Leonard Richardson's Blog, page 14

Recently I gave a talk called "The Enterprise Media Distr...

Recently I gave a talk called "The Enterprise Media Distribution Platform At The End Of This Book". It summarizes my first eighteen months on the Library Simplified project at NYPL Labs. The goal of Library Simplified is to make it as easy to check ebooks out from a public library as it is to buy them from Amazon.

We've just secured a multi-year grant to expand the project, and we are hiring up from two developers to eight. We are quadrupling the size of our development team.

This is a really satisfying job for me because I'm making life substantially better for people who aren't already well off. If you like that prospect, if you like what I say in the "Enterprise Media Distribution" talk, and you want to work on this project, you should apply for one of these position by sending your resume to info@librarysimplified.com.

I'm going to link to the job listings in a minute, but first I want to make it real clear that we put up these listings largely to have entry points into the HR system. As the team lead I'm not concerned with counting how many terms on your resume match terms used in the job listing. We need two Android developers and four people to write server-side code and HTML and Javascript. I don't think we need a team made up entirely of Senior Developers. Other skills might be more important.

For instance, we need someone with devops experience. We'll be dealing with e-commerce, cryptography, and machine learning—all things I know little about. We don't care if you have a CS degree, but if you have a Library Science degree or have worked in the publishing industry, that would be useful. We have big collections in Spanish, Chinese and Russian, but nobody on our team reads those languages. Stuff like that.

With that in mind, here are the job listings:

Senior Mobile Developer (Android)
Senior Full Stack Applications Developer
Senior Web Applications Developer.

As you can see if you click around, getting into the HR system to formally "apply" for these jobs requires filling out a really long form. Instead of doing that, send your resume to info@librarysimplified.com and we'll only ask you to fill out the form if we want to bring you in for an interview.

All these positions are in New York City, in the big building on 42nd Street with the lions. This is a project funded by grants, and the salaries we offer are not competitive with Facebook or Goldman Sachs, but they are competitive with the industry overall and certainly competitive with other nonprofits. The benefits are good. This is not a job that ruins your life. It's 35 hours a week and you get four weeks of vacation per year. I work from home about one day a week. Send me email or leave a comment if you have any questions about benefits.

To Stop Disturbance

I was reading to Sumana the most interesting bits from Washington Goes To War, a book by David Brinkley about the changes to Washington D.C. over the course of World War II. It's full of interesting historical tidbits, including:



The attempt to notify essential personnel of the attack on Pearl Harbor, without notifying the other 27,000 people in the same football stadium watching the Washington Redskins game.


An entirely legal scheme by which a Washington columnist and the Spanish ambassador arranged payoffs in exchange for "the columnist [writing] about previously unknown virtues he saw in Francisco Franco."

The controversial origins of having taxes automatically deducted from your paycheck.

But the thing Sumana wanted me to record verbatim was the policy that Washington D.C.'s Casino Royal put into place for dealing with the inevitable fistfights between soldiers and sailors. "Night after night," these inter-service resentments boiled over, and so the Casino Royal wrote down these rules and posted them "on a wall backstage under the heading TO STOP DISTURBANCE."


Lower the house lights
Turn the spotlight on a large American flag hanging from the ceiling
Start up an electric fan aimed at the flag, causing it to flutter
Have the band instantly stop playing dance music and strike up "The Star-Spangled Banner".
Call in the military police and the navy's shore patrol

It always worked. The soldiers and sailors stopped swinging at each other, faced the flag and stood at attention while the band played. There was no way a uniformed military man in wartime could refuse to do this, however angry he was. Before the anthem was finished, the military police and the shore patrol were walking up the steps from Fourteenth Street.

The one that really gets me is #3. I can see how this behavior would be drilled into you as a reflex action, but #3 makes it feel like they're trying to inspire you, remind you what you're fightin' for. And then the MPs show up.

Top 100 Films From Women Directors

Sumana is tired of dude movies, so I went through this list of 100 great movies by female directors and noted the ones that a) I think Sumana would like (no Pet Sematary) and b) I am willing to watch (no Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a film Sumana really likes but just thinking about it makes me fall asleep. I'm asleep right now!) There were about twenty-five such movies.

The above-linked list is very quirky, and although the idiosyncracies generally work in the reader's favor (gotta figure out a way to see Jodie Mack's Dusty Stacks of Mom (2013)), it left rhetorical space for men to come into the comments section and say HOW could you OVERLOOK this GROUNDBREAKING film, [potentially useful recommendation], for you see, I know a LOT about FILM. Which I must admit would have happened anyway.

I don't know a lot about film, but I do know how to run SQL queries against IMDB data, so I thought I would make an intersubjective list of the top 100 films directed by women, judged by their IMDB ratings. In general I copied the implicit rules of the hand-picked list. Only feature-length films are here. No documentaries, no concert footage. (There is one comedy special in here, but whatever.)

As usual, films with fewer than 150 votes on IMDB were not considered. Also as usual, there are no links because the IMDB dataset is far too ancient for such things. I did some spot checks and kicked a couple movies off the list for obvious astroturfing. I don't believe one of the movies on this list is real, but I left it on the list because it's so weird.

Here's the list:

TitleDirectorIMDBGenres
1. The Matrix (1999)Wachowski, Lana8.7Action, Sci-Fi
2. Cidade de Deus (2002)Lund, K��tia8.7Drama, Crime
3. Voskhozhdenie (1977)Shepitko, Larisa8.3Drama, War
4. Drushyam (2014)Sripriya8.3Drama, Thriller, Family
5. Moe no suzaku (1997)Kawase, Naomi8.2Drama
6. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)Akhtar, Zoya8.1Drama, Romance, Comedy, Adventure, Family
7. Salaam Bombay! (1988)Nair, Mira8.1Drama, Crime
8. Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002)Sen, Aparna8.0Drama
9. Le roman de Renard (1930)Starewicz, Irene8.0Comedy, Fantasy, Animation, Family
10. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)Tandan, Loveleen8.0Drama, Romance
11. Persepolis (2007)Satrapi, Marjane8.0Drama, Animation, War, Biography
12. Chelovek s bulvara Kaputsinov (1987)Surikova, Alla8.0Romance, Comedy, Musical, Western
13. Zero Motivation (2014)Lavie, Talya7.9Drama, Comedy
14. Chou tin dik tong wah (1987)Cheung, Mabel7.9Drama, Romance
15. Out 1, noli me tangere (1971)Schiffman, Suzanne7.9Drama
16. Tau ban no hoi (1982)Hui, Ann7.9Drama
17. Gett (2014)Elkabetz, Ronit7.9Drama
18. Sharas��ju (2003)Kawase, Naomi7.9Drama
19. Gangoobai (2013)Krishnaswamy, Priya7.9Drama, Family
20. Patrice O'Neal: Elephant in the Room (2011)McCarthy-Miller, Beth7.9Comedy
21. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)Akerman, Chantal7.9Drama
22. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)Faris, Valerie7.9Drama, Comedy, Adventure
23. English Vinglish (2012)Shinde, Gauri7.9Drama, Comedy, Family
24. Shrek (2001)Jenson, Vicky7.9Comedy, Fantasy, Animation, Adventure, Family
25. La distancia m��s larga (2013)Pinto, Claudia7.9Drama
26. Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975)Wertm��ller, Lina7.9Drama, Comedy, War
27. D��n��s (1972)Soray, T��rkan7.8Drama, Romance
28. Strangers in Good Company (1990)Scott, Cynthia7.8Drama
29. Awakenings (1990)Marshall, Penny7.8Drama, Biography
30. Dolgie provody (1971)Muratova, Kira7.8Drama
31. Ne dao Bog veceg zla (2002)Tribuson, Snjezana7.8Romance
32. Tong nien wang shi (1985)Yang, Li-Yin7.8Drama, Biography
33. Dedictv�� aneb Kurvahosigutntag (1993)Chytilov��, Vera7.8Comedy
34. Cheshmane John Malkovich 1: Viggo Mortensen (2004)Solati, Sara7.8Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery
35. Earth (1998)Mehta, Deepa7.8Drama, Romance, War
36. Nu ren si shi (1995)Hui, Ann7.8Drama, Comedy
37. Lost in Translation (2003)Coppola, Sofia7.8Drama
38. Efter brylluppet (2006)Bier, Susanne7.8Drama
39. Water (2005)Mehta, Deepa7.8Drama, Romance
40. Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed (1926)Reiniger, Lotte7.8Romance, Fantasy, Animation, Adventure
41. Rocks in My Pockets (2014)Baumane, Signe7.7Comedy, Drama, Animation
42. Kirschbl��ten - Hanami (2008)D��rrie, Doris7.7Drama, Romance
43. Selma (2014)DuVernay, Ava7.7Drama, Biography, History
44. Nirgendwo in Afrika (2001)Link, Caroline7.7Drama, Biography
45. H��vnen (2010)Bier, Susanne7.7Drama
46. S tebou me bav�� svet (1983)Poledn��kov��, Marie7.7Comedy, Family
47. Nastroyshchik (2004)Muratova, Kira7.7Drama, Comedy, Crime
48. Die H��hle des gelben Hundes (2005)Davaa, Byambasuren7.7Drama
49. Sita Sings the Blues (2008)Paley, Nina7.7Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, Animation, Musical
50. Sans toit ni loi (1985)Varda, Agn��s7.7Drama
51. Olivier, Olivier (1992)Holland, Agnieszka7.7Drama
52. Little Fugitive (1953)Orkin, Ruth7.7Drama, Family
53. Film d'amore e d'anarchia, ovvero 'stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza...' (1973)Wertm��ller, Lina7.7Drama, Romance, Comedy
54. Le bonheur (1965)Varda, Agn��s7.7Drama
55. Krylya (1966)Shepitko, Larisa7.7Drama
56. Jibeuro Ganeun Gil (2013)Pang, Eun-jin7.7Drama
57. Whale Rider (2002)Caro, Niki7.7Drama, Family
58. Frozen (2013)Lee, Jennifer7.7Family, Fantasy, Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Musical
59. Europa Europa (1990)Holland, Agnieszka7.7Drama, War, History
60. Elsker dig for evigt (2002)Bier, Susanne7.7Drama, Romance
61. Die Fremde (2010)Aladag, Feo7.6Drama
62. Away from Her (2006)Polley, Sarah7.6Drama
63. Saving Face (2004)Wu, Alice7.6Drama, Romance, Comedy
64. Tou ze (2011)Hui, Ann7.6Drama
65. En chance til (2014)Bier, Susanne7.6Drama, Thriller
66. Wadjda (2012)Al-Mansour, Haifaa7.6Drama, Comedy
67. My Life Without Me (2003)Coixet, Isabel7.6Drama, Romance
68. Neposlusni (2014)Djukic, Mina7.6Drama
69. 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981)Sen, Aparna7.6Drama, Romance
70. Depuis qu'Otar est parti... (2003)Bertuccelli, Julie7.6Drama
71. The Hurt Locker (2008)Bigelow, Kathryn7.6Drama, War, Thriller
72. American Psycho (2000)Harron, Mary7.6Drama, Crime
73. The Secret Life of Words (2005)Coixet, Isabel7.6Drama, Romance
74. Br��dre (2004)Bier, Susanne7.6Drama, War
75. Yeo-haeng-ja (2009)Lecomte, Ounie7.6Drama
76. Ting shuo (2009)Cheng, Fen-fen7.6Drama, Romance
77. I Am Sam (2001)Nelson, Jessie7.6Drama
78. The Namesake (2006)Nair, Mira7.6Drama
79. Boys Don't Cry (1999)Peirce, Kimberly7.6Drama, Biography
80. B��y��k adam k������k ask (2001)Ipek��i, Handan7.6Drama
81. Hanezu no tsuki (2011)Kawase, Naomi7.6Drama
82. Pora umierac (2007)Kedzierzawska, Dorota7.6Drama
83. La faute �� Fidel! (2006)Gavras, Julie7.6Drama, History
84. Kazoku no kuni (2012)Yang, Yong-hi7.5Drama
85. Zir-e poost-e shahr (2001)Bani-Etemad, Rakhshan7.5Drama
86. Proof (1991)Moorhouse, Jocelyn7.5Drama
87. Ramchand Pakistani (2008)Jabbar, Mehreen7.5Drama
88. Te doy mis ojos (2003)Bolla��n, Ic��ar7.5Drama, Romance
89. Nanayomachi (2008)Kawase, Naomi7.5Drama
90. La misma luna (2007)Riggen, Patricia7.5Drama
91. Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto (1974)Wertm��ller, Lina7.5Drama, Comedy, Adventure
92. Samt el qusur (1994)Tlatli, Moufida7.5Drama
93. Et maintenant on va o��? (2011)Labaki, Nadine7.5Drama, Comedy
94. The Japanese Wife (2010)Sen, Aparna7.5Drama, Romance
95. An Angel at My Table (1990)Campion, Jane7.5Drama, Biography
96. Antonia (1995)Gorris, Marleen7.5Drama, Comedy
97. Hooligans (2005)Alexander, Lexi7.5Drama, Sport, Crime
98. Trol��sa (2000)Ullmann, Liv7.5Drama, Romance
99. A New Leaf (1971)May, Elaine7.5Romance, Comedy
100. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)Ramsay, Lynne7.5Drama, Thriller
101. Ke tu qiu hen (1990)Hui, Ann7.5Drama
102. Mita Tova (2014)Granit, Tal7.5Drama
103. Ratcatcher (1999)Ramsay, Lynne7.5Drama
104. ...ing (2003)Lee, Eon-hie7.5Romance
105. Tin shui wai dik yat yu ye (2008)Hui, Ann7.5Drama
106. American Splendor (2003)Berman, Shari Springer7.5Drama, Comedy, Biography
107. Tian yu (1998)Chen, Joan7.5Drama
108. Cloud Atlas (2012)Wachowski, Lana7.5Drama, Sci-Fi
109. Jestem (2005)Kedzierzawska, Dorota7.5Drama
110. Korotkie vstrechi (1968)Muratova, Kira7.5Drama, Romance
111. Dogfight (1991)Savoca, Nancy7.5Drama, Romance, War
112. Across the Universe (2007)Taymor, Julie7.5Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Musical
113. Sedmikr��sky (1966)Chytilov��, Vera7.5Drama, Comedy

There are 113 movies in this list because IMDB ratings only have 0.1 star precision. If you're a woman and you direct a movie that gets a 7.5, congrats, you're tied for 84th place.

Susanne Bier and Ann Hui each have five films on the list. Naomi Kawase has four. Some of the directors share the credit with a man, notably Lana Wachowski and Suzanne Schiffman. Barring any titles I don't recognize because they're not in English, the only films on this list I've seen are Sita Sings the Blues, Whale Rider, Frozen and A New Leaf. My personal favorites, among movies I know were directed by women, are A New Leaf and Wayne's World.

Finally, here's the base query I used to get the info I needed out of the database. I used the same database I built for Ghostbusters Past.

select distinct(title.id), title.title, title.production_year, rating.info, votes.info, movie_info.info, kind_id, name.name, name.gender from title join cast_info on title.id=cast_info.movie_id join name on cast_info.person_id=name.id join movie_info_idx as rating on rating.movie_id=title.id join movie_info_idx as votes on votes.movie_id=title.id join movie_info on movie_info.movie_id=title.id where cast_info.role_id=8 and kind_id=1 and movie_info.info_type_id=3 and rating.info_type_id=101 and votes.info_type_id=100 and name.gender='f';

Update: The pedantry continues with Darius Kazemi telling me that Loveleen Tandan was the casting director on Slumdog Millionare, not the director who yelled "cut!" and "action!" and "it's a wrap!". If IMDB says role_id=8, that's good enough for me, but YMMV.

Update #2: danima asked about English-language films. I don't think IMDB tracks the primary language of a film, just whether a language is used in the film. So I can filter on "English", but I'll still pick up films that are primarily in French or Hindi, so long as there is some English dialogue.

Our story begins right after Across the Universe, where the previous list leaves off. Basically if your film is in English you only need to get a 7.4 or 7.3 (still several standard deviations above the median) to get in the top 100. I have not vetted this list for astroturf:

57. Pismo do Amerika (2001)Triffonova, Iglika7.4Drama
58. Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)Huston, Anjelica7.4Drama
59. Frida (2002)Taymor, Julie7.4Drama, Romance, Biography
60. Chance (2002)Benson, Amber7.4Drama, Comedy
61. Kam��leon (2008)Goda, Krisztina7.4Drama, Comedy, Thriller
62. Paris, je t'aime (2006)Chadha, Gurinder7.4Drama, Romance, Comedy
63. Le fils de l'autre (2012)L��vy, Lorraine7.4Drama
64. Lifted (2010)Alexander, Lexi7.4Drama
65. Belle (2013)Asante, Amma7.4Drama
66. Desert Flower (2009)Hormann, Sherry7.4Drama, Biography
67. Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)July, Miranda7.4Drama, Comedy
68. On Dangerous Ground (1951)Lupino, Ida7.4Drama, Romance, Thriller, Film-Noir, Crime
69. Paris, je t'aime (2006)Coixet, Isabel7.4Drama, Romance, Comedy
70. Bound (1996)Wachowski, Lana7.4Drama, Thriller, Crime
71. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)Bigelow, Kathryn7.4Drama, Thriller, History
72. Tambi��n la lluvia (2010)Bolla��n, Ic��ar7.4Drama, History
73. Monsoon Wedding (2001)Nair, Mira7.4Drama, Romance, Comedy
74. Mim�� metallurgico ferito nell'onore (1972)Wertm��ller, Lina7.4Comedy
75. Hollow Reed (1996)Pope, Angela7.4Drama
76. The Trouble with Angels (1966)Lupino, Ida7.4Comedy
77. The Selfish Giant (2013)Barnard, Clio7.4Drama
78. Mikey and Nicky (1976)May, Elaine7.4Drama
79. Jos�� Rizal (1998)Diaz-Abaya, Marilou7.3Drama, War, Biography, History
80. Titus (1999)Taymor, Julie7.3Drama, Thriller, History
81. Sepet (2004)Ahmad, Yasmin7.3Drama, Romance, Comedy
82. Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011)Yuh, Jennifer7.3Family, Drama, Animation, Adventure, Action, Comedy
83. Put oko sveta (1964)Jovanovic, Soja7.3Comedy, Adventure, Western
84. Fish Tank (2009)Arnold, Andrea7.3Drama
85. Infinitely Polar Bear (2014)Forbes, Maya7.3Drama, Comedy
86. An Education (2009)Scherfig, Lone7.3Drama
87. The Black Balloon (2008)Down, Elissa7.3Drama, Romance
88. North Country (2005)Caro, Niki7.3Drama
89. Thousand Pieces of Gold (1991)Kelly, Nancy7.3Romance, Western
90. Funny Valentines (1999)Dash, Julie7.3Drama
91. The Secret Life of Bees (2008)Prince-Bythewood, Gina7.3Drama
92. Stander (2003)Hughes, Bronwen7.3Action, Drama, Biography, Crime
93. Shao nu xiao yu (1995)Chang, Sylvia7.3Drama
94. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)Anderson, Jane7.3Drama, Biography
95. Craig's Wife (1936)Arzner, Dorothy7.3Drama
96. Firaaq (2008)Das, Nandita7.3Drama, History
97. Blood and Sand (1922)Arzner, Dorothy7.3Drama, Romance, Sport
98. My Brilliant Career (1979)Armstrong, Gillian7.3Drama, Romance, Biography
99. Eve's Bayou (1997)Lemmons, Kasi7.3Drama
100. The Name Is Rogells (Rugg-ells) (2011)Warner, Rachel7.3Romance, Adventure
101. The Voices (2014)Satrapi, Marjane7.3Comedy, Thriller, Crime
102. The Woodsman (2004)Kassell, Nicole7.3Drama
103. Talaash (2012)Kagti, Reema7.3Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime
104. My First Mister (2001)Lahti, Christine7.3Drama, Romance, Comedy
105. Big (1988)Marshall, Penny7.3Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Comedy
106. Monster (2003)Jenkins, Patty7.3Drama, Biography, Crime
107. The Secret Garden (1993)Holland, Agnieszka7.3Drama, Fantasy, Family
108. Little Women (1994)Armstrong, Gillian7.3Drama, Romance
109. Fire (1996)Mehta, Deepa7.3Drama, Romance
110. The Connection (1962)Clarke, Shirley7.3Drama

Beautiful Soup 4.4.0 beta

I've found an agent for Situation Normal and the book is out to publishers and I don't have to think about it for a while. As seems to be my tradition after finishing a big project, I went through the accumulated Beautiful Soup backlog and closed it out. I've put out
a beta release which I'd like you to try out and report any problems.

I've fixed 17 bugs, added some minor new features, and changed the implementations of __copy__ and __repr__ to work more like you'd expect from Python objects. But in my mind the major new change is this: I've added a warning that displays when you create a BeautifulSoup object without explicitly specifying a parser:

UserWarning: No parser was explicitly specified, so I'm using the
best available HTML parser for this system ("lxml"). This usually
isn't a problem, but if you run this code on another system, or in a
different virtual environment, it may use a different parser and
behave differently.

To get rid of this warning, change this:

BeautifulSoup([your markup])

to this:

BeautifulSoup([your markup], "lxml")

It's a little annoying to get this message, but it's also annoying to have your code silently behave differently because you copied it to a machine that didn't have lxml installed, and it's also annoying when I have to check pretty much every reported bug to see whether this is the problem. Whenever I think I can eliminate a class of support question with a warning, I put in the warning. It saves everybody time.

The other possibility: now that Python's built-in HTMLParser is decent, I could make it so that it's always the default unless you specify another parser. This would cause a big one-time wrench, as even machines which have lxml installed would start using HTMLParser, but once it shook out the problem would be solved. I might still do that, but I think I'll give everyone about a year to get rid of this annoying warning.

Anyway, try out the beta. Unless there's a big problem I'll be releasing 4.4.0 on Friday.

Reviews of Old Science Fiction Magazines: Analog 1985/07

Here it is, the final entry in this series, started seven years ago when I picked up a bunch of old SF magazines at a swap-fest. I've acquired a lot of magazines since then, and those are getting 'old', so it could continue, but this is the last of the original set. And good riddance, because this magazine smells like laundry detergent for some reason.

So what do we got? The cover story (one assumes) is the first part of Timothy Zahn's "Spinneret", which would later be published as a novel. It was good but I kinda see where it's going and don't feel a strong need to read the novel.

Eric G. Iverson's "Noninterference" is a pleasant story whose sole purpose is to dis the Prime Directive. The accompanying artwork seems more appropriate to a story about the mixing of the ultimate prog-rock album.

Charles L. Harness's "George Washington Slept Here" is the cream of this issue: a creative, funny and entertaining story that combines several Analog favorites (aliens, historical figures, and fussy middle-aged hobbies) that you rarely see together. Bonus: no time travel or major alt-history, just a character with a really long lifespan. I really liked the concept of the main character, a lawyer who loses every case he takes, but in a way that's more beneficial to his client than if he'd won. That concept's strong enough to support a series, but it looks like this is the only one.

This month's vague story blurbs:


There are always ethical considerations in dealing with either indivuals or cultures—and the two can't always be kept neatly separated.
Some fictional clichés eventually achieve a sort of reality—but seldom exactly as their creators imagined.
Can a good thing be carried too far?

Now to nonfiction. David Brin's essay "Just How Dangerous Is The Galaxy?" classifies every known potential solution to the Fermi Paradox and puts them in a big table by which term of the Drake Equation they affect. He also introduces his own "Water World" solution, which he deigns to classify in a separate section called "Optimism". This solution posits that "Earth is unusually dry for a water world," and that intelligent life evolves all the time, and thrives for long periods, but very rarely builds spaceships. I'm just riffing on the idea here, and I don't buy the idea that "hands and fire" are prerequisites to advanced technology, but you could imagine a dolphin-type civilization treating a planet's surface and atmosphere the way we treat low-earth orbit.

Tom Easton's book review column includes a review of Ender's Game, which wanders into a long philosophical discussion that I won't reproduce here because it's pretty similar to stuff you can find on the Internet. I was disappointed to read that "Russel M. Griffin's The Timeservers is a pale incarnation of the diplomatic satire that made Laumer's Retief so popular." It was a Phillip K. Dick Award finalist, though, so maybe it's just on a different wavelength from Laumer.

In letters, paleontologist Jack Cohen returns fire at Tom Easton, who in an earlier book review column disputed the evolutionary biology in Harry Harrison's Cohen-collaboration West of Eden. And reader Michael Owens has it out with Ben Bova about the latter's support of the Star Wars program. Summary of Owens: "far from leading to a defense-oriented world, Star Wars leads to another offense-oriented arms race." Bova responds that he wrote a book (Assured Survival) that deals with all this stuff, and then mentions this comforting tidbit:

[T]he new defensive technologies do not apply only to satellites and ballistic missiles. They are already being developed into "smart weapons" that will make the tanks, artillery, planes, and ships of conventional land and sea warfare little more than expensive and very vulnerable targets. "Star Wars" technologies (plural!) can make all forms of aggressive warfare so difficult that an era of worldwide peace is in view—if the nations of the world want peace.

Which leads nicely into the thing I've saved for last because I've got a lot to say about it, in direct violation of my usual "if you can't say anything nice" rule. Previously on Analog, columnist G. Harry Stine asked readers to send in their answers to the following question, which I will quote in full:

What, in your opinion, is the most important problem that technologists should tackle in the next twenty years, and why do you believe this?

In this issue Stine reports the results, and I was looking forward to doing a kind of The Future: A Retrospective thing on them.

The first thing Stine does is disqualify 120 of the 127 replies he got. That may seem extreme, but that's approximately what I'd do if I was running a magazine and accepting fiction submissions. I was kind of laughing along as he disqualified entries for exceeding the word limit or otherwise ignoring the rules, but then I got to this:

49.61% of the replies [63 of 127]... discussed problems that were either (a) not technological problems, but social and political instead; (b) already solved or well along the road to solution; (c) trivial and parochial in their scope; (d) based on incorrect, incomplete, or outmoded data; and/or (e) the result of someone else's telling the respondent that the problem was a problem because the expert said so, whereupon the respondent stated it on faith without checking.

And at this point I gotta call bullshit. You didn't say "most important technological problem", you said "most important problem technologists should tackle." Social and political problems have technical aspects, and vice versa. The impact of a technological development is judged by its effect on society. This is the basis of the science fiction genre! You could replace every vague Analog story blurb with "Social and political problems tend to have technical aspects, and vice versa...", and it would always fit the story!

Half of Analog's readership can follow directions but their opinions are wrong. Let's take a look at the top five disqualified "problems" (all direct quotes, scare quotes in original):


Control of nuclear weapons
the "population explosion"
the "energy shortage"
the "raw materials shortage"
"pollution" in various and sundry forms

I sure am glad technologists didn't waste any more time on these non-problems after 1985! According to Stine, America's ballistic missile defense system is well on its way to solving #1 (if the nations of the world want peace, of course). #2 isn't a problem anymore because the rate of population growth has slowed. #3 and #4 were never real problems. ("The only reason we had an 'energy shortage' was to provide an excuse for politicians and bureaucrats to gain control of natural resources, and thereby gain control over people.") As for #5, who's to say what counts as "pollution"? Like most words, it's a "semantically-loaded term". "Pollution in its many forms may be a localized problem in some areas, but it is not a worldwide problem."

So what are the seven entries that made the cut? I'm glad you asked, previous sentence:


"Making products maintenance-free, i.e. designed for a 100-year life with a 0.0001 probability of maintenance." DISQUALIFIED. Maybe the move from 75 years to 100 would be a technical improvement, but the problem as it exists today is a problem with the way products are sold, and technical improvements won't change that.

"[C]ontrol of the weather" to boost crop yields and prevent famine. SEMI-DISQUALIFIED. Modern famines are political problems, not technical problems. Control of the weather would indeed be great, not for this reason, but because it would let us mitigate the damage caused by our worldwide pollution problem.

"The construction and maintenance of closed ecological systems". Sure, OK.

Here's the shortest quote I could get that explains this one:

Education depends on communication. John points out that communication involves moving information from place to place... which really isn't much of a problem, but... managing the information is. It's possible to download lots of information into a student's mind. But if the student doesn't know how to determine what information is meaningful and relevant... everything stored in the student's memory is useless.

Now that's more like it! Not only is this a real problem, it's one that we made significant progress on between 1985 and 2005!

"The development of the direct link between the human mind and the computer to produce a true intelligence amplifier." Another good one. We got both parts of this (mind-computer link and intelligence amplifier), but in practice they don't have anything to do with each other.

"[T]he construction by machines of very small machines." This also happened but proved not to be a huge deal, and even Stine is kinda skeptical ("he doesn't specify exactly what technological problems can be solved by developing sub-microscopic technology"). I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the real problem is the reader doesn't specify exactly what social or political problems can be solved with this technology.

And finally,

Del Cain of Augusta, ME presented a technological problem that is as much philosophical as technological... He wants technologists to develop structures and artifacts that tend to support healthy behavior in human beings—i.e. to help people live and rear children so they can develop to their full potential without trauma but not without struggle, difficulty, or drama. To do this, he believes that we should solve the technological problem of determining what are the optimum sizes and structures of healthy communities. In short, he feels that the big problem is developing technology with a life-affirming philosophy behind it.

I don't understand how Del Cain managed to smuggle the concept of Scandanavian social democracy past G. Harry Stine, but good job. No, wait, I figured it out: I'm projecting, and so was he.

Well, there we go, that's our look at old SF magazines of the 80s. To commemorate the end of the series, I've scanned all the old ads in this magazine, not just the ones I thought were interesting or funny. But here are the ones I thought were interesting or funny:


If you don't like the Constellation Games cover art you can paste this book cover over it.

"I'm ashamed that I like Anne McCafferey books."

One for the computer/magic crossover files.

"[A] fast playing strategic warfare game that divides players into teams, pitting them against each other in an orgy of xenophobic fury." It's play by mail, so "fast playing" is very much a relative term.

I mentioned this game in a 2009 edition but it's just so random. Unfortunately crummy.com is still the only website ever to mention Space Colony Rescue®. It looks like we'll never know if the abandoned fuel depots were as exciting as promised.

Avalon Hill's attempt at a D&D-killer. Fortunately there is information online about this game.

The classifieds. Would I dare to call my gay personals service "Bee-Jay Partnerships"? "Oh, we're not serious, it's just a Bee-Jay Partnership."

I'll leave you with this question: what, in your opinion, is the most important problem that technologists should have tackled from 1985 to 2005, and why do you believe this?

The Future Is Prologue

I'm experimenting with writing a prologue for Situation Normal, to reduce the thrown-into-the-deep-end feeling typical of my fiction. I say 'experimenting with' rather than 'just doing it' because I wrote something and it wasn't a prologue. I'd just turned back the clock to before the book started and written a regular scene.

I don't like prologues for the very reason I'm trying to write one: they're introductory infodumps. I usually skim them, unless they look like the Law and Order style prologues where the POV character dies at the end of the scene. But this book has so many POV characters already, I don't think I should go that route.

I talked it over with Sumana and she gave me the idea of pacing the prologue as though it were the first scene of a short story. That's something I've done before, so I know I can do it again, and it doesn't mean big infodumps, just more internal monologue.

I'd like your suggestions of genre fiction books with effective prologues. Prologues that made you say "yes, I want to read a whole book about this stuff." I can't think of many examples but I admit I'm blinded by prejudice.

Sumana spent a lot of time out of town this month, so I t...

Sumana spent a lot of time out of town this month, so I took to opportunity to clear out a bunch of items on my "movies I want to see but Sumana doesn't" list. But there's also plenty of movies we saw together. How can you tell the difference?... I think you'll be able to tell.


Chappie (2015): Dev Patel lives up to his name in this story of a really poorly run technology company. Tetravaal produces two competing products, each run solely by the lead developer, and the lead developers don't even have offices. Each has a cube right next to the other lead developer, for maximum bad blood. The security policy is terrible, and employee safety is not a priority. I guess this is how the film industry works. I mean, you write what you know, right?

The robot is cute. I was expecting some violence but not Robocop level violence, which maybe made it inappropriate for a date night. I was expecting to see more than two South African actors in this movie from a South African director set in Johannesburg. Seems a little weird?

Speaking of Robocop, there are a couple obvious movies you could compare this to, but I'd like to bring your attention to Robot and Frank (2012), a really wonderful movie we saw shortly before I started Film Roundup. I'm not bringing up Robot and Frank because I think it's better than Chappie (although I do think this), but because it takes a much different approach to the same basic premise. They'd make a great double feature.

Kundo: Age of the Rampant (2014) A.k.a. "Kundo: min-ran-eui si-dae". Not to be confused with Transformers 6: Age of the Rampant. This was a fun movie with many of our favorite martial-arts elements: heists, Robin Hood type gangs, women and Buddhist priests kicking ass, etc. I especially liked the Faceman of this particular A-Team, who turned to a life of crime after acing the civil service exam but getting civil service-blocked due to a lack of family connections.

War of the Arrows (2011): The museum's martial arts curator was really psyched about this one, but although archery is technically a "martial art" I don't think it's one of the more cinematically exciting ones. In terms of dramatic structure, I liked how the brutish loot-and-pillage villains of the first act all got killed and were replaced by a squad of cooler-headed villains.

This film is especially un-recommended for fans of doesthewhaledie.com sister sites doesthedogdie.com and doesthehorsedie.com. In a Korean movie, you can kill four dogs in the first scene and not even be the bad guy!

Oh yeah, also, all of these Korean historical action films have a village getting burned. Even The Pirates, which despite some notable missteps is supposed to be a lighthearted romp. Village gets burned in the middle of the film. It's awful! I have a pretty high tolerance for watching film violence, but it has to be coded kind of cartoonish for me to enjoy it, and burning villages I just can't watch. Why is that scene even in the movie? Most of the time it's just to make us hate the villains. C'mon, it's a silly action movie. I'll stipulate hating the villains.

Ed Wood (1994):
As an afficionado of cheesy movies, the worst we can find (la la la), I didn't expect to learn much from this heavily fictionalized biopic. But it surprised me! This movie makes the really interesting argument that Ed Wood wasn't an abnormally bad director; he was an abnormally good producer. Obstacles that would have stopped other people from putting out a bad movie, didn't stop him. Ed Wood looks like the worst director in the world due to survivor bias. He's actually the worst director whose movies were finished and released. (And let's be honest, Coleman Francis is worse.)

If Ed Wood were as good a director as he was a producer he'd be Roger Corman, the SyFy Original of directors, a guy who consistently delivers mediocre B-movies on time and on budget. But the movie Ed Wood, like last month's Bowfinger, is a celebration of the drive to actually get a movie made, damn the quality. And that's the producer's job. The conversation between Wood and Orson Welles really drives this home. They're talking about producing, not directing.

I don't know what to think about Bill Murray's portrayal of Bunny Breckenridge. It's so over the top campy in a way that should have been on its way out in 1994, but after researching Breckenridge's life a bit I'm willing to believe it's an accurate portrayal.

The House of Hate (1918): Another lesson I learned from MST3K is that it's okay not to watch all of a serial. That's why I felt perfectly fine leaving during intermission when the museum showed The House of Hate, long thought totally lost and newly restored from a Soviet print that cut it down to three hours from its original seven—a story more interesting than anything in The House of Hate itself. It has some decent silent-era action, but I didn't get the feeling I got during Reds, that I was leaving just as things were getting good. It's like watching characters bounce around a Markov chain. There's a lot of silent film I love, but the immaturity of the medium + the narrative constraints of a serial = bleh.

The Godfather, Part 3 (1990) The triple threat of movies Sumana doesn't want to see: a really long movie about man-pain that she's already seen. I came in expecting it to be a disaster, and I don't think it needed to be so long, but I liked it. It's a disaster compared to the original Godfather, but I don't like Part 2 as much as everyone else, and this was just one step below that—still pretty good! It was great to finally see some bits of continuity with the New York I know, like the zeppoli stands at the Italian festival. I also loved the machinations in the Vatican.

I suspect part of people's dissatisfaction with this movie vis-a-vis part two is they want to see Michael Corleone acting like a badass, calling in hits, going out like Tony Montana at the end of Scarface. Instead the whole movie's about Michael being tired of this shit, which is probably a metaphor for the franchise but is a good topic for a film.

The Wrestler (2008): Another movie Sumana wouldn't want to see, and not one I'd normally choose to see, but I remembered there was a fictional NES game in this movie, and I was in the mood to have something on in the background while I did computer stuff. Probably not what Aronofsky wants to hear, but this movie was great at being on in the background. If I had to give it my full attention I would have been annoyed at the by-the-numbers plot structure, but Mickey Rourke gives a great performance and the NES game is all it's cracked up to be.

According to IMDB trivia, "The film reportedly moved wrestler Roddy Piper so much, he broke down and cried after a screening." Big respect for that.

Gentlemen Broncos (2009): The forgotten response to the surprising success of Napoleon Dynamite, it's as if Jared and Jerusha Hess decided to turn all the quirky nerdy rural Mormon humor sliders as high as they would go until everyone got sick of it. And... this is the point where everyone got sick of it. I didn't even know this film existed until I read about it on Boing Boing. And those sliders are a little high even for me, but overall I liked this movie and I'm really close to saying I really liked it. It presses one of my less-often-activated cinematic buttons of showing multiple adaptations of the same basic idea, a la The Five Obstructions.

This movie went on my no-Sumana list as soon as I saw "The vomit-soaked story..." in the Boing Boing review. It's too bad there's so much gross-out because I think Sumana would like it otherwise. It's got a very strong Garth Marenghi's Darkplace vibe. You've never heard of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace? Great, now I'm the blog telling people about visual experiences they've never heard of. Wait, that's good, because now you know that Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is hilarious and you should check it out.

Night Shift (1982): A not-that-funny romantic comedy about the unionization of sex workers. Some classic Visicalc action doesn't redeem the lack of laughs; it's like they put the primal elements of comedy—sex, death, money—in a beaker and expected comedy to form spontaneously. I guess it's better than Pretty Woman, but I haven't seen Pretty Woman so I'm just going on my mental stereotype of the politics of that movie. Michael Keaton acts like he's in a totally different movie, a movie that also wouldn't be good if you were watching it, but glimpses of it come as a relief.

The Best of Everything (1959): Absolutely amazing office dramedy with snappy banter, glorious NYC location shots, genteel sleaze, struggles of modern women, etc. I didn't like how the movie picked the least sleazy of all the sleazeballs for the heroine to hook up with, when her friend was able to find an actually decent guy, but I guess a girl's got to play the hand she's dealt. Definitely going on my best-of-the-year list.

There seems to be a strong connection to 9 to 5 (1980) in that the newly-minted secretary comes in to her first day of work drastically overdressed wearing a big ridiculous hat, but according to IMDB trivia, Jane Fonda talked to women who'd been in that situation and learned it was a common mistake, so both movies are based on a now-vanished reality.

The Americanization of Emily (1964): Also going on my best-of-the-year list thanks to its almost-perfect script by Paddy Chayefsky. If Billy Wilder had directed this he would have sanded down the rough edges and this would be one of the greatest films of all time. But why look a gift horse in the mouth, it's really really really good. Snappy dialogue, a farce/fiasco/farce double-twist, and a brilliant core concept. And, hell, if Chayefsky had brought this script to Billy Wilder he probably would have said "Yeah, I fled the Nazis, I'm gonna take a pass on mocking D-Day," and that would be totally fair.

One little quibble: despite the title, the movie doesn't really focus on Emily.

Reservoir Dogs (1992): The ultimate showdown, years in the making. I don't like Quentin Tarantino, but I love love love Steve Buscemi. Who will win? And hey, this movie's good! It's more restrained than Pulp Fiction, probably due to the tiny budget, but see above re: gift horses. The nonlinear narrative makes a lot of sense dramatically. The way Mr. Orange's "commode story" is dramatized is damn impressive. I could do without the graphic violence, but I knew what I was in for. The performances are good, but especially noteworthy is America's sweetheart, Steve Buscemi. He's so good he got the part Tarantino wrote for himself, meaning that although Tarantino still acts in the movie he's only got about three lines. Let's lift a glass to Steve Buscemi, savior of Reservoir Dogs.

January Film roundup

The Music Man (1962, 2003): We marathoned both versions of The Music Man. I'm attached to the 1962 original, Sumana to the 2003 remake (which you can see on Youtube). We laughed, we learned, we sang along. It's such a good musical, with the greatest resolution to a con job I've ever seen.

The 2003 version does a couple things better—notably the mayor—
but most of the actors in the 2003 version are too young for the part and look even younger than they are. Matthew Broderick doesn't have the gravitas to play Professor Hill. More like Graduate Student Hill, amirite? There's a line where he tells Marian she's "twenty-six years late" to her Lovers' Lane assignation. Kristin Chenoweth is 35 in this movie and she looks about 28. Some shots had to be redone with a stunt double because Broderick's umbilical cord was visible.

Overall, the 1962 version is still the best. I mean, Cary Grant refused to play Harold Hill because he wanted to see Robert Preston do it like he did on Broadway. That's a hell of an endorsement. And one thing we hadn't noticed before was that Preston isn't afraid to massively camp it up when he's putting the con on River City. I guess what I'm saying is it takes judgement, brains and maturity to play—I say that any fool can fast-talk his way through the Harold Hill part, and I call that sloth.

The Parallax View (1974): This movie was super tense and really freaked Sumana out. I liked the way it would seem like a character was becoming important to the story and then, jump cut, they're dead now. The central concept of the movie is brilliant. The set pieces are pretty good and the final one is incredible. Recommended overall.

Video game watch: there's a scene where a scientist is playing Pong with a chimpanzee.

The Pirates (2014): I was initially very excited about this story of medieval Korean pirates chasing after a renegade whale. And there's a lot of goofy action but all the fun was spoiled for me because the whale dies! Yes, the tragic destiny of this movie's majestic whale is to be graphically killed and become a CGI whalefall. Boooo. Not recommended.

Unaccountably other people don't consider this a deal-breaker. The movie was made, Sumana recommends it, and Sarah scoffed when I mentioned the possibility that a whale's gory death was a reason to dislike the movie. I am alone! I was afraid this would happen so I went online ahead of time looking for a Whale Death Warning, but even with hindsight the best I can find it this vague statement in an Amazon review: "Also, having the movie scenes with the Mother whale and the baby were to raw and disgusting for under aged people to watch.." I'm not even sure whether this is talking about the death scene or the (completely unobjectionable) nursing scene. That's why I'm starting a new website, doesthewhaledie.com, as a public service to whales and whale allies who want to be spared these graphic portrayals. Here's the initial site mockup I used to secure VC funding:

MovieDoes the whale die?
Star Trek IV No!

Reviews of Old Science Fiction Magazines: F&SF October 1985

The first story in this magazine is James Tiptree's "The Only Neat Thing to Do", and the introductory copy introduces the main character as "a green-eyed young woman who happens to be one of the most appealing characters you are likely to encounter in these or any other pages," and my attitude was "Pffft, green eyes, sure, we'll see about that... DAMMIT." This story's so good. It starts out with this perfect wish-fulfillment space adventure but look at the title, folks, it's not gonna end well. Argh, so good.

Harlan Ellison still hates Gremlins, in fact he says he's been getting letters from people who scoffed at his Gremlins hate but now they've seen the movie they're swallowing their pride and sending him "toe-scuffling, red-faced, abnegating appeals for absolution." I'm harboring a doubt or two here, because he's also saying other people who took his advice (and presumably didn't see the movie) are thanking him.
Given that Gremlins has consistently been a well-regarded film since its release, why would someone say "Thanks for warning me off the movie I haven't seen that people still seem to like."?

But all that's in the past. In this issue Ellison doubles down, telling people not to see The Goonies due to "utter emptyheadedness", which, okay, at least it's a critique and not 'the lurkers support me in email.' Also on Ellison's shit list for this month: Rambo: First Blood Part II, A View to a Kill, and The Black Cauldron. He loves Cocoon, Ladyhawke, and Return to Oz, and who's to say he's wrong? Not me, 'cause I haven't seen any of those movies.

There's some really corny back-cover copy in one of the ads for books, but I know from experience that writing back cover copy is the worst, so as a professional courtesy I'm not going to make fun of it. Kind of weird that most of the stories in this issue are SF or horror, but all the ads are for fantasy books.

Halley's Comet fever strikes the classifieds! There's an ad for Halley's Comet, 1910: Fire in the Sky, sort of a historical recreation by Jerred Metz. Also a "HALLEY'S COMET. TIE TAC or Stick Pin. Four color enamel and beautiful." I'm hyping up the Halley's Comet thing because I happen to own a mint in-box Halley's Comet Hot Wheels car the likes of which are currently going on eBay for a measly $5.32 used including shipping. C'mon! This is my nest egg here! I demand... demand!

Minecraft Archive Project: 201502 Capture

I've done a new capture of data for the Minecraft Archive Project, my big 2014 project to archive the early history of Minecraft before it disappeared. My goal for the refresh was to capture what has happened in the past year while doing as little work as possible, and I met my goal. The whole thing took about two weeks, and most of that was a matter of letting things run overnight. Most of the actual work was refactoring the code I wrote the first time to make future captures even easier.

Top-line numbers: I've archived another 150 gigabytes of good stuff, including 18k maps and schematics, 1k mods, 11k skins, 22k texture packs (resource packs now, I guess), and 100k screenshots. I was able to archive about 73% of the maps. Four percent of them maps were just gone, and 23% I didn't know how to download.

The 201404 Minecraft Archive Project capture contains data from four sites. The new 201502 capture is limited to two sites: the official Minecraft forum and the huge Planet Minecraft site. I started archiving maps, mods, and textures for Minecraft Pocket Edition, and was able to pick up about 5500 MCPE maps.

Now that I've done this twice without getting into trouble, I'll give a little more detail about the process. I've got scripts that download the archives of the Minecraft forum and Planet Minecraft. I find all the threads/projects modified since the last capture, download the corresponding detail pages (e.g. the first page of a forum thread--I'm only after the original post), and extract all the links.

Then it's a matter of archiving as many of those links as possible. I've written recipes for archiving images and downloads. These six recipes take care of the vast majority of items:


Two file hosts: Mediafire and Dropbox
Four image hosts: imgur, Photobucket, TinyPic, and postimage.org

There's also a general catch-all for people who host things on normal home pages, as Tim Berners-Lee intended. If your URL looks like the URL to an image or a binary archive, I will ask for that URL. If you serve me the image or the binary instead of an HTML file telling me to click on something, then I'll archive the file.

I decode most link shorteners except for the ones that make you click through ads, mainly adfoc.us and adf.ly. The 2014 archive had about 18,000 maps behind adf.ly links, and I spent a lot of time running Selenium clients clicking through the ads to discover the Mediafire links. I think that took a month. This time there were about 3000 new maps behind adf.ly links and I just didn't bother.

There are two big blind spots in my dataset, and they're the same as last time. One is mods. A lot of mods are hosted on Github and CurseForge, two big sites I didn't write recipes for. There's also the issue of mod packs, which have been steadily growing in popularity and complexity as development on core Minecraft winds down. Thanks to things like the Hardcore Questing Mod, modpacks are entering the "custom challenge" territory previously occupied solely by world archives.

There are sites that list mod packs (1 2) but I don't want to spend the time figuring out how to archive all the mod packs. There's also the problem that mod packs are huge.

The second blind spot is servers. It's theoretically possible to join a public Minecraft server with a modded client and automatically archive the map, but realistically it ain't gonna happen. I complained about this last time, but now I've done an assessment of what's being lost.

Planet Minecraft has a big server list that mentions the last time it was able to ping any particular server. There doesn't seem to be any purging of dead servers, so I'm able to get good measurements of the typical lifecycle.

Of the 136k servers in the list, 12k are "online" (The most recent Planet Minecraft ping was successful). 51k are "offline" (Most recent Planet Minecraft ping failed, but there was a successful ping less than two weeks
ago) and 73k I declare "dead" (last successful ping was more than two weeks ago).
It seems really weird that of the nearly half of the 'offline' servers went offline in the past two weeks, so something's going on there; maybe Planet Minecraft's ping process is unreliable, or it just takes a long time to check every server, or servers go up and down all the time.

Anyway, the median lifetime for a public Minecraft server is 434 days, a little over a year. These things go online, people do a bunch of work on them, and then they disappear. I've kind of gotten to 'acceptance' on this, but it's still obnoxious.

One final thing: I thought I'd check if I could see the result of Mojang's June announcement of rules for how you can make money by hosting servers (and, more importantly, how you can't). I wanted to see if these rules had a chilling effect on the formation of new servers or caused a lot of old servers to shut down.

And... no, not really. Here's a chart showing two sixty-day periods around June 12, the date of the Mojang blog post. For each day I show 'births' (the number of servers first seen on that day) and 'deaths' (the number of servers last seen on that day). There's a drop-off in new servers around the end of July, but then it picks up again stronger than before. I don't have an explanation for it but I don't think there's anything in here you can pin on a blog post. The Mojang rules were probably intended to go after a small number of large obnoxious servers, and everyone else either doesn't care or flies under the radar.

(Screenshot is from World #57 by Art_Fox. I didn't archive the map because it's behind an adf.ly link, but I got the screenshot.)

PS: Congratulations to Anticraft, the oldest public Minecraft server I could find that's still online, added to Planet Minecraft on February 28, 2011.