Month: October 2003

Google’s kicking their own ass

Not only is PageRank dead and messed up (despite discussions on Webmaster World about redoing the algorithm), but now if you search for “search engine” on Google, it comes in fourth-place behind AltaVista, Lycos, and Yahoo.

I do know the Google’s hitting older pages on my site more than newer sites, and my rankings haven’t been as good as they used to be. Call it whatever you want, but I call it the “Blog Penalty”. Before too long, I wouldn’t be suprised, because of all the pressure Google is under, if Google starts sending blogs down hard in the listings.

October 16, 2003

We’d better be careful

There’s some lava just north of Sunriver. I’m sure the map is referring to the Lava Butte Lookout, but it looks funny to just see “Lava” on a map.

OK, I’ll get back to work now.

October 15, 2003

How would you like to build things with Legos for a living?

If you’re good enough, you can do it professionally. Lego is looking for another master builder to work at their Legoland California theme park.

October 15, 2003

Eugene’s got a masturbator on the loose

And he’s struck again:

We were standing in the kitchen when some guy opened up the back door, walked into the kitchen and started to masturbate,” Kraus said.

She identified the man as wearing khaki pants, a plaid shirt and an imitation of the mask used in the movie “Scream.” Kraus and Shannon said it took a minute for them to understand what was going on; they initially thought the person was a friend of theirs pulling a prank.

They have friends that would pull something like this? That’s disturbing.

Regardless, the guy’s been rumored to have been exposing himself around Eugene for a couple of years now. He’s probably the same guy that use to ride around campus on a bike wearing nothing but a thong. Eugene’s a cool town, but full of a lot of weirdos.

October 15, 2003

Smith & Wesson debuts home decor apparel and gift catalog

To quote the press release:

Cowboy boot lamps? Star spangled heart ornaments? Blue suede jackets? Catch a glimpse of the newest division of Smith & Wesson with the launch of a consumer catalog filled with everything for the home.

It goes on to say “Nearly 87 percent of Americans are familiar with the Smith & Wesson name.” Yes, they’re familar with it, but as a home decor supplier? I think of them as a company that makes guns. When I think Smith & Wesson and home decor, I think gun racks and ammo boxes, but that’s just me. Full story on Yahoo! News as well, original link via PRbop.

October 14, 2003

72 hours later, and she’s back in jail

The county prison here must be pretty nice (it is fairly new). It must be so nice, that it causes criminals who were released from there to want to go back. Or something like that. To quote the story:

Jodie Lynn Ackerman, 24, was being held for trial on unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and criminal trespass when she and two fellow inmates were released around 9:30 p.m. last Wednesday after the 28-bed women?s portion of the 228-bed jail reached capacity.

Late Saturday night, Ackerman was booked back into the jail on charges of second-degree theft, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, first-degree criminal mischief and a probation violation, the latter charge bringing a no-bail ?hold? pending her initial court appearance Monday.

Sadly, I’m sure we’ll see more releases like, and I’m sure this won’t be the first person with short-term freedom.

October 13, 2003

Everybody’s getting MT Comment Spam

I’m glad to know I’m not the only one that’s getting hammered with this stuff. Granted, I maybe get 1 or 2 spam comments a day, but nothing major. This site just ain’t that popular. But it still annoys me to have to delete them.

But every MovableType user is getting these spam. Hell, just look at all the posts about it at popdex. This is obviously a big problem. Six Apart has an official response.

The problem with 90% of the solutions? They involve hacking the CGI scripts and files. While this isn’t a problem, you’d better damn well better know what you did, otherwise when you upgrade to a new version of MT, your changes will be overwritten. But the MT-Blacklist plugin looks like it will help quite a bit (I haven’t looked at the install instructions as of yet, as it was just released about five minutes ago). I’m also considering adding a graphical feature that only humans can decode (similar to what you see when you register on PayPal). And there are a bunch of solutions posted here that could very easily lessen the stress on the comment system.

But what’s the problem with all of these? Most of them require changing the MT CGI and PM libraries. I don’t have a problem at all with changing my templates, as they don’t get overwritten on an upgrade, but my CGI and PM files will.

What needs to happen? Six Apart needs to integrate some of these features into the core MovableType installation in it’s long-overdue next version, that way we won’t be required to do all this hacking ourselves. But you know what they’ll probably do? They’ll probably put all these features into TypePad, and will eventually put them in the main MT distro. Only time will tell.

October 13, 2003

Do you hate Hotmail?

Then be sure to get your @f**khotmail.com e-mail redirect. You can now e-mail me at whowantsto {at} [f-word]hotmail {dot} com.

October 13, 2003

100 Comments in 100 hours

At last check, he still has 18 to go, but he’s getting there. The guidelines he’s going to follow:

1. The total number of comments submitted in 100 hours must be at least 100.

2. Comments must be on topic (I’m not trying to contribute to webspam) […].

3. Comments submitted to sites on a blogroll or regularly read bloglist do not count toward the 100.

4. Neither do multiple comments on one weblog.

5. Linking/Trackbacking ties it all together.

I’m glad to say that I was part of this project, as comment number 55 (which is the only reason I knew about this project).

October 13, 2003

They need a warning label on this thing

Warning: Eating this could cause your heart to stop. It’s ain’t poison, but damn close enough. What’s in it? 64 grams of fat, 2,090 milligrams of sodium, and enough cholesterol to kill anything that’s ever lived. That’s the scariest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I wonder if this is worse than the 18-oz hamburger I ate years ago?

October 12, 2003