Hi, Steve!

(It feels odd to call you that; I've only ever known you as thenewgreen. Same goes for "Mark" vis-à-vis mk.)

Nice to hear from you. I am definitely guilty of being absent from the site as well. In fact you have been single-handedly keeping me in the loop with hubski with your occasional shout-outs to my old posts and comments. I might try to get back to being a regular here, although I'm no longer sure I know how the site works. :)

I hope all is well with you. Judging by that last sentence, I'm betting you have some interesting stories to share. Keep me posted!

- John

Incidentally, I read this same article just a few hours ago. They explore different meanings of the word "sounds", but they pair nicely. In any case, I'm surprised you remembered my post from over three years ago!

I share your sentiment. Saving a post doesn't necessarily mean I want to follow its comments, and vice versa. I think it would be better to have a separate "follow" function for posts and threads, but that could get quite cluttered. Ideally we should balance simplicity and ease of use with functionality, but I don't know precisely how.

Yes, seriously. I would not want to be a seismologist if it meant I was responsible for the earthquakes I study.

Yep. Amazing how influential they've been so close to the election!

He wanted to have his cake and eat it too -- attacking the stimulus because it was politically advantageous for him to do so, while also benefiting from the relief that the stimulus provided.

That's a pretty tall order! I am far from being very well versed in musical history, and my musical tastes are still rapidly developing, so I wouldn't feel confident giving anything close to a definitive list. But here are some albums I have consistently enjoyed over the last few years (despite changing tastes) and which still get heavy rotation from me today:

- "Dive Deep" by Morcheeba - "Resurrection" by Common - "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" by A Tribe Called Quest - "Blue Lines" by Massive Attack - "The Score" by Fugees

I really love music that feels textured, organic, warm, and a little rough around the edges. It may be that I'm just looking in the wrong places, but I find it difficult to find music like that lately. Lots of bands seem to be moving toward clean, smooth and cloudy sounds -- which I like, sometimes, but are outside of my comfort zone. If anyone has any recommendations for me -- old or new -- let me know! One recent release that I've really been enjoying is Wax Tailor's "Dusty Rainbow from the Dark," which drew me in immediately.

Share some pictures when you come back!

Ha, I didn't even realize the song was in a different language. I thought it was made up, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckwnRT9RCmg

It's beautiful, isn't it? I don't know why they chose it, but I want to find more music like this.

I need to watch the whole series again to satiate my TV comedy fix until the next season of 30 Rock comes out. :)

Does anyone have any other recommendations? Preferably something that's available on the web?

But I think I've got things ironed out for now. I just needed some time to clear my head. On the upside, I celebrated my birthday a few days ago so that was fun. How have you been?

My first impression is that it looks great -- very clean and modern -- but I'm no longer sure how to read my hub. My natural instinct is to read down the first column and then move to the next, but that requires me to scroll down and then back up which isn't optimal on my small screen. Reading from left to right feels weird, too, because the tiles aren't aligned. Either way, my eye moves around the page a lot and I'm not quite sure where the focus is.

I like the direction you're going; it just needs a few tweaks. If I were less tired I might offer some suggestions, but for now I should sleep.

Edit: As an aside, the "related posts" section of the page shows up under the comment box for me. Do you know how I can fix that? I'm on Chrome / OS X Lion.

People looked at her and saw a crazy homeless junkie with poor insurance. It's sad that she was never able to get the mental and physical help she needed. Still, it's hard for me to feel too angry at the doctors and officers involved. They gave her the standard treatment and unfortunately didn't find anything pressing, so they assumed the worse. Seeing thousands of similar cases in their line of work wore their compassion down to apathy and indifference which seem even more monstrous in retrospect. Fuck, this whole story has me conflicted. I don't know what to feel or who to blame. It's all so frustrating.

*as opposed to warm; not Fonzie cool

A post can get all the "shares" in the world from someone getting payed .08 cents per "share" but if nobody follows that person, that's a waste of money. A post can have a full hub wheel from 20 dummy accounts and still, the only people that will see it will be the 20 dummies.

I think you mostly nailed it. The way hubski is designed makes it difficult to for spammers to gain quick and easy popularity since they must gain not only share but also non-bought followers -- the latter of which is a slow and more deeply involved process than simply clicking a button. People being paid 8¢ an hour (or per follower, or whatever) won't bother with that.

However, a poster that no one follows can still be visible through the "external posts" feature, which I personally keep on "show many." And while it is possible to ignore users on an individual level, the post will still be visible by anyone not blocking that particular user -- which, when you account for lurkers and new folk, is probably the majority of people who see the site (if not now, then in the future). I think it is at that point, or ideally before that point, that we will start to seriously discuss the issue of moderation.

Perhaps 'saved' would just be 'lists'

I think that might cause some confusion for new hubskiers. A "lists" button doesn't have an obvious or common meaning to most people, whereas a "save" button is pretty straightforward. So perhaps the current save button should open a prompt that asks which list the link should be saved to, so then the term has some context.