NEWER POSTS

Free Radical Reviewed

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 5, 2007

Filed under: Links 16 comments
htAkismetPrevious Post
Next PostTemporal Vertigo

Goblin Paladin has posted a review of my cyberpunk novel. He focuses on the book’s strength and and quite positive in his review. Thanks for that.

When the book was new I coaxed and hinted around, hoping someone would write a review of the thing. (In an act of hubris, I tried to get a Slashdot review. Now I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’d have gotten savaged.) Writing fiction without an editor is a bit like working without a net: If I screw up, there isn’t anyone to keep me from making a fool of myself. I think most authors want a (positive) review that will entice readers to read their work. I wanted a review so I could get some objective analysis of what worked and what didn’t. Even five years later, I’m still grateful when someone is kind enough to email or post their thoughts once they finish the book.

And now I am going to do something unseemly. I am going to respond by reviewing my own book.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Free Radical Reviewed”

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

htAkismetPrevious Post
Next PostTemporal Vertigo

16 comments

 

DM of the Rings LX:
The Madness of King Whatsizname

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 5, 2007

Filed under: DM of the Rings 72 comments
DM of the Rings LIX:
Disorder of the StickPrevious Post
Next PostDM of the Rings LXI:
Words Get in the Way

The Players must disarm.

On one hand, taking away their weapons is a dead giveaway that they will need them. On the other hand, by the time conflict starts the players will already have opened the rulebooks and found the parts that deal with bare-handed combat, performing disarm moves, and using improvised weapons.

Players may blunder through dialog with shocking ineptitude, forget the name of the country they are in, or get confused about which side they are on, but once it comes time to roll for initiative they all turn into Sun Tzu.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

DM of the Rings LIX:
Disorder of the StickPrevious Post
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Words Get in the Way

72 comments

 

Akismet and Spam comments

By Shamus Posted Sunday Feb 4, 2007

Filed under: Notices 18 comments
Delay of the RingsPrevious Post
Next PostDM of the Rings: Only 2 This Week

Ok, htAkismet is now enabled. So if you can’t read this you’ll know why. Er, waitasecond…

Background: There are two programs we’re working with here: Akismet examines posted comments, and if they meet some secret criteria then it flags them as spam and holds them for me to moderate later. htAkismet looks at the IPs of these flagged comments, and bans some of them. Sometimes.

htAkismet is a little vague on how it works, but the docs hint that an IP address must spam me more than once before it gets banned. Still, for people with dynamic IP’s or who share an IP, this might eventually become a problem. Worse, the ban is done by adding the offending IPs to the .htaccess file, and I don’t see any way of un-banning IPs once they get banned. (I’m not going to decend into madeness and edit that sucker myself.)

Akismet has a habit of “picking on” certain readers for no reason I’ve been able to discern, and flagging their comments as spam no matter how many times I approve their comments. Now add to this the fact that htAkismet will look for repeat offenders and ban them. I’m seeing the opportunity for emergent stupidity here, with the added bonus that once it screws up I’ll have no way of knowing. And if I do find out, I have no easy way of fixing it.

I’m less and less keen on this idea.

Still, I’m hoping that if htAkismet can cut down on the volume of crap I have to sort, then I can deal with the remaining stuff by manually reviewing flagged comments. I did this for months, and only stopped once the volume overwhelmed me.

Also: My spam trap has about 2,500 comments in it. Before I enabled htAkismet I plowed through several pages of them and rescued a half dozen legit comments, so if you see comments showing up in the middle of long threads, you’ll know why.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Delay of the RingsPrevious Post
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18 comments

 

Worth Repeating

By Shamus Posted Sunday Feb 4, 2007

Filed under: Random 34 comments
Getting AlongPrevious Post
Next PostCaptcha vs. Idiot

I have no desire to incite another skirmish like the one we had last week. However, I do want to point out that there was, in the midst of the exchange, a great comment that flew by. Now that it’s all cooled down, I thought I’d draw some attention to it, since this is particularly worthy. Andre said here:

As an example, I always experience a bit of shock when I'm reminded that my absolute favorite living author, Orson Scott Card, is both a devout Mormon and a social conservative. His writings usually speak to me so deeply that my brain begins to believe that he MUST think exactly like I do, but then there are these rare instances in some of his books where he gets just the tiniest bit preachy, or I read one of his numerous editorial columns, and my illusion is shattered and I'm left shocked and awed.

Ultimately, I treat the phenomenon (as it occurs in my own mind) as a testimony about the diversity of the human brain, that we all have the potential to be so brilliant and yet so kooky at the same time.

I have gone through this same thing myself, many times. I won’t list the authors here, lest we all get dragged back into that debate from which we have only recently made good our escape. It’s always disorienting when this happens, like finding Willie Nelson listening to techno music and waving a couple of glowsticks around.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Getting AlongPrevious Post
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34 comments

 

htAkismet

By Shamus Posted Saturday Feb 3, 2007

Filed under: Links 3 comments
Romeo & Juliet, for "Kids"?Previous Post
Next PostFree Radical Reviewed

Augury has been upgraded to WordPress 2.1, which I did a little while ago. Seems to have gone well. Cinneris has also installed something called htAkisment, which not only detects spam but then blocks spamming IPs. He’s curious how well this works, how much it will decrease spam, and if it blocks legit visitors.

I’m thinking of trying it myself, although I have the same concern: I don’t want to wrongfully block legit visitors, and if it does I’ll have no way of knowing.

I’m considering giving it a try, but if anyone has tried it and has any comments, please let me know.

This site now gets so much comment spam that I just can’t sort it anymore. This means Fledge can’t leave comments, since #%@# Akismet has some sort of vendetta against him. (I speculate that perhaps his .info domain is what sets it off, but I have no way of knowing for sure.)

Any advice before I made the leap?

LATER: Nobody has commented or emailed with dire warnings. Googling around, I don’t see any dangers. I’ll probably put the thing in place on Sunday.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Romeo & Juliet, for "Kids"?Previous Post
Next PostFree Radical Reviewed

3 comments

 

Shiritori Word Loop

By Shamus Posted Saturday Feb 3, 2007

Filed under: Projects 11 comments
Using Google AdsPrevious Post
Next PostDMotR: Director's Commentary

I’m still working on Word Loops. I like the Japanese term “Shiritori”, which Steven proposed. I’m not sure it’s technically correct. From the way I read how a Shiritori is played, it uses the last “part” of a word, but my understanding of Japanese language is too crude to take that any further. At any rate, Shiritori is a better term than “thingy”.

You can take the movie Blondes Prefer Gentlemen and the movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and make a stupid little two-element loop.

Not very interesting.

Someone else suggested a one-element loop: Duran Duran. Ha ha.

I did manage to close the loop on the one from the previous post, but I needed a little help from IMDB to come up with “Blue Water, White Death” as well as “Gentlemen of the Hunt”, neither of which I’ve ever heard of.

So here is my 29 element Shiritori Word Loop, which started with Paris Hilton:

  1. Paris Hilton
  2. Hilton Hotel
  3. Hotel California
  4. California Girls
  5. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
  6. Fun With Dick and Jane
  7. Jane Eyre
  8. Eyre Affair
  9. Affair to Remember
  10. Remember the Titans
  11. Titans of Justice
  12. Justice League
  13. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  14. Gentlemen of the Hunt
  15. Hunt For Red October
  16. October Sky
  17. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
  18. Tomorrow People
  19. People are Strange
  20. Strange Days
  21. Days of Thunder
  22. Thunderball
  23. Ball of Fire
  24. Fire in the Deep
  25. Deep Blue
  26. Blue Water, White Death
  27. Death be Not Proud
  28. Proud to be an American
  29. American Werewolf in Paris

I could easily pad this list in a few spots. In particular, there are several movie and song titles that go “People [something] People”, and so I could chain them all together and stick them in right before “People are Strange”. I was trying to stick to famous movies and top 40 songs (from any time period) and other things that should be easily recognized by the average English-speaker. Making a “themed” list – such as anime, song titles, might be interesting.

Anyway, I’m done with this for now.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Using Google AdsPrevious Post
Next PostDMotR: Director's Commentary

11 comments

 

Getting Along

By Shamus Posted Saturday Feb 3, 2007

Filed under: Random 19 comments
Happy New Year!Previous Post
Next PostWorth Repeating

As a follow-up to Repent, Believer, the original poster (Dave Godfrey) responds in the comments here.

And not to misrepresent myself as a sort of mechanical thiest theist: I also believe in the Bible. I’m not as literal as some (for which they look down on me) but I do believe in it (for which others look down on me). To an Athiest Atheist this distinction is pretty much meaningless, but to Christians this is important, so let me just set that straight so I can go home with a clear conscience.

More importantly, I would never impose these values on others against their will. I share them with the curious, keep them to myself with the uninterested, and in all ways strive to respect others. I see no reason why reasonable people cannot get along, even when they differ on beliefs they hold most dear.

Thanks to Dave for the temperate response.

(Thanks to everyone else also, for many kind words and yet more praise for the work I do here.)

I consider the subject resolved.

 

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Happy New Year!Previous Post
Next PostWorth Repeating

19 comments

 
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