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Tuesday, April 06, 2004 |
 There is a new dynamic going on in weblogs. In the past, pageviews mattered. Now, its the number of RSS subscribers. In my experience RSS subscribers (from all sources) outnumber direct browsers by 10 to 1.
There is a trade off. Pageview measurement tools allow you to see the number of unique visitors and where they came from. Very little additional useful information is available, but the information you do get is all in one place. In contrast, RSS tools are fragmented (in that they collect information about who is reading your site in proprietary systems), but they can provide more information on who is reading your site.
Bloglines, for example, can tell you who is subscribed to your weblog (see their top weblogs list). Others don't. However, it would be great if aggregators would create RSS feeds that identified subscribers by their public profile (OPML hasn't caught hold in this area). Centralized and decentralized aggregators could provide a mondo feed of everyone subscribed (unless they turn it off for privacy reasons, and if they do all you would get is "unknown subscriber") using their tool. I would also love it if Radio and Typepad (the tools I use) made it possible to enter these RSS feeds into a subscriber display page so it can be put into one place. If I could publish this list as a blogroll (perhaps even on an additional page to my site), that would be even better.
11:34:49 AM 
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A proposed "Unified Security Budget" (PDF) that shifts ratio of spending on conventional military vs. homeland security from 7 to 1 to a more reasonable 3 to 1.
11:02:04 AM
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Glenn Reynolds has a wrap-up of weblog analysis on the al-Sadr revolt. My take: I think partisan political webloggers should stick to the subject of US domestic politics. What we do need: real analysis that leads to real solutions. Let's bring this discussion up a notch.
9:00:06 AM
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Another interesting PM article: stolen KGB cold war plans for an attack on US infrastructure. Highlights (it is revealing that they focused on interconnection points more than the hardened targets themselves):
Operating from a safe house in Big Spring Park, near Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, KGB terrorists planned to attack powerline interconnection points serving the Northeast.
Montana was the focus of what Andrew believes would have been a two-stage attack against Flathead and Hungry Horse dams. "[The documents] identified a point, code-named Doris, on the South Fork River about 3 kilometers below the dam where [they] could bring down a series of pylons on a steep mountain slope that would take a lengthy period to repair," says Andrew.
To ensure that oil and hydroelectric power could not be routed from Canada, the KGB planned a simultaneous attack on "target Kedar," the code name for oil pipelines between British Columbia and Montreal.
8:30:12 AM
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WP. 7 more military fatalities in the last 24 hours in areas around Fallujah, many by rocket propelled grenades (RPG-7). Popular Mechanics has an interesting article on the RPG-7:
But by the time the first statue of Hussein was pulled off its pedestal, a massive stockpile of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles had fallen into the hands of Islamic insurgents (...Hussein's looted arsenal was also brimming with SA-7 Grail anti-aircraft missiles. ....In Iraq, as many as 5000 Grails are believed to have fallen into the hands of insurgents.). In the months that followed, half the Americans who died in Iraq were killed by one type of these weapons, the RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade.
Mordica and other weapons analysts tell PM that at least 1 million RPG-7s have been manufactured by Bazalt or are under license. What is known is that since the fall of the Soviet Union, the flow of RPG-7s from military warehouses to the black market has grown from a trickle to a flood. RPG-7s are now so plentiful, they can be bought for less than the price of a decent laptop computer.
The mujahedeen (in Afghanistan) found the weapon even more valuable, adopting tactics that included forming armor-vehicle hunter-killer teams. "Fifty to 80 percent of the personnel were armed with RPG-7s. This could be up to 15 RPGs," says Grau.
Part of the reason for the continuing success of the RPG-7 is Bazalt's eagerness to introduce new types of ammunition for its venerable weapon.
A new defense is in the pipeline:
At present, the most promising plan for defending troops against insurgents' rocket and missile attacks is called FCLAS. The abbreviated acronym stands for "full spectrum active protection close-in layered shield," which in itself is an explanation of how it works. FCLAS is an antimissile missile in a tube. Strategically placed around a vehicle, boat, building or helicopter, these missiles create a sort of invisible shield that detects and then demolishes incoming threats.
8:14:24 AM
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WSJ. More than 60% of corporations did not pay taxes between 1996-2000 (a period when corporate profitability was soaring). About 70% of foreign-owned companies reported that they didn't owe any taxes in the late 90's.
But more so than similar previous reports, the analysis suggests that dodging taxes, both legally and otherwise, has become deeply rooted in U.S. corporate culture.
This is a trend that will increase as we continue to globalize. Corporations are increasingly using globalization as a means to avoid paying any taxes to any government (for example: the transfer of trademarks and copyrights to international locations and charging the US corporation a deductable royalty for use of this intellectual property).
7:20:20 AM
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A stripped down version of Skype for Windows CE handhelds (needs a PDA with a wireless connection) is now available according to their news blog. FAQ. Download. It also supports conference calls (not available for the CE version) for up to 5 callers and call holding for up to 16 calls. It's free, secure (encrypted), high-fidelity, and P2P. Finally a reason to own a CE wireless handheld.
7:03:28 AM
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© Copyright 2004 John Robb.
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