Untrusted content, nofollow, etc.

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Phil Ringnalda pointed to an idea that Ian Hickson just tossed out while brainstorming ways to battle the ever-increasing issue of comment spam.

I’m thinking that HTML should have an element that basically says “content within this section may contain links from external sources; just because they are here does not mean we are endorsing them” which Google could then use to block Google rank whoring. I know a bunch of people being affected by Web log spam would jump at that chance to use this element if it was put into a spec.

Personally, I’d love to be able to wrap the comments section of my individual entry pages in something like this — and actually, it reminds me a lot of a technique I used to use when I had my website running on my own webserver. At the time, I had a good number of pages that weren’t part of the weblog, so rather than using MovableType‘s built-in search engine, I used the Fluid Dynamics Search Engine (May 9 2019 update: This link is now dead and has been removed).

FDSE is a very solid system, and one of the things I liked was an extra FDSE-specific tag that allowed an author to designate sections of a page that the search engine would ignore when performing its page scan. In addition to respecting the standard meta tags of index, noindex, follow and nofollow for a full page, FDSE also allows you to use those tags within HTML comments to section off areas of a page that should be treated differently from the page as a whole.

For instance, on my individual entry archive pages, the only real important content as far as a search engine is concerned is the entry itself. As the sidebar in my design is repeated on every page on the site, there’s really no great reason for a search engine to include that text in the database for every page, so I would wrap the entire sidebar inside a noindex, nofollow declaration.

I’d also do the same for things like the TrackBack section headers that appear on every page. As they are repeated on every single archive page, trying to search for an actual discussion on TrackBack is nearly impossible — but when I was using the FDSE and hid that section header from the search engine, it was very easy for me find discussions about TrackBack, as FDSE was only indexing the actual content of each page, rather than every little bit of text that the page contained.

I’ve wished for a long time that Google either supported a way to do the same thing, or just adopted FDSE’s method. According to FDSE’s author, he submitted his technique to Google as a suggestion quite a few years ago, but nothing more was ever heard about that.

Maybe Ian’s suggestion will get something moving in this direction again. Here’s hoping, at least.

iTunes: “Never Say Never (Hot Tracks)” by Romeo Void from the album Edge, The Level 1 (1995, 5:47).

A good UI is a good thing

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Terrence has a review of his Nomad Zen Xtra mp3 player posted, and while it’s essentially a positive review, one line stood out to me. After having had the unit for six months and using it on what sounds like a near-daily basis, he mentions that he has “basically mastered the controls.”

Yowza.

I pulled my iPod out of the box, and had the controls mastered in about six seconds.

This isn’t at all to disparage his purchase — as I said, he seems to be quite happy with it — but it really stood out to me as one major reason why the iPod is such a success.

iTunes: “Sacred City” by YelworC from the album German Mystic Sound Sampler Vol. IV (1992, 4:51).

I had an *rtion

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More with me finding humor in places I really probably shouldn’t.

difranco

Apparently, a bunch of people got offended by Ani DiFranco appearing in Inc. magazine “wearing a t-shirt that appears to read, ‘I had an abortion.'”

Personally, I think everyone is just jumping to conclusions. The shirt is partially obscured, and while it’s certainly possible that ‘abortion’ is the word in question, that’s certainly not the only possibility.

Now, assuming the shirt is grammatically correct, the word in question does need to begin with a vowel, as “an” is used immediately beforehand. Now, I have no idea what Ani’s sexual orientation is, but she could simply be using the shirt to brag about having a sex life, as whether it be penile, digital, or a strap-on, “insertion” is a perfectly good possibility.

Or, perhaps she recently expounded upon her stance on one point or another, and had an “assertion”.

If she’d just gotten back from the gym, she might have had an “exertion”.

If we drop the assumption that the shirt used the English language correctly, more possibilities appear. For instance, if someone had misquoted her in a previous article, she might be wearing the shirt to subtly complain about having had a “distortion” in a prior interview.

And while I’m finding it difficult to figure out how to work “proportion” into our scenario, it’s another option. Perhaps a little dadaist weirdness is all this is.

In any case, it seems to be a fair amount of controversy over a shirt when we can’t even be entirely sure what the message on the shirt says.

Just keep calm

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A headline from today’s Newsday website:

newsday-noterror

While the story is actually about the lack of any evidence pointing to the near-simultaneous airplane crashes being terrorist attacks, my first thought on reading the headline was, “my, what amazingly calm passengers those planes had.”

Cheney suddenly supports gay marriage

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Talk about flip-flopping. Dick Cheney, who until now, despite having an openly lesbian daughter, has steadfastly stuck with the party line on gay marriage, suddenly seems to be a little more open-minded about the issue.

Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, spoke supportively about gay relationships on Tuesday, saying “freedom means freedom for everyone.”

At a campaign rally in this Mississippi River town, Cheney was asked about his stand on gay marriage – an issue for which his boss, President Bush, has pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban such unions.

“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” Cheney told an audience that included his daughter. \”With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.

“The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that’s been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage,” he said.

From the tone of the article and Cheney’s remarks, it appears that contrary to Bush’s drive to amend the Constitution, Cheney supports letting the states decide for themselves how to handle the issue.

Interesting — but I have to admit, I’m easily cynical enough to really wonder about the timing of this comment after so many years of simply backing Bush’s bigotry. I’m thinking that T has the right idea…

My theory? The Republican convention is just around the corner, and polls are showing that Bush and Kerry are pretty much in a statistical dead heat. Could this be a ploy by the Bush administration to soften the image of the Bush/Cheney ticket on the same sex marriage issue, since so many people who are opposed to same sex marriage are also opposed to a constitutional amendment banning it? Also, gay voters gave Bush about 1 million votes in 2000. Now with many of the “Austin 12”—the hand-picked gay & lesbian Republicans with whom Bush met after he refused to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans—bolting, could this be an attempt to at least keep a few of those 1 million voters who cast ballots for Bush last time around?

Call me cynical, but I think this may be a very thinly veiled attempt to salvage at least a few of those votes.

Gotta admit, that sounds about right to me.

iTunes: “Making Plans for Nigel” by Primus from the album Miscellaneous Debris (1992, 3:35).

Upcoming events

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Things that are going to be happening in the near future:

  • Saturday: get my eyes checked and order new glasses, which should arrive 7-10 days after that. My first new pair of glasses in quite a few years. Hooray for work-provided insurance.
  • Saturday: Rent at the Paramount. I don’t really know that much about Rent, but Prairie assures me that it’s wonderful, so we’re going.
  • Next month: vacation time! I’ll be in Anchorage from late in the evening Sept. 10th to mid-day sometime (if I’m remembering correctly) Sept. 18th. Birthday celebration for dad on the 15th, genealogical ramblings with mom, and hanging out with as many Anchorage-based friends as possible during the week I’m there. Really looking forward to this, as while I’ve had a few weekend trips from time to time, this will be my first decent vacation (week long, paid, etc.) in quite a few years.
  • When it comes out: install MT3.1 onto my webserver to upgrade Kirsten and Dad’s weblogs (and hopefully provide a bit more spam protection) without having to try to migrate them to an entirely new system (and, quite possibly, prepare to move Eclecticism back onto my own server again).

Things I need to get around to doing:

  • I’ve been meaning to write something about The Prydain Chronicles for a few weeks now. I really do intend to actually do so. Really.
  • Another design (or six, who knows) for the site’s stylesheet switcher would be good, if I ever come up with ideas worth pursing rather than just discarding after they rattle around in my head for a few days.

Things that are distracting me from doing the things in the previous list:

  • Making sure all my photos are imported into iPhoto and sorted/dated/labeled correctly, so I can archive my current photo library to CD before updating iPhoto to the newest version (as there have been some reports of issues with the most recent update).
  • Watching Buffy and Angel as fast as NetFlix can send me the DVDs. I’m up to Season Five of Buffy, and Season Two of Angel, and am really enjoying both. Much of the fun is that I’ve never seen these before, so it’s all entirely new to me — so things like Dawn suddenly appearing out of nowhere throw me for a loop (and I was quite happy to get some answers to that little plot twist during last night’s Buffy session).
  • Procrastination. Hey, it happens.

To gmail or not to gmail?

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So I’ve finally given in and gotten myself a gmail address, thanks to Kirsten. I have no idea how much I might or might not use it — I already have e-mail addresses [\@speakeasy.net]{.citation cites=”speakeasy.net”}, [\@myrealbox.com]{.citation cites=”myrealbox.com”}, and [\@mac.com]{.citation cites=”mac.com”}, plus a literally infinite number of addresses available [\@michaelhanscom.com]{.citation cites=”michaelhanscom.com”} (my mailserver is set up to drop anything sent to michaelhanscom.com into my inbox, so if you’re ever bored and feel like sending me something, feel free to put whatever you want before the @ sign and it’ll reach me) — but I finally figured it was worth jumping on the bandwagon.

So, if you feel like it, you can drop me a line at michael [dot] hanscom [at] gmail [dot] com in addition to any other e-mail address you might already have for me. No need to update your address books, though, I’m not losing any of the already existing addresses anytime soon (except possibly the [\@myrealbox.com]{.citation cites=”myrealbox.com”} addy, as I rarely use it for anything other than a couple of mailing lists anymore).

iTunes: “Lollipop (Candyman) (Razor N Go Lick It)” by Aqua from the album Aqua Mania Remix (1997, 12:20).

Aircraft maintenance problems and solutions

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I’ve seen this list float around the ‘net in the past, but it always makes me laugh when I come across it.

Maintenance Write-Ups

AF Form 781 is aboard all Air Force aircraft to record any malfunctions so maintenance personnel can fix the problem before the next flight. Here are some of the problems (P) as posted by the aircrews and solutions (S) of the maintenance personnel to clear the write-up:

(P) Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
(S) Almost replaced left inside main tire.

(P) Test flight OK, but autoland very rough.
(S) Autoland not installed on this aircraft.

(P) #2 propeller seeping prop fluid.
(S) #2 propeller seepage normal, other three propeller lack normal seepage.

(P) Something loose in the cockpit.
(S) Something tightened in the cockpit.

(P) Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
(S) Evidence removed.

(P) Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) volume unbelieveably loud.
(S) Volume set to more believeable level.

(P) Autopilot in “altitude hold” mode produces 200 fpm decent.
(S) Could not duplicate on the ground.

(P) Dead bugs on windscreen
(S) Live bugs on order.

(P) IFF inoperative.
(S) IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

(P) Friction lock causes throttle levers to stick.
(S) That’s what its there for.

(P) #3 engine missing.
(S) #3 engine found on right wing after brief search.

(P) Aircraft handles funnny.
(S) Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

(P) Target radar hums.
(S) Reprogrammed target radar to sing.

(via Len, this time)

But what about ‘janitor’?

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…due to what is described as an “unfortunate error in translation,” the Spanish version of Windows XP “gave users an option to select their gender from not specified, male, or ‘bitch.'” Uh, whoops.

— As the Apple Turns, while pointing out various Microsoft geographical and linguistic gaffes.

Incidentally, the title of this post involves an old bit of wisdom passed down from my father to me, in which it was imparted that there are actually three sexes in the human race. This little-known fact can be verified in nearly any large public building simply by strolling past the public restrooms, where you are likely to see three doors: male, female, and janitor.

iTunes: “Edie (Ciao Baby)” by Cult, The from the album Sonic Temple (1989, 4:46).

Hempfest 2004

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Skull

I spent some time today wandering around this year’s Hempfest. I’ve avoided this particular Seattle festival for the past few years I’ve been down here, mostly because of my personal opinions regarding pot. Today, though, I had nothing else planned, and figured it might be worth wandering down with my camera for some peoplewatching.

As for the event itself…well, I can’t honestly say I was very surprised by the attendant crowds. Virtually every stereotype imaginable when dealing with the hemp/pot communities was there, plus all the requisite political hangers-on. Stoners, hippies, thugs, freaks, wierdos, Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists — you name it, that subculture was represented somewhere. Not to mention the ultra-right-wing religious proselytizers.

You poor sick miserable bunch

Is it any wonder so many people have such a dim view of Christianity when these bigoted idiots are the most visible representatives of the religion most of the time? I’ll give them points for perseverance, but that’s about it.

I didn’t bother to listen to any of the speakers I passed on the various stages, and for the most part, none of the few bands that were playing when I wandered by caught my ear enough for me to stop and listen. I did manage to catch a few minutes of a bellydancing performance on one of the stages, though.

Bellydancing

I only ended up sticking around for a couple hours, though, as — speaking of stereotypes — today’s cloudy skies finally started raining. It wasn’t enough rain to really be that much of a bother, but as I didn’t have anything along with me to protect the camera, I decided it was time enough to find my way home. Besides, walking through another thick cloud of marijuana smoke every few minutes was starting to get to be a bit much for me.

All in all, not a bad afternoon, though. Had the weather been a bit better, I probably would have stuck around a bit longer and taken a few more pictures. I’m trying to get over an ingrained resistance to taking pictures of random people, and festivals like this can be a good place to work on that. It’s not an easy thing for me to do, as I’m always at some level afraid that whoever I’m aiming the camera at will get offended, or make the assumption that I’m some sort of creepy voyeuristic freak, or some such thing, but as “still lifes” and buildings get a bit boring after a while, I’m going to keep working on it.

Dancers

iTunes: “My Mind is My Enemy (20,00 Volts of Stimulation Focused)” by Khan, Praga from the album My Mind is My Enemy/Luv U Still (1998, 4:12).