Alden Bates' Weblog

I got a comment today. See if you can spot anything suspicious about it.

%syn(Cool|Nice|Rulezz)% %syn(blog,|portal| site ! I)% hope to make %syn(my own|own weblog|my diary)%, not worse than yours ;)

Gosh, no, nothing suspect about that...

("not worse than yours"?! Cheeky.)

The "nofollow" attribute was recently introduced (see announcements by Google and Yahoo), the theory being if links in comments don't count towards the target's ranking in search engines, spammers will be less inclined to spam blogs. I'm still sceptical. Spamming blogs costs nothing, and the process can be automated. Unless every single blog on the net upgrades to use the nofollow attribute, I don't think there's any reason for the spammers to stop.

I don't think I'll be uninstalling MT-Blacklist any time soon...

I upgraded the hotlink prevention on tetrap.com to use a method suggested by Smarter Image Hotlinking Prevention on A List Apart. I have a lot of trouble with hotlinkers, mainly from message boards and people linking to album covers from EBay.

The new method allows linking to pictures like so but prevents the use of the img tag for imbedding. I've implemented the script in Perl rather than PHP, and it also checks to make sure the image exists (and returns a 404 if it doesn't), so is a slight improvement over the A List Apart method.

I'm scratching my head trying to work out why upgrading Movable Type isn't easier. MT has a website, my MT install is running on a web server which is by definition connected to the web. Why can't I just push a button on my MT install and have it automatically grab the updated files from MT's site?

Or am I missing something? Maybe there is a button and I just haven't seen it.

Modern Drunkard Magazine presents this item on alcohol in Star Trek, particularly the original series, but also TNG...

Wesley: So you mean I'm drunk! I feel strange, but also good.
Picard: (huffily putting aside his knitting) Because you have lost the capacity for self-judgment. Alcohol does this, Wesley!

Kirk would have challenged the upstart whelp to a Romulan Ale drinking contest, then hooked him up with an Orion slave girl.

Moby has launched Moby Hotel to promote his upcoming album "Hotel". It's a Flash-based site cunningly structured to resemble a hotel. Instead of registering, you sign in to a room which becomes your password (though it does seem a lot like registering... :)

On offer are samples of tracks from Hotel including one track you can buy and download, information about Hotel, and ambient music from the bonus CD which comes with the limited edition.

Edit: see also my experience buying Hotel.

I now have my computer back. The problem turned out to be that the CPU had gone bad, causing it to superheat whenever a load was put on it, and subsequently reboot. That CPU has been replaced with a newer CPU of the same make and speed (AMD Athlon 2000).

To celebrate, I bought Paint Shop Pro 9. I've been using version 6 for ages, so 9 is a pretty big leap. Now I just have to work out what everything dones and I should be set. :)

Author Kate Orman has put together a Doctor Who/Blake's Seven fanzine, the price of which goes entirely to the Red Cross for use in Tsunami relief. The zine is named Where the Sea's Asleep. I have volunteered to distribute it in New Zealand...

On the not-having-a-computer front, my computer is unfortunately still at the shop. This is mostly why I haven't updated in a while.

Meg was telling me about a skyscraper advert which was appearing on a certain free email service in the States. Here in NZ I get the Xtra-branded version, so I didn't see the advert. What you see at right is a cropped version of the advert (which is actually created in Shockwave flash, so what you see is a lower-quality recreation).

Exactly what is the gingerbread man doing to the side of the glass?

And what does that have to do with mortgages (which the advert was for)?

Current theories (other than the obvious):
He's doing pushups.
He's raging mad at the mortgage prices.
He's trying to get out of the glass so he can buy a house.

Meg also says they've changed the advert now so that there are cookies in the glass as well...

I've been working my way through the DVDs of the original series of Star Trek. The problem with this is after watching several episodes in a row, I read web pages and they sound like William Shatner in my head. This makes the process of reading them slower because he kepts pausing all the damn time. Maybe if I concentrate I can get Leonard Nimoy reading them instead.

I have the same problem when I watch too much Farscape, only then it's usually Ben Browder. Or when I listen to Doctor Who audios and everyone on IRC starts sounding like Paul McGann. It's distracting!

Imagine my surprise after I merged my page of LiveJournal stuff into my main domain (it previously occupied my ISP-given webspace) and got a hold of the site stats to find it is almost the most popular part of my site.

I therefore decided I should probably update it, so I've added a page of Star Trek: Voyager icons (all but one previously posted here), some Greg the Bunny icons to the miscellaneous icons page and another Unreal Tournament 2k4 icon.

Some of them may even be good.