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Thursday, Mar 28, 2013 - 00:01 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Cited

It's been far too long since I last updated the blog software, and since one of the best ways to get back on one's feet after coding isn't going as well as expected is to do something that works, I decided to tackle a festering pet peeve - that of resources linked to from this blog eventually disappearing, such that future readers may have absolutely no idea of what was referenced, diminishing the experience.

The solution hit me when I was exploring a source in Wikipedia: Webcite.

How the service works is incredibly simple. Upon request, Webcite visits the link, and maintains a copy for all eternity, or until its funding runs out, whichever comes first. True, there are other archival sevices, the most famous perhaps the Internet Archive, but they may or may not have gotten to the desired content, particularly if it is on a relative obscure site.

Therefore, without futher ado, I requested Mr. Robo to do a preparatory analysis of the current status of this blog.


Mr. Robo: I can't tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity! Well, without further ado - there are 628 blog posts up to and including the 24th of March 2013, containing a grand total of 8217 content links. The annual distribution of links confirms a definite uptrend, with 2649 links listed in 2012, and 823 already in the first four months of this year, exceeding the totals for 2006, 2007 and 2010:



This was however accompanied by a concurrent downtrend in the number of individual posts:



After a high of 122 in 2007, the yearly count never again broke 100. The average word count per blog post has however steadily increased in compensation, shattering two thousand this year with no signs of looking back:



Finally, for completeness, the same is happening for average links per blog post, which is nearing 55 after languishing below 12 for the first five years of the blog's existence:



Projected linearly disregarding incomplete data for 2013, you will be down to a single blog post per year by 2026. If we fit an exponential curve to word count, however, the post could be around a hundred thousand words long.

Me: Well, I've always thought of joining the "I want to write a novel someday" crowd one day. Wonder if the option on "Scandalous Escapades Of A Decadent Singaporean Graduate Student In America" is still open?

Mr. Robo: I'm not done yet! Behold, the most popular linked sites, by domain and excluding subdomains:



Wikipedia, probably unsurprisingly, tops the list with 1711 references, and self-references take up 458 links. Youtube and various news sites compose much of the top 30, which concludes with Amazon UK's 26 links.



As to the distribution, 1695 domains have been linked just the one time, and this is by far the most common case.



Lastly, those eager for new content should visit on Saturdays - 174 posts, or 27.7% of the total, were put up on that day. Still, 50.5% of posts do not occur on weekends, with Tuesday the most popular weekday. Not much between the rest, that said.

Me: Not bad, not bad at all. Thanks, Mr. Robo.

Mr. Robo: Erm, would you mind advancing my pay? Mr. Ham has been delaying my cut. I've already written the bot to save all these links, and I'll figure out how to incorporate them into the blog soon.

Me: Yep, I would prefer a link to the original source if at all possible, especially with all the interactivity going on, but adding an icon at the end of each and every link would be clunky. I'll leave this to you then, Mr. Robo, and we can put up an official changelog update when it's ready. Good job.


An Article Of Faith

I did a double-take upon finding this on page eleven of Monday's State's Times:

The long-entrenched texture of corporate [country] is set to change dramatically if opposition [party] wins the country's looming and highly charged general election.

For as long as it has existed, the direction of [country] has been chiefly determined by a single entity - the ruling [party].

The scale of the changes that may occur if the opposition takes power at the polls, expected to be announced within weeks, is daunting.

After all, this is a corporate landscape in which deep-pocketed state-owned funds and government-linked companies (GLCs) dominate the scene, and local corporate bigwigs have long enjoyed comfortable links with the ruling class to get ahead.

"An opposition victory would be instinctively traumatic on markets, as it would be traumatic for the corporate sector," said a top banker who asked not to be named. He was alluding to the massive shake-up that would face [the country] in a change of power, given the [ruling party] government's involvement in [the country's] businesses runs long, wide and deep.

Some others share that view.

"[Country] is a top-down system where the role of the government in the economy and business is substantial," said Mr Manu Bhaskaran, chief executive of Centennial Asia Advisors. "A new coalition government would change many policies, perhaps even the basic parameters of the system that [the country's] businesses have operated in for decades," he added.

...

Moreover, fundamentally speaking, [ruling party] and [opposition parties] do not appear to have vastly divergent views on managing the economy. [A professor of political economy] called for a "genuinely different development model" to tackle [the country's] serious inequities - the wide gap between rich and poor.

"These are much-needed changes and they're not a bad thing. The only ones who see shadows where there aren't any are the incumbents who have vested interests," a local businessman remarked.

Many agree that it was [the ruling party's performance] after the [latest] polls that led to such vigorous efforts to improve the government's delivery.

[A strategist] opined that GLCs should focus on key strategic areas such as utility or major economic activities without cramping competition or becoming an "impediment to entrepreneurs".

A reshuffle at the top of some key agencies cannot be ruled out. Chief among them may be... the country's sovereign wealth fund, with more than [a huge amount] in realisable asset value in its portfolio - and... the largest state-owned asset management company, with [another bloody huge amount] under its belt.

...

While the immediate future may be uncertain, most reckon things will settle down once the markets digest the poll outcome.

Meanwhile, it may be wise for businesses with a present or future interest in [the country] to face up to the possibility of strong winds of change to sweep into a post-[ruling party] [country].


And then I realised that they were not talking about what I thought they were talking about.


So Came The Sun





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Next: History Shalt Absolve


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2 comments

anonymous said...
Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve
And lace itself with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek
And steal dead seeing of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,
Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?
For she hath no exchecker now but his,
And, proud of many, lives upon his gains.
O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had
In days long since, before these last so bad.


March 29, 2013 - 21:01 SGT     
Mr. Ham H. Let said...
Lo, upon this medium some loftier calling receive,
In a space reserved chiefly for much impropriety,
The form further of which in its structure deceive
As affectation cloaked in linguistic industry?
For are all paintings false as all words are meek
With life itself mere diversion from our eventual due?
For odes penned in splendour must eventually reek
I say no shadows are; for what rose is true?
He lives as all men live, and leaves as all men leave
Born as a storm within breeches, amidst a cloying rain
That a toll may be extracted and resignation attained,
Thus, Society, no lady, exercises her restraints.
So him she stores, these men dead before the fact
Who while their days away spinning doggerel by the rack.


March 31, 2013 - 17:16 SGT     

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