The mo'Times

Saturday, 27 December 2003

Welcome 2004:

happy new year --

an average year is 365.2425 mean solar days long: staying with the twin themes of showcasing different traditions and explaining a bit of the history and science, I have collected some New Year's Eve links.

The fact that many nations celebrate New Year's Eve on the 31st day of the 12th month is due to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar:

The wikipedia entry on The Gregorian calendar.
About the Julian and Gregorian calendars and a FAQ about calendars.

Did you know that in Spain they eat 12 grapes at midnight? Or that in Sri Lanka they celebrate the New Year on 13 or 14 April?

posted by: howard at 20:03 | link | comments (113) |

Statistically speaking:

while we're on the subject --

home page visitors: for the curious among you, here is the list of where the visitors to mo'time's home page come from:

Country of origin
1.	United States	46.8 %
2.	United Kingdom	6.8 %
3.	Italy	6.7 %
4.	Spain	5.4 %
5.	Canada	3.9 %
6.	Singapore	2.6 %
7.	Philippines	2.5 %
8.	Portugal	2.1 %
9.	Brazil	1.8 %
10.	Hong Kong S.A.R.	1.7 %
11.	Taiwan	1.4 %
12.	China	1.4 %
13.	Australia	1.3 %
14.	Germany	1.2 %
15.	India	1.0 %
16.	Netherlands, The	1.0 %
17.	Belgium	0.7 %
18.	Finland	0.6 %
19.	Poland	0.6 %
20.	Sweden	0.6 %
21.	Japan	0.6 %
22.	France	0.5 %
23.	Mexico	0.5 %
24.	Austria	0.4 %
25.	Iran	0.4 %
	Unknown	3.0 %
	The rest	4.5 %
	Total	100.0 %

posted by: howard at 18:51 | link | comments (722) |

Wednesday, 24 December 2003

We're 7 continents strong, baby!

globally blogacious --

	Antarctica climbs aboard: In just 3.5 months since we officially launched mo’time, we're sitting on all 7 continents, thanks to the arrival of icedish. I find this rather gratifying since one of the more intriguing aspects of the growing mo’time community is its international nature. I have this naive idea that if people around the world get to know each other they may be less willing to cause each other harm. Back to matters at hand, since his arrival is something of a milestone, I thought we'd take a closer look:
	frozendishes? Today's celebrity blogger is a dishwasher in a scientific research station! Living near the South Pole does funny things to your head. He has made an animated film about a jar of honey falling in love with the hot sauce. He wrote to me, saying, "I'm planning on running a contest to see who can guess how long my hair will grow over the year I'm here. The prize will be a cool South Pole hat. I shaved my head for Halloween. I was Charlie Brown and am not cutting it again. Pretty exciting huh? Down here watching your hair grow counts as entertainment." I think he'll fit right in here. : )

posted by: howard at 02:24 | link | comments (394) |

Sunday, 21 December 2003

The solstice is upon us:

seasonal change --

on the 22nd day of December, 2003: At 07:04 GMT, the Sun will be directly above the Tropic of Capricorn. Depending on whether you are in the southern or northern hemisphere, you will call this the summer or winter solstice, a day widely recognized as the first day of the new season. In many cultures there are holidays and rituals associated with this day. The solstice (from the Latin solstitium, standing still sun) is the day of the Earth's maximum tilt either to or away from the sun, depending on the hemisphere.

I have collected some links for those of you who'd like to learn more:

The wikipedia entry on solstice, essentially a page of other links to follow.
Interesting overview of comparitive cultural traditions and some science links. I liked this one about the analemma.
A quicktime movie showing the earth's tilt throughout the year.
A winter soltisce site explaining the origins of seasonal celebrations.
An astronomical calendar.

posted by: howard at 13:09 | link | comments (42) |

Tuesday, 09 December 2003

Possible downtime & slow response

database troubleshooting -- we're working on it... Thanks for your patience.

posted by: howard at 19:36 | link | comments (40) |

Under the radar:

::newly updated list --

Settings: Sometimes you may wish to add a post or two to your blog and NOT appear on the newly updated list. There may even be a few of you who NEVER want to appear that list, but seeing as how we all love to get comments, I'll bet that there aren't that many.

In those cases, just visit the Advanced Settings page and, at the bottom of the page, check the box Don't show posts in the newly updated blogs The manual covers it.

posted by: howard at 16:47 | link | comments (256) |

More feature enhancements:

some home improvements --

	Subscriptions: Now you can choose whether to subscribe to blog posts, just comments or both. Click here to manage your preferences. read digest: Do you wonder: "What happened since the last time I was online?" Just read the digest of all activity on your subscriptions! To read your digest now (if you're logged in), find the read digest link in the my account menu on the right, under my services or click here. [ Read more... ] alerts: Did you know that you can receive real-time alerts when a blog on your subscription link is updated (or somebody comments on yours?) [ Read about alerts... ]
	Deleting group blog participation: If you have been invited to write on a group blog, but would like to be uninvited for whatever reason, you can now delete this blog from your edit group blog menu. Make sure that you are logged in and then click the delete a blog link in the my services section of the my account menu to the right. Underneath the delete a blog form, you will now see the Cancel your invitation to this group blog form. Choose the blog you'd like to delete from the drop down menu and click to confirm.

posted by: howard at 14:09 | link | comments (67) |

Monday, 08 December 2003

Just a couple of things...

two system updates --

Settings: We are always trying to make it easier and faster for new users to log on get blogging, since we abhor long and tedious registration procedures, don't you? Therefore, we removed some of the advanced settings from the first-blog creation page, so that new users can just name their blogs, choose their URL's, time zones and templates and start blogging faster and with less confusion.

As a result we split the Settings page into Basic (which is what the new users see) and Advanced (which are now linked from the Basic Settings page). The manual has been updated to reflect the changes, but it will be very obvious what to do when you visit the Settings page.

Time zone: Perhaps some of you had noticed that the time stamp of the comments did not consistently correspond to the time zone of the blog. Sometimes they reflected our central server's time stamp, GMT+1. Now, when your visitors comment on your blog, they do so in your time zone.