Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Gigablast to Google Content Connection

Some of my "scraped" content kept showing up in places not expressly authorized to have my content. This was making me a little batty as I'm pretty sure the bot blocker wasn't letting these people through, that my code didn't have holes like swiss cheese, then I figured it out. Finally there was a clue embedded in some of the data, as it included one of my tracking bugs, and it turns out the data originated from Gigablast.

Knowing it came from Gigablast, I looked up Gigablast's list of partners and VOILA! there was the site in question listed in their partner list.

Now comes the dilemma of what to do about this situation as I'm not happy with a couple of their partners and by allowing Gigablast, I'm permitting the partners access by default.

Worse yet, Google indexes the Gigablast data that's present in their partner sites, like Eurekster, so here you are competing with your own content in Google yet again via the Gigablast connection.

Since I really don't get any noticeable traffic from Gigablast or any of their partners, maybe it's time to cut the umbilical cord just to keep my own information from being used against me to rank their partner sites in Google.

Looks like we need some robots.txt commands that we can use to tell search engines like Gigablast it's OK to index, but not share with Snap for instance.

Maybe implement something like this in robots.txt for search engine partner control:

User-agent: Gigabot
ShareDeny: SNAP
ShareDeny: Eurekster
It's feels almost as bad, if not worse, than battling a scraper but this time I let this one in the front door with my blessings.

To block or not to block, THAT is the question...

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Did You Hear My Horn?

This is an open letter to all the incompetent drivers out there on the roads of the world.

You know who you are and we know who you are too, which is why we're honking our horns at you, flashing our lights at you, and most likely slamming on our brakes to avoid your masterful maneuvers when you're showing off your true talents on the road.

Lanes, pick one and stick to it.

Follow those little dots and dashes on the road and stay between a pair of them, it's not that complicated. When making a 2 lane turn into a 2 lane road, stay in the lane you started in unless you want to explain your incompetence to the mechanic, insurance company and the Dept. of Motor Vehicles.

Even if a road jogs at a funny angle as you cross an intersection, and the markings aren't too clear, it's not rocket science. If you're on the far left or right in a 3 lane road, stay to the far left or right. If you're in the middle lane it can't be that complicated to figure out where the middle is in the road across the intersection but sure as shit, 9 times out of 10, you end up in the far right lane with people honking (often me) and screeching brakes to avoid your dumb ass.

Aren't the cars in the lanes next to you any clue that it's unsafe to change lanes at this time?

Turning Signals or Blinkers, Use It or Lose A Fender.

It's that little lever on the side of the steering wheel that you either never learned how to use or it's too inconvenient to use because your fucking cell phone is currently in that hand. I'm not a mind reader, and even if I have a clue what you're about to do, I'm going to completely ignore it because you're too stupid to expressly tell me. Maybe I'll even speed up just to make sure I'm in the way and completely justified for blasting my horn and scaring the shit out of you which will probably cause you to then over steer to avoid me and careen into a bus load of kids on the other side. Signal your turn or die, your choice.

Turning Lanes, Get Out NOW!

If you're in a right or left exit only or turn only lane, can you explain why in the hell you wait until you get up to the end of the lane, often at a stop sign, before you decide to change lanes?

Never mind the long line of cars behind you now waiting since you fucked up their lane.

Never mind the long line of cars in the lane next to you because you're fucking up their lane as well. Most often you veer into that lane as you try to change lanes, without a turning signal (see Turning Signals or Blinkers above) and then panicked and stopped so now they can't get around your dumb ass either.

Doesn't the sound of those horns honking behind you give you a clue you're a pinheaded fucknut?

Space, Keep Your Damn Distance!

If I look in my rear view mirror and you're tailgating then you might want to pray your brakes, airbags and seatbelts all work properly.

If you're driving an expensive and well polished German car, I might just put on my windshield washers which will send a spray of water over the top of my car onto that wax job you just paid for and put spots all over your car. Some of you are smart enough to back off after my washer pisses on your Porsche a time or two, others not so bright.

Maybe I'll just drop from overdrive into drive and completely let off on the accelerator so the engine will suddenly slow my car down real quick, no brake lights, not a single clue I'm slowing, and scare the shit out of you when you almost plow into my car.

Hell, you want to be in my backseat?

Maybe I'll just help you out...

Maybe, if I'm all alone in my car, and you're all alone in yours, and there's nobody else around, just maybe I'll slam on the fucking brakes so hard that you'll smash into the rear of my car with enough force you'll pop your airbag like a balloon, fly through your windshield, smash through my rear windshield, where you can lay bleeding to death in my backseat assuming you aren't already dead from the impact.

Pulling Into Traffic.

Why in the hell do you watch the other cars coming at you, sitting there with your thumb up your ass, and suddenly pull into traffic at the last second?

You must realize it's a bad idea as you hear the screeching brakes and honking horns that greet your entry onto the road yet you do this every time!

If suicide is your wish, use a gun or rope in the privacy of your own home and leave me and everyone else on the road out of it.

Handicap Placards.

Let me give you a hint: those blue handicap placards or handicap stickers on your license plates do not make you invincible or give you carte blanche permission to do stupid shit on the road without repercussions. If you think you're handicapped now, just wait until 3 thousand pounds of screaming steel fucks you up worse that you already are. Just look at what happened to Christopher Reeves and that was just a single horse power, so imagine what my 455 horse power can do to mangle you further.

Summary

The difference between a drunk driver and a your bad driving ass is that at least the drunk driver can sober up but your bad driving is dangerous 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Take a fucking cab before you kill yourself and take innocent people with you.

Just get off the road now, stay off the road, and we'll all live longer and happier lives.

Monday, February 12, 2007

10K Years of Global Warming is Cool

The scientists now yammering about global warming had better go get some parkas and brace for the ice age instead.

Lot's of evidence all over the place that the earth's ice has been melting for a really long time such as the undersea stone age sites located off the British Isles or the Tybrind Vig off the coast of Denmark.

I'm pretty sure these settlements didn't start under water so you have to ask yourself just how much ice had to melt to put them under water?

I'll bet Neanderthal man tried to limit greenhouse gases by banning fire.

Personally, I'm banking on the theory of ice age cycles. Theory hell, there's a lot more evidence in the scientific community that supports crap in the atmosphere ultimately causes cooling than it does warming in the long term. As a matter of fact, many contend that all the fresh water dumping into the ocean causes the ocean currents to stop moving the way we're used to which will disrupt our current weather patterns.

Note that Geologists agree that Egypt was subject to severe flooding at the end of the last Ice Age and that evidence is found on the bottom of the Sphinx in the form of water erosion, opposed to the wind erosion on the upper half, which makes the Sphinx much older than originally speculated.

Either way, it's not going to be pretty, as being too hot or too cold both suck and it looks more likely that cold is in our future.

Needless to say, the landscape will all change, and soon it will be places like Mexico screaming about illegal immigrants as North America is engulfed in a sheet of ice and snow.

Time to go bunk with some Eskimos and learn some basic Ice Age survival skills while there's still time!