Alien abduction dog-tags for humans.  Dogtags for human would-be alien abductees. Parody? Mmmmmm..... could be:

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Money back guarantee! Should you ever be abducted by aliens and not returned back to earth, you will be entitled to a full refund... "

Link Discuss (Thanks, Dale!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Personally I'm planning on being rescued by Mother Thing . She'll know how to get me home.

I suppose I should download an electronic copy of Cory's novel in case I get abducted before the copy I ordered from Amazon gets here.

5:45:31 PM •  • comment  

An update to the Blogmap Project. Using the same Friendship links data from the Blog Tribe on Ryze, Valdis developed two new maps. The first map shows the Tribe's network within Ryze with Tribe Members colored in magenta and non-members in blue. This differentiation makes clearer the size and linkages of the actual tribe.

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Maps are great at revealing where you are. Combined with the whitepaper's framework, it reveals that while the network has gained some strength through the centralized communication facilitated, it lacks redundancy and wider contribution. Recall that the community is only 2 months old and it is one without a specific organizing principle except the common interest of blogging, and one could say the progress has been fantastic, when measured by membership growth and linkage structures. But that image still disturbs me.

[Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

More interesting data and analysis from Ross and Valdis. Ross expersses a bit of concern at his central positioning but none of this would be happening without his energy and commitment to the experiment. Something to remember in all this talk about networks and self-organizing systems.

There may not be a visible hierarchy but the energy still has to come from somewhere. Someone has to be the spark and put enough energy into the system for it to become self-sustaining and self-organizing. Here it's started with Ross. He's doing it in a way that is engaging the rest of us (witness his recent effort to promote a blog-buddy system at Ryze). 

So, don't just take a look at what Ross is up to, but get involved! Add to the forward motion .

5:21:40 PM •  • comment