Day: January 20, 2005

Happy Birthday, Mr. Poe

Craig Pfeifer: Poe gets a Visitor. As a member of the Raven Society, I should write something insightful about the recurring annual visits (56 so far) of a mysterious man who leaves three roses and a bottle of cognac in the locked cemetery where rest the mortal remains of Edgar Allan Poe, great American author and poor UVA student.

But I’m more drawn to the poor behavior of the spectators, who this year apparently wanted to solve the puzzle at the expense of the mystery: “Some [spectators] entered the locked cemetery; others confronted Mr. Jerome [the curator of the Poe House and Museum] after the stranger left and demanded that he reveal his identity.“

What did they expect would happen? Why would someone want to pee in that pool? There’s something profound about a commitment that long to anything, even (if as apparently in this case) if it spans more than one generation. I don’t think that anonymity is too much of a thing to respect in the face of such devotion.

Best seats in the house this weekend: IRC

SJ’s Wiki Hut of Horror: Credibility in Journalism and on the Web. SJ, who previously liveblogged the Votes, Bits and Bytes conference at Berkman, will be at the closed Blogging, Journalism, and Credibility conference, which has stirred up a bit of a ruckus in the wake of the Armstrong Williams scandal and the attempted conservative follow-up smear of Kos (who blogged with a big disclaimer on his page while being paid by the Dean campaign, unlike Williams, who didn’t disclose his pay by the DofEd until well after he was called on it). (Anyone want another subordinate clause there?)

The IRC backchannel is always the most fun place to be at a wired conference. This one should definitely be no exception.

Molasses

Our Internet service has been slower than molasses in January for the past few days. First I tested the individual components (cable modem, wireless base station), but they didn’t seem to be having problems, and the Internet as a whole, aside from some isolated problems, seemed to be OK too.

Then I turned off my wireless access and plugged directly into the router. Bing. Full connectivity. This is the second time the wireless card in this laptop has gone funky on me. I really don’t want to replace it right now, but I might not have a choice.