Dave Pattern‘s always doing something interesting…
This time, it’s HotStuff 2.0, “keeping track of what’s cooking in the biblioblogosphere.”
He’s pulled together a bunch of library-related blogs (hundreds more than in The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008), and automatically analyzes the RSS feeds “in an attempt to discover new and/or interesting topics.” (Well, only 308 of the blogs are currently active, but still…)
Every day, a blog post shows up with a single “hot” word–a word “that has seen a marked increase in usage over the last few days.” There’s also a “Word Wheel,” which I find a little inscrutable (hey, I’m a text person) but you may find fascinating.
Oh yes: And there’s one more feature, the Hot or Not page. Here’s Pattern’s description:
Just for fun, each active blog gains or loses points for each new blog post. Points are gained for using words that haven’t been used frequently in the past, but lost for using words that are declining in popularity. You can see the current scores on the Hot or Not page!
While I won’t be putting the Hot or Not widget on my sidebar, it is tempting. For whatever reason, the first time I checked it, this blog was #2. It’s down to #8 now, and probably headed steadily downhill…
Only 10 early-bird shopping days left!
Don’t forget: Come January 16, the Lulu prices for The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008 will go up to $35 (paperback) and $25 (download). You still have a few days to buy it at early bird prices.
Walt, what font are you using (again) on your blog?
I ask because I’m forced to read this on my work PC in Firefox 3.0.1 and I’m sad to say that it is, well, ugly. Wondering if it isn’t available on my work machine or if something untoward happened to WaR.
Hmm. You’re the second person to say they’re getting ugly results in FireFox (on XP?).
The sequence of preferences should be Constantia, Book Antiqua, Palatino, Serif–using the first of those that is available on your systems. Before a recent change, the sequence was Book Antiqua, Palatino, Serif.
(Headings are Garamond, Georgia, Perpetua, Serif)
Every install of XP should include Book Antiqua, as far as I know, as should Vista. Constantia is a new Microsoft typeface.
I might suggest flushing your cache, in case something’s awry with the CSS. Otherwise…I’m not sure. I’m using 3.0.5 and everything seems fine (but I’m also in Vista). It’s possible that some versions of FF have/had a bug in typeface handling (?).
Alas my humble little collaborative blog is at the bottom of the list @ 312 with a points score of -93. (Really, a negative score).
Just a guess, but I’m pretty sure that makes it NOT hot 🙂
That will teach us to take a blog break during the holiday season!
Library Cloud was gone for a while, wasn’t it? No worries: You’ll start moving up even as I keep moving down. (#23 this morning! Down 15!)
Nah, we weren’t gone. There was just a serious lull in posting during November and December.
This could be one of those things, like the statcounter, that I spend an inordinate amout of time perusing. It’s a sickness. 🙂