Reilly Grant

Somehow the spammers have figured out a way to post spam comments to this blog without getting an email notification sent to me.  (Since all comments have to be approved before they appear on the site.)  I’m not sure this is a win for them, since I didn’t even notice there were any comments to moderate until a few days ago.  This is probably a Wordpress bug and I’ll be upgrading to the latest version soon.

The funny part about all this was the different kinds of spam comments I was getting.  For those who don’t know how this works, the reason that spammers try to post comments on blogs is to affect search engine rankings.  If they can get many sites to include mentions of their product or even better, a link to their webpage, it increases their search ranking.  To this end most “link spam” you’ll see will include a long list of search terms (drugs, porn or both) and if the site allows HTML tags in comments these terms will be links.  Clicking through the over 250 bogus postings I found a breed that was much more clever.  Instead of random terms and links (which can easily be flagged by automatic filters) the comment body was one of a number of variations on, “Hi, first I want to say nice blog. I don’t always agree with your posts but it’s always a nice read. Keep up the great work.”  That’s right, my comment spam was complementing me.  Some other entertaining ones included, “Just got my new iPhone and this blog looks great on it.” and “Sory, delete plz. ”  How are these link spam?  Well, somebody figured out that Wordpress lets you specify a website and email address as the author information for the comment.  They still get their rank boosting link and all they have to come up with is a reasonable sounding comment and they’re more likely to get approved.  I must say, the tactic almost worked.  While the comments that say nothing but “VIAGRA VIAGRA VIAGRA” are easy to filter out, each of these required careful reading and a check against the posting they were replying to to tell the difference between a new loyal reader and clever spambot.

If any of you spammers are reading this: Good job, nice try, now GO AWAY!

This Friday I discovered an unexpected package from Netflix in my mailbox, their new Instant Streaming Disc for the PS3.  The lack of Netflix support was actually the only thing I regretted about choosing the PS3 over the Xbox 360.  No more!  Using the Instant Streaming Disc you can watch any of Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” titles on your television.  Unfortunately the selection of such titles is a little sparse.  It consists of an eclectic combination of hit new releases, TV shows and B movies from the 80’s.  Nevertheless this has definitely brought even more value to the Netflix service.  (Hear that cable company?  I don’t need you for my entertainment!)

Last Tuesday Fox premiered a new series, Glee.  Set in an Ohio high school where the jocks and the cheerleaders rule the school, Glee tells the story of a Spanish teacher who dreams of restoring the school’s glee club to the glory it had when he was a student.  At the outset this sounds like it could make for some pretty good television.  I’ve always been a fan of the musical comedy and despite the work of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Dollhouse) popular series in this genre have always been hard to find.  Unfortunately for Glee, this series might not be one I’ll continue watching. (continue reading…)

ABC’s drama department is a strange place to be finding this season’s new Sci-Fi show,  but since the Sci-Fi channel’s decided to rename itself “SyFy” anything’s possible.  I haven’t quite gotten through the first episode, but it seems alright so far, like an updated Apollo 13.  Perhaps it may even get the public thinking about space exploration again. (continue reading…)

Head for the hills, the sky is falling!  Or at least, we’re running out of IPv4 address space.  In English, that means that if things continue at the present rate in 2 years there will be no more unassigned Internet addresses available.  That is, unless the world’s infrastructure switches over to the new version of the Internet Protocol, IPv6.  IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses instead of 32-bit addresses, so there are literally a billion billion billion times as many addresses available.  Pretty much one for every speck of dust on the planet, not to mention the universe.  So, while only 10% of the IPv4 address space is left, IPv6 is less than 0.01% depleted.  (Much, much less than that, but more zeros make for an awful headline.) (continue reading…)

For years now we’ve known that DNS is broken.  Thankfully, a solution is on the way.  DNSSEC provides a layer of security on top of the existing DNS architecture allowing clients to verify that the DNS information they receive has not been tampered with.  In the next few years we should see (hopefully) widespread adoption of this standard.  With DNSSEC in place we can trust DNS, and this leads to an interesting corollary.  We might not need SSL certification authorities anymore.

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Those who know me are familiar with my general dislike for Facebook.  The same reasoning applies to Twitter as well.  The fundamental problem with social networking sites is that they are closed communities.  Sure, almost everybody is in them, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have to have an account with a particular provider to participate.  This isn’t a problem when there is a monopoly, but what if there are two popular services? (continue reading…)

Lately I’ve found myself spending more and more time on Facebook. Probably in an attempt to keep in touch with the people I wish I were seeing more often in real life (or meatspace as some would call it). It makes me feel like a bit of a hypocrite since I’m always talking about how much I hate Facebook and here I am actually updating my status more than once a day. I must admit that it is a good diversion and a way to keep in touch with people, but it won’t replace an actual conversation. Preferably one face to face.

So, if you’re my friend (sorry, I’m not looking for new ones) send me an email, give me a call. If you’re around town, maybe we can hang out. Get me off Facebook and into real life!

Graders really should compare handwriting between homeworks turned in to prevent people doing other people’s homework, in case a different person does it every time. Of course, if you’re comparing handwriting you should do it in good light, such as outside on a bright sunny day. If the handwriting samples are on pizza, however, one mustn’t leave it out too long in the sun or else the writing may become difficult to read due to melted cheese.

My thought processes at 1AM… Who needs drugs when you can just be tired.

Pixar manages to blend outstanding animation technology with some of the best story tellers in the movie business.  The first thing you see when watching a Pixar movie is the animation.  Toy Story was groundbreaking in it’s use of computer animation, but Pixar has moved beyond that.  Sure, Ratatouille debuted incredible new fur rendering techniques, and there are shots in WALL-E that are indistinguishable from a photograph, but that is not where the magic in these films lies.  No, Pixar films feature stories that are new, and different, and they use all that fabulous technology to bring them to life.  WALL-E is a tearful romance, with no dialog or human characters for the first 45 minutes!  Ratatouille takes the rat, scourge of the kitchen, and turns him into the greatest chef in all of France.  That leaves, of course, the latest Pixar feature, released a few weeks ago in theaters (and, if you haven’t seen it, hopefully still is playing), Up.  Perhaps the most amazing part of the entire film is the first 10 minutes. (continue reading…)