http://www.rants.org Thoughts, musings, and rants by Karl Fogel Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:33:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en There's a particularly insidious kind of comment spam nowadays, one that cannot be defeated by automated measures such as captcha. I've been noticing more and more of it on QuestionCopyright.org, and I'm sure other web site admins are experiencing the same wave. I don't know if this phenomenon has a ... http://www.rants.org/2008/06/23/spam_insidy/ It's over. I don't mean the Democratic Primary, I mean the general election. The whole thing. Barack Obama is going to walk over John McCain like a piece of gum on the sidewalk. Why? Watching John McCain speak tonight, I was reminded of a principle my Go teachers often mentioned: don't ... http://www.rants.org/2008/06/03/over/ My favorite political blog, TalkingPointsMemo, is usually insightful on policy, and even more so on politics. But what really distinguishes it from the competition is the quality of its writing, even in short, ephemeral posts. For example, this is from an item posted today: "Many of our foreign policy ... http://www.rants.org/2008/05/15/why-i-love-talking-points-memo/ I was never a member of the Boy Scouts myself, so my understanding of what they're about is limited to what's seeped in from popular culture, but this looks like a winning idea: Friday May 9, 2008 The Boy Scouts have joined the Open Source Community. The Boy Scouts of America National Council ... http://www.rants.org/2008/05/09/boy_scouts_and_open_source/ I had no idea Brian Fitzpatrick was behind me. Ben Collins-Sussman did, but apparently he wasy too busy filming to shout a warning. Thanks, man. I'll remember this. http://www.rants.org/2008/05/07/ping_pong_precipitation/ Yo, San Franciscans, Bay Areans, listen up: Will Franken is coming back to town! He's playing at The Purple Onion on Friday, April 4th and Saturday, April 5th — two shows each night, at 8pm and then again at 10pm. The Purple Onion is at 140 Columbus Avenue. In case you ... http://www.rants.org/2008/04/03/will_franken_at_purple_onion/ By not covering crucial details of the Michigan/Florida delegate question, many media outlets have been doing Hillary Clinton a favor. Here's an article from the New York Times, for example — Patrick Healy's "From Clinton, New Pressure For a Revote" in the 20 March 2008 issue: With plans for new primaries in Florida and ... http://www.rants.org/2008/03/30/michigan_primary_problems/ It's no secret that the memo has gone out among Republican pundits to start chipping away at Obama. He's the likely nominee, he's probably stronger against McCain than Clinton would be, and he's a dangerously quick study. The time to cut him down to size is now, and ... http://www.rants.org/2008/03/26/show_william_kristol_how/ Imagine you run a non-profit organization that does a lot of good, but you're not allowed to tell anyone about much of it. That's the bind the Software Freedom Law Center finds itself in all the time. They do a lot of their work behind the scenes, heading off Bad ... http://www.rants.org/2008/03/08/pizza_money_to_sflc_tonight/ Now this is a post I've been wanting to write for a while... Conversational threads on the Internet should be independent of the medium they're displayed in. That is, mailing lists, newsgroups, and web forums are all the same thing. They're just different interfaces to the same data structure, ... http://www.rants.org/2008/03/06/thread_theory/