7 - 2005 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Comment spam update

And since we’re talking about freedom of expression, let’s chat about spam. Actually, comment/trackback spam has been nearly flat on this site since I implemented Typekey as well as MT-Blacklist….

And since we’re talking about freedom of expression, let’s chat about spam.

Actually, comment/trackback spam has been nearly flat on this site since I implemented Typekey as well as MT-Blacklist. Which means, despite the added inconvenience, comment registration has done its job (and MT-BL has been doing its thing as well for the trackback side of the house) — all without, evidently, breaking the hosting servers.

Actually, the first thing that actually got through in a while happened today — some trackback spam from a gambling site masquerading under the URL “united in christ church.org” (without the spaces) — which is probably going to incur some additional Wrath beyond that ordinarily expressed by mere mortals toward spammers. Not that I expect it to daunt the spammers.

Which brought me over to Jay Allen’s site for the first time in a few weeks, where he talks about … MovableType 3.2. Yowzers! Among the features he highlights:

Trackback moderation/editing. This may be too late, since it seems the majority of sites that had Trackback running have turned it off (this blog being an exception), but it may also make it safer for folks to come back into the water and make use of this powerful interlinking tool.
A feedback rating system, which will work on a variety of rules and previous feedback info to let you do … stuff. Anti-spam stuff is mentioned, but presumably other sorts of results can come for good scores on comments/trackbacks. This one will take some reviewing.
A junk folder. You can set things up (like the feedback rating system) to push stuff into Junk, where it will, by default, get deleted after 14 days (rather than having a ton of unmoderated comments/trackbacks sit out there forever).
A system overview control panel. Now you can see most recent comments/trackbacks/posts across all blogs in your installation. Very handy in some cases.

And more. This is being touted as a feature-driven release, vs. a code-cleanup release like the original 3.x and even 3.1 were. Nifty.

Current thoughts are that 3.2 should be out by the end of the month.

Weekend update

Friday Both of us had the day off. Did a bit of lazing about, then some shopping, then went to see Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D, then ate…

Friday
Both of us had the day off. Did a bit of lazing about, then some shopping, then went to see Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D, then ate at the Brewery Bar III (our current favorite Mexican/famil place). Came home, built a couple of new CoH characters to duo with, did some of that, went to sleep.

Saturday
Hung out a bit. Did laundry. About 1, started the CoH Hess Task Force, as organized by Doyce. That went until 5 or so, at which point there were plans to do the Citadel (Bastion) TF. We begged off for a dinner break for Kitten (McDonalds, as a reward for her good behavior). Got home, launched into the TF, ended way late but up a couple of levels easy.

Sunday
Church, then rush-rush to clean the house, in prep for our Independence Day Casual Get-Together and Gaming Evening. Folks arrived at 3, we ate yummy food about 6, we finally played a single game of Munchkin that ran until about 11, and we called it a night. Much, much fun. Have to do this more often.

Monday
I woke up early, alas. Did clean-up from the night before. Took Kitten to the pool — er, well, not our neighborhood pool because it was crowded to overflow — at least as many cars out on the street as in the parking lot. So we went over to the Lone Tree rec center, which was much nicer, and has a water slide and a river and fun stuff like that. Spent about an hour, came home, played some CoH. Randy came over to watch JLU and TT, then we ate dinner, did some more CoH, and went to bed … well, in about fifteen minutes.

Not a bad weekend, as such things go. And, as such things always go, too short …

Independence Day

In some ways it is odd to celebrate Independence Day in our country. After all, I don’t think we really define ourselves any more by our rebellion against the British…

In some ways it is odd to celebrate Independence Day in our country. After all, I don’t think we really define ourselves any more by our rebellion against the British Crown. Heck, the Brits are sort of our friends these days, and have been for some time. As embodiments of our political system, wouldn’t Constitution Day be a better marker, or something tied to the adoption of the Bill of Rights, certainly a fundamental expression of what it means to be American?

But we have Independence Day instead, and that’s not necessarily so bad. Much of what later became our political system was foreshadowed in the list of grievances, and assertion of rights, in the Declaration of Independence.

The Founding Fathers were men — often brilliant, often equally flawed, possessed of both wisdom and pettiness. Yet, wherever they fell short, however their words did not meet their actions, or their passions turned them in ways more destructive than constructive, what they wrought on July of 1776 — and in the decades to come — was astonishing, and a blessing to us. John Adams, querulous but passionate for independence and liberty; Thomas Jefferson, possessed of both the brilliance and blindness of the ivory tower; Ben Franklin, George Washington, Jay, Madison, Monroe, “and the rest” — did something (sometimes in spite of themselves, but mostly through intent) truly marvelous, in laying down the philosophical and legal basis for this nation. It’s not perfect, any more than any human institution could be, but it’s a damned sight better than many and most, I think.

And for that, and for what they suffered in doing so (and do not doubt that, particularly in the earliest years of the Revolution, that the sacrifices they made were very real), we ought to take a moment this day to be grateful.

Adventures on Soft Drink Marketing!

Three observations from the supermarket: Once you add “Diet Cherry Vanilla” to something, you probably can’t call it “Dr. Pepper” any more. Or, at least, there’s no point in doing…

Three observations from the supermarket:

Once you add “Diet Cherry Vanilla” to something, you probably can’t call it “Dr. Pepper” any more. Or, at least, there’s no point in doing so. I think the favor molecules become super-saturated and precipitate out in an explosion or something.
Given the current association in most folks’ minds, I wonder if the ad execs who thought up the name of “Aruba Jam Sprite” are regretting having done so.
What is Coke Zero? How is it different from Diet Coke? One certainly can’t find out from the box. Bought a small bottle, so I’ll let you know. I’ve love to have a decent no-cal Coke.

And, thank you ever-so-much to the Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola companies for providing hip, yet totally uninformative, Flash-based web pages for each of the above products. Nice use of the Internet, guys!

UPDATE: Tried out my Coke Zero 16 oz. bottle last night, over ice. I like, kindasorta. It definitely is far more palatable than regular Diet Coke. It has the “spicy” flavor of regular Coke, but is a bit less crisp (that might be because of the bottle; I find bottled drinks less fizzy/edgy than canned, for some reason). There is faint Aspartame finish, but much less than some diet drinks.

Think I’ll give a 12-pack a try. Coke Zero might be a good replacement for the reformulated Pepsi One.

(Coming up next in the World of Soft Drinks: Doctor Pepper Minus One!)

A review I wouldn’t normally make

Joy. We’re finally of an age to take Katherine to movies she wants to. Which meant, yesterday, a jaunt to see that sparkling comedy, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl…

Shark Boy and Lava Girl Joy. We’re finally of an age to take Katherine to movies she wants to. Which meant, yesterday, a jaunt to see that sparkling comedy, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D.

Well, no, it’s not a sparkling comedy. It’s a 3-D (at least partially) adventure, from the folks who had something to do with Spy Kids (which I would hope the owners of that trademark would object to being mentioned — to the point of legal action).

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad. But it was certainly an hour and change I’ve permanently lost from my life that I do sort of regret, not having gotten anything for it save a mild headache from badly implemented 3-D.

SBLG is about a kid, Max, who had an active dream life, and who keeps all his dreams in a dream journal, which include the characters of SB and LG. He uses these dreams as the basis for reports he gives out, which neither endears him to his teacher, Mr. Electricidad, nor to the typical school bully types in class like Linus. Nor does it make his mom — a professional realist who’s increasingly disenchanted with Max’s dad, a wooly-headed “writer.” When SB and LG show up at Max’s school, though, and take him off to save the dream world of Planet Drool, though …

SGLG can’t decide whether it’s action-adventure, fx-fest, charming examination of the imagination, cheap psycho-babble, sophisticated psycho-drama, homage to Little Nemo, or what. Plot elements bubble up then vanish, characters come and go with either zero set-up or with eye-rolling predictability. Things happen for reasons that make no sense — when it doesn’t make sense. Mr. Electricidad is alternately compassionate, cruel, realistic, cartoony, and turned into one of the chief villains on Drool. A song is sung, but it’s not a musical. The parents are alternately scary, goofy, conflicted, and lovey-dovey. About half the time when odd things happen, it seems chalked up to a dream, even when it’s not clear that’s really the csae.

And the final message? It seems to be to keep your dreams, but work to make them real, but make sure they’re good dreams, but don’t let people take them from you, but be ready to let them go, but they’re important, but don’t let them get in the way of reality, but sometimes they become reality, but everyone lives happily ever after.

I think.

Katherine, of course, enjoyed it, and followed the cues to put glasses on/off perfectly. Her favorite parts:

When [spoilers] saved [spoilers] from [spoiler]
“I didn’t recognize any of the actors.” I’m not sure why that’s a good thing.
Her favorite characters were Max, Lavagirl, and Sharkboy.

Katherine pretty much enjoyed it, though a few places were sort of scary/suspenseful for her 5-year-old self.

The 3-D was done with the classical red-blue glasses, and was used mainly for sequences on Drool. This meant that the majority (and most fx-ful) portions of the movie suffered from muddled color and light balance, but that aside, the 3-D effects were pretty decent, with only a minimum of spear-shooting-at-the-screen exploitation — though seeing folks spew food got awfully dull.

And may I say that I have officially grown out of the demographic that finds fart jokes universally amusing? Which is a shame, I guess, because both this movie and pretty much every movie previewed before it highlighted just that particular brand of humor.

And now it’s time for your Sexually Ambiguous Nomenclature Trivia Fact for today: the actors playing both Shark Boy and Lava Girl are named “Taylor.” As in, their first names.

That must have made for a few funny times on the virtual set.

The acting is occasionally well done (Taylor Lautner — Sharkboy — sometimes looks to have the makings of a decent action hero), but for the most part it’s the sort of lame, over-the-top thing that someone probably figured kids would like.

And if you don’t have a young kid, I strongly urge you to give this one a pass.

Ah, well — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is coming out on 15 July …

And so it begins …

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has stepped down, after 24 years. O’Connor, 75, was appointed by President Reagan in 1981 and is considered a moderate conservative on the high court and…

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has stepped down, after 24 years.

O’Connor, 75, was appointed by President Reagan in 1981 and is considered a moderate conservative on the high court and often cast the pivotal swing vote in important cases.

She dismissed the label, telling CNN recently, “That’s something the media has devised as a means of writing about the court, and I don’t think that has a lot of validity.”

The cries of DOOOOOOM! (and VICTOREEEEEE!) are already out there (and have been for months, with Rehnquist ailing). I suspect the coming summer will, in its own way, rival last fall’s Presidential campaign for vitriol. There’s some justification for that, but I have no doubt that the rhetoric will take on tones of Anyone But Bush’s Nominee. Bush could nominate Jane Fonda and she’d would be labelled as a Troglodyte Misogynist Triumphalist Fascist Right-Wing Extremist Zealot by the Left. (He could also nominate Jerry Falwell and be accused of Selling Out To The Democrats by some on the Right as well, but that’s less likely.)

I’ll hold off on voicing specific concerns until I hear who the nominee is. I have little doubt that I’ll be pleased by said nominee, but there should be some range between “pleased” and “convinced the nation is DOOOOOOMED,” and assuming those are the only two alternatives would be … well as shallow and reactionary as some folks expect the nominee to be.

Stay tuned (but keep the volume down low).