Beyond The Fringe

In order to return this Fringe blog to its customary topics, we’ve set up another blog where we’ll write on Blogshares issues.

To kick things off, we’ve delivered some hints on how to succeed with the new maths, and set up a mission seeking out the best dead blogs for recognition and preservation. So far, there have been some absolute corkers, from lyric poetry to humorous verse, exceptionally beautiful photoblogs to memoirs of a soldier killed in Iraq.

Don’t miss them!

The latest changes to our fav online game, BlogShares, down today with a database crash, thus far have proved quite dreary. Last year after several months our corporation, The Untouchables, once the underdog scorned by the smug in-crowd, reached and held the top position in corporate holdings consistently. Interestingly, before the current changes, certain players in other corps had accumulated sufficient knitting blogs to form a cartel. Prior knowledge? probably - with admin and various game ‘councils’ also being players with old time close playing buddies, the game inevitably fits Mussolini’s classic corporate fascism definition. Once the new maths commenced and the limit on links counted on blogs was removed, the game immediately favoured old time players who had already interlinked with their buddies - so their personal otherwise mainly worthless blogs hit the Top 100 quickly along with an oozing stream of ghastly repetitive knitting blogs. Since, link farms set up by avid B$ players have proliferated - we counted 7 interlinked blogs owned by one linkfarm enthusiast desperado.

Our corp is a new one, with little interlinking between its players on their blogs, yet our fighting team spirit and coordination has kept us up still in the top four regardless.

Linkfarming for game gain is very unappealing - aside from encouraging artificial link schemes per se, links looped amongst already privileged players have the net effect of feeding the wealth of the game back to those same self-congratulatory buffoons. The overall impact is to reduce players to clicking robots, reindexing blogs manually to shore up pathetic monopolies or to attack other players whilst seeking out unowned sources of treasure which die as quickly as they rise.

After the initial boom led by the old time player and knitting linkfarm circle jerk, came the crunch and current downturn. Blog behaviour has also been affected by the changes … a declining blog becomes a sick elephant, virtually impossible to elevate without a massive indexing of supporting links and a flurry of hypes. A rising blog rises slowly too. One pleasant effect is that there are more valuable blogs to ‘play’ with, though very quickly one tires of cycling endlessly to eke the last remaining shred of worth from a dog knitting stock.

So far, not good … with more changes to come, perhaps the game might improve. Otherwise, there’s always the funny Hobowars or more financially profitable Wall Street Survivor in which to spend one’s idle moments.

Roll up, roll up and sign here folks. We have described BlogShares in the past as the most engaging, challenging game on the planet. Let’s help it become more so by eliminating elitism and reinstating BlogShares celebrities and wizard players PnP and AXA, who have fallen foul of the wiles and guile of a hostile corp.

SIGN HERE!

For more pertinent background information, visit BlogShares’ premier corporation at The Untouchables Blog.

Our Blogshares team, The Untouchables, have triumphed!

From our leader, MNO:

“The Untouchables had a really big weekend. But today was the best of all when the interest came out, UT was #1 in shareholdings! Congratulations to the entire team and to those who worked so very hard at this milestone achievement.”

After countering a severe war and developing a streamlined unique team approach to play, our corporation has bested all comers whilst injecting fun and renewed vigour into the Blogshares game itself.

Good work folks!

As AliG would say “Keep it real”.

RESPECTR.

A ceasefire agreement is finally reached with UT adversaries - with positive understanding and the possibility of useful cooperation in the development of future frameworks for corp wars.

Phew! we can settle back into a more relaxed frame and concentrate on some of the more rewarding aspects of the Blogshares game - in particular, the accumulation of ideas and bonds, and the enjoyable vying over lucrative monster blogs

Beyond the Fringe oddly gains a G rating from the latest prurulent meme fad oozing through the blogoswamp. Hear that, all you nauseatingly prim rightards and other-people’s-privates-fondling religious weirdos?

Check out your site’s supposed rating here.

As for us, we’ll just have to try harder.

Wondering whether an anonymous author is likely to be male or female? Here’s an ingenious tool - Gender Genie - developed to sort the rams from the ewes.

I tried it out on several Fringe posts and infallibly, the test determined my correct feminine authorship.

So we’ve been busy. Working. Building. Dealing with immense toothache - why is it the pain stops after one makes the dreaded appointment? Blogging out at Blogshares (which is partially work-related as we survey the machinations and constructions of the blogiverse in all its manifestations). We must have checked out a couple of thousand or more twaddly, whining, dorky blogs now to help clean the rather useful Blogshares index of rotting blog corpses. At this point we’ve collected a truckload of literary and stockmarket blogs.

As the Aussie stock market enters its usual tax loss doldrums, we desultorily survey the real market for some superduper bargains. APG, with BHP now holding an interest, has fallen as the profit-taking traders maul the share price. We are waiting to feast with the other remoras near what we suspect may be the bottom. Our banquet on EVZ a couple of days ago was most satisfactory as was our BPO gulp at 4.6c. EVZ actually breached our projected bottom at 55c yet we are happy with our haul. We now have our beady eyes fixed on BLR and SNU, our little U beauties, for some more accumulation opportunities.

We’re cashed up for the TRF Ironclad float, though with the drop in TRF’s sp, we might do better picking up some more TRF rather than waiting for the Ironclad floaties. Another attractive possibilities is LRL - trading below 60c at the moment.

For some idle fun and relaxation, here’s an amazing site, Flickrvision where one can watch the depressingly plebby drones of the internet upload their mostly ghastly photos to Flickr in real time.

Amazingly, the vigilant Chinese authorities have not blocked Beyond The Fringe, according to the three location test at Website Pulse. Not so at the Great Firewall of China test, where every site I tried on several servers besides this one was blocked. Perhaps the test server they use is blocked.

Beyond The Fringe is also listed on Google China - four pages of references isn’t too bad considering the site hasn’t been up for too long in its present form and location.

It must be time to write something pointedly critical about human rights abuses and censorship in China, besides one’s usual diatribes about Chinese purchases at bargain basement prices of Whorestralian resources.

Between gloats at the fulfillment of our U share predictions as the bourse heads skyward and shaking our heads in wonder at TRF’s stellar gains, we are indulging in trading of a more light-hearted nature at Blogshares. We now have a kitty of several billion and a couple of hundred Artifacts ready for employment at our convenience.

Our strategy has been pretty straightforward.

(1) Buy up our own blog of course and some cheapies. Then resell after the price goes up after one has bought. Slow but sure. Collect new blogs which are current and which are likely to appreciate better. Introduce some new blogs which we know are current and growing in industries we have our eye on for nefarious schemes later on Report dead blogs for added rewards.

(2) Gain a pile of chips through completion of Missions and answering simple questions for 5 chips a throw, then gamble them on Chances to win lots of B$, old blog shares, ideas, chips, premium memberships and raffle tickets.

(3) Buy as many Ideas as one can afford in order to build useful Artifacts which can be essential later on to perpetrate hostile takeovers.

Wonder if Beck will notice we own his blog. Chortle! The Iron Lady is ready, poised for action.

On another, somewhat related note, it seems a past Hotcopperite is facing charges of insider trading involving information he gave on the forum a couple of years back.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) alleges Mr Woodland traded securities in Kanowna Consolidated Gold Mines, now known as Andean Resources Ltd, on five occasions between November 28 and December 5, 2003.

ASIC alleges he had insider knowledge of the company’s acquisition of the Cerro Negro gold mining project in Argentina before it was made public on December 10, 2003.

After the acquisition was announced to the Australian Stock Exchange, the company’s shares closed at 9.1 cents, up 2.5 cents from when it requested a trading halt on December 8, because of concerns information had been leaked about the deal.

ASIC also alleges Mr Woodland passed his inside knowledge onto people he met through the internet-based financial services chat site, Hotcopper.

Fascinating stuff - we wonder how many more wheeler dealers push their goo and tripe amongst the crew - from our observations there are plenty of such allegations.

Crackers take note - another fine Wordpress update to the latest version 2.1.3 has been accomplished toot sweet … along with a Mandigo theme update as well. Annoyingly, the theme update took ten times as long due to the extensive modifications we’ve done, but all is more or less back to normal.

The avante garde blogospherical catchword describing a political blog apparently is plog.

Would that make Beyond the Fringe, as a stocks/shares and political blog, a slog plog, plog slog, stog plog, plog stog, shag plog or plog shag?

Plog Shag, whilst rolling off the tongue, reminds one of those ubiquitous, self-congratulatory, neocontard, pundit plogger circle jerks - plogshaggers, the lot of them.

So what about Sharplog? Beyond the Fringe - the Essential Sharplog.

Something for the semiotically obsessed gits prancing round the pocket pissing Whorestralian blogocracy to grogblog and plogshag about.

Here’s the code which works in both Firefox and IE. Switch off the auto XHTML correction facility in Options/Writing and the Visual Editor in Users/Profile before attempting this.

<div style="text-align:center"><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/ID_CodeHere"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ID_CodeHere" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /></object></div>

Becoming bored with the creative, coding and speed limitations of Blogspot, we decided Beyond the Fringe deserved a fast new location with its own domain. We’ve employed open source Wordpress software which provides the use of pages and a growing pot pourri of plugins.

With some modifications of the very versatile Mandigo theme, we’ve conjured up a look which we feel suits our aims, along with providing flexibility to change the top fringy pic easily when we feel like a change. We hope you, the jaded netsurfer, enjoy our new relaxed look! Comments are welcome.

Kevvie strikes back at Johnny with a near knockout blow, and although we wish he would bring the focus back to the government’s palpably weak point - climate change - while the issue is still hot and before Johnny shepherds the electorate into unctuous worship of his economic record, he is maintaining an impressive, logical front. Johnny’s actions, along with his quivering whiskers when interviewed by Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report last night, betray the fact that he is losing the Iraq debate even without and perhaps in spite of a head to head confrontation with Kevvie.

Johnny’s mob stifled debate on Iraq in Parliament this morning - run away, run away - and this morning Johnny fails to up the ante on 2GB with Alan Jones, bleating that a national televised debate with Kevvie would be just a smokescreen.

Talk about projection. We also think that Johnny’s conviction, oft repeated on the 7.30 Report interview that Australia cannot afford American defeat and humiliation in Iraq may also be projection - it is Howard who needs ongoing conflagration to maintain with his comfortable war leader, best buddy of Doodoo image into the run up to our next election. Interestingly, Paul Kelly picks up on this too in a particularly scathing column.

Kevvie smartly rejoinders to Johnny on ABC: “What is his alternative strategy, if he’s a man of courage, to tell the Australian people about how he intends to win the war in Iraq.” Reasonably, Kev indicates his flexibility to consult with the US on early withdrawal and his approval of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report.

At this point, we have to wonder whether the Australian media is at last turning on Johnny?

Headline from The Australian: Rudd attacks ‘gutless’ Howard

Headline from The Age: ‘Gutless’ Howard gags debate

Leunig’s hilarious cartoon for today is also worth a squiz. And so is Patrick Leahy’s Valentine card from John to Doodoo.