Introducing American Voices

April 30, 2005 - 5:25pm

Ejovi Nuwere proposes a new blogosphere project called American Voices. Ejovi describes the concept as thus:

The primary mission of American Voices is twofold: 1) To call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens throughout America by linking to text, audio and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens media being produced by people living in America. 2) To facilitate the emergence of ethnic leaders of the digital era and provide a means of mentorship for minorities in America.

 At a time when minorities in America increasingly look towards the Internet and technology for answers now more then ever a resource that connects minority leaders in technology with aspiring youth and adults is necessary. Who are the digital voices for Philippine Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans in our country? What are these groups saying and who’s listening? American Voices will function as a clearing house of Bloggers and Internet visionaries that will act as pseudo voices for their respective ethnic communities. By utilizing a mix of open source blog and Wiki software it will be a community built by its community.

Kill Drupal Trackback Spam: The quick and dirty way

April 30, 2005 - 4:46pm

Aldon Hynes created this simple php script to erase trackback spams in drupal. To use it, simply create a new node and paste the PHP code I've included below. To run the script simply access the node. One click and 800 trackback spams destroyed. Take that JRCreations.

<?php

$sql = " where ";

$sql .= " subject like '%cialis%' or ";$sql .= " comment like '%cialis%' or ";

$sql .= " subject like '%fioricet%' or ";$sql .= " comment like '%fioricet%' or ";

Mind Reading Machine from the Year 2282

April 30, 2005 - 2:25pm

"Hello, i am selling what i believe to be a mind reading machine built by Dr. J. S. Strauss in the year 2282".

-Via Mind Hacks

Talking about Sex, with Justice Antonin Scalia

April 30, 2005 - 3:08am

Pandagon teaches us all how to speak of Justice Scalia: the distinguished gentleman :

Justice Scalia’s reaction to the NYU law student who asked him if he sodomizes his wife really drove this home for me. Scalia, after all, thinks that the government has every right to come bursting into your house and telling you how to fuck, but he clearly thinks that he does not have to disclose his private information to the citizens he works for. Scalia claims he doesn’t believe you have a right to privacy, but he seems to think he has a right to privacy. From a democratic viewpoint, this is intolerable. From an aristocratic viewpoint, it is the natural order—of course Scalia is not accountable to the peasants.

Suspected Case of Mass Hysteria at Airport

April 30, 2005 - 2:54am

Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a suspected case of "Mass Hysteria" that broke out at a Melbourne Airport:

It is two months since Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport was plunged into full emergency mode after mystery illness swept through the Virgin Blue terminal, and authorities are none the wiser as to its cause.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the terminal, which was shut down for eight hours at a cost running into millions of dollars.

Nearly 50 people were taken to hospital, while fire officers wearing protective suits tried to determine whether it was an accident or something more sinister.

Even after a subsequent investigation by Victoria's Emergency Services Commissioner the cause of the scare remains unknown.

Now informed speculation is gathering strength that in potential terrorist hot spots like airports, people are now in a mood to be alarmed to the point of mass hysteria. -Source: ABC

Thought Scan

April 30, 2005 - 2:36am

Am I the only one who is creeped out by this latest development in neuroscience?

When volunteers were shown a plaid pattern made up of two different sets of stripes but asked to pay attention to only one set, the program was able to tell which one the subjects were thinking about.

Dr Rees said: "This is the first basic step to reading somebody's mind. If our approach could be expanded upon, it might be possible to predict what someone was thinking or seeing from their brain activity alone." - BBC: Brain scan 'sees hidden thoughts'

The Daily Show: How to become a CEO

April 29, 2005 - 11:41am

Lately, I've been looking for web design contracts. But thanks to this Daily Show report, I've realized I've been investing my time in the wrong field. I want to become a CEO. As Colbert notes, "If your company does well, you make a lot of money. But if the company does poorly... you still make a lot money!"

Watch Video in Realplayer

Stephen Colbert: "I want to get on the CEO fast track. And I mean a really fast track. The track itself is like tilted and greased with some sort of lubricant graphite polomer. And maybe the whole track is on wheels too. And then that's in the aisle of a concorde which is just roaring at mach 4 to CEO town."

Hunter S. Thompson on the TV Industry

April 29, 2005 - 11:14am
"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

SEO forums on Guerrilla Spam

April 28, 2005 - 1:48pm
Interesting conversation going on at SEO forums about my Guerrilla spam post....

Response to the UK Inquirer

April 28, 2005 - 12:20pm

Man claims CNN messed with his Blog, is the headline in the UK Inquirer (not to be confused with The National Enquirer). The inquirer reports:

That's the remarkable claim of Nick Lewis at smart campaigns.com, here CNN is spamming blogs in a sophisticated Google attack designed to lower the rank of posts critical of CNN, by introducing spam into the comment stream.

True, that was part of my story, however I seem to remember deciding to include the word "may" in the lead sentence that introduced the idea:

Most alarmingly, CNN may have also left malicious keywords at least 3 out of 13 with the intent of using google's keyword stuffing detectors to censor them.

What difference does one little word like "may" make... Oh well, surely the Inquirer would mention the heart of the story; using guerrilla tactics to create buzz in the blogosphere. After all, this story doesn't work without that crucial part:

They are also trying to post press releases to well-read blogs, it is claimed.

No, I don't remember claiming that they were trying to post press releases to well-read blogs. I remember noting that the "news article" they left me read like a press release. However, these articles are always found with the guerrilla spam, and not all of the spam included these "articles". So actually, no: CNN isn't going around posting naked press releases, and that was never my claim.

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