/dev/null/kevin

Catchy headlines are the surest way a newspaper can get people to read a story.  I use the exact method on this blog.  There should, however, still be some meat to the story/post, else you become The Boy who Blogged "Wolf."

Take this headline, for example:

Feinstein Gives Details On Secret Clinton-Obama Meeting

Wow!  Secret details!  I must read this story.

Here are the details:

Earth-shattering.

But the true irony is this line:

So in reality, Senator Diane Feinstein didn't give any details.

But that makes for a much less alluring headline.

Clinton and Obama Meet, Reporter Gets Nothing and Likes It!

I caught some heat for making fun of Led Zeppelin's recent tour.  Thus, it's only fair that I point out when older rockers do something noteworthy.

Checkout Shooting Star's singer crowd-surfing so he can play a timpani solo.  Take that, kids!  It's about 3:15 into the song.

Twitter's performance problems are well known.  Twitter, and everyone else, are trying to fix the problem.  Here is my quick and dirty fix:

Kill the Spammers.

This is not a long term solution, but it may buy twitter some time to really fix the problem.

Twitter spammers don't actually spam, the don't send messages to you.  What they do it follow you, and everyone else.  Their hope is that you'll investigate their profile and then click on the web link (mine comes here to this blog).  It may also boost their search engine ranking, I don't know.

However, this also puts an extra burden on twitter.  Twitter's scale problems stem from the fact that the workload increases geometrically as every message people send is forwarded to each follower.  The more followers people have, the slower twitter is.  The follow-spammers just increase that load.  Some of these spammers follow 25,000 people.  That's 25,000 extra message each time any of those 25,000 tweet.  There are hundreds of follow-spammers, so that's hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of extra tweets.

Again, removing the spammers won't solve any of Twitter's problems, but it might give them some breathing room to work.  I think it would be easy to auto-detect most of these spammers.  If you follow more than 10,000 people and have less than 1000 followers yourself, you are probably a spammer.

I have blocked some of my more obvious spammers, but I'm not 100% sure this helps.  It depends on how Twitter implemented the blocking feature.  Hopefully they aren't checking for blocks all of the time and that the block just removed the spammer from my follow list.

I checked the Twitter forums to see if this (seemingly obvious) suggestion has been made, but I didn't have too much time to look.  I did find other people who have spammer problems, but I didn't find a discussion about Twitter removing them, or what kind of impact it would have (maybe it's just worth the trouble to them).  So, lazyweb, if you know, give me a pointer.

Update 1: I posted my own suggestion to the forum, we'll see what the response it.

Update 2: Twitter has admitted that uses with lots of followers/followees severely tax the system.  Then Rober Scoble (with his 20K+ of both) gets "blamed" for the problem.  So, I think it's only a matter of time before the spammers get the spot light.  To be clear, I don't blame Scoble.  He is a legitimate user.  Non-human spam listeneres and spam bots can be eliminated to (temporarily) free up resources so Scoble is free to tell us he is safe after earthquakes.  It's all still on Twitter's shoulders to fix the scaling problems.

Imagine being on a conference call with the following international coworkers:

• John (male, English pronunciation)
• Jon (male, English pronunciation)
• Jon (male, Scandinavian pronunciation)
• Jan (male, Scandinavian pronunciation)
• Jan (female, Scandinavian pronunciation)
• Juan (male, Spanish pronunciation)
• Jean (male, French pronunciation)
  
• Jean (female, English pronunciation)
• Yan (male, Chinese pronunciation)
• Yuen (male, Chinese pronunciation)

Good luck!  Enunciate well.

It's finale season for reality shows, so that means tons of filler, and time to give your TiVo's fast forward a workout.  Who knew it took two hours to read one name off of a card?

Watching these shows really make me love my TiVo even more.  The joy of fast forwarding through commercials is nothing compared to the joy of fast forwarding over the Jonas Bothers or some enless montage o' crap.

Sadly, filler is not limited to reality shows.  Sports is now loaded with filler.  If the game "starts" at 7pm, that means I tune in at 7:45, skip the 15 minutes of pregame hype, and then gradually catch up as I skip the commercials, halftime (more hype) and other fluff.  If it's a hockey game, then I get to skip both intermissions!

The events with the most filler, however, are the big horse races.  They are nothing but hours of pure filler, followed by two minutes of actually racing, followed by another hour of follow-up filler and pictures of rich ladies in big hats.

A graphical representation of twitter.

... I will make it illegal for radios to play some sounds you might hear while driving:

• Sirens
• Cell phone ringing
• Car horns
• Screeching Tires
• People yelling, "Get off the sidewalk, you moron!"

Someone please explain this to me.

These wheelchair steps (?) are in the toddler play area at Legoland in San Diego.  They continue up about 5 more steps.  The first step is high enough for a wheelchair-bound person to lift themselves from their chair to the step, but then what?  There must be a real reason for this, but I can't figure it out.  I doubt that this is just a mistake.

Update [May 20, 2008]: OK, no responses yet.  Maybe someone at Legoland is just really stupid.

The CSI armada of shows is sailing in shark-infested waters and each of the shows is jumping them.

CSI: Miami jumped years ago.  I stopped watching when I couldn't take the show, or David Caruso, seriously anymore.  The only time I see the show is on The Soup, when they make fun of David Caruso.

The original CSI is usually pretty good, but it had a potential shark moment with the episode written by the guys who write Two and a Half Men.  That idea doesn't even sound good on paper, so I can only assume it was some bizarre concession made to end the writers' strike.

And while CSI: NY as never been awesome, I watch it when I can.  That may change if the New Yorkers don't stop being so Web 2.0 savvy, or at least thinking that they're savvy.  It's bad enough when they try to solve crimes in Second Life, but the most recent episode actually featured the following line when tracking down a kidnapped blogger, who continued blog while captured:

I'll create a GUI interface using Visual Basic.  See if I can track an IP address.

-- Spoken by Agent Dumbass

Are you freaking kidding me?  That is just so wrong on so many levels.  I had flashbacks to the magical "Unix GUI" in Jurassic Park.  She might as well have said, "I'm going to draw a pretty picture with Crayola Brand crayons."

I could not watch any more after that.  I should just delete that episode from my TiVo before those bits corrupt any of my other shows with their lameness.

Update: Look for CSI: Target soon. 

We went to Legoland in San Diego recently and saw sculpture sticking out of a tent.

My first thought was, "Wow, a Lego monkey butt!"

My second thought was, "someone had to make that."

I wonder if they put that accomplishment on their resume:

• Legoland - Lead Monkey Butt Builder

His mom must be so proud.

There was a recent story about Google's CAPTCHA being broken.  CAPTCHAs are the little tests that websites use to prove the user is a human and not an automated system (spammer).  This very blog uses the simple, and easily broken, "add these numbers" test to leave a comment.

Here are my (not serious) suggestions for improved CAPTCHAs:

Use Pop Culture References:

Which character ruined Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace?

A. B. C. D. All of the Above

Answer: D

What internet meme died on April 1, 2008?

1. Dramatic Hampster
   
2. Rick Rolling
3. LOL Cats
4. Scientology
   

 

Answer: B

 Use Song Lyrics: 

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
The answer is: --> blowin' in the wind

Who ya gonna call?
--> Ghostbusters!

Who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks?
--> Shaft!
You're damn right

Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
--> Shaft!
Can ya dig it?

Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's danger all about?
--> Shaft!
Right on!

You see this cat Shaft is a bad mother--
--> Shut your mouth
But I'm talkin' about Shaft
--> Then we can dig it

 Use Trivia: 

How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Tootsie Roll Center Of A Tootsie Pop?

--> 3

What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

--> African or European?

 Use Jeopardy Questions: 

 Catagory: POTPOURRI

The most undeserving popular blog at blogs.sun.com.

--> /dev/null/kevin

Please phrase your response in the form of a question

--> What the hell is /dev/null/kevin?

Comment approved.

Tags: lolcat lolcaterpillar lolcatrpilr lolcats
May 02, 2008 07:18 AM PDT Permalink | Comments [1] |

I'm questionable.  Got a huge freaking spider bite on my big toe, and I can barely get a shoe on and hobble around at work.

--Chris W.

Thanks to Chris K. for the laugh.

 Code Orange!  Code Orange!  Hazmat teams to Playground One!

When you have a kid in school you learn all about other kids with food allergies.  The most common allergies seem to be wheat, dairy and peanuts.  Schools are careful that no one is served food they shouldn't eat but some schools actually ban all kids from bring food with peanuts in it.

I have to wonder what the extra zealous schools would think of the following snack: Keebler Cheese and Peanut Butter Crackers.  Motto: It's the trifecta of allergens!

And, yes, I'm pretty sure that this isn't so healthy for kids without allergies to be eating, either.

For Earth Day, I am retiring my old (and dangerous) Sun Blade 2000.  I'm replacing it with a new Ultra 24.  Granted, it's not up the drool-worth specs of Rama's system, but it will do for now.  I expect my office to be much cooler now (and quieter).

This will also allow me to use the latest xVM Server hypervisor technology, which is good because I'm on the xVM Ops Center team and I need to get some of this stuff to work.