The Engineered Boulderer

In my previous post I complained of all the comment spam I received. The deluge yesterday was the last straw and I upgrade wordpress today. Along with the upgrade I got a Wordpress API key and activated the Akismet plugin.

Several of my “online” friends have spoken well of Akismet, and funnily enough, the first comment since my Wordpress upgrade was a recommendation for Akismet. Although his comment came too late, I want to thank Eby for taking the time to write a few lines.

Along with my upgrade to Wordpress 2.0.3 I also moved my site from www.jonas.rabbe.com to jonas.rabbe.com along with the no-www plugin by PhotoMatt. No more WWW on my site.

I also moved Susan’s site from Movable Type to Wordpress. I still haven’t designed a theme for her, but I hope she’ll like Wordpress as much as I do. With her move came 143 comments, how many of those are comment spam I don’t know, at least Wordpress is easier for deleting comments than Movable Type 2.66. And as a final gesture I deleted the last traces of Movable Type from our web server.

Update: Now I’ve had Akismet running for about a week, and I have had no comment spam. Of course, I pretty much haven’t had any comments either. To tell you the truth, it’s a bit worrying. I’ve been used to getting several hundred comments spams over a weekend, and not even getting any in the Akismet spam queue is a little weird. I don’t know if it’s because I haven’t received any comments, or if they have just been deleted silently, correct me if I’m wronge, but I don’t think Akismet does that.

Oopsdate: I turned off the auto moderate plugin, but forgot to remove the function call from the theme. In that simple way I made it impossible for anyone to comment on my site explaining why I didn’t receive any at all. Thanks to Joen for spotting that.

Final update: Removing the function call did the trick, at least I’ve received plenty of comment spam since last night. And one even came through Akismet… tsk. tsk. tsk…

Comment spam has, unfortunately, been a part of blogging for me pretty much from the start. It was the reason I changed the wordpress with it’s easier comment administration interface.

Lately however, it has become extreme. Yesterday I received 541 pieces of comment spam! If that is not extreme I don’t know what is, especially for a site with maybe 100-200 unique hits a day, the majorite of whom are viewing one page.

The high number of comment spam has also highlighted another problem. I have all new comments (from people who haven’t commented before) go into the moderation queue where I then delete them before they turn up on my page. Loading a page with 515 comments (I had deleted some during the day yesterday) takes a looooooooong time. In fact it takes so long that the Textile 2 plugin I use for formatting my entries and comments times out… I actually have to turn off the plugin to delete all the comment spam.

I guess it’s about time I start thinking about upgrading Wordpress and looking into comment spam plugins.

Found this one through digg

Flickr Related Tag Browser

It illustrates associations very well, and in two seconds I went from Mustang over Pony via Snow to USA. I could probably spend hours playing with it, but I guess I should do some work.

I know it’s old and stuff, but you know it’s true:

The internet is for p0rn

ps. Nothing lewd, just funny.

What happens when german engineers watch too much MTV:

http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/02/22/vw-strikes-again-un-pimp-my-ride-videos/

I’ve been very busy which explains why I haven’t update my hard disk entry. I have, however, update my hard drive. I got the replacement drive before the weekend, but was still waiting for the external drive so I could try and back up my old data. “Unfortunately”, I was home sick Monday (mild stomach flu) which meant I was home when the drive arrived. Good thing too since I don’t know when else I would have been able to get it.

I didn’t use my powerbook much during Saturday, but had several things planned for Sunday. Before we went to bed I set it to stream music to our stereo using iTunes over our Airport Express as I have done many times before. Sunday Susan had to get up early, before she left, however, I noticed that the radio was playing. I thought it was weird, but thought nothing of it. As a passing remark when she left Susan said that the powerbook had made weird noises and had frozen, she had turned it off. Oh shit.

Star, the most excellent film in which Madonna “wets” herself, and Clive Owen shows off some awesome driving skills.

If the PowerBook changes its name to the MacBook Pro, what will the PowerMac become? The MacMac Pro? The Mac Pro?

I stumbled onto a transcript of an article from Esquire titled Grettings from Idiot America. It is a very long article, but everyone and their mother should read it start to finish. It explains everything about Creationism and Intelligent Design that I think is wrong. Furthermore, the points on Idiot America and the decline of science as an ideal can be applied almost directly to Denmark and the discussion of “Smagsdommere”[1] which went on when our current government came into office.

1. Although “Smagsdommere” (lit. taste judges) was meant as a derogatory term for experts (especially experts who were not in agreement with the politicians), I find I use it quite often when describing my own knowledge and scientific training, I guess it has something to do with the self-irony instilled into Danes from the moment they are born.

Hat tip: “Brian Meidell”:http://meidell.dk/archives/2005/11/15/there-is-hope-after-all/