Month: March 2004

a simple fix for comment spam, if only it worked

Well, I thought of something that *should* work but for reasons I can’t quite make out, won’t.

Since we’re dealing with automated processes here, one easy fix is to rename the comments script so the bots can’t just insert that into the URL and spam you. Works great, except if people want to preview their comments. For some reason, the preview button is hard-coded to call “mt-comments.cgi” no matter what you have in mt.cfg or even in ConfigMgr.pm.

So I have had to re-enable the mt-comments.cgi script and _voila_, I have comment spam again.

weblogs as early warning systems? canaries in the coal mine?

Ton’s Interdependent Thoughts: Every Signal Starts Out As Noise

This is an insightful, if long (for a weblog), examination of what knowledge management and the world of weblogs (unfiltered/unedited, self-published notes and observations) can bring to the workplace or enterprise.

There’s nothing about ROI or the bottomline in here. At least not directly: the underlying point is that you can’t always isolate what might be valuable.

The hope is that by examining everything and trying to understand the seething welter of ideas that exist in any workspace, you learn more about what goes on there. Can you learn too much about what your organization does? Are you sure everyone has the same understanding? Do you know where your work practices overlap a colleague’s? Or perhaps where they don’t quite meet?

But rather than address the more esoteric, I have a simpler example.

I’m reluctant to repeat the old buzzwords about flattening hierarchies and re-engineering the enterprise, but one of the more important lessons to learn in any any organization is finding out who can say “yes,” who can make things happen. It’s not always someone with a corner office — it often isn’t — but learning who these folks are and how to work with them can be essential. This is an area where weblogs or other internal communication tools can really help.
Continue reading “weblogs as early warning systems? canaries in the coal mine?”

lunch as part of the education process

Idle Words:

Food is one of life’s many pleasures, there is an elaborate (of course) intellectual superstructure to its proper preparation and enjoyment, and French children are introduced to the intricacies of good eating from an early age. And as they grow to adulthood, they find themselves in a country where one is expected to eat well, and where there are many opportunities to do so.

Sadly, Maciej doesn’t grok permalinks, so to read the whole post from which the above is excerpted, set your browser on Find and look for “03.16.03”

Anyway, at the height of the “freedom fries” nonsense, everyone’s favorite multilingual Francophile perl hacker took a look at how food is presented and prepared to school-age kids.

The two menus he presents couldn’t be more different: it’s the difference between haute cuisine and fast food, between linen napkins and paper.

I think kids would eat better, if they saw the right behavior modelled for them. But when food is seen as a necessity, with speed and volume more important than texture, flavor, or anything approaching subtlely, what can we expect?

And reading the stuff about how the lunchrooms of this country are supplied with off-quality, over-produced food products gives me the horrors. I see the food at my elementary school: fried, overseasoned, and prepared at some commissary for reheating: it’s more about shelf-life and how well it can travel than how good it will be for the kid eating it.

the first rule of holes

The first rule of holes is that, when you find yourself in one, you stop digging.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall March 26, 2004 09:53 PM (Printable Format):

“I never cease to be amazed at these guys’ ability to outpace my ability to impute bad faith to them.”

Allegations of perjury, denials of meetings that the president is later forced to admit happened, the national security advisor refusing to testify under oath, but agreeable to unsworn testimony, accusations of blood money by profiting from book sales . . . . the wheels seem to be coming off the wagon here.

Clarke could easily derail the profiteering charge by donating his profits to the 9/11 survivors fund: he is the only present or former government official to offer an apology, for which he is accused of “arrogance.”

Very little of this seems believable, at least not in the context of a democracy. A banana republic or strongman regime, perhaps, but not the world’s only remaining superpower.

help wanted: fact checking

CNN.com – Color TV hits 50th anniversary – Mar 24, 2004:

Doreen Golanoski remembers being a little girl when her family’s television set delivered something new and amazing to her eyes — a burst of color on the screen. Finally, she could see “The Jetsons” in vivid greens, blues, reds.

CNN.com – Jane Jetson voice Penny Singleton dead – Nov. 14, 2003:

The show ran in prime time for just one season, 1962-63, but has been widely seen in reruns.

I don’t fault the person interviewed: she was recollecting her childhood memories. But it didn’t seem right that the Jetsons were of the pre-Sputnik era, and ironically, the right information was on the same website (as well as a host of others).
Continue reading “help wanted: fact checking”

be careful what you eat

TheStar.com – Corn sweetener linked to obesity:

Researchers say they’ve found more evidence of a link between a rapid rise in obesity and a corn product used to sweeten soft drinks and food since the 1970s.

The researchers examined consumption records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for 1967-2000 and combined that with previous research and their own analyses.

The data showed an increase in the use of high-fructose corn sweeteners in the late 1970s and 1980s “coincidental with the epidemic of obesity,” said one of the researchers, Dr. George Bray, a longtime obesity scientist with Louisiana State University System’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center. He noted the research didn’t prove a definitive link.

I suspected as much. The health of a generation, sold out to the corn lobby . . . .

I think it’s more about packaged/processed foods (breakfast bars versus the piece of fruit they resemble, etc.) than one ingredient or another.

Nixon had his 18 1/2 minutes: Bush has his 25

I was following a note I saw about that paragon of probity, Rush Limbaugh, claiming some relatives of WTC attack victims were using their grief for political ends. And this quote struck me a poignant enough to look into . . .

Rush Limbaugh Attacks Widows and Children – Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com:

“I saw a picture of the president, I think it was Newsweek or Time, and I read the caption. And the caption said, you know, ‘Andy Card telling the president about the second plane’ And then I read that he proceeded to read for 25 minutes to the 2nd-graders, Breitweiser said. “And I read it again, and I thought it was. . . misreported. And it wasn’t, and I got upset.. . . And I-I am concerned. I want to know why the Secret Service did not whisk him away. I want to know why he is the commander-in-chief of the United States of America, our country was clearly under attack, it was after the second building was hit. I want to know why he sat there [at Emma E. Booker Elementary School] for 25 minutes. . .”

A Google search for Emma E. Booker Elementary School turns up a lot of stuff: the tin foil hat crowd are all over this.
Continue reading “Nixon had his 18 1/2 minutes: Bush has his 25”

can these folks keep their facts straight?

So the vice-president tells Rush and his hordes of dittoheads that Richard Clarke wasn’t “in the loop” on the issues leading up to 9/11. The administration’s national security advisor — one would hope she knows who was in these meetings from personal experience — claims Clarke was in every meeting on those issues.

A Dispute: Was an Official ’in the Loop’? It All Depends:

On the contrary, Ms. Rice said, Mr. Clarke was very much involved in the administration’s fight against terrorism.

“I would not use the word ‘out of the loop,’ ” Ms. Rice told reporters . . . . .

“He was in every meeting that was held on terrorism,” Ms. Rice said. “All the deputies’ meetings, the principals’ meeting that was held and so forth, the early meetings after Sept. 11.”

Is it any wonder Osama is still on the loose? With this kind of organizational integrity, he could be living at the White House . . .