Google bits: redactions and spam

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Two interesting Google-related bits today.

Firstly, a paragraph about outsourcing jobs mysteriously disappeared from the Google Weblog at some point during the day. Mark Pilgrim pointed this out (along with /., MeFi, and Hello Typepad) and quite rightly took Google to task for the unremarked changes:

This kind of revisionist history is unacceptable, regardless of who does it. If you don’t want it saved for all time, don’t publish it on the Internet. Putting “blog” on the top of the page does not absolve you of all responsibility.

NetNewsWire‘s “show changes” feature caught the edits, though, so here’s a quick screen capture showing just how the post was reworded:

Google's outsourcing remarks

The second bit is more on the amusing side, and has less to do directly with Google. I got a piece of comment spam earlier that, when I looked at it, made me laugh, simply because in an effort to make it look almost like a real comment, the spammer had mixed links in with a paragraph of real text. It just so happens that the paragraph they chose was one from Google’s website, discussing how pages are indexed after being submitted to Google. I’ve replaced the links with bolded text in the following snippet, of course:

When a URL is submitted to Google, Sex Toy Shop we look for it in our Hotel Booking next crawl. If Low Interest Credit Card you’ve already submitted your Buy Cialis URL, your site could easily Atkins Diet appear in our new index, which will go Nude Celebrity up when the current crawl is completed. However, Online Casinos if no other site links to yours, it Dating Personals may be difficult for our crawler to find Tag Watch you. Conversely, if many sites link to Seiko Watch your page, there is a good Car Hire chance we will find you without your submitting your Register Domain Name URL. Occasionally, websites are not reachable Ladies Watches when we try to crawl them because of Coral Bookmaker network or hosting problems.

It almost makes sense when you read it…

iTunes: “Another One Bites the Dust (Wyclef Jean)” by Queen feat. Free/Jean, Wyclef/Pras from the album Small Soldiers (1998, 4:22).

Manly Pink #1

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That was fast!

Mere hours after I put up my silly little challenge, Matt responded with a ready-to-go stylesheet that’s very pink!

I’ve dropped Matt’s stylesheet in, so in theory, it should be what everyone’s seeing right now. ~~In practice, though, as of 10:30pm May 11th, the new stylesheet doesn’t seem to be getting served. Eventually it should kick in, though, and “Manly Pink #1” should be live!~~ [Okay, the stylesheet finally updated after about half an hour — we’re good to go.]{.underline}

The call for submissions is still open, of course, if anyone else wants to play. Should I get any more concepts tossed my way, I’ll put them up when I get them, and in the meantime, I’ll start looking for a good stylesheet switcher (Javascript or pure CSS [I think that’s possible…]) so that there’s a choice between the old default design or the Manly Pink version(s).

Of course, now I need to go get those t-shirts and put the photos of me wearing pink up….

Update: Now that new designs have started to appear, here’s my original stylesheet: styles-default.css.

iTunes: “We Must Awaken” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Money (1992, 5:02).

We need pink! Manly pink!

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Anybody want to redesign my site for me?

It’s gonna need pink. Lots of pink. And big, hard, nippleless breasts.

What in the world am I babbling about? Well, quite simply, I think that Shelley has a good point about some aspects of the Blogger redesign…

Speaking of looks, if you read Phil’s comments, you’ll see I was not happy about Zeldman’s Ms. Moto and Mr. Moto templates. The one for Mr. Moto shows a classic gray, very professional looking weblog with a photo of a building in one of the posts. However, the one for Ms. Moto is all in purple/pinks, and shows a photo of a Barbie doll in the example post.

What is the message from these templates? That men have professional looking sites, while women favor pink and dolls? I am surprised at an experienced man like Zeldman perpetuating this type of stereotype.

As Mark Pilgrim said in Phil’s post, yes men and women may both like pink sites. I don’t have a problem with pink; it was the gender association (not to mention the doll–was that an accident?) that grabbed me. There were other templates that also featured pink, or rose, but none of them made an association with a gender through the name.

No big deal you say? By itself, no. But after three years of girlism and baring breasts as fund raisers, not to mention being told time and again how ladies are supposed to act in this environment, and how women webloggers only write about home while men write about politics and tech–I am weary of how much weblogging promotes stereotypes. I stopped pointing out how woman don’t seem to get the same notice as men in weblogging when it comes to writing in order not to perpetuate a stereotype; the least others can do is not make associations between female bloggers and Barbie dolls.

Mark “The Pink” Pilgrim has hinted that he’ll probably do a redesign, perhaps based on pink and dolls. Dolls with big, hard nippleless breasts. If so, and I see several men sporting the new Ms. Moto look, I will be less inclined to be critical.

So, guys show me that Ms. Moto is genderless and protect Zeldman’s honor at the same time. If you have Blogger, pick that template, but don’t forget to add in a doll or two. If not, then do something comparable in your own toolset. Then I’ll know pink and dolls aren’t just ‘girly’ things, they’re also for manly mans. We’ll have a contest. Maybe Mark and Zeldman will judge.

I am so up for this. However, I’m not really that much of a designer (especially when it comes to using graphics or color), and I just dealt with the frustration of a mere tweak of this design, and I’m not terribly sure I want to start from scratch again.

So, a challenge.

If anyone out there is crazy enough to give me a design to use, I’ll use it. In fact, if I even get people telling me that they’ll work on it, I’ll go down to the local Hot Topic, blow a little money, and then send the prospective designers pictures of me to incorporate in the design (even though I’m conspicuously missing the big, hard nippleless breasts) in my 14-eye Doc Marten boots, black Utilikilt, and each of the following three shirts: the pink skull, “Pink is the new black“, and “Tough guys wear pink“.

Anybody up to this? Should anyone actually want to tackle this, I only have a few simple requests:

  1. I’d like to keep the basic structure I have set up right now: two columns, main content on the left, sidebar on the right, main content appearing first in the HTML, post metadata just underneath the title, etc.
  2. Take a look at my current source code and CSS to see how I’ve been doing things so far — while that shouldn’t limit what you come up with, it’ll at least give you a good idea of how I think when I piece things together.
  3. [Update:]{.underline} Now that new designs have started to appear, here’s my original stylesheet: styles-default.css.

And really, that’s about it. I’m up for just about anything, and I’ll gladly work with someone to make sure that their ideas and design drop in here without too many issues.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can offer for compensation, other than the general fun of doing it. If you come up with something that might work as repayment, though (aside from the obligatory “Design by…” link on the page), feel free to suggest it, and we’ll see what can be worked out.

iTunes: “Got Me Wrong” by Alice in Chains from the album Sap (1992, 4:12).

Seattle’s first female cab drivers

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There’s a very cool article about WWII-era Seattle in the P-I today, when about thirty women were “drafted” into becoming cab drivers when many of the city’s men went off to fight for their country. One of those many little tidbits of history that tend to fascinate me.

ONCE THIS CITY seemed to burst with soldiers and sailors waving goodbyes or homecoming hellos amid the ache of a very different war. Some came back in coffins. Some landed, singed and bandaged, in the rear seat of Nadine McKee’s Yellow Cab No. 21.

With stateside men in short supply, 23-year-old Nadine “Mick” McKee (now Henry) was the youngest of about 30 Seattle women happy to be “drafted” just after Pearl Harbor as Seattle’s first female taxi drivers, liberated and unleashed behind the wheel.

The assumption that they would want to lend a hand for the sake of Uncle Sam was unquestioned. But the new feeling of freedom blowing in their hair through an open cab window was a wind of change that didn’t come easy. For nearly four years between 1942 and the end of World War II in 1945, McKee traced and retraced Seattle’s streets nine hours and 300 miles a day in a 1941 Plymouth four-door. Carrying GIs and civilians, she broke the gender barrier but never dared break the speed limit much less the rigid rules of co-ed conduct.

iTunes: “Battle of Evermore, The” by Led Zeppelin from the album IV (1971, 5:51).

Dull isn’t always bad

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Last night while up at the local grocery store, I was looking for clothespins — an item which, unfortunately, QFC doesn’t carry. All I needed them for was to help dry my Utilikilt after washing it, as rather than running it through an electric dryer, they recommend hanging it so that the pleats don’t get goofed up.

Meanwhile, for the past couple of days, I’d been trying to arrange the delivery of a package from UPS which was consistently showing up at my apartment between five and six in the evening, when I’m at work. I redirected the package to work, and it showed up sometime this morning.

Turns out the package was my birthday present from mom: a set of skirt hangers, along with a note written on a printout of the Utilikilt washing and drying instructions.

Look: a gift that doesn’t annoy or make noise or anything! How dull. Mom.

I think that’s great. Dull? Perhaps — but just what I needed.

Thanks mom!

Kilts, not skirts!

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Brad, Brad, Brad — so close, and yet so far away.

Actor Brad Pitt said Sunday that fashion-conscious men may be wearing Greek-style skirts soon after his big-budget film about the Trojan War opens this week.

“Men will be wearing skirts by next summer. That’s my prediction and proclamation,” he said with a laugh. “The film answers to both genders. We were going for realism and Greeks wore skirts all the time then.”

Some of us don’t need to see Brad Pitt running around in a Greek-style skirt to be comfortable enough with our masculinity to wear something other than pants…and look damn good while doing it! ;)

iTunes: “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies from the album Natural Born Killers (1988, 3:23).

Kill Bill

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Prairie and I watched Kill Bill this weekend — the whole thing, renting Volume One Saturday night and going out to see Volume Two on Sunday. I’d seen the first half already when it was in the theaters, but Prairie hadn’t, and it was quite fun to watch them both back-to-back. I’ve got to say that I think that Kill Bill is easily the best work I’ve seen from Quentin Tarantino.

Violent? Well, of course — it’s Tarrantino. After watching Kill Bill, I don’t think Tarantino could film someone getting a paper cut without attaching a spurting jet of blood to it (which, to me at least, is a fairly amusing mental image). It was all extremely over-the-top, though, to the point where it’s extremely difficult to take seriously (I joked at one point that the Kill Bill movies could be subtitled “Quentin Tarantino goes balls-out nuts”).

Watching Vol. 1 the second time, I was struck by how perfect of a decision it was to flesh out O-Ren Ishi-i’s backstory with anime, as it allowed Tarantino to present what is really one of the most disturbing storylines in a manner that’s in some ways actually more intense than he would have been able to do it had he tried to make it a live-action sequence.

Elle Driver is easily one of my favorite characters in the film, I think. Of the five members of the DiVAS, much of the time she struck me as the most snake-like: cold, unfeeling, and vicious — which made the few moments when she broke that mold (her moment of pouting after Bill tells her to leave the bride alive in the hospital towards the beginning of Vol. 1) that much more amusing.

The fight with Elle in Budd’s camper was wonderfully done, too, with Elle constantly unable to draw her sword out of its sheath due to the cramped quarters. I’m quite curious if that’s an intentional movie reference by Tarantino that’s been missed on the Kill Bill References Guide, specifically to the trailer fight in the Coen Brothers’ Raising Arizona. Not to mention that the bride’s final blow to Elle really caught me off guard — a perfect way to end the fight, but entirely unexpected (and cringe-inducing).

What really surprised me about Vol. 2 was the end, which was far more touching and tender than I ever would have expected from Tarantino. After around three and a half hours of violent, bloody revenge, to wrap it all up with sequences that manage to tug at the heartstrings without being schmaltzy was a surprising and perfect way to end the film.

iTunes: “Steamroller” by Pigface from the album Preaching to the Perverted (1994, 2:10).

Ack! I almost forgot…

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Happy Mother’s Day, mom!

Y’know, one of these days I’m going to remember early enough to actually call, rather than spending the day wandering around in the sun, then remembering Mother’s Day when I start going through my daily reads when I get home in the evening.

On the bright side, I did clue in before midnight, which is better than I’ve done some years…

(Sheepish grin)

Semacode

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Semacode for this website

Here’s a fun little tech toy that I discovered thanks to Jonas: Semacode, a two-dimensional barcode that encodes a URL in the matrix. With the newer breed of camera phones and the right software installed, the phone can read the barcode and automatically open the URL in the camera’s embedded web browser.

For a long time computer scientists have been looking for a cheap, inexpensive way to create a gate between the real world and virtual world of the internet. Semacodes provides such a solution. By means of special symbols, printable by anyone on any printer, and special software, available for camera phones, connections can be built on a wide scale in a totally decentralized fashion.

A semacode is a small symbol that encodes a standard, web-oriented URL. The URL is embedded into a two-dimensional barcode along with error correction information. When the semacode reader software snaps the barcode, it launches the embedded URL on whatever web browser is available.

Software to read the Semacode barcodes is already available on the Semacode website for Nokia 3650/7650, 3600/3620/3660, 6600 or 6620 camera phones.

There are all sorts of potential uses for this. Some of the following examples come from the Semacode website, some from Jonas, and some from me:

  • Bus stop transit information: Grab the Semacode posted on a bus stop sign and go right to the page listing the bus schedule, or if a system such as NextBus is being used, get up-to-the-minute information on when the next bus will be by.
  • Tourist orientation: Post Semacode stickers at landmarks or intersections pointing to MapQuest maps or Yahoo Get Local pages to help people instantly find out just where they are and what hotels, restaurants, or attractions might be close by.
  • Ticket sales: Include a Semacode on an event poster, newspaper, or magazine advertisement that links to the online ticket sales website.
  • Social networking I: Put the Semacode for your personal website on the back of your business cards.
  • Social networking II: Create a webpage detailing just what you’re looking for in a potential mate and then make a shirt with the Semacode pointing to that page prominently displayed to wear to the bar.
  • Advertising I: I’m thinking seriously about updating the designs on the shirts I’m selling through CafePress to include the Semacode for this site (or for a yet-to-be-constructed page specifically for the shirts) on the back of each shirt, logo-style.
  • Advertising II: Include the Semacode for a club or business on the flyers or advertisements.

I’m sure there are a lot more possibilities here.

Of course, the really ironic thing about all of this is that not only do I not have a cell phone, but I have no intention of getting one, as the fool things annoy me to no end (though, really, it’s not the phones themselves that annoy me as how incredibly rude cell phone users can be), so aside from slapping my Semacode around, I can’t really take advantage of the technology. That doesn’t make it any less interesting to me, though.

iTunes: “Dragula (Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare)” by Zombie, Rob from the album American Made Music (1999, 4:37).

It’s not just Abu Ghraib

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Don’t understand how conditions in Abu Ghraib could have gotten as bad as they did? Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at our own prison systems.

Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.

In Pennsylvania and some other states, inmates are routinely stripped in front of other inmates before being moved to a new prison or a new unit within their prison. In Arizona, male inmates at the Maricopa County jail in Phoenix are made to wear women’s pink underwear as a form of humiliation.

At Virginia’s Wallens Ridge maximum security prison, new inmates have reported being forced to wear black hoods, in theory to keep them from spitting on guards, and said they were often beaten and cursed at by guards and made to crawl.

The corrections experts say that some of the worst abuses have occurred in Texas, whose prisons were under a federal consent decree during much of the time President Bush was governor because of crowding and violence by guards against inmates. Judge William Wayne Justice of Federal District Court imposed the decree after finding that guards were allowing inmate gang leaders to buy and sell other inmates as slaves for sex.

And just in case it wasn’t clear that there was a direct connection between US prison techniques and those being used in Iraq, just keep reading…

The experts also point out that the man who directed the reopening of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last year and trained the guards there resigned under pressure as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time.

The Utah official, Lane McCotter, later became an executive of a private prison company, one of whose jails was under investigation by the Justice Department when he was sent to Iraq as part of a team of prison officials, judges, prosecutors and police chiefs picked by Attorney General John Ashcroft to rebuild the country’s criminal justice system.

Mr. McCotter, 63, is director of business development for Management & Training Corporation, a Utah-based firm that says it is the third-largest private prison company, operating 13 prisons. In 2003, the company’s operation of the Santa Fe jail was criticized by the Justice Department and the New Mexico Department of Corrections for unsafe conditions and lack of medical care for inmates. No further action was taken.

When we don’t even take care of our own prisoners humanely, what’s the chance that we’ll take care of prisoners of war in a humane manner?

(via MeFi)