Spam Karma 1 beta 2 has been very good to me, only letting through a couple false negatives and almost no false positives. But it’s good to be pro-active about comment spam. Spam Karma works.
I just installed Spam Karma 2. First impression: The new Spam Karma has a lot of knobs and buttons! This is industrial grade stuff.
I even went all wacky and turned Pingbacks and Trackbacks on.
If your comment gets inappropriately eaten by SK or you’re having any trouble, ping me.
Here they are! Behind these links are are selected photos and videos from my 2005 Burning Man trip.
The videos don’t display correctly in Firefox but you can get them (with a yucky interface) from here. Just look for the .avi files at the bottom of the list.
And here is my special small contribution to the spirit of the burn… *These beautiful panorama images* were stiched together with Hugin, a terrific photo panorama tool. Each image is composed of 5 to 14 or so photos. I might recommend that you right-click download these images and then view them in their fantastic high-res detail at your lesuire.
Catch my Burning Man 2004 pix too.
I sat on these pictures for WAAAAY too long. I just never got around to putting them together in a coherent pile.
Well, here are my Burning Man 2004 images!
Just like for my 2005 Burning Man pictures, I stiched together a precious few into fabulous panorama images. Here are the panoramas!
Long story short:
If you use Skype, call me, username: gadlen (I have Skype voicemail)
If you use Google Talk, call me, leeatleedotorg
If I don’t seem to be online, ping me on AIM, u:gadlen or by phone. I sometimes turn off my instant message & talk clients to save on RAM for intensive tasks.
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I’ve been using Google Talk for 2 weeks now, talking on the phone/computer with my sister fer free. The sound quality kicks and it’s hard to beat the price. (free)
TJIC says that my Skype-Out call to him sounded “like a good cell phone”.
My Google Talk –> Google Talk conversations with my sister sound much better than a telephone.
I got the free crippleware version of Total Recorder to make recordings of some Skype calls. The sound quality was “pretty good” (and definitely adequate) but there was some weird static on the recording.
I’ve been mooching off my housemate’s phone so I’ve been using Nobelcom calling cards. For most calls to New Jersey there is a terribly frustrating echo on the line… I hear my own words a 1/4 second after I say them. All other calls sound peachy
I might have to go buy cordless computer headsets for all my friends and family for Christmas.
ASCII art
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/ ___|_ __(_)_ __ __| | ___ _ __
| | _| '__| | '_ \ / _` |/ _ \ '__|
| |_| | | | | | | | (_| | __/ |
\____|_| |_|_| |_|\__,_|\___|_|
Dear Lazyweb,
I recently moved from the Eastern time zone to the Pacific time zone. All of my reoccurring events (i.e. birthdays and anniversaries) in Outlook shifted from being “all day events” to occuring three hours sooner… 9pm the day before until 9pm the day of the event. I rummaged around on Microsoft.com but the best I could find was that Bill told me to either move to another time zone, just get used to it, or manually fix all of the events. I went ahead and manually fixed all of the events… it took about an hour and a half and now my eyes hurt. :-(
For future reference, is there a better way to do this?
Update 12-9-05. See comment #5, below
I had an exchange with SierraTradingPost.com recently about comment spam they appeared to be writing.
Here is the last letter I wrote to Andy Newlin, Online Marketing Manager at SierraTradingPost.com
To paraphrase our conversation:
I said: Your company is posting comment spam, which I don’t think is very endearing.
You said: No, we’re not.
I said: Yes you are, and here are 20 examples of it
You said: No, we’re not. That’s not us. Well, actually, you’re right. An adverstizing affiliate of ours is writing potentially deceptive ads in our name. So please apologize for saying that we’re writing comment spam.
You do what you think is best for your company. Have a nice day,
Lee Sonko
Continue reading ‘SierraTradingPost.com comment spam’ »
I guess I’m in the right place….
Pledge ruled unconstitutional
By Associated Press
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 – Updated: 02:06 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO – A federal judge in San Francisco has declared it unconstitutional to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
The judge, ruling in a lawsuit brought by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, today ruled that he is bound by precedent of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Newdow objected to the words ”under God” in the pledge.
My rant on the subject
When a court fires pot-shots like this, the rulingslikely won’t stick nationally, but the sentiment is still there.
I generally only watch a particular television series once in order to grok it. When I’m done with it, I’m done.
I watched and enjoyed the original “Bachelor”. I found the experiment in “forced romantic community” quite interesting. I also followed the original “Survivor”. I thought that the Survivor story was finished… well, except for the multiple of re-iterations. I was wrong.
Richard Hatch won the original Survivor through a mix of social engineering, careful plannning, and luck. But apparently, his skills are so infused into his personality, he doesn’t know when to turn them off.
The Smoking Gun
“Survivor” winner indicted for tax evasion, fraud, charity swindle
SEPTEMBER 8–After rejecting a plea deal earlier this year, original “Survivor” winner Richard Hatch was named today in a 10-count indictment charging him with tax evasion and fraudulently using charitable donations to cover personal expenses. According to the indictment, a copy of which you’ll find below, Hatch never bothered to report his 2000-01 haul for winning the initial installment of the CBS reality series–a $1 million check and a $27,000 Pontiac. The 44-year-old Newport, Rhode Island resident also never told the Internal Revenue Service about nearly $400,000 in other income. Included in that six-figure sum was $36,500 in donations to Horizon Bound, a purported charity established by Hatch. Prosecutors allege that Hatch actually used that money for personal expenses. Along with two tax evasion counts, Hatch was charged with filing a false return; mail fraud (four counts); wire fraud (two counts); and bank fraud. He faces a maximum of five years in prison (and a $250,000 fine) on nine of the felony charges, though the bank fraud rap carries a 30-year max and a $1 million fine. Hatch reneged on a January plea agreement calling for him to cop to a pair of felony tax evasion counts. Prosecutors responded by opening a grand jury probe that resulted in Hatch being hit with eight additional felonies. (18 pages)
My dad went to a doctor today. His heart has some tricky blockages. I’m very concerned.
I’ll probably be flying home for the surgery.