MySpace Meme

I'll take a risk here and predict that MySpace.com has over 50% of the highest number of users that it will ever have. In other words, I think MySpace.com is nearing its inflection point in growth, although it doesn't show up in my graphs yet.

The aborted blip in late 2000 is interesting. It might imply that MySpace was a victim of the DotCom crash, along with SOA and Business Process Modelling.

oh, the power and the passion; oh, the temper of the time

Off to work!

Damn, Does Anyone NOT Read this?

Okay, it's great that I have so many readers.
But it's less great that they pay so much attention to the less savory aspects of my life!

Is there *anyone* that doesn't know about my addiction to The Vogue?
Yeah.
I didn't THINK so, you punks, bartenders and waitresses.

OTOH, I did meet an interesting & potential love interest tonight.
She's quite stoic in her minimalist gothic makeup, but far too cute and too young for me.

But... what the hell.
The worst she can do is slap me around and.... I might like that!
Ho ho ho.
Yes.
I'm out of my skull!

Besides, one photographer shook my hand tonight instead of taking a swing at my face,
so I must have done something right.

Holy cow, I need to sleep SOMETHING off tonight, be it alcohol or infatuation.
(she actually is quite cute, if you look close enough)
To sleep now, damn you!

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Updated on Stardate 3982323.af79823.23884232.334

The First Rule of Night Club is -

Do not post after two drinks at Night Club!

Bundle Of Fun

I'm just a bundle of fun.

In our last episode, I had inadvertently annoyed two high-profile fetish photographers.

In Sunday's episode, I managed to creep out the Minister.

He might toss holy water at me tonight, although I'm fairly sure it won't harm me.
I'm probably immune to holy crosses and garlic, too.
But I'd rather not test out my immunity to silver bullets or a stake through the heart.

However, a garlic-stuffed tenderloin steak sounds like excellent protection against late-night fatigue.

I'm in San Francisco for the second half of April. I was last there for Java One in 1999 and 2000 and it was the best time, the technology boom was at full peak and the excitement was unique.

Chow, baby.
That's italian for "dinner"!

A Strategy of Context and Probability

Required Material for the Con Game

Refer back to the two opposites of the economic axis, the Centralized versus Peer-to-Peer system.

The Con Game

Mr. Grifter advertises a free trial of his horse race handicapping system and during the next few weeks, 1600 requests pour in. He prepares four sets of letters, each set predicting a different winner, and mails them out to the lickers... er, suckers. After the first race, 1200 people know that Mr. Grifter is a scam artist, but 400 people do not. In fact, 400 people are a little excited. They might be onboard a gravy train....

Mr. Grifter repeats the procedure for each new race, mailing out the four sets, each predicting a different winner. After each race, he loses 3/4 of his victims, but the remaining 1/4 became increasingly hypnotized by his predictive powers. Then, after the fourth race, Mr. Grifter lowers the boom and offers to sell this magical system for... oh... $300, perhaps. Perhaps more? And he walks away with a cool $3K, after expenses.

The beauty of this system is that it relies upon contextual isolation of its victims. It's based on certain assumptions about societal communications. The Contextual Con game is another variation of the Mixed Message pattern.

Your homework for tonight is to:

a) determine how the Contextual Con game would fare in a Centralized economy.

b) determine how the Contextual Con game would fare in a Peer-to-peer economy.

Extra credit:

Determine how certain aspects of our political system have abducted the Contextual Con game from its rightful owners, The Grifters!

Floodland

I bought Floodland in 1989, it was one of my first CDs.

Then, as today, there were serious questions about their musical abilities.

A recent LJ meme test ranked me as a "kindergoth", but I'm amused that most of today's goths actually were in kindergarten when I listened to this album.

The Crawlspace between Reality and Perception

I had some fun with my brother this weekend. On Friday night, I'd explained this concept of "the crawlspace between reality and perception" and he'd nodded in agreement but with a puzzled look.

On Saturday, the breakfast restaurant was packed like it always is and I decided to give him a live demonstration of the crawlspace. After he stepped outside for a moment, I moved slightly off the waiting room and into an off-limits area just inside the cash register space. I shifted my gaze downward and blended into the wall and it was crowded enough that the staff ignored me.

As did my brother. He walked in, made eye contact with me and then his eyes moved onward. He turned his back and searched for me in the crowd. I waited a few seconds and then took one step forward.

He jumped when I tapped his shoulder and said, "Boo!".

"Whoa! I didn't see you there!", he said.
"I know," and I explained the gag to him.

Kevin Mitnick, the famous computer hacker, is more of an expert in social engineering than in technology. Social engineering is a subset of the the crawlspace and it uses altered perception to gain access to computer systems.

What is the crawlspace?

There is a theoretical Reality, a True Reality which none of us can ever see because of the nature of our perceptions and beliefs. We see only an approximation of that True Reality. However...

At certain times and places, and in certain circumstances, some people have a closer perception of reality than others. In my brother's case, I was fairly sure that his mind was culturally attuned to the "authority space" of the cash register area and that it would reject the notion that I could be within that space.

The Vogue is interesting for two reasons. The first is sexual and obvious in nature, but the second is more subtle and subversive. I hadn't realize that the Vogue is infested with artists; graphic artists, painters, advertising, sculpting, and of course the photographers and models.

But that place has an interesting dynamic of communication, a subtle use of perception layered upon context that I don't truly understand yet. The crawlspace at the Vogue seems fairly small, it's difficult to invoke the parlor tricks of perception there. Perhaps the artists know something that I don't.

Well, they certainly know many things that I don't.

But they might have a better understanding of the crawlspace because of their vocation. I'm surprised at myself for even thinking this, but I can't deny the results of my own blog. The entries with sexual humor score far more hits than the entries about technical analysis. For instance -

Governance Services scored about 350 hits.
Jack's Libido scored almost 2000 hits yesterday and today's count is already at 500.

I figured that "governance services" could easily be a sexual theme, too, but the audience disagreed.

Okay, I did expect a difference, but not this much.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet.

I Am Jack's Remote Libido

But in this movie, Jack is real and not my alter ego. I met him when I went into contract work and he stuck to me like bubble gum on a sidewalk, in spite my best efforts. From the first day, our conversations quickly veered away away from technology and headed down sexual avenues.

Jack is much younger than me, but apparently he was a sexual athlete before marriage. I think he sees himself as a retiring football coach, directing me towards one last Sexual Superbowl victory.

It started in Portland.

"It" was a waitress with a Master's degree in Russian history.
And I made the mistake of describing her to Jack -

Me: "Yeah, she's twenty-five or so."
Jack: "What's she look like? Like Angelina Jolie, maybe?"

Me: "No.... more like.... Blythe Danner."
Jack: "Who?"

Me: "Oh, I'm sorry, change that to Gwyneth Paltrow."
Jack: "Ahhh, yeah, yeah, okay, sweet."

Two weeks later, I ran into Gwyneth at another restaurant and we ate together, talking for perhaps three hours. As I got up to leave, she seemed surprised and a little upset. Jack told me why.

Jack: "What time was it?"
Me: "Oh, late, maybe 2 am."

Jack: "And you talked to her for three hours?!"
Me: "Around that."

Jack: "And you don't get it, do you?"
Me: "Get what?"

Jack: "She wanted to go home with you!"
Me: "Maybe. I'm not sure about that."

Jack: "Damn. What were you thinking?!"
Me: "Well, I'm married."

That cooled Jack down. So I took to throwing the "marriage" flag when he'd heat up over each new fumble. But eventually, he began to question my loyalty to the team.

Jack: "So the woman sat down on one side and the man sat down on the other?"
Me: "It was awkward. The woman wanted something."

Jack: "What about the man?"
Me: "He seemed a bit bored, a bit annoyed."

Jack: "A threesome. The woman wanted a threesome!"
Me: "It did seem uncomfortable and odd."

Jack: "FUCK! You're not even trying!"
Me: "Why the heck would a young couple want a threesome with me, man?"

Jack: "Quit asking questions. Just fuck somebody already!"

But then he chilled out for several months... until I came to Seattle.
I described the baseball night to him and he finally blew his top.

Jack: "You're not even married now! Opportunity after opportunity and you just piss it away! Over and over again! What the hell is wrong with you?"

I thought about it for awhile.

Me: "I guess I'm afraid of getting stuck in a committed relationship again."

A long silence.

Jack: "sigh. Yeah, I guess I can see that. It's just... it's just that if it was me, I'd... it would be different, that's all."

Since that last explosion, I've kept Jack off of the hard stuff. I only feed him small tidbits about the grocery clerk or a passing sales woman and his appetite has dwindled. He hasn't talked to me for three or four days now. It's strange that he is so much more frustrated with my progress than I am, but I think I'm taking a liking more to the game itself than to a victory touchdown or that final score.

Harry Dent & The S-Curve

I use a strange brew of several concepts with the Meme Miner.

I use Dejanews because it is an historical archive which spans back twenty years.

The Miner assumes that Dejanews data is somewhat trustworthy for estimating the timing and degree of short-term technical and social trends. Quite often this assumption plays out true.

The S-curve is my main tool of interpretation, but I've also integrated concepts from technical analysis as used in stock trading. One of the more notable proponents of the S-curve is Harry Dent. Of all the forecasters I've followed over the past fiteen years, Dent has been the most accurate, so I tend to factor his ideas into my own interpretations.

Dent claims that this current boom will run from 1982 until 2010-2011; it's an unvarying prediction since his 1993 book, The Great Boom Ahead. Since 2003, I've been increasingly inclined to buy into his demographics theory and analysis, so I factor in a fairly large delta change sometime in the 2009-2012 time frame.

It might be worth your time to read through his methodology and analysis.

Personal Note

I've been sick the past few days, as well as busy.

But for anyone that cares,
contrary to previous rumor,
I'll be staying in Seattle for an indefinite period.

Governance Services Meme Ream

Oh, you damn guys!

I actually find something worth investigating, a technical trend that's been in place for five years even throughout the Dot Com Crash, and you dissed it with less than 300 hits!

What the heck?!

I know it wasn't the words meme or service because the LJ alt crowd just loves both of them.

Okay, great.
I do have one more bumbling sex story, but not just yet.

Maybe later tonight, but not tomorrow night because I'm going to the SEAF, where I hope to generate at least one new bumbling sex story, or perhaps even a NON-bumbling sex story!

Governance Services Meme

What is 'governance services'? -

"Governance provides an overarching structure to prioritize and then support the enterprise business objectives on a strategic, functional, and operational level....It defines the rules, processes, metrics, and organizational constructs needed for effective planning, decision-making, steering, and control..."

An interesting curve which has been in an upswing for over five years. It looks likely that it is a pre-inflection point graph which means it should have a few years of accelerating growth, perhaps more.

It's interesting that, although governance is nominally linked to SOA, it was in an upswing even as SOA was collapsing during the Dot Com crash.

---

And now I'll go eat dinner and watch pretty waitresses.

The PF Chang Position

Got my fortune cookie tonight -

You Will Be In The Best Position

Knowing PF Chang's, this can only mean one of two things.
Next month I'll either be:

i) bent over by cute Blonde chick wearing a large strapon

or

ii) bent over by a desperate project manager wearing a large, fucked up project.

Oh, god, please let it be the Blonde chick this time.

Document Diversity - The Results

The Prelude To The Dilemma

Gad. It's been thirteen years since I did real statistical analysis. That's why I like the Meme Miner. A lot of skews get eliminated by hitting a huge, whopper datasource like Dejanews, and I do ratio and rate-of-change comparisons (instead of actual counts) for the same reason.

I threw Year 1988 out of these calculations. There's too much residual weirdness from the Usenet hierarchy re-structuring in preceding years.

My sample size is now 5700 records (versus 2000 in that last entry). I was going to brute-force the thing into submission with 5000 more queries, but I'd rather not get banned by Google. I may already be pushing the envelope. So I dug out my books and ran the standard deviation on this existing data set.

Here's the Poisson Distribution curve of frequency count.
This is my sanity check that the random sampling has integrity -

The memetic drift still looks the same, so it's probably a real effect.

So the theory is that there should be a steadily increasing standard deviation from 1988 to 2005 as the culture diffusion moves along. The theory does hold true, but I don't like how erratic this curve is. It should be smoother, I think. And now that I'm actually doing REAL WORK here, I'll have to calculate the confidence level to verify that the peak values are meaningful.

Not fricking tonight, though.

Document Diversity - The Reckoning

Dang it.
I need, like, 8000 more queries to build an adequate data set.
Two solid hours of queries.
At least.

Dang it.
I'm gonna be a Google Agenda Item on Monday morning.
I may have to buy a new card for an unbanned IP address.

Sometimes I write things because they make me chuckle.
Sometimes they make me chuckle for weeks afterward.
I'd like to do another "Vector" misfired mission, but I'm not sure I'm up to the task tonight.

Perhaps I will.
Perhaps... I won't.

Document Diversity - The Regrouping

So, what do I have?

There is a small sample of prominent memegraphs which imply a steady cultural divergence. Circumstantial evidence.

There is a random sampling of an Ideosphere proxy which indicates the opposite. In fact, the sample implies that the Internet has had virtually no effect on how people create and manipulate ideas. And this methodology is closer to a global proof.

What am I missing between the two samples?

I have two new ideas -

The Redistribution: The number of memes in circulation is steady, but the frequency distribution between them is shifting. The steadiest, most popular memes are losing ground to unpopular memes. If true, this should be measurable by a frequency analysis of the random sample. There should be a normal bell curve of frequency, but it should flatten out as time moves from 1988 to 2005, and that flattening should be statistically significant.

Dang, that means I have to drag out my rusty statistics knowledge.

But this seems the most likely and it explains both the results.

So I need a much bigger random sample.

The Meme Channel: The memes might travel in channels, i.e. meme complexes. I've been thinking of the Ideosphere as an amorphous mass, but it may have internal structure and interaction points. For instance, "livejournal.com" occupies a certain tendril structure in the 3-d space of the Ideosphere. I suspect that "Myspace.com" tends to eat away at "livejournal.com" along those same network lines because they occupy similar ecological niches, so there wouldn't be many new interaction points.

An unlikely theory and harder to test, so I'll put it on hold for now.