Recently in Google Category
So, with the exception of the last few posts, I've kind of run out of blog steam. So I decided a change in venue was the solution. Tonight's post is brought to you by Woodstock's, their free wireless, and Sierra Nevada Best Bitter.
I've posted most of my political rants to a small group of unfortunate blokes via e-mail. There is also the fact that on the political front I'm getting outrage fatigue. I look around and wonder where all the conservatives went. Although, even as the idea that "Bush isn't a conservative" gains steam, he is entering lame duck territory. This means one of two things are going to happen over the next two years; a) a Republican is favored to win the 2008 election and a new cult of personality forms around him/her or b) a Democrat wins and the cult dissolves and suddenly we have half a country full of 'limited powers for the federal government' conservatives. The first option would suck and the second would be funny if not for the fact that nobody will see how stupid willfully blind the conservative base has been for the duration of the Bush 43 administration.
Anyway... The Diggnation Google Hate-a-thon for 2006 continues, although a split in the dynamic duo is forming. Alex is still strongly in the "Google is out of ideas" camp, while Kevin is starting to loose his grip on the hate. I'm almost done with The Search which goes into great detail about what Google plans for the future. Kevin and Alex would do well to read it. They are a bit too focused on what Google keeps pushing out of their lab doors. Let it go guys...there are much bigger things to worry about.
Speaking of things to worry about, Apple is facing an anti-trust suit. Isn't an Apple monopoly a contradiction in terms?
Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to.
I guess he missed the "Burn to CD" feature in iTunes. All jackassery aside...a monopoly? Really? So soon? Yes, yes...almost a billion tracks have been sold by Apple via iTunes. Big. Freaking. Deal. Seriously, that is but a pittance off the offline music market. Did Apple engage in illegal business practices by killing Real's attempt to get a DRM formatted song onto the iPod? Apple would not doubt argue that Real was the one breaking the law, given the sorry state of reverse engineering laws in this country and probably win on that front. If Real thought they had a shot at defending themselves against the DMCA they would probably still be selling tracks for the iPod today. Which reminds me, if you do think that technology laws are completely broken, do join or donate to EFF because they help fight this nonsense...even if their site search is powered by evil.
Flickr, where I post all my photos online, has introduced Community Guidelines. I read them and I did like the fact that it started off with stuff they want people in the community to do and put that don'ts second. The bit about not being creepy is classic.
Don't be that guy. You know the guy.
Awesome. I wish all community-based sites had something like this, written with the same puckishness and plain language. Yeah, I'm looking at you digg.com, dailykos.com, and all the other community sites where I turn off comments (if I can) by default because the people who post comments on your sites are inane, mean, and generally just a waste of bits.
Maybe Google News does at least need a spot-check editor. No harm, no foul though. When you have something this complex that is completely automated, there are bound to be cases like this. At least this one was kind of funny.
So I was doing some re-org on the site, basically putting things in a nicer directory structure. So now the archives are in a YYYY/MM/DD format. I was getting tired of one directory full of files. Lots of files. I'm archive by month, day, and individual.
Anyway, this caused google to re-index the entire weblog.
$ grep -c googlebot /var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log*
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log:2464
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log.1:706
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log.2:470
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log.3:1017
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log.4:789
/var/log/httpd/patandkat-access_log.5:1020
Google RSS Google News to RSS is a brilliant hack, and quite clearly violates Google's terms of service ("no automated querying"). Enjoy it while it lasts. [dive into mark]
There was a .NET program that did regular google to RSS. That was pretty cool. But this is just too cool for school.
I couldn't pass this search hit up...
How the heck can people use Sony Playstation 2 to launch Nuclear Missiles
What more can one say?
