Category Archives: Administrative

Administrative, Media Criticism, Technology and Society

Comment Spam Question

8 Comments

I’ve noticed a new type of comment spam showing up. It’s a link to a post, that’s aggregated with other links to other posts, which may or may not be related, in a blog that consists of nothing else but links.

Here’s an example. This seems to be a blog that is set up for free as part of a larger blog site (in this case, “localferret.com”), with no restrictions. So, two questions. What is the purpose of such a blog? And is there any harm in allowing it to provide links to my site (probably picked up by a bot that simply watches my feed — I get a lot of Russian spam this way), even though they seem pointless? It does, after all, increase my Google and Technorati (and probably other) rankings. All of them are captured for moderation, but I can’t decide whether to approve them or declare them spam.

Any ideas?

Administrative

Blogroll

18 Comments

As you can see, I’m starting to rebuild (and update) my old blogroll over on the left. It’s going to be a long, painful process, though. Also, the link widget in WordPress seems to just alphabetize both links and link categories, so I can’t get it to present the links in the order desired (does anyone know if there’s a way around this?). If you have a space web site that I didn’t have on the old one, it might be a good time to post it in comments here, where I can collect them for eventual inclusion.

Administrative, Political Commentary, Space

Have It Your Way

6 Comments

This has actually been true since I switched to Word Press, but it’s now possible to view specific category posts. For instance, by clicking on the space category, you can see only space stuff (for those who have complained over the years that they like my space posts, but aren’t interested in, or are put off by, my political posts). Likewise, those who like the politics without the space can use this page instead. Or any of the other categories, though those two are probably updated most often. Same thing applies to people who have me on their blogroll as a service to their readers, but don’t necessarily want to subject them to what they might consider off-topic blather (e.g., Alan Boyle or Clark Lindsey, or Jon Goff might only want to blogroll the space category).

Administrative, Technology and Society

What Am I Doing Wrong?

23 Comments

I bought an HD-DVR receiver for Christmas. Which means additional cable runs, because it needs two satellite signals to record while playing real time. I’ve always used the twist-on F connectors for RG-6, but the last time the DirecTV guy came he recommended crimp-on compression connectors, for a better water seal (we always have LOS in heavy rain, which is a problem in south Florida).

So I spent the money on a DataShark crimper and a package of ten connectors. I followed the instructions, stripping the right lengths of both center conductor and plastic inner insulator (even though it looks to me like if you only do a quarter inch of bare wire, it won’t stick out enough to make contact). I’ve now wasted four of the things. None of them stay on the cable after crimping. They don’t even try. I take it out of the crimper, and it almost falls off. And of course, you can’t uncrimp to try again, so it’s a waste of almost a buck with each one. I have no clue what the problem is. I’m using standard RG-6. I can’t quite figure out what they’re supposed to be crimping to, even after looking at a crimped and uncrimped one. Anyone out there have any experience?

Administrative, General, Popular Culture

SoCal Adventures

8 Comments

OK, not adventures exactly.

I know that posting has been light. I’ve been doing hard-core actual work out here, with little time to post. But I have to relate the following story.

It’s amazing how you (or, well…me) can live somewhere for decades, and never notice a place in the neighborhood. OK, not exactly in the neighborhood, but not more than three miles from it. For the last many years we lived in Redondo, Patricia and I were always looking for good breakfast places in the South Bay. While looking for one on my own before work in Torrance, I noticed yesterday morning, for the first time ever, that there was actually a Norm’s Restaurant on the west side of Hawthorne, just north of 190th.

So I went in to check it out.

The waiter had an expensive “tricked-out name tag” that said (well, strongly implied) that his name was Ismael. I had to resist two impulses.

The first was to say, “So, can I call you Ismael?” Hardy har har.

I resisted because either a) he wouldn’t have gotten the literary reference, so he would either say “Sure, it’s my name, why not?” (leaving me feeling as foolish as I should) or b) he would get it, and say, “Yes. Please do so. I’ve never heard that one before. Well, not more than 83,436 times. Doing so will leave my sides bleeding and my spleen on open display at the continuing hilarity.” Which would also go over like the proverbial depleted-uranium blimp. Many would have done so, either because they didn’t anticipate these two almost certain responses, or because making lame jokes and being the life of the Norm’s party was more important to them than these consequences.

I also considered asking him if he had a sister named “Isfemael.” But I had only just given him my order. He hadn’t gone into the kitchen yet. One never knows what happens in the kitchen. The possibilities are endless, and disgusting.

As it turned out, they had great corned-beef hash with eggs.

Administrative

Blogroll

2 Comments

I don’t know when I’ll get around to figuring out how to properly incorporate it into the new template (and it really needs weeding/updating as well), but in response to a question in comments, I’ve added a link to my old index page with it, in the upper left box.