dummy forms
Near the end of March, I disabled comments to the site (I renamed the script, thus breaking the link). I have been getting a new kind of comment spam that doesn’t get caught by MT Blacklist; those clever boys are randomly encoding the characters in their urls, so instead of “online-casinos” the url is “online-casinos”. The blacklist plugin doesn’t convert those entities back into characters, so they get past the filter.
This is, perhaps, fixed in the newer versions of MovableType, I don’t know, and I’m not upgrading just to find out. The spammers who use this method are a more sophisticated variety, they are using multiple IP numbers (either open proxies or zombied machines) so there’s no point in IP banning.
I’ve implemented dummy forms, as suggested by SimonG. These are duplicate comment entry forms that don’t display in the brower and that point to an incorrect comment URL. The idea is that automated scripts which look at the page source for the form tags will grab field names and urls from the dummy form, thus preventing the spam from getting posted.
I have also disabled new comments on older articles.
SELECT * FROM MySQL.Conference LIMIT 6,6
record 7
Scattered on the walls of the Santa Clara Westin Great America are a number of prints and paintings. Electronic signs indicate that these works are for sale. But for some reason the signature on the works is hidden by the frame. It is generic art. There are four very colorful monoprints in the hallway which goes between the convention area and the hotel proper. By one of the convention Ballrooms, there is what appears to be a large (perhaps 22″ x 30″) copper plate bearing the image of a flower. The image was flat bit, and the plate has been inked, and the plate mounted and framed. At least that is what it looks like to me.
SELECT * FROM MySQL.Conference LIMIT 6
record 0
I am quartered in a Holiday Inn somewhere in Santa Clara, California, attending a conference about MySQL, the database technology. There’s something of a long story as to how I came to be here, which would involve of details about my current work situation, my new job, new company, and so on. Better to jump right in. Come play along.
There are people blogging about the conference. There is an aggregator of blogs here. Go take a peek, if you are interested in things like database clustering, or new features in MySQL 5. There are photo galleries as well.
Reading for March, 2005
The Glass Hammer by K.W. Jeter. Reread.
Fool’s Errand by Robin Hobb. The first book in the third trilogy by Hobb (who has also written several books under another name). Hobb is a solid fantasy writer; throughout the FitzChivalry Farseer books she uses a single voice for all the storytelling. There are too many writers out there who shift the narrative voice as it suits them, the worst offenders being those writers who like to “peek” into the mind of the villain / antagonist because they don’t know how else to move the story forward. Jasper Fforde’s /The Eyre Affair/ is a good example of this slovenly writing style.
(Comments are disabled. Email shoehorn at antimodal.com if you want to leave a comment.)
still waiting for the hard work to pay off
I am pleased to announce that I am now 0 for 3 for submitting work to the SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, and 0 for 5 total art project submissions in the past five years. I take comfort in knowing that in ten years or so I will be vindicated, as my work will be conspicuously absent from the catalogs of various “art and technology” exhibitions. Ignore me at your peril!
Reading for February, 2005
February is the shortest month.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. #17 on the Modern Library list. A haunting story full of tragedy. Some amazing characterizations, where you get to see the character from both the inside and the outside.
Jay the Marketer
I live in Los Angeles. Lately I’ve noticed a couple of billboards directing me to www.JayTheWriter.com. The billboards have black text on a white background, one I’m thinking of in particular says, “Hey Kevin Costner, I wrote ___ ____ just for you.” But the word “Costner” is crossed out, and “Kline” handwritten above it, so it now reads: “Hey Kevin Costner Kline, I wrote ___ ____ just for you.” As the weeks go by, the name is crossed out again and again, replacing “Kline” with “Spacey”, and now “Bacon”.
I assumed from this that JayTheWriter was, perhaps, a disgruntled Hollywood insider, who had been part of the industry and was sickened by the platitudes and back room deals that result in movies like, oh, The Big Bounce. I figure JayTheWriter has written a scathing commentary on Hollywood ethics — “Yes, you are the first person to read this script; I wrote it with you in mind.”
Sadly, JayTheWriter is actually just another vanilla writer with a bunch of boffo screenplays. He’s got a drama, an action thriller, a farce comedy, and a sitcom. Bleh.
One thing JayTheWriter does have is a clever touch for marketing. So here’s some free publicity for you, Jay. Good luck and all that.
the end of trackbacks
delete from mt_tbping where tbping_blog_name = “online poker”;
Fortunately this site is just the one blog, so when the comment spammers decide to start trackback spam there is no one to complain if I disable trackbacks. It is also nice to be able to write SQL commands to wipe out swathes of spam.
I know that when someone chooses to spam my site, it is nothing personal. But at the same time, when someone spams my site, it is nothing personal, and that is why it sucks. It is a kind of pollution, kind of like if the Coca Cola company decided for their next ad campaign to dump millions of empty Coke cans on the side of the highway. “Hey, look at all the Coke cans, that must be one fucking tasty carbonated beverage.”
Interview with a link spammer. Not much of an “interview”, but an interesting snapshot nonetheless.
UPDATE: I’m now getting 30-100 blacklisted comment hits per day. Pray the defences hold!
Hello 66.144.4.6
Between 5:46 AM and 6:18 AM, the computer at 66.144.4.6 posted 216 comments advertising various medical prescriptions to this site.
One Idea about Narrative
There was an interesting editorial by Norman Mailer in the newspaper last week: PARADE Magazine | One Idea (Norman Mailer)–January 23, 2005. While he spends a little too much time praising the current educational reform effort, his “one idea” is the need to eliminate commercial interruptions on television, because they interrupt the narrative of the programs, and attention to narrative is an important part of reading literacy.
“In the early years of television, it was even hoped that the attention children gave to TV would improve their interest in reading. Indeed, it might have if TV, left to itself, consisted of uninterrupted narratives. That, of course, was soon not the case. There were constant interruptions to programs