Disconnected ShareThis plugin for Wordpress
Filed in Technical, 17th February, 2008, 1:41 CETI see the ShareThis plugin on tons of Wordpress blogs — and with reason, because the presentation is quite nice. You don’t have to take up a chunk of the screen listing all of the different social networks (and they keep multiplying…) or offering the option to email this post to a friend; instead you have a simple link that shows all of the useful detail in a little popup.
ShareThis was so popular, in fact, that a business has sprouted up around it — and current versions of the plugin are tightly bound into the ShareThis.com website. They collect data every time anyone even clicks the link to open the ShareThis window, the social networks links all redirect through the ShareThis.com servers, and all that data (associated with your website) is there for detailed reporting if you register with them. They now also encourage your visitors to sign up. I’m sure it has its uses, and they’re supported by advertising revenue, so they want lots of people to sign up and I imagine they use all that data in conjunction with showing those ads.
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404 pages on 1&1 webhosting: complaint and solution
Filed in Technical, 16th February, 2008, 1:03 CETI had an unpleasant surprise today when I was testing a new site I’m setting up using 1&1 web hosting… I mistyped the URL, and lo and behold, instead of showing any kind of useful error page for the 404, the server neatly redirected my browser to a completely different URL, “domparking.php” at the “sedoparking.com” domain. [I'm carefully not linking, and don't visit the page; I'm sure they get advertising revenue from it.]
I’ve seen default 404 pages where the host sneaks in a few of their own ads, and that’s kind of annoying. But there’s still a message in there somewhere that tells the person they hit a bad link.
This, though — it looks like the domain is parked. Like the site doesn’t exist at all. That’s not good.
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Curing hiccups
Filed in General, 10th February, 2008, 0:11 CETI was googling the word “intractable”, just to make sure I wasn’t misusing it too egregiously in the post I just put up… and right there, the fifth result on the very first page, was a hiccup cure.
Doesn’t everyone who’s ever had the hiccups want to know a cure? And this is not just “my grandma always said breathing into a paper bag would do it, and it seemed to work sometimes”, but an abstract of a paper on the NIH.gov website.
The data (u|dys)topia
Filed in General, Technical, 9th February, 2008, 23:54 CETTake one simple conversation with a neighbor, add a few late night walks in the dark, and it develops into a complete utopian/dystopian vision of the not-so-distant future.
First, the conversation: we were talking about everyday marital strife, and she mentioned how her husband wants to redo the roof himself — it’s a relatively straightforward project, he’s retired and has the time, and they’d save a lot of money. Her response is that his life cannot possibly be worth the money saved. Result: intractable argument. How can either side prevail? She spoke about couples taking turns “winning” arguments as a way out.
My thought is that it’s actually a question of data. What’s the actual risk that he’d injure or kill himself? If he takes the proper precautions (like a safety line, ladder spotter, etc.), can he make working on the roof safer than driving the car to the store? If yes, her argument goes away. If not — particularly if amateur roof work is dangerous even if the homeowner believes they’re taking precautions — then she wins.
Database Naming: A response
Filed in Technical, 25th January, 2008, 18:31 CET[Note to non-technical types: skip this one. It contains no entertainment value whatsoever.]
On Anagrams & Presidents
Filed in General, Political, 22nd January, 2008, 3:07 CETI remember finding the Internet Anagram Server, some years ago, and (of course) plugging in my own name to check all the possibilities. It’s a good one for anagrams:
- He no brawl
- Whale-born
- Labor hewn
- Bean whorl
- No herb law!
- Blah owner
- Whole bran
- Blew a horn
- Her own lab
- Ban Howler
- Brawn hole (whoa, there)
- Hare blown
- Nab her owl!
- La Web Horn
- He, lawn orb
- Horn be law
But I was soon to realize that not everyone’s name has so many interesting and (mostly) pleasant possibilities.
Twisting words
Filed in General, 14th January, 2008, 1:12 CETYou might expect a political post here, but I’m staying away from all that for now.
Instead, I’d like to share a sort of torture technique (I know, this sounds like I’m discussing US politics again, but bear with me) that I thought up for the benefit of my little sister, long ago.
Here’s how it works:
- You give the aforementioned little sister a phrase, asking her to repeat it over and over again.
- She considers the phrase; it is innocuous and probably nonsensical.
- She plays along and repeats the phrase, hopefully for the benefit of other siblings or possibly parents.
- Although SHE is primed to hear only the random words you gave her, everyone ELSE hears something entirely different.
This will make more sense with an example.
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