BookCrossing 2.0, boo hiss!

Time for a good rant again. Now let's see if I can keep it short. OK, relatively short. ;-)

So, BookCrossing.com changed over to a brand new design a few weeks ago ... supposed to be so much better and such an improvement. New & improved. Improved my shiny metal ass. I personally, as a longtime user (shit, that sounds bad!), can't really see any improvement at all. >:-(

I do understand the reasons why the powers that be over there wanted to make a change. They have the stats and the background to read them, and if they say that with the old format they were seeing a lot of people arriving at the front page of the site and then clicking away without looking any further, then I accept that as given and I totally understand that they would want to do something about that. I just think that what they have tried to do is a total fail.

First off, trying to look at it from a new user's POV - or rather, a potential new user - the site looks totally boring. Yes, there were some problems with the layout before. The drop down menus, for instance. But the general look of the site was SO much better. You saw immediately that there was a hell of a lot going on. Now there's almost nothing to see. I've been a member for going on four years and when I went to the site today without logging on, I had to really search to find the forums! There is no link to the forums on the front page, which in itself isn't too bad, except that there isn't even a hint that such a thing as the forums exist. Yay for community feeling. >:-(

Speaking of which, I really hate that they stuck with the name 'Members Plus' for the wings program. (Sorry, I'm calling them wings from here to forever. That's what they're called. Sue me.) There was a thread on one of the forums, started a while before the changeover, in which members were invited to say what we thought, should it be called wings or Members Plus? Because they 'care what we think'. I am not at all exaggerating if I say that at least 90% of those who replied (and there were a lot of replies) were strongly in favor of the old name, wings. Yet here we are, changeover complete and irrevocable, and they're still going with Members Plus. WTF was the point of asking us if you don't care what we think and you were going to go with the new name the whole time anyway??

Everybody's profiles look much more boring now ... and I can only imagine how pointless & utterly dull they must seem to newbies or random arrivals, who don't realize (if they even figure out how to find people's profiles) that they have to click a link to see any more information about that member than just the stats ... which they will have a hard time figuring out anyway, I predict.

Searching for books is incredibly hard now since they took away the 'advanced search' function ... I've done a shitload of searches for books I know are on my shelf, but sorry, no results found. The option of 'leaving a book in the wild' is also gone, and that was a function I used a hell of a lot, since I manage the OBCZ at the Central Station and journal a lot of books for the zone. I'm not at all sure how to do that now, it's going to be journalled wrong. Dagnabbit.

I do realize that in a changeover like this, there are bound to be bugs. But I have never in my life as a net user seen anything as buggy as this. I think they must have done a pretty poor job of testing the new site, because it's been weeks now and there are still so many bugs, even though it's nothing compared to how crazy it was at first. But still, how about removing at least most of them before changing the whole site over?? Yes, I freely admit that I'm not a computer programmer and I hardly know anything about these things ... I don't even know exactly what a computer programmer does. But what did we have the beta site for if it wasn't to test for these things before the new version went public??

Yeah yeah yeah, BookCrossing is great and I do appreciate all the hard work that the people behind the scenes put into it. I just am really disillusioned with the place right now. As in, they ask us members to report any bugs we come across to help them troubleshoot, but I haven't been doing that. The sad truth is that right now I don't care enough to help them out. :-(

I am still a BookCrosser and I don't plan to ever quit ... in fact I did a really fun book release just yesterday. But apart from registering the books I have lying around and releasing them every so often, I'm mostly staying away from the site these days. I'm hoping they'll work all the bugs out, I really am ... but I don't honestly feel any interest in wasting any of my own time on them. As much as I love BookCrossing and appreciate the efforts made by the team, I seriously question whether they had really thought this all out before pushing it through.

OK, rant over. Non-BookCrossers reading this: Can you find the forums on the BC site? BCers reading this, I'd love to get your input. But wait! Wasn't this Keanu Monday? No, actually it wasn't, because tomorrow is Keanu day ... !!! Wait and see ... ! ;-)

Alas, Albania

I'm still not quite over how relatively badly Albania did in the ESC this year. I love their song ... I thought it was the best they've ever sent and IMO the singer gave a great performance. OK, sure, they got through from the semi. But still, 16th? I was sure they'd be competing at the head of the field. Alas, Albania!! And they had such a wonderful fan club too ... !!!

Juliana Pasha singing live in Eurovision Village.

Quote of the Week

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake. Religion is all bunk.

Thomas Alva Edison

Different strokes

Yup, different strokes for different folks. I'm not sure whether I blogged about it, but last year on the Culture Night here in Oslo I went with the gang to various events ... one of them, the first, was in the Cemetery of Our Saviour, in the so-called Honor Grove where a number of great artists and politicians are buried. Think Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch. A kind of theater performance was presented to those assembled, I filmed some of it and made a video. Which I uploaded to Youtube. This was in September. Now, months later, I suddenly get a message from someone affiliated with the theater group who performed these theatricals - they're called Røde Rom, apparently ('Red Rooms') - demanding that I remove this video. This is their copyrighted material and bla bla bla.

I obviously can't show you the video, it's gone ... but I have to say that I think it's advantageous for people like these - ie, performing artists - to have their work featured on Youtube. Personally, I know that if I hear about a new band or whatever I'll go to Youtube and do a search ... and if nothing or very little comes up, my conclusion is usually that they're no good or really unpopular. Nobody likes them enough to want to share whatever it is that they're doing. In my opinion, it's completely a good thing if someone sees a performer or group of performers and think that what they see is so enjoyable that they want to share it with the world. However, not everybody sees it that way, and that's cool. This tiny little three-piece experimental theater group that I'd never heard of don't see it that way. They are above such things, I'm sure. Anyway, this was on Thursday that I got their message. Then today, Friday, I got another message ...

This was from the official Youtube channel of the Bosnian/Croatian girl group Feminnem. I have a video of them up too, from the concert series in Eurovision Village last month. So yeah, the contents of that video is their material, etc. Just like with Røde Rom ... except that these ladies are much bigger - they don't even compare - and have been at it for longer than the theatricals. So they'd really have reason to ask me to remove the video ... they don't need the publicity, I guess.

Except that they didn't ask me to remove the video. They sent me a friend request. Go figure. ;-)

Here's my video of them performing their lovely song from this year's ESC ...



... and here is their Youtube channel, if you're interested. :-)

Turtle walkies

The weather was fantastic here last week, so Anne Ida and I thought we'd make the most of it and try to combine two semi-irreconcilable concepts - a picnic and turtle walkies. It went pretty well, just with more walking than you'd expect at a picnic. It was fascinating to observe the different behavior the four little guys exhibited ... this was Anton's first time meeting other turtles since he was separated from his siblings when he was a little dime-sized critter. We thought it might be fun for him, but it seemed to be awful. Raphael, unsurprisingly, was awfullest.

Since it was a picnic, of course we had food, and as a natural result of this, Herman didn't wander very far. He generally sticks pretty close to me when we're out anyway, but this time he can't have walked more than a fourth of the distance Henrik did. As for Anton, sheesh, he managed a turtle marathon. :-) Herman was quite enamored of this tomato, since it was the same color as the feeding tub, but alas, it resisted his attempts to devour it. I wish I'd gotten a shot of him actually biting at it, but no such luck.

Henrik turns away from the camera a lot, which is usually annoying ... but at least here it shows off some of the layers of pollen he collected in his turtleneck ;-) and on his face as he was walking around.

Anton seems to hate having his picture taken ... he's forever squirming away from the camera. I took a number of crappy shots of him, but look at this one, it's adorable! Although you will notice that he was being physically restrained.

Spot the turtle. Raphael likes to burrow underneath things and, ideally, tip them over.

A thought on Oslo

People rag on Oslo, but they just like to complain. And people rag on Norway, but they just don't know what they're talking about. For my part, I love the fact that I live in a country where on a random Wednesday night you can bump into a member of government taking her children to a play all alone and unescorted in the center of the nation's capital.

But I have to say that Anniken Huitfeldt has to have a pretty lousy sense of humor. She looked soo grumpy, and who can be grumpy watching Kurt?? The play was Kurt koker hodet by Erlend Loe, at Oslo Nye tonight. Yes, it's a play for children, but as anyone who's ever read any of the Kurt books will know, he's a bundle of laughs for adults too. I thought the production was fantastic. Pretty much everyone looked great - Johannes Joner in the title role especially, he did a great job and looked just right. Quite an achievement for the costumier, since the character does have a rather ... unique appearance. :-)

Yes, I am a fan ... I dig Kurt ... but I have to say that this is a really impressive production, objectively speaking. Mostly great performances and a very creative scenography. If you have the chance, go see it. Don't listen to Anniken Huitfeldt. ;-)

No true Scotsman

Check this out ... another fun day multicultural style.

I'm not familiar with this singer, and I'm guessing that this isn't necessarily a major loss, but it's the principle of the thing, and this kind of story really rubs me the wrong way. Apparently, a Danish popstrel gets hassle from immigrants because she uses the stage name Medina. During a free concert she gave recently she was pelted with eggs (!!) by a gang of 'new Danes' who felt 'offended' by her use of this so-called sacred name. (News flash: the concept of sacredness only exists in your heads.) WTF is that? I totally agree with the singer's assessment - those guys are fucked up and their parents ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But that isn't really the point of this post. What is even more interesting is the reaction of some 'Muslim spokespeople' to this event. A very predictable reaction. Namely, that these kids aren't really Muslims. Because, don't you know, if they were real Muslims, they wouldn't have been at a concert where alcohol is served and a scantily clad girl sings about stripping. OMG lulz!!

No true Scotsman, indeed. The use of this fallacy really shows how religion damages the mind. Do these people really think so little that they actually can't spot the glaringly obvious flaw in their own argument? If every single person who some other Muslim would call 'not a real Muslim' actually wasn't a Muslim, there would in fact be no Muslims. Hmmm ...