I've been trying to backtrack ping an article on MiFi, and damn, I've managed to spam their trackback four times.

How'd you manage that Steve? Well, It appears that you can only send a small amount of excerpt to MiFi as a track back or you'll get an error page from SQL like this. So, I figure that I'd try cutting down the size of the message, which worked but I still found an error message in my message table (see the image below). But this was because MiFi is sending back a general information page if you actually go to the ping URL stated for, I guess, any article. So I tried four times, then decided to make sure none had squirreled their way through... Arggg! FOUR! Oops. Gonna have to be more careful with this trackback melarkie. Soz Mat Howie ";->" Though I see others reporting the same.

1211 Also posted to: cybersaps . At: 4:45:03 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: 4 TrackBacks, oh no!

BBC: "The Pentagon is to set up an online trading market for bets on future terrorist attacks or major political developments."

They're talking about the Policy Analysis Market, which isn't open till 1 October. The Iowa Electronic Markets seems to be the well thought of prior art. "Research indicates that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information," says the Pentagon.

The discussion over at MiFi sounds supportive, mainly.

More background from bloomberg.

I think the logic's pretty good "using the expertise of the open market instead of relying on government agencies". Though whether it'll be ripped off, is IMO open; by betting that somebody would be assassinated, and then assassinating them... Not sure if this would be insider trading or market manipulation ";->" But they're only allowing 1,000 traders, by the look of it, so I suppose they'd be vetted (10,000 by 01/01/2004). And the medium sums involved are more sport than retirement to the Bahamas.

But what if unusual trading warns an enemy that their plan (aka "specific potential events of interest") has been rumbled? Or, rather, no unusual trading tell them that they haven't been rumbled! Well, just like the site says, "should prove as engaging as it is informative."

 Source: BBC News | Technology | World Edition; 29/07/03; 12:45:16 pm.
1210  At: 3:24:47 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Pentagon plans online terror bets

BBC: "Electronic mail is playing such a key role in companies that most people start to get annoyed after just 30 minutes without e-mail access, the study found.

But spare a thought for the techies in computer support. About a fifth feared for their jobs if they did not get the e-mail system back up and running within a day."

When fellow workers come up to the sys admin with distorted faces, to complain, then the best method of dealing with them is to mirror their feelings of loss and woe, and to pull faces back at them. So says, my insider who's recently been confronted just so.

1209 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 2:57:17 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Loss of e-mail 'worse than divorce'

"Uday and Qusay Hussein had $100m in cash with them when they were killed by American forces in northern Iraq, a report says."

US-based news magazine Newsweek is not sure if it was for their own rescue, or to finance a guerilla war.

 Source: BBC News | In Depth | Conflict with Iraq | UK Edition; 28/07/03; 10:45:48 pm.
1208  At: 2:50:48 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Saddam sons 'found with $100m'

4.) "The cool factor. These tablets evoke the future of hardware and easily wow the technology challenged in a meeting. As consultants and designers, that kind of mystique is as good an accessory as the black turtle neck and German accent."

Made me smile, had to blog it.

1207 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 2:40:55 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Forth reason for recommending tablets at Frog design studio

"Parser Loading Error Exception parsing: {E301} The value of attribute "dc:description" must not contain the '<' character."

Been testing my trackbacking, trying to ping Bill Kearney's article (see below), but find that there's an error in his RDF in the trackback data in his page. All because he started off the item with some angle brackets.

1206 Also posted to: cyberSaps . At: 1:58:42 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: RDF Validator Results

Perhaps this may help me understand the power relationships in UK Governmental quangos.

Bill Kearney: "Here I'm making several statements. I'm saying that the 'wkearney99' node is a member of this group. I'm then going on to say that the wkearney99 node is known to the group via an SHA1 hash of it's e-mail address and that it has a FOAF file of it's own at the seeAlso URL. It's also saying the group has it's own URL. This helps if something else using the group wants to confirm things about the group"

Dan Brickley: "...We could come up with properties like 'chair' that relate groups to people"

I'm trying to understand the relationships and positions of all the people involved in the West Midlands (UK) Regional Innovation Strategy. There's two A4 pages in the back of the report full of names and contact details. They should mean something to me, but don't, and as I trawl through more brochures like this, I'm going to see both repeated and new names, new organisatons, new titles for the same people. Wouldn't it be lovely for me to be able to study the relationships, as if in a organisational chart, or family tree, one that uses my icons, colours etc., Which mixes in this group of quango boffins with this board of civil servants and so on. Then I could see who were likely to be the people I need to approach, possibly.

For sure, these people aren't going to be interested in doing this for themselves, not any time soon, at least. I suppose if I had the time I could make the FOAF files myself. But, alas the app that would make the visual sense for me is not yet written. I can see the day when these quangos HAVE to produce their FOAF files, so that we, the ordinary geezers, can see who the hell is writing this stuff. Long time off though.

1205 Also posted to: bis , cyberSaps . At: 12:35:00 PM  . .
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Other title(s) for this story: Foaf groups and Governmental quangos