E-mail Alert

   Just a friendly warning to everyone. The update your account information e-mail phishing scam seems to be in full swing again. If you receive an e-mail that warns you that your e-bay, or paypal, or some other e-commerce website account information may have been compromised, and asking you to click on the attached link and confirm your account information, DON'T DO IT.

Monday Photo Shoot

I have never participated in a Monday photo shoot before. Thought it was time I did. No time like the present, they all seem to say.

Well, here we are in the middle of a hot and sultry summer: What better time to remember the crisp, cool days of winters past?

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Cool down on a hot summer day by posting one of your favorite pictures from winters past.

   Here is a picture of Matthew proudly displaying his handiwork. He shovelled the entire driveway himself, without being asked. I thought I'd better take a picture, because I didn't think anybody would believe me when I told them.
   I had no idea what prompted him to do it, until I watched him for a few minutes. He would pick up a shovel full of snow at one end of the driveway, and walk all of the way up to the other end to deposit it. I eventually realised he was putting all the snow in the same place. He was stockpiling for future snow fort building activities. Suddenly the look on his face in this photo makes sense.

Introducing CarnivAOL

   In response to my earlier entry, in which I asked about starting a blog carnival for AOL journals, I would like to introduce CarnivAOL. Check it out.

Aggregation

   I wrote earlier about looking at where hits to my journal are coming from. In examining the various statistics provided to me by StatCounter, I noticed some regularly recurring locations and ISPs. That's the coolest; the knowledge that I have regular readers. At least I assume that there aren't several people in, for example, Oakville, Ontario, using Cogeco Cable, visiting my site. I suspect my friend, Paula (Queen of the Servins)(don't ask) comes by almost daily (thank you, Paula).
   What interested me was the fact that Paula drops by almost daily, regardless of whether I have updated recently, or not. Perhaps some others of you do as well. I know I used to spend hours clicking on each and every one of the sixty plus blogs I read, only to find that only about 20% of them had updated since that last time I checked. A definite time waster.
   Then I discovered Bloglines.com. Bloglines is a web based syndicated feed reader. If you are staring at your monitor right now in uncomprehending, slack jawed blankness, I will explain. Many blogs and journals provide what is called syndication feeds. AOL journals do, automatically. You don't even have to turn them on. Every time an AOL journaler publishes a new entry the AOL journals software generates syndication feeds. In this case, RSS and atom feeds.
   What good are they? Well, you can get a piece of software called a feed reader that will go and look at all your favourite blogs every time you sign on to the Internet, and tell you which ones have been updated since you last checked. Then, you need only visit the ones with new entries. A huge time saver.
   Bloglines is for those that are not comfortable downloading and installing software. Just go to the website, create an account, enter the urls of the blogs/journals you read, and it will generate a list for you, which you can visit in your web browser whenever you want.
   I just looked at 'my feeds' on bloglines. I am subscribed to 65 feeds. Probably fewer than twenty of them update daily. Which means that when I click on 'my feeds' in the morning, I probably don't have to spend the time to visit forty or more of my favourite blogs that day.
   Another time saver is the fact that I can read many of the blog entries right there in the the reader on the bloglines site. I don't have to click through to the journal in question unless I am moved to comment. Not all of the blog feeds offer the full entry in the reader, but many of them do. Those that don't typically have revenue generating ads on their site, and if you don't click through, they don't get paid.
   So, if you are finding that you take an inordinate amount of time browsing through blogs and journals, check out a dedicated software feed reader, or Bloglines.com.

Weekend assignment

Love a movie that you know is really really really bad? Then have I got a Weekend Assignment for you:

Weekend Assignment #67: Bad Movie Marathon! Share your favorite bad film of all time. Tell us why you love it so.

Extra Credit: Your favorite quote from the aforementioned film.


   My first thought when I read this assignment was the 1986 movie Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert and sean Connery. Then I thought, "wait a minute! Just because some people think Highlander is a bad movie doesn't mean it is a bad movie. I liked it. I like it. I bought the DVD, and I can watch it again and again.
   Sure, it's not Shakespeare. It is fairly badly filmed, and the DVD soundtrack is notorious in the industry for how poorly it is reproduced. The characters are cartoonish, and the story is fantastic, but come on, it is a story about immortals. If you aren't capable of suspending your disbelief, perhaps you should be sticking to documentaries.
   Connery imbues the character of Ramirez with a huge amount of fun, and Lambert, although he can't act in English to save his life, has enough smoky intensity, and animal charisma to drive the narrative forward with pace. Clancy Brown, as The Kurgan, was larger than life. A bigger ham in a movie I do not think I have seen. And Roxanne Hart, who's work since includes a stint on the prime time soap Chicago Hope, and the made for TV docudrama Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story, manages to share most of her screen time with either Lambert, or extras, making her appear, respectively, invisible, or adequate.
   So, the story is over complex, the pacing is all over the map, and some of the scenes are so disjointed as to be incomprehensible... Hangon. This is a bad movie! But in a good way. It's a good bad movie. Am I making any sense here?

   No, when I thought further about it, and did a more detailed inspection of my DVD collection, I realised that I have another candidate, that I spent good money on, that I actually went out and searched almost a dozen stores looking for, that is a truly bad movie. A film that was originally intended to be a medium budget, science fiction television series, but was cobbled together into a theatrical release after the unprecedented success of Star Wars.
   I am talking about Battlestar Galactica. Where Star Wars had Sir Alec Guinness, Galactica had Lorne Greene. Where Star Wars had Harrison Ford, Galactica had Dirk Benedict. Where Star Wars had a clever robot, Galactica had a mechanical dog
   Maybe it is not fair to compare the two movies... What am I saying? By attempting to capitalise on the success of its predecessor, the producers of Battlestar Galactica invited comparison.
   Star Wars employed the latest special effects technology. The technical team invented many of the techniques used to show us spaceship battles in ways we had never previously dreamed. In contrast, there were only three or four effects shots ever filmed of 'colonial Vipers' flying in space. The entire Battlestar Galactica film used those few effects shots for every dogfight scene in the movie. In fact, no new effects shots were ever filmed for the TV series. The entire two year run of the series was done with those same three or four Viper shots.
   Star Wars used classic art direction, and costume and set design. Thirty years later it still looks fresh. Battlestar Galactica opted for a more contemporary look, resulting in it looking dated by the time it entered reruns on TV. A recent promotional campaign for the series on Canada's specialty cable TV station Space used the tag line, "who knew the future would look so much like the seventies?"
   In my own review of the DVD ofthis movie on one of my favourite websites, I wrote:

The movie... well, the movie proves that we remember our childhood fondly. It's nowhere near as good as I seem to remember it. This disc is only for the hardcore fans.

   You know, I have just come to the realisation that I don't really like this movie after all. Yes, I own the DVD, but after watching it once, I put it on the shelf, where it currently sits, collecting dust. So, Battlestar Galactica doesn't really fit into the criteria for this weekend assignment.
   Which brings us back to Highlander. I think I'm going to go watch it again.

Extra credit: The signature line of the film, of course...

"There can be only one!"

Welp, that's my fifteen minutes...

   The above graph shows visitors to my journal during the period June 11 to July 7, 2005. June 24th was the Friday I was featured on the main journals page as the weekly Guest Editor. July 1st is the following Friday, on which day my spot in the limelight was usurped by Felicia.
   So tell me, are readers just fickle, or is my blog boring? Perhaps this random bolding will liven things up a bit. What do you think, more interesting? No, I didn't think so.
   All in all, it was an interesting week. I received hundreds of comments and e-mails, many of which I am still trying to catch up on replying to. As you can see from the graph, I averaged well over 250 unique visitors per day for the week; more than a fivefold increase in my daily traffic. Early returns indicate my regular traffic may be up from an average of 40 hits per day before my Guest Editorship, to about 50 hits per day now. I hope I can live up to the pressure of being unboring to 25% more people than I'm used to.
   It was interesting to look at the stats for those visitors over the course of the week. In addition to cities from all across the US and Canada I received hits from:

Caloundra, Melbourne, Sydney and other Australian cities.
Milano, Bologna, Roma, and other Italian cities.
London, Sheffield, Wolverhampton, and other English cities.
Dublin, Ireland.
Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia.
Yigo, Guam.
Mazowieckie, Poland.
Essen, Germany.
Doha, Qatar.
unknown locations in France.
Several Caribbean Islands.

Also notable were some of the domains from which I received visits:

the FAA
NASA
WGRZ TV, Buffalo
County of Riverside, California
Universita' Di Pisa, Italy
Memorial University of Newfoundland
University of Arkansas
University of Iowa
Milwaukee County Gov't
Bank of Nova Scotia, Toronto
9th communications squadron, Beale Afb, California
Oakland unified school district, Oakland, California
State center community college district, Fresno, California
US department of defense, Washington, D.C.

   I suspect the numerous hits from University ISPs were partially due to one of my posts being featured on the skeptics' circle that weekend. This week's skeptics' circle went up yesterday, by the way. Head on over and check it out for a collection of skeptical blogging from the last two weeks.
   OK, so you're saying, "how in blazes do you know all of that stuff about where your site visitors are from, Paul?" Well, I'll tell ya. <~~(Pretend you can hear my John Wayne impersonation as you read that.) I have an external counter attached to my site from StatCounter. Take a look over there in my left sidebar. At the bottom of my about me section you will see a six digit number. That is my stat counter.
   "But, Paul," you ask further, "why is that number different than the number on your AOL counter?" The answer to that is that the AOL counter counts every single page load on your journal, including your own visits. If you are the kind of blogger that edits your articles mercilessly, like I do, you may notice that your counter goes up five or six digits just from editing and saving the page several times.
   I have my StatCounter counter set to record only unique visitors. What that means, is that once a person visits my journal once, the counter will not register them again unless they go away for more than six hours. In addition, it does not register my own visits to my blog, so that number more closely approximates the real traffic here.
   But wait! Popular wisdom around the J-Land community has it that external counters take up so much space that they use up your whole about me section. How is it that I have a bunch of other stuff in there? Simple. Most of the external counters use javascript code. AOL's journal interface does not support the addition of external javascripts, so what you end up with is a mish mash of code that appears too large for the about me section's 1000 character limit. StatCounter offers an html only versionof a counter that easily fits.Sure, it doesn't track some of the more esoteric stats, like referral pages, or search engine string referrals, but it does do the things I have described above. Fun, huh?

   One last thing before I head off to bed, where I really should be already. In my Guest Editor article, I mentioned the concept of blog carnivals, like the Skeptics' Circle. I'm thinking of starting an AOL Journals blog carnival. Not a themed one, like the Skeptics' Circle, or the Tangled Bank, but a general Carnival of the Vanities. The concept is simple. Got a blog entry that you are particularly proud of, but hasn't been widely noticed by the community? The Carnival of the Vanities would be a showcase to get it out to a wider audience. Once every two weeks or so, I would put out a call for submissions, and you would send me a link to the entry you'd like showcased. Then, I would do a blog entry listing all of the articles submitted with links to them.
   What do you guys think, are you interested in taking part? Let me know in comments, or in e-mail.

Bono to Martin:"You're Infuriating"

   U2 frontman Bono has been hobnobbing with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin again. This time, he's looking for a favour in return for the glad handing he did during last year's election.

via AOL news.

GLENEAGLES, Scotland (Reuters) - Irish rock star and anti-poverty activist Bono Wednesday gave up his fight to persuade Canada to boost foreign aid -- but not before telling Prime Minister Paul Martin he was a pain to deal with.

Bono, like his fellow Irish rock star Bob Geldof, had openly pressed Martin to give a date by which Canada would raise its overseas assistance to 0.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

Martin refuses, saying it could be too expensive, and stuck to his guns during a meeting with Bono on the margins of a Group of Eight summit in Scotland. Bono reluctantly admitted he could not force Martin to change his mind.

   Bono was quoted as saying, "He's very difficult to deal with because he won't agree to things that he doesn't believe he can deliver...that is very frustrating and annoying and infuriating."
   You know, I've never thought of Bono as being stupid before, but it is blindingly apparent that these bleeding hearts and artists have no idea how the world works. Would he prefer Martin agree to something he believes is beyond his ability to deliver? Maybe that's just what he is used to seeing from politicians. I'm surprised to find that I have less respect for Bono, and more respect for Paul Martin than I had yesterday.

2am-after Live8

   Three days later, and the Live8 buzz is starting to recede, leaving only a question: will any good actually come of it? I understand that 26 million people, worldwide, signed an online petition. (At least, that's what organisers say. Bob Geldof having claimed that over three billion people watched the concerts, I suspect the size of the petition may be somewhat exaggerated as well.)
   And even if it isn't, what of it? What weight do you think the G8 leaders will give to a petition signed by approximately one half of one percent of the world's population? What weight will these world leaders give to the concerns of a group of bleeding hearts and artists?
   Likely, none. The simple fact is, the issue is far more complex than Bob Geldof and Bono would have you believe. Forgiving the debt to many African countries does not equate to helping their starving masses in any way. It is simply forgiving the debt to the governments of those countries, most of whom did not use the money for the benefit of their people in the first place.
   Misappropriation of first world aid and assistance is rampant in Africa. African Presidents sit in marble halls, like Kings, while their people die of disease and hunger. Any forgiveness of debt on the part of the G8 nations must be accompanied by the termination of all future financial assistance, unless safeguards can be put in place to ensure the money gets used as advertised. Said safeguards do not consist of, "we really, really promise to use the money properly this time."

Arrr, I'm a Pirate!

   This has got to be one of the cleverest Internet memes around. Instead of me filling out a questionaire, and being told what kind of pirate I am, you can click on the image below, and vote for what kind of pirate you think I am. Found at Pharyngula.

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Happy Canada Day

   I haven't done one of John's Weekend Assignments for several weeks. This week he's doin' that Haiku thing again, so I couldn't resist.

We're right up on the July 4th Weekend (Monday off! Whoo-hoo!), and rather than give you something too complex and involved, I figure you'll want to be off waving sparklers and blowing up fireworks and otherwise celebrating the freedoms you enjoy as Americans. So here's a simple Weekend Assignment:

Weekend Assignment #66: July 4 Haiku! A 17-syllable holiday poem, please! 

   The July 4th weekend is one of the biggest holidays on the calendar south of the border. No, not Mexico. I'm in Canada, I mean you 'Mericans. However, instead of calling it just The July 4th Weekend, I think it is important to use its proper name. Happy Independence Day, America.
   Up here in Canada, we have a holiday about the same time. Three days sooner, actually. July 1st is Canada Day. we used to call it Dominion Day, as it is the anniversary of the day, in 1867, that Canada became a Dominion; a separate political entity from Great Britain. Of course, because most people have no idea what a Dominion is, or think it is just a grocery store, the name was changed some years back to Canada Day. We have fireworks that day, too.
   If you don't mind (pretty sure you won't), I'll make my Haikus about our holiday. Happy Canada Day.


Not Dominion Day
Not for a few years at least
Bon Jour Canada


Bold on white background
Flapping lazily on high
A red maple leaf


Three days earlier
Than our American friends
Fireworks tonight


Extra credit to follow...don't touch that dial.