Category Archives: misc

Net bits

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Finally earned my Elite Platinum trophy in Burnout Paradise earlier which pleases me greatly. 328/490 challenges done, 89% of offline game and I also have the additional content trophies. And then World Rankings. All for £37 it was. VFM indeed.

Almost completed the domains move to Nearlyfreespeech. Bri’s site goes into a Tiny at ASO. J’s site for now goes into a Small there. I would move it but it involves moving Gallery and the thought of that is scary. May try at a later date when I have a whole day free to fix the thing after a move. Data designed not to move… Going to NFS makes sense because I do not use any of the features in cpanel. Do not use stats, error logs, email and I did not need the reseller either. So the move should save me a few $ a year. (If it does not it will be the tamba2 site that will be to blame. Still gets decent traffic). Need to work out what to do with Root’s site (if you remember Root you go way back to 2004. Fun times!). Probably open a new account at NFS for when he returns from wherever he goes. Never leaves a note, just floats off. Nice guy though, would love to meet him.

And FreshlyPressed will become James’ property in the next week or so. It’s ticking over nicely but I just do not have the time to do work that comes in. So rather than me being there but not it makes sense for it to be James’ and he will email if needed. It also removes any conflict of interest – I know a couple of people have watched before for me to mention FP in one of the WordPress forums even though FP happened in 2005 and I joined Automattic in 2006 – not that I would have done such a thing anyway.

Other than that life is as good as it gets. Which is pretty crap compared to yours but then yours is pretty crap compared to others. It is how it is, not what we would want it to be.

Bits

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Out with J earlier had 2 double espressos and had the wierdest floaty / high / ill / nauseous / tired sensations for quite some time after. Not had that with coffee before.
J is visibly getting worse. It used to be something that crept up slowly but just recently there has been a marked change. Stressful on every level.
I played again with Tweetdeck and as a result am filling a new twitter account (I deleted the old ones) mark_r2 (original eh?) with news and other info. I’m calling it my unpeople twitter. Tweetdeck there is useful in splitting things down.
Unexpected cash from the NHS arrived which was very welcome.
Trying to find a PS3 keypad because everywhere seems out of stock
Saw the ‘Am I bovvered?’ Tony Blair sketch for the first time earlier on the Comic Relief DVD. Made me laugh more than I thought. Certainly would not work with Gordon.
The people that heckled the soldiers the other day? Throw them in a boat and get rid. If they want to support the people the soldiers are being asked to fight then they can do it from that other country.

To the driver of Toyota VVTi Y378 LEN

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There is a dual carriageway along which we travelled and this eventually comes together in one lane. Coming along it earlier we saw that there was a long tailback which is not uncommon on this stretch. The white car in front moved straight into the empty right lane. Wondered what he was doing for a moment then we realised he was stopping the traffic that would otherwise zoom past and squeeze in further down. He is in the right lane and we are on his rear left wing. A blue Toyota VVTi gets right up to the white car, starts moving back and forward, revving the engine – all intimidation. It was a squat little asian lady with huge sunglasses on. She was barely tall enough to see over the wheel but according to her where she needed to be was far more important. This aggression continued for close to 3/4 of a mile. As the road did start to narrow into one the white car stayed wide and came closer only as needed and she was still there, still looking to get past him. As we stayed where we were she eventually had no choice but to fall behind us. The white car dropped into place in front of us and the guy put his hand up to say Thanks. He got two thumbs up right back from us. So.. the bitch in the Toyota has to stay where she is until the next roundabout at which time she pulls up alongside the white car and appears to be giving him some crap. He didn’t move at all which was supremely cool of him and can only have infuriated the poisoned dwarf. He drove off as he wished and she even hung back to give us some hard stares. So if you know a stumpy little woman with huge sunglasses and drives a Toyota VVTi Y378 LEN I’d stay well away. Nasty bit of work.

F****** happy

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Bryony Shaw prompts BBC apology by swearing after Olympic windsurfing bronze. Telegraph

“”I love my mum and dad so much, they are so supportive. And my boyfriend Greg. My coach Tom is such a legend. I am so f***ing happy. ”

If you can’t swear after working damn hard to compete in an event that takes place only every 4 years then when the fuck can you?

Good on her :)

I dislike fakes.

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Going away next week and I wanted to put some films on the PSP. The 1gb card will hold 2 but I wanted some more. I figured 4gb would be a good size for the photo backup backup when there. Into Ebay, search for 4gb pro duo, find heaps listed. Pick a user with good feedback and buy one. The card was cheap but the page on ebay said all the right things.
It arrived this morning and it’s a fake. Google ‘magicgate unknown’ and everything you find applied to the card. My fault for buying cheap? Maybe. The seller’s fault for lying? Oh yes. I checked his page today, took a screenshot. There is no ambiguity in the language – it’s a 4gb Sony card being sold. Unsurprisingly this really pissed me off. The reported size is 4gb but I have yet to try and fill the card. Fakes live for a very short time so data will be lost. So I’ve been sold a fake through ebay using paypal and the web page shows the seller really isn’t a good one. What to do?

I could leave negative feedback
I could open a dispute at ebay.
I could report the fraud to paypal and ebay.
At most I get my money back, I don’t know what happens to the seller.
I could make a deal with the seller.
Or I could make a deal with the seller then not keep my side of the bargain.

I’ve made my choice, but what would you do?

A big free clue for Google

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If you have a paid link on your blog Google will throw you out of their results.
If you have any links hidden on your blog the same happens.
If your site has been compromised and links inserted the same happens again.
If you are seen as harming Google they punish you. That’s fair enough because it’s their business but what it should be doing is looking after people whose work is being stolen. And it’s not just stolen it enriches the thief and also Google. Is there therefore an incentive to do what I’m going to describe? probably not…
The point here is that Google can tell a lot about your site.

Like many bloggers I can spot a splog in less than 10 seconds. The common features:
- Every entry has “wrote an interesting post” “read the rest of the post here” “..talked today about”
- Most entries are uncategorised
- There is an absence of comments
- The theme is one from a selected range no doubt sold for the “SEO friendliness”
- The posting frequency will be high and fairly regular
- There is no easily obtained webhost information (so no ToS, AUP, DMCA addresses)
- ads. And more often than not contextual ones which means Adsense.
- there are more clues but scoring more than half the above means you are looking at content theft.

Now if I can join those dots why can’t Google? Why can’t the other search engines? After all if the big advertisers don’t care about content theft why should the other guys? Why is it not possible to suspend those accounts that meet most of the above? Why can’t you grab the publisher id and suspend automatically? Why can’t the above raise some flags and a single abuse complaint ensure it is seen faster? I really do find it amazing that a company which can bring us so much good cannot add up what a splog looks like without being told.
And the bonus is that your blog search would be cleaned up – which pleases everyone.

Matt Cutts wants an idea of something to do – there you go.

Sean Hamerton – imbecile

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A young girl is stalked, harassed and stabbed to death. In comments on that article:

Sean Hamerton - imbecile

So.. Mr Hamerton, when I turn up where you live and I trash your car, kill your kids, rape your wife, burn your house down and finish it all off by breaking your back you cannot blame me. You’ll need to find someone else. Maybe it’s the lack of public transport where I live? Maybe I didn’t have enough blankets when I was a baby? One thing is for sure though – by your own criteria I absolutely cannot be to blame.

Sean Hamerton you are an idiot, an imbecile and I really do wish you the worst of everything.

Hidden speech

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http://threespeech.com

Google ‘three speech’ or ‘threespeech’ or ‘threespeech.com’ or ‘threespeech blog’ and you get zip. Nothing, no link to the domain.
Yahoo has it as result #1

Either Google are losing their touch or they are removing that domain. Why?

Just p and p to add…

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So ebay have decided to fiddle around with their fees because they want to sell more. And this will mean zilch to most. What ebay should do is nail the postage costs. You can probably buy a PS3 on ebay for a few quid. The postage will set you back a few hundred of course because that is where the profit is. ebay know it, sellers know it – and they hope that buyers don’t until they have confirmed. No matter which way you look it’s a scam and one that by their inaction ebay cultivate.

> create entry

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I meant to switch from the last domain to this much sooner but what with work, flights, more work, home life and not enough red bull, things slipped. Not that it matters.