I get a ton of spam sent to my personal WordPress site, which is evidently sent using some kind of toolkit for would-be SEO scumbags. The spams use the SEO-target's URL as the sender's web-page, and consist of a bland, usually mildly positive, usually ungrammatical comment.
This morning, I woke up to find that someone who was new to the tool (or unclear on the concept) had left a spam with all of the default comment messages in it, dumping the full database of anodyne comments intended to fool both the spam-filter and the human operator into thinking that the sender had read the post and was replying to it. The comments are necessarily generic, as they are meant to apply to literally any WordPress post on any site, ever. I wonder if the poor grammar and odd phrasing is deliberate, intended to make human moderators less suspicious and to lead them to think that some earnest foreigner is trying desperately to compliment them across the language barrier.
The comments also tend to invite replies, with mild complaints about RSS errors and layout problems. They mention spouses, cousins and friends. All in all, they're a curious collection of spammers' hypotheses about what will appeal to the vanity and goodwill of people who run legitimate WP sites.
I do like the way you have framed this issue and it does supply us a lot
of fodder for consideration. On the other hand, because of everything
that I have seen, I simply just trust when other opinions stack on that
folks continue to be on issue and don't get started upon a tirade
regarding some other news du jour. Still, thank you for this fantastic
piece and though I do not necessarily concur with the idea in totality,
I regard your point of view.
Almost all of the things you mention happens to be astonishingly
accurate and it makes me wonder why I had not looked at this with this
light before. This particular piece truly did switch the light on for me
as far as this specific topic goes. Nevertheless there is actually one
particular factor I am not too comfortable with so while I attempt to
reconcile that with the actual core theme of your point, permit me see
just what the rest of your subscribers have to say.Very well done.
The core of your writing whilst appearing agreeable initially, did not
settle very well with me after some time. Someplace within the
paragraphs you were able to make me a believer but just for a short
while. I however have a problem with your leaps in assumptions and you
would do nicely to help fill in those breaks. In the event that you
actually can accomplish that, I will undoubtedly be impressed.
This is 1969's view of 1989! It's from Shonen Sunday Magazine, a weekly comic compilation. Beautiful, groovy art. Hey, at least they got the "Roomba" right (even if they were off by a few decades!)
A bit of pithy insight from the latest EDRIgram: "the intellectual property lobby employs too many lobbyists and too few strategists." In other words, Big Content can get lawmakers to do their bidding, even when doing so discredits them and riles up the opposition. (via Beyond the Beyond)
The special "Zine Issue" of Atom Magazine has an interview with me about the good old zine days of bOING bOING. The made their entire issue look like a late 80s zine -- cool! Read it here.
Too good not to share -- Jacob Ewing commented in my post about SiriusXM telemarketing pests: "I use a VoIP system, and have been meaning to set it up to automatically play this [NSFW] when certain numbers call in. It's a little acappella piece I and a friend recorded for just such a purpose." — Mark
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A couple of years ago, the lease on my Ford Explorer hybrid ran out and I returned the car to the dealer. Ever since, Sirius XM Radio has called me on a weekly (and when they are on a roll, daily) basis to try to get me to reactivate their radio service on the car, which I haven't seen for over 2 years.
I have communicated with Sirius XM by telephone, by e-mail, and by snail mail to tell them that they should not waste their valuable time trying to get me to reactivate service on a car that is no longer in my possession or under my control. My e-mails and letters to Sirius XM go unanswered. The Sirius employees I speak with on the phone assure me that they will make the calls stop. But they never stop.
Fortunately, Sirius XM has my Google Voice number, so I can block their calls and send them directly to a spam account. Now my phone doesn't ring when they call. The only way I know they've been calling me is when I look at my spam folder on my Google Voice account. It gives me pleasure to see the growing list of Sirius XM's futile attempts to contact me.
I'm currently subscribing to Sirius XM with the car I drive now. When the lease expires in a couple of years, I expect they'll start calling me again, and I will get twice as many calls as before. But these calls, like all their others, will go straight to the spam folder.
I don't think I will subscribe to Sirius XM again. I'd rather listen to audio books and podcasts on my iPhone anyway. Goodbye, Sirius XM.
Inspired by Breaking Bad, patterns to make little Walter and Jesse, everyone’s favorite meth cooks. Instructions include patterns for two dolls, two hats, glasses, jumpsuits, and tiny bags of crystal. Because of tiny parts, these patterns wouldn’t be suitable for young children, who probably have never seen Breaking Bad anyway, right?
Talk about those times when you really wish you could transport yourself to the opposite coast of a country for the nerdiest thing ever. There was a really fun-sounding panel for NBC's Community today, and it featured a reassuring quote from the new guys running the show, David Guarascio and Moses Port. You might recall that they were brought on when Dan Harmon was fired. Dan Harmon, the person responsible for creating the very specific, quirky voice of this hugely unique show. This show that is being banished to Friday nights following Whitney. Whitney. Whit. Ney. Here is what Guarascio had to say about preserving everything we love about Community:
"A couple of months ago, we were a lot like you: just huge fans of the show who thought it was one of the most special things on television," Guarascio said at the panel discussion. "Suddenly we're here, helping to keep it going. The only thing we care about is keeping it this weird, wonderful gem that it's always been. That's not gonna change."
Joel McHale went on to say that while it was going to be different moving forward with different people in charge of what he called "the greatest show in the history of television," he has confidence in them and vouches for their work.
"They're terrific guys and really good and a lot of the writers are back. So it's definitely like this strange transition time, but I'm still insanely excited to do the show. He [Harmon] will be missed and it's gonna be interesting to see how it all goes, but just talking to the writers -- they're breaking stories and they sound great."
But still -- no pressure. It's only the greatest show in the history of television.
This fantastic artifact from the history of the future can be yours for just $1.25 million. An aircraft collector is selling his 1954 Taylor Aerocar N-101D. Designed in 1949, this one of only 5 that were produced. The wings fold forward for driving and according to Aerocar designer Moulton Taylor, quoted during the vehicle's, er, launch in 1950, it's easily converted for flying "even by a woman, without soiling her gloves."
In the Boston Globe, Beth Teitell discusses Life at Home in the Twenty-first Century: 32 Families Open their Doors, an accessible, illustrated text that summarizes the research of four archaeologists and anthropologists who did a long, deep study of 32 middle-class LA families, and who report that nearly everything that these families had striven for -- material possessions, good jobs, extracurricular enrichment for their kids -- made them wholly miserable.
The rise of Costco and similar stores has prompted so much stockpiling — you never know when you’ll need 600 Dixie cups or a 50-pound bag of sugar — that three out of four garages are too full to hold cars.
Managing the volume of possessions is such a crushing problem in many homes that it elevates levels of stress hormones for mothers.
Even families who invested in outdoor décor and improvements were too busy to go outside and enjoy their new decks.
Most families rely heavily on convenience foods even though all those frozen stir-frys and pot stickers saved them only about 11 minutes per meal.
A refrigerator door cluttered with magnets, calendars, family photos, phone numbers, and sports schedules generally indicates the rest of the home will be in a similarly chaotic state.
The scientists working with UCLA’s Center on Everyday Lives of Families studied the dual-income families the same way they would animal subjects. They videotaped the activities of family members, tracked their moves with position-locating devices, and documented their homes, yards, and activities with thousands of photographs. They even took saliva samples to measure stress hormones.
Fantastic news coming out of Comic Con: They are remaking What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?! It's such fun news that there is no way to properly punctuate the end of the sentence! Walter Hill, who just finished directing Sylvester Stallone in the cop drama Bullet to the Head, will direct and write the screenplay, because a movie about an abusive, deranged former child star torturing her crippled sister while both wither away in obscurity is clearly the next logical step in his career. Now that the news is out of the way, let's cast this thing! (And maybe look at more pictures of Bette Davis looking out of her blessèd mind!)
