I started to use the god process monitoring tool to lighten the load of managing some tiny Ruby on Rails services I’ve written at work. Prior to this rebooting a server or, god forbid, an application error would result in a downtime until I manually checked each service, invariably being several hours post error. God has proved a solution to this problem, aside from a small problem I had involving RubyInline.

I came across an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review. It refutes some aspects of the Long Tail theory, providing some good data to support the author’s view. I found it interesting in view of the unquestioning acceptance I’ve witnessed about the Long Tail theory.

Should You Invest in the Long Tail?

It was a compelling idea: In the digitized world, there’s more money to be made in niche offerings than in blockbusters. The data tell a different story.

In a thought-provoking article in the Atlantic, Nicholas Carr argues the information consumption patterns pervading the Internet are altering our brains. He notes that long-form articles are rare online, and are becoming rarer in print. Citing several pieces of anecdotal evidence, he makes a case that we are becoming accustomed to short-form content and are, in fact, becoming unable to read long pieces without giving up and moving on. One person quoted says he finds it difficult to get beyond three or four paragraphs, another that they find it impossible to read books any more.

I love flowers in the sunshine; the last week or so has seen precious little sun, so photos have had to do.

Update: Rose tells me the yellow flower is also a rose.

I finally completed uploading my favourites from the photos I took in Seattle. Expect more cats, art, flowers and an otter. There’s even a couple depicting yours truly hidden amongst them.

Click either of the photos for the full set.