Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about RSS and the growing pains it’s having. The idea being that if a website (http://foo.org) has a popular RSS feed (http://foo.org/rss.xml), it may buckle under the pressure of so many requests for its feed. This problem differs from “typical” Internet load issues in that most RSS aggregators are configured to download feeds at regular intervals (on the hour, every two hours, etc) and the aggregation of this creates a tsunami of requests in a short period of time.
While there are solutions out there, I haven’t heard anyone mention the new kid on the block: BitTorrent. Isn’t this exactly what BitTorrent is good for? Every aggregator fetching http://foo.org/rss.xml would help share the burden of distributing this file. And since so many aggregators can be counted on to hit this file at the same time the very property (timing) that is causing so many problem to webservers everywhere would instead be its biggest asset. Am I crazy?
After reading about Litton’s conversion to no limit I’ve decided I’m going to get away from multiple tables of 2/4 and try some NL tonight. I should note that I’m selectively ignoring the renunciation of NL he posted 10 days later.
I’m still recovering from last night’s Group Therapy session at the Tom Tom in Adams Morgan. $10 for 4 beers and 4 shots, how can I say no? It was like old times, the whole crew was out: Peter, Pete, Dan, Stephanie, Mandle, Joe, the list goes on. Hell, I even got some Monkeys to come out all the way from Reston (Bob and Louie). Taurus was notably absent, being down in Charlotte for the weekend and all.
The evening started off well. Smoked from the shisha, had a couple of prep beers, and waited for Bob and Louie to show up. We rolled down to Tom Tom and met up with the whole crew. Everything was rolling along, then Kerry’s horrible speech brought a chunk of the bar to a screeching halt. Thankfully the robotic droning was muted and people went back to drinking.
I’m not sure when, but at some point we all ended up sitting around this table playing a variant of quarters. Community kamikaze shots were in the middle that were the primary target, but there were also cups of beers on the perimeter that counted as bonus if you sunk a shot. Anyway, all I remember is hitting two in a row and giving them both to Pete. Ha!
At some point, I bagged out, got bitched at for leaving, and went home. So, while it wasn’t a bender of Al proportions, it was good enough for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go throw up.
I am traveling to Chicago this weekend (leaving early Saturday morning, coming back early Monday morning) to visit Gomaa. For those of you not in the know, Gomaa is currently enrolled at UVA Law and is interning in Chicago for the summer. I’ve been promised a weekend of fun, alcohol, and sillies. However, I may go into a state of shock if I don’t get some poker in while I’m gone. So, if you’re in the know (or in the area) let me know where I can get a game.
So, my new iPod arrived. Yes, I know, a couple of weeks ago I said the new iPod was no big deal. Well, technically, I stand by that. But, given the age of my iPod (original 5BG version, baby) I thought it was time to upgrade. I gave Taurus my old iPod, just in time for his vacation down in Mexico. If he gets in a jam, he can probably barter it to get out of jail.
Anyway, I hooked up the 20GB model, and now seek to revisit my music collection. About 85% of it consists of music ripped from my (or friend’s) CD’s. I need to check the fidelity they were ripped at, and consider re-ripping. The remainder is off of the internet, with various levels of quality regarding the encoding and tagging. I’m more concerned with the tagging than the encoding. I hate messy tags. So, I may need to roll up my sleeves and start fixing this stuff.
I’m about to explode. Just in the span of a few hours, I’ve had a two plans of mine ruined by people who insist on “coloring inside the lines”. I don’t want to go into details, but one of the problems involved an idea I got for setting up a “season” of tournament poker, with a chunk of the prize pool for each game going into an overall prize for the winner of the “season”. Anyway, I sent an email out to my poker buddies asking for feedback on this, and next thing I know someone’s telling me that this could be construed as a “rake” and that I could get reported by a disgruntled player.
The other situation involves a recreational sports league I belong to, and I don’t even want to talk about that debacle. The bottom line is: why is the world full of people who are intent of keeping people from having a good time? I mean, call me naive, but this is all hitting me real hard. Is it because we’re getting older or something? Are the people I’m dealing with going through some kind of pre-parental metamorphesis? Whatever it is, it sucks.
If my first year of law school can have this kind of impact on me, then I will have made the right choice. Of course, first the LSATs will have to cooperate.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the geographic difficulties that the Internet has nurtured. Create some links, make some friends, and then get sit back in horror as simple things like a fantasy football draft become impossible. Same thing with any activity that requires proximity: sports, poker, etc. Naturally these thoughts lead me to ask: who does live in DC? Well, Google has some answers to that. Sadly, it seems I missed the last meeting. So, the search continues. Either I’ll just slowly build my own DC blogroll, or if I’m lucky, I’ll stumble upon someone else’s.
