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Comment Spam == Out of Control

Dec 6, ’05 3:49 PM

spamburger

So far today I’ve gotten a few hundred comment spams. This is a periodic thing; every couple of months the bots hit the site hard.

This is interesting to me because this site has a fairly low readership, which confirms the idea that the spambots aren’t even being selectively pointed to blogs upon which comment spamming would be effective. They’re just taking a shotgun approach, which isn’t really a surprise I guess.

So, sorry to anyone who wants to comment, but I’ve taken the defences up to the next level. In order to comment you need to register. (Registration info will never be used in any way except to enable you to log in to the site.)

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Choosy developers choose… Gif?

Nov 11, ’05 1:33 PM

In the spirit of other grammatical musings, I point you to another worthy question:

Gif of Jif?

You know those .gif files. How do you pronounce “gif”?

It’s an interesting debate. The acronym stands for Graphical Interface Format, so the correct answer would seem to be a hard G — “gif”.

However, someone in the conversation mentions that the original branding campaign for the format (yes, technical standards need branding — see WiFi) included the slogan “Choosy developers choose GIF,” a play on the classic Jif Peanut Butter slogan.

So, the original developers (or at least the marketers) of the format declared it to be “jif”. But most people prefer “gif” — it makes more sense, seeing as “graphical” is pronounced with a hard G.

Plus “jif” is creepy to a surprising number of people. Weird.

(hat tip: Greg)

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What the… Is this really Fred Flintsone’s voice?

Oct 10, ’05 10:54 PM

Fred and Henry

Apparently DDB/Chicago are responsible for the new Midas commercial featuring Fred Flintstone (last item on the page) and his pal Barney, but hopefully they aren’t responsible for the new voice casting behind the voices, particularly Fred’s voice.

Henry Corden had been Fred’s voice since 1977, but he passed away in May. His voice was very distinctive, and his performances, whether in the cartoons or in other commercial work, were perfectly suited to Fred’s character.

The new voice is far from ideal. It’s baritone and male, but those are the only resemblances to the voice we all know and love.

Sure, it’s hard to follow such a well-established act, but come on… surely they can do better than that? My hope is that Hanna-Barberra simply has not found a suitable replacement, and a temp voice had to be used.

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TV Board Games: Oh So Craptacular

Aug 24, ’05 7:28 PM

TV Board Games: Knight RiderFor some reason I have a minor collection of board games based on TV shows from the 70s and 80s. I took these (bad) photos of them a few years ago, and figured why not stick them on Flickr. Check out the set.

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UW Madison — Hearty Partiers

Aug 23, ’05 4:46 PM

So, it turns out that the Princeton Review has named UW Madison the number one Party School in the country.

I’m not an alumnus, but I am originally from Madison, and have worked with the UW theater department, and have gone to my small share of campus parties. I’m not surprised it’s on the list, but number one? They must have been stepping it up since last I lived there.

Keep it up!

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