves?
The mild judge was the coach of the contestant we’ve seen and the harsh one was the coach of an act that had been on the brink on elimination in previous weeks. Of course the former would be mild to take the edge of and of course the latter wanted his act to be the winner. I figured that when it comes to reality tv nothing is real, but when I started to think about a little more I realized that this type of partial judgement goes on all the time.
A few years ago Microsoft started a campaign to prove that running their software was cheaper than running Linux. In order to prove their point they presented a report by an independent researcher. Not long after that Redhat (main competitor of Microsoft in the Linux server market) came up with a similar report from an independent researcher that said their software was the cheapest. Something didn’t seem right here. How could two independent researchers come up with such different results? The answer was easy. In order to satisfy their customers (and get a chance on repeat business) they both structured their research in way that would shed their customers in the best light.
Then more recently there’s the tail of Ab Osterhaus who advised the Dutch government to buy large amounts of a certain serum to fight the Mexican flu. Later it was reported by the media that Osterhaus was an investor in the company that made that particular serum. Although both the manufacturer and Osterhaus deny any wrong-doing, his reputation as an independant advisor took a serious beating.
Let’s be honest, no judgement is impartial. Whether or not the judge/research firm is being paid or some other motive it’s always comes down to his/her own taste or feelings at the time. But here’s one general rule of thumb you can follow: find out where the money comes from when it comes to research results or if a judge has some anterior motive. Only then you’ll know if it’s a case of impartial or partial judgement. ber a
