Godzilla finally getting the props from Hollywood he deserves!
Actually, don’t you (or someone on your behalf) actually have to purchase your star on the walk of fame?
The blog battle against spam
I’ve been being hit with comment spam on my blog for a bit. At first it was just one or two comments a week and I’d go in and nuke them from the database. Then it got to be 15 at one time from a dozen IPs. At this point I turned on moderation for all comments. This wasn’t great, but it was workable since I don’t get all that many comments, spam or otherwise. However, it got unmanageable yesterday when the I had about 60 comment spam posts to moderate. This morning I decided to look into what else I could do about it.
Browsing the WordPress site I found the following wiki article: How to combat comment spam with WordPress. It talks about the stuff that is built into wordpress, which is what I had been using. It then talked about renaming certain files to get around the bots, which seems like an unmaintainable idea in the long run.
Finally, at the bottom of the page was a link to something I thought was workable. Gudlyf has posted a plugin he wrote for WordPress called AuthImage. It does a simple captcha test as a reader posts their comments. I figure I’d give this one a try. It puts a slightly added burden on the random comment poster, but it allows me to turn off moderation and still avoid getting the spam messages.
He likes to “watch himself type”?
Okay, when someone drones on and on in real life we like to say “he likes to hear himself talk.” But what happens when someone drones on and on while on IRC or instant messaging or whatever? I’m suggesting “he likes to watch himself type.”
Back from vacation
I’ve been back from a conference for work and vacation for a few days now. I’ve finally feel like I’m back on top of stuff after not being home for a week and a half or so. Its all very disorienting.
The conference for work was in Orlando and it went really well for my dept and everything we had to do. We had rented a segway for my boss to use. Unfortunately for me, I had seen my boss for about 5 minutes the entire conference, so I never got to take a ride on it. That’s pretty much the only thing that went wrong, and that’s not even a real problem.
Then I drove to Fort Myers to meet Sarah and Dinah, who flew there, at my grandparents to enjoy our vacation there. We had a great time and my grandparents really enjoyed their time with their great-grandchild.
LOAD “:*”,8,1
I got to take a geeky trip down memory lane last Sunday morning.
I was over at my parents and they were cleaning out the storage room in the basement. One of the things to go was one of those VHS wall storage units. We had moved it to the basement long ago and it became a storage unit of whatever we could think to cram in there. Somewhere along the way, it started to get all my computer stuff. Basically, anything that I had for my Commodore 128 in terms of manuals and software was stuffed in there.
Emptying it out to take it up, I came across Ahoy! and Compute! magazines with reviews, articles, and code listings that were pages long. I remember typing in the source for hours to play the cheesy games or play with the silly utility. Some of them were in Commodore BASIC for 128, but some was for the Commodore 64 which the 128 could emulate. A majority of them seemed to be hex listings, again for both platforms, that were pages and pages long. I remember the hex listings being an evil, evil bitch.
I also found about 50 5 1/4-inch floppies. This was the real source of nostalgia for me. Many of the had the writable notch for the other side of the disk put in by hand/scissor, while some actually came that way, and then there was the ones that were done with a tool just for the job. There were notes to myself and my parents on the sleeves about how to launch the games and applications, even the labels about what games and applications are on the disks. The list is too long, but to name a few that jumped out at me: GEOS, Summer Games I and II, Winter Games, Jumpman Jr., H.E.R.O. and Pitfall II.
Finally, I found one of the most useful things in my whole Commodore arsenal: the Epyx FastLoad cartridge. This sped of loading of data from the floppy drive on the Commodore 64 about 5 times. From what I remember, it would basically replaced the firmware of the floppy drive (in its operating memory) and gave it much, much more efficient loading routines. It also provides some common command shortcuts to load games. I forget the key combo, but I think it was commodore-control and it would execute LOAD ":*",8,1 and then type RUN<enter> when the READY. prompt was displayed. FastLoad didn’t work with all games, but it made a shit load of difference on the games it worked with. The weird thing is that I just googled for a page all about FastLoad and I couldn’t find one, I thought for sure someone would be out there singing the praises of it. Unfortunately, I’m not knowledgeable enough to write one.
Anyway, after my walk down memory lane ended at the garbage can where I trashed all this stuff. I haven’t touched it in at least 12 years, anything I would have needed form them I’ve transfered over to a PC long ago. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t come up with a single reason to keep any of that crap. Thus is the coda of one chapter of my geeky life….
WLS less sucky in the morning!
Okay, this is old news by now, but I was out of town for a week or so. I just have to say, its good to have Don and Roma back on in the morning. Much better than the crap they had on while WLS and D&R were figuring out contract stuff.
Erik Estrada
Today at work, Erik Estrada walked by me. He signed people’s autographs for 3 hours. The women are nutty about this guy. Sadly, I haven’t gotten a picture of him and me.
But still, aren’t you jealous?
[Update 5:15: Okay, it was actually 4 hours… So, at 5 it was time to close the booth that Erik was signing autographs at. As he was leaving, he was hugging all the women working the booth goodbye. I told him I was feeling left out, so I also got a hug from Erik Estrada. Be aware, you are now officially jealous. Unfortunately, the camera was already put away, but I have witnesses!]
I’m speechless
I just don’t know what to say. I was doing the old “hope for the best, expect the worst” so I’m not as bummed out today as I could be. Its just very amazing to me that it ended up this way. I honestly can’t see why a majority of this country feel that Bush was a better choice. I guess I’ve always been out of sync with most people.
Thank God I’m going on vacation next week.
Anarchists for Nader?
I found this at the Roselle, IL Metra station this morning.
“I always thought that a leader should have a strong chin. He has no chin and his vice-president has several. This, to me, is not a good combination.”
Well, this is the obligatory “go out and vote” post. Go out there and vote, especially if you’re in a swing state. While the presidential election is very important, don’t forget your local races and local issues. (Vote yes on looking to break up U-46!) The worst thing about the election being tomorrow is that it will be the end of hearing Alan Keyes make wacky statements on an almost daily basis. On second though, that’s no so bad. BRING ON THE VOTE!
On The Daily Show tonight, Jon Stewart had this plea:
On a personal note, I am a comedian who makes fun of what I believe to be the absurdities of our government… Make my life difficult. Make this next four years really shitty for me.