OSCON final day

The last day of OSCON is here and it's soon time to pack up and head home.  There were only a couple of sessions slots to attend today and the most interesting one was put on by a couple of guys from Six Apart, better known as the LiveJournal guys.  They have a set of tools (memcached, MogileFS and PerlBal) which are becoming standard tools for people running large concurrency web sites.  We've been using memcached for a little while now in a few places and I can see we will need to probably use MogileFS and PerlBal in order to take gocomics and some of our other websites where we want to go.  It amazing to sit in a room and have people from Google, Yahoo, Shopzilla and other large websites be listening in on the same talk you are. I guess I automatically assume that these sites have it all together and have solutions for these things and it's nice to see that they are hacking along just like the rest of us.

To wrap up the conference they had a talk by Eben Moglen on the state of Free Software and what's upcoming.  I share a thought path similar to his that the mobile space is going to be the next big battle ground.  Wireless for computers is starting to become an assumed ability and cell phones are starting to access not only the microcosm that is their carriers space, but the larger part of the open internet on a regular basis.  Right now what runs on that thing in your pocket is heavily determined by your carrier or manufacturer, how long is it going to stay that way?  He pointed out that for better or for worse it seems we are transitioning from a society where you have a block of real estate that houses your devices to a time where the digital devices are becoming what we consider the home and the interchangeable part is the location to put them in. I bet there's an extremely large number of people out there who's email address is more permanent then their physical mailing address.  There is another shift coming and while I don't have a good handle on what it is, you see it starting to form and it will shake things up in the near future.

So it's the end of a week and my brain cramped from all the thing that were put into it, next week, John and I will be back in the office trying to put to words all of the wisdom imparted upon us here.  I've met some brilliant people and found faces for those that were legends within our circles.  There were more than a few new tricks learned and a couple pieces to show us that what we thought were old dogs still have more life in them than expected.  All in all an awesome experience and I'm glad I came. While Portland is a beautiful city and I would recommend to anyone to come and visit, I can't wait to get home and see the family after being away for a week.

ScottK

Comments

[yo]

nd I thought Sopranos sucked this season ...

[Bryan Mills]

How about using all that shiny new technology to make sure your comics update reliably? Heathcliff today is still showing yesterday's comic. If a newspaper printed the wrong day's comic, they'd be seriously embarrassed; why do the standards for online publishers seem to be so much lower?

[Whatever]

You still need to fire the dork who thought that flash would be a good idea.

[Reader]

I guess they got tired of the blog...

...since all it was doing was letting them see how readers Really feel about the flash-based comics.

[andy]

It's only been two weeks.

[Rob]

Maybe they had a tragic flash accident and couldn't update the blog. This is suppose to be the place for "All the news, gossip and information about GoComics.com, its staff and the comics on the site." I haven't seen much news (outside of the convention) or gossip about anything here.

[Nick]

Perhaps the GoComics guys have just decided we're not Web 2.0-centric enough for them and as such aren't worth the effort. After all, if we can't see that Flash, AJAX, and pastel colors are the future of the Interweb, we're just neanderthal chowderheads.

Tell Ted Stevens that Flash is clogging up the tubes of the internets and maybe he'll outlaw it.

[Rob]

Going on three weeks...

(Tumbleweed rolls by...)

[Ex Reader]

The flash has gotten SOOO BAAAD that even the editor has gone somewhere else!!!

[Flash Flasherson]

I think Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash. Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash! Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash?! Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash, Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash, Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash Flash!!!

It's so fun to see people with nothing to say other than "Flash sucks" or some variation of "Flash sucks" completely dominating the blog comments. Don't you anti-Flash people recognize a lost cause when you see one? You're wasting your lives here, children! Here's a tough pill for you all to swallow: More than 90% of Internet users have Flash 8 or better. More than 90%! That means the persistent group of you that are whining about Flash on every posting, sometimes with multiple whiny comments on each post, are basically the vocal minority-within-the-minority of people who can't see the comics. Golly, why won't they get rid of Flash for the dozen or so of you? Because EVERYONE else has Flash, and that silent, overwhelming majority doesn't have to come to the blog and post pathetic, futile anti-Flash whines! News FLASH: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE THEM GET RID OF FLASH. Your lame anti-Flash jokes are unoriginal and unamusing. They make it impossible to even feel pity for you. They're all the same brainless comment. "Maybe they had a Flash accident"? Seriously, just look at the comments you're making. Are you really laughing at these comments before you submit them? If you are, you might want to turn on a television at some point and see if you can get a sense of what funny is supposed to sound like. Don't you think maybe it's time to give up on comedy? I mean, we all have dreams of being funny, but kids, I've read the best you've got, and trust me, it's time to leave it to the experts. You're just no darned good at it, okay? Get over it. Go somewhere else. Hop in the Wayback Machine and set it for 1985. Go play a Billy Joel cassette in your Sony Walkman and leave the people of the 21st century in peace.

[ROB]

Flash Flasherson,

I don't care if they use Flash or not. And your post make you look like an ass.

was hoping that there would be something interesting on this blog given that it's called "Laugh Tracks".

[Drew]

I guess if you say so, Rob. My point is that I, like you and probably lots of other people who periodically look in on this blog, come here to see if there's anything new and interesting, and all I see are straight-laced posts and anti-Flash jokes. It's tiresome.

I apologize for being mean, but it's just time to get over Flash. And it's time for some interesting posts. Wouldn't it be great if there were something else to talk about? Sigh...

[Ex Reader]

Hey Drew,

The guys at UComics/GoComics relented briefly for browsers whose HTTP headers showed they came from a Linux operating system, and showed the comics as Internet-Standard .GIF images.

It was my hope that by my (and others) consistently letting them know how obnoxious Flash is, that they would continue listening to their audience, and provide a way to read comics without flash.

Again, they showed that someone there is listening by posting a new entry after being jibed (repeatedly) that they must've succomed to the annoyance of Flash themselves. Their next post was, of course, a dry commercial.

You have (almost) convinced me that this is a lost cause, and, as I have already gone elsewhere for all my comic needs, I think I will finally remove GoComics from my bookmarks, and stop checking whether they have corrected their marketing error.

And, No, I never thought my jokes were very funny... they were just meant to be poignant reminders that there were people out here that were still paying attention, still hoping to remain loyal to UComics.com, if only they would return to web standards.

(If you didn't realize it, the Flash Comic display system is really a transparent method to ensure that the reader has flash running and will see all the other obnoxious, spinning jumping FLASHing advertisements)