What makes you happy ?

(re the IMAP post below, I’ve gone with Calypso for now. Ugly as hell but it works).

Anyway…. I’m debating whether to start a blog about Juice, or Ironing. I’ve a domain which could be used for either (listed in the sidebar), and although I like juice I dislike ironing and so there is more mileage in that I feel. So there is the possible cathartic effect of blogging about what is to come, what is proving annoying and then how pleased I feel until it rolls around again. Then of course I aim for #1 in the search engines, get some ads, tout for free gear to review, gather hints and tips from others, have guest bloggers ….. or not. I can’t decide. Run with it for a year ? (Mind, I once watched someone drink a large glass of broccoli juice.)

Another project I’m involved closely with should see the light of day very soon so I’ll be asking really nicely for linkage to that site when it does go live. Right now we are setting up various admin aspects and some fine print but looking damn good it is.

I do not like at all. You ?

(Potato Chip Sandwiches for any US viewers)

Don’t you find this whole thing even remotely scary ?

My daughters are growing up in a world – a world that also very probably has the next leaders of every country already born – where everything you do can be monitored like never before. There is the search History “feature” that Google have now – I wonder how many arguments THAT will start (a bit like the “last number redial” on phones), Gmail and the myriad of other ways that our lives are electronically dissected and reassembled by various companies. Don’t you find it spooky that if a kid wants to be President / Prime Minister that s/he almost needs to make that decision NOW and act accordingly because the future will not rely on grainy b&w photos and dodgy typefaces, it is being laid down for posterity now. What they search for and blog about could return to haunt them – such is the power of data collection.
But do we want such clean-cut individuals ? I certainly don’t – but then as Google have revealed by mining here and returning nothing – we cannot trust these sources that proclaim that they are to be trusted. How easy would (will) it be for a future leader to remove (replace) unfavourable data ? How do we know it isn’t happening now ? Does Google being a private company make it’s information any better / safer / less biased ? No, not at all. I can’t find the links right now but does anyone remember the dismissing of the film 9-11 when it was released ? Al the links went to a site that Google pointed to, that Google rated as #1, that Google – being a US based company – was probably asked by GWBush to do because that very link dismissed the film ? Google unbiased ? Crap – that would be like saying eating McDonald’s food is healthy.

What’s scary though is the way that if data mining is invading our lives so insidiously yet meeting no resistance, then our children will (are) be data mined as a matter of course and as such they will neither contest the fact that it happens, nor will they contest the results. Isn’t that scary ?

Garbage In Garbage Out – I wonder if people apply that to computers but possibly not to sites ?

In some films, one of the characters will go to a place they recall yet find that someone else is living there, that despite what they have in their mind there is no evidence to support them and even evidence that contradicts their experience to the point that they doubt themselves. That’s what we are heading toward isn’t it ? If Search Engines can make facts disappear, they can make new facts appear too – and if Google says it, then it must be true !

Where did childhood go ? Being an irresponsible teenager ? Being able to make a ‘Fresh Start’ ? Making mistakes ? LIVING ?

I have at least 1 blog that I visit, and I do so not because I like any of the writing on it (I do not), not because I like any images on it (I do not) or because of some wondrous design (no, it’s a design I hate and it’s also flawed). Yet this blog I find myself being drawn to visit maybe once / twice a week to deride it to myself. Maybe that’s arrogant, maybe I need to get more of a life but even so, just like a few minutes ago I’ll suddenly think to myself “I wonder what crap is there now ?” and off I will go. It’s the author that annoys me. I won’t comment – I would have nothing positive to say – and if I were to point out my issues they would not be met with constructively – I would have fanatics raining down on me. Where this blog is matters not – but do you have such a blog or site that you also go to for similar reasons ?

(And no guesses – even if you have met me you won’t get this one :) )

My girls are off out to a fair in town later, and call me old-fashioned but one thing I’ll say to them will be “Don’t talk to strangers”. And yet here you are reading what I’m writing and if it strikes a chord, you may even respond – you’ll be talking to me. Is it from the safety of your anonymity that you do this ? I’m still a stranger no matter how you look at it, regardless of how many of my words you may have read.
This struck me as odd because of what I read last night in various places. On another blog, what was in essence a stupid post was met with a ridiculous ‘fanboy’ response with people trying to out-fanboy each other. What IS all this stuff about ? We will likely not meet 99.9% of the people who read our daily meanderings through life, yet there seems to be a few who devote an inordinate amount of attention to the words of a few. Why ? They aren’t super-human you know, they still have to sit down to crimp one off, so for heaven’s sake just chill out and ask yourself this – “If I was in a cafe when ‘X’ walked in, would I act this way in front of my real-life mates ?”. My money says you would not, so grow up.

In other news ……. minor changes to the Comment page (inspired by, but not copied from Coldforged) and I think it works okay, Contact form repaired (thanks Samantha).

And now 1.5 is out, I’ve gone through my mail and I’m sure I am missing some. So, if I said I would do some WP stuff and you wanted to wait until 1.5 is out and I have not got in touch, nag me.

The ‘nofollow’ tag is now being applied in WP1.5 and later I’ll use a plugin to stop that behaviour.
It was Google and other search engines that decided how to rank sites and it’s Google that is not trying to sort it out, relying instead on the w3c. But enough of that …. hiding spam.
Given that PHP can identify strings of text and manipulate them enough to kill spam, can it also not allow spam through, but tag it for us ? The issue now – or at least very soon – isn’t just the ranking, it’s the fact that spam is seen by us and our visitors, and all the nofollow tags you like can change that one. But {display:none;} could.

A spam filter could tag spam with a class, or tag that corresponds to some css that hides the whole comment. So even if the crap gets through, it just isn’t visible. A page in the admin area could display all such tagged comments, and even an SQL query to “delete where post_tag=spam” could be effective couldn’t it ?
There is rightly a huge fight to keep the junk out of the blog, but once it is inside, is this a viable proposition to start dealing with it ? (My thinking is that it is not, but I don’t recall reading about this method so I may as well blog it.)

At what price your personal happiness ?

Something in TV made me wonder ….. so what’s the answer ?

You go into a coffeebar that does Wifi. You open up the laptop and start doing whatever … and then you realise you need the loo. What do you do ?
If you leave the laptop someone could pinch it.
If you leave the laptop your data could be spied on (unless you do a screenlock type thing)
So do you take it loo with you ?
Do these places have Kensington locks handy ?
If you don’t need the loo because you aren’t on long enough because of the cost, if they made it free you’d have an issue then wouldn’t you ?

An enquiring mind needs to know !

• people with ‘geek’ or anything similar in their names generally are not ?
• people with ‘cool’ or anything similar in their names generally are not ?
• people are tweaking entries so they stay on top of other people’s “sort by updated” link lists ?

Tolerance – sometimes over-rated.

I was pondering something ….. maybe I should slap a CC Attribution license all over my WP guides here … then I could see “Site by X, Fixed by Mark” :)

Apparently it drives the internet. I’ve just read somewhere that it was the people wanting more porn and more high quality porn that were the early adopters of high-speed connections, DVD players and re-writers and apparently Google searches for matters porn related are number one. So, given that this has this status, why don’t bloggers blog about it ?

I can’t remember seeing a post that discussed the merits of a certain video, or the artistic poses of naked people. Is it just me leading a sheltered blog-hopping life or is porn really not spoken about ? Why isn’t it ? Surely there is good porn and bad porn, there must be good sources and complete rip-off sites ? So why are bloggers discussing the relative merits of what is a huge hidden commodity ?

Or is porn just hidden away from prying eyes on a machine (probably in somewhere like C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot) – I can imagine that on some computers, each user could have their own stash on the HD yet each would plead innocence).
I suppose I should declare my position – I have no porn on any machine (though some of the wallpapers I have downloaded in torrents has been risque). It’s not through any moral high-ground, it’s because with two daughters, they would totally freak if they ever found any. In this post from last week I mentioned a calendar ….. even if I purchased a “Mary Whitehouse Approved” calendar of attractive females it would be frowned upon. I’m not about to risk either of them accidentally clicking an mpeg featuring some sweaty skin action.

But it’s not about me, or you, it’s just my surprise that this subject is not discussed in an arena which would seem to pride itself on being able to talk about anything at all.