Host Infection
Posted on | October 18, 2008 at 9:55 am | 3 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: Mystery blog option updates.
Okay, this is getting kind of ridiculous. Someone or something really doesn’t want people posting comments on my blog, and I don’t think it’s me.
First, an entry I posted had “allow comments” unchecked. I can believe this is a problem with WordPress 2.6, since it’s happened a couple of times since I upgraded to it. Some other individual posting options I didn’t touch have gotten mysteriously checked or unchecked when I re-save an entry. That especially happens a lot with the post categories. The post-writing user interface on WP 2.6 is very bad (I liked the old one better) and I hope they fix it for 2.7. At the very least, they can position elements more ergonomically so that less vertical scrolling is required. For example, put the posting options back on the side instead of at the bottom. So, I’m willing to chalk this up to the wonky WP 2.6 interface.
Then, the global setting for “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” on the Global Settings page enigmatically was enabled. Since there are no registered users for my blog except me, that meant no one could comment. I know I haven’t changed anything on the Global Settings page for a long time, though I’ve probably accessed/viewed it a few times in the last couple of weeks. Again, maybe it’s just WordPress 2.6 doing something weird, but that seems unlikely.
Finally, after I disabled that setting, then I started noticing that all comments being posted were getting caught in the comment moderation queue, which means I have to approve them before they are posted. At first I thought people were using banned words or including too many URLs or doing something else that makes comments get sent to that queue. But all the latest comments by my regular commenters looked really innocuous to me (even InfK’s). So I checked the Discussion Settings and suddenly the “An administrator must always approve the comment” option was checked. Again, that’s something I know I’ve never enabled. And I haven’t even been in that settings page for a long time. Very weird.
The only possibilities I could see for this happening are:
- WordPress is messing up somehow and setting those options when I enter the page. But that sounds unlikely, because web interfaces don’t usually work that way and because I haven’t been hitting “Save” on those pages. Besides, I haven’t been able to recreate that.
- Someone has my blog admin password and is going in and changing settings on me. If so, why just change the ones related to comments? Especially to restrict commenting? Besides, my password is pretty hard to guess, if I do say so myself. (Sure, I gave out a password to Sue back when she was posting my pre-written entries during my Mexico vacation, but I changed it after I got back. Not that I don’t trust Sue, but I’m pretty sure she likes celery and cilantro, which makes me wonder about her.) Nevertheless, I have changed my password again, just in case.
- I am getting very forgetful in my old age, or am sleepwalking, and am changing these options and not telling myself.
But the more I thought about it, the more I kept coming back to something. Recently, my webhost Powweb has been very concerned about spammers and MySQL performance. They’ve even repeatedly sent out e-mails containing the following advisory:
*****************************************************************
CHECK YOUR APPLICATIONS: DON’T GET SPAMMED OR ABUSED
Be sure to closely monitor your applications — don’t let them
get spammed or abused! These tips will help keep you protected,
as well as keep our MySQL servers running at peak performance:
* Check your bulletin boards, forums, blogs, etc.,
for spammers. Fake posts and comments compromise the
integrity of your site and slow down database performance.
* Turn off Guest or Anonymous posting to these applications.
* Require registration, and registration confirmation. Spammers
can use programs to automatically sign up accounts on your
site and start posting bad content; requiring registration
confirmation can reduce this risk.
* Keep your code up to date. New releases of applications often
include built-in spam protection and can greatly reduce the
number of queries and amount of bandwidth you use.
* Turn off unused applications. Just because you don’t link to
an application anymore doesn’t mean it’s not getting traffic.
*****************************************************************
Very suspicious! It makes me wonder if they’ve got some backend script running on their servers that periodically checks the MySQL databases for WordPress installations and changes those commenting options directly in the data. I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like this, and no one on the Powweb community forums is complaining about it, so maybe I’m just being paranoid.
I haven’t felt the need to enact any of their draconian measures because 1) I don’t really get all that much in the way of spam comments, and 2) When I do, it usually comes in waves and it all gets caught by Askimet, as well as a few other WordPress anti-spam methods I’ve got enabled.
So, I’m just going to see how this all plays out and if any of those options get set back. If so, I’m going to start questioning Big Brother. And if they are responsible, they sure ain’t going to keep my business. That kind of thing is just reprehensible, especially if they do it behind your back. Maybe I should read the terms of service I agreed to…
Anyway, please let me know if you have any trouble posting comments. Thanks.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “my forks go missing”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Star Tease
Posted on | October 17, 2008 at 6:37 am | 2 Comments
The Internet was abuzz yesterday, abuzz I tell you, like an iPhone sitting next to a speaker, with the release of the first official photos from the new Star Trek movie, which opens in May 2009. So I might as well comment on them also. It’s an interesting batch of photos and gives a pretty good idea what the new faces look like in the old roles that we’re so used to from the original series. Take a gander at this crew photo (L-R: Chekov, Kirk, Scotty, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura):
And this one of the bridge, with Kirk, McCoy, some nameless mini-skirted chickiepoo, Spock, and Sulu:
And this better one of Spock (strangling Kirk):
The movie is also the cover story in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, which I have not received yet. I’m avoiding the online article so I can read the print one. (Check out the EW cover here. Scroll down.)
It’s hard to form impressions from still photos. You really have to see the actors in motion. But I’ll give it a try anyway.
Chris Pine’s Kirk looks okay, and even looks like Shatner a bit sometimes, especially around the eyes. But some of those pictures remind me a bit too much of SNL’s Bill Hader, possibly doing a Shatner impression. At any rate, he looks a bit too young. But of course we don’t know how old Kirk is supposed to be in this story.
Zachary Quinto has Spock nailed.
I wouldn’t have believed it, but Karl Urban is Dr McCoy. Aside from the resemblance, it looks like he’s also got the body posture down.
Anton Yelchin looks pretty good as Chekov facially, but that curly hair bugs me.
Simon Pegg looks great as Scotty. Again, I wouldn’t have believed he could pull off a resemblance until I saw that picture. Love the head tilt.
John Cho doesn’t look much like George Takei, and Zoe Saldana doesn’t look like Nichelle Nichols, so I will be interested to see how they move and talk. And let me say: Zoe – wowzer!
I’m sure no one wants the actors to do straight impressions of the original actors, though there will be some expectation of that in order to keep the audience grounded in the ST universe. But it does look like they’re at least going for the physical resemblances and the body language.
The Enterprise bridge looks a heckuva lot different from the one in the original series, though I can see some of the same design elements. I thought they would stick closer to the classic look and just make it more modern, but it looks like they went beyond that. Which is probably a good thing. Makes it less cheesy.
I can’t wait to see how it all comes together!
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 43°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Eastern European Girls” (Letters Lost)
- “Starting to Remember” (Duran Duran)
- “Release” (Aztec Camera)
- “Pieces” (Field Music)
- “Turn Me Round” (Mighty Lemon Drops)
- “Don’t Forget Me” (Absolute Zeros)
- “Save Your Money” (Loud Family)
Pet Peeve of the Day: Election robocalls. Last night, I got the one from the McCain campaign talking up the Ayers/Obama “connection”. It was despicable.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “bath towel phobia”.
Ah, Autumn
Posted on | October 16, 2008 at 6:22 am | 4 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: Somehow, the option requiring people to log in to post comments got turned on, and I don’t know how. I have my suspicions though. It wasn’t intentional. I’ve turned that off, so everyone should be able to post comments again. Sorry about that. Please let me know if it happens again.
A Related Pet Peeve of the Day: The website seems to be having problems again, right on schedule. Please let me know if you have trouble accessing this site.
Bonus Pet Peeve of the Day: Leaves. So beautiful but oh so deadly. Yes, I’m sure I’ve complained about them before, so this is my annual rant. I actually love Fall and it’s my favorite season. The only thing I don’t like it about is those damn leaves in my yard. When I first had this house built and moved into it, I had no idea that the ash tree they were planting in the front yard would grow so frickin’ huge and take up the whole thing. I was so naive. I didn’t think it would be any big deal to rake leaves. Growing up, we lived in a townhouse and paid maintenance fees so that other people did the yardwork. That was a good thing.
At this point the tree is about half empty:
I prefer to wait until all the leaves have dropped before raking any of them, but sometimes that’s not practical and I have to do it over consecutive weekends. And then I usually have to wait a couple of weeks after that to rake the backyard, since the leaves from the Honeylocust Shademaster 2000 there drop a lot later than the ones from the ash tree. I also have to factor in the leaves from trees in my neighbors’ yards. So basically I spend three or four weekends raking leaves.
Yesterday I had my sprinkler system winterized (i.e. blown out), since it’s about time for the lawn to hibernate for the winter. It’s a good time to do it, since we’re just starting to get into the night frosts. And it doesn’t do much good to water the lawn when it’s covered with leaves (see pic above).
I’m still waiting for someone to invent self-destructing leaves. But until then, I’ll just count on throwing out my back every year during my favorite season.
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 39°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “We Are The Pipettes” (The Pipettes)
- “If You Love A Woman” (Dirty Pretty Things)
- “Play For Keeps” (Velvet Crush)
- “Your Charms” (Cinerama)
- “Firewalker” (Liz Phair)
- “Zmeyka” (Ladytron)
- “Carbon Dioxide” (Big In Japan)
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “threw my life away on believing in god”.
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Castlevania: PoR (DS)
Shadowplay
Posted on | October 15, 2008 at 7:51 am | Comments Off
Slowing down… slowing down… reaching a year’s worth of daily posts… don’t know how long I can keep it up… running out of things to talk about and time to talk about them…
Videogame(s) Played Yesterday: Linger in Shadows (PS3). I downloaded this from the Playstation Network because it looked interesting and mysterious, and was only $3. It’s not really a game per se, but “interactive art”. Really hard to describe unless you’re experiencing it. There’s some 3D animation that you can make go backwards and forwards, and you can also manipulate objects within the animation. Doing certain manipulations in certain ways causes a breakthrough to the next scene. I played around with it for a half hour or so and managed to wrack up a number of PS3 trophies. I’m not sure exactly how I did it. The goals are not really defined. That also unlocked more scenes supposedly. I’m not sure how to get to them. The artwork is very nice and it’s fun to play around with, though I think recreational drug users would get more out of it. This is actually the kind of thing that I’d like to see more of on the Playstation Network. At least it’s showing some level of creativity not normally associated with videogames. It’s awfully weird but engaging and there’s a sense of humor about it. Oh, those wacky Europeans!
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “why does the monarch hate dr. venture?”.
Note: Commenting was accidentally turned off in yesterday’s post. Sorry about that. It’s back on now. Thanks to InfK for the heads-up.
Nineteen Eighty-Won
Posted on | October 14, 2008 at 7:24 am | Comments Off
Pet Peeve of the Day: My musical hero Scott Miller thinks that 1981 wasn’t a very good year for music. He especially singles out the “new romantic” movement, saying it was all about hair and fashion and “thin, washy synthesizers”. So I guess Scott’s not a Duran Duran fan. Their first album came out in 1981. Though I admire Scott greatly, anyone who does not appreciate “Planet Earth”, “Girls on Film” or “Friends of Mine” definitely has a screw loose. Just listen to John Taylor’s bass playing. 1981 also saw the release of the following seminal (to me) albums, none of which Scott mentioned:
Blue Öyster Cult’s Fire of Unknown Origin
The Cure’s Faith
Icehouse’s first album
King Crimson’s Discipline
The Moody Blues’ Long Distance Voyager
Bill Nelson’s Quit Dreaming and Get On The Beam
OMD’s Architecture & Morality
Pete Shelley’s Homosapien
Simple Minds’ Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call
Jim Steinman’s Bad For Good
Al Stewart’s 24 Carrots
The Stranglers’ The Gospel According to The Meninblack
The Teardrop Explodes’ Wilder
The Tubes’ Completion Backwards Principle
U2’s October
Ultravox’s Rage In Eden
I’m sure there were many more. And, oh yeah, there was also an album called Of Skins & Heart from a little known (at the time) Australian band called The Church, which featured this hit:
(Note that the aliasing in the video is not due to the crappy YouTube compression. That’s really part of the video.)
Ah well, at least Scott did include Nash the Slash on his list.
Sorry for resorting to an embedded YouTube video and a list of albums. I swore to myself I’d never do that. But I ain’t got time for anything more substantial right now.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “fiberglass insulation feet torture”.
Edit: Blog comments were mysteriously turned off for this post. It was not intentional. They’re back on.
DJ And The Bat
Posted on | October 13, 2008 at 7:38 am | 4 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: Last week, Variety announced that the CW Network is going to develop a new show called The Graysons based on the early life of Batman’s sidekick Robin, before his parents died and he was taken in by the Dark Knight. Supposedly this is either a replacement of sorts for Smallville (featuring the same producers), or a companion piece if Smallville actually survives to get renewed for yet another season. There’s some more info on that here.
Entertainment Weekly has already posted an article explaining why this is a colossally bad idea. But let me add a few reasons of my own:
1) I hate shows that have a built-in expiration. At some point you have to actually have Dick Grayson be taken in by Batman and become Robin. In the comics, he was still pretty young at that point (pre to early teen). It sounds like they want to stretch that out and make him older in the TV show. This is the same sort of concept that has made Smallville such a nightmare for the writers. Clark Kent on Smallville has still not donned the suit and the Superman moniker, and yet he’s faced almost every Superman villain possible. The show has been on for eight years, and at this point he’s through with high school (and presumably college, though they never spent much time showing him there) and is now working for the Daily Planet in Metropolis with Lois Lane. It’s like “C’mon, become Superman already! How long are we going to drag this out!!” Practically everyone in the world knows that Clark has powers and a lot know he’s an alien. The show doesn’t even take place in Smallville anymore, really. I don’t want to see the Robin thing get dragged out forever too.
2) Dick Grayson and his parents were circus acrobats. Shows with a circus setting don’t do too well. Remember Carnivàle? I really don’t want to see the stereotypical strongman, bearded lady, etc etc, and I’m sure most of America feels the same.
3) It dilutes the Batman legend. In order to make it interesting, they’re going to have to have some early versions of Batman villains. I’m sure there will be some alternate origin for the Joker involving the Grayson’s circus, since he’s is a clown after all. That would just be wrong. I can just see a teen Penguin flopping around. Like with Smallville, by the time Dick (excuse me, DJ) becomes Robin, he’ll probably have already encountered most of Batman’s rogue’s gallery. Probably before Batman does. And will there even be any mention of Batman? I doubt it. He should’ve been operating while Robin was young, but they probably won’t be able to say anything about him because Warner Bros does not want to interfere with the movie franchise.
So, it’s just a bad idea all around. Please don’t do this, CW. Thank you. I think you would be better off developing a Smallville spinoff based around Green Arrow and Black Canary.
Latre.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention I used to wear a Robin costume (homemade by my mother) when I was a kid. Yes, Robin. Not Batman. I think there may even be some video of that floating around somewhere.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “daddy’s little boy fiber figure”.
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