Sleepless in Midland

Well, this blog isn't dead -- writer pens strange eulogy for blogs

Bruce Sterling in Dead Media Beat: blogs dropping like flies linked to a strange eulogy for blogs found at Newyorker.com. Starts out like this:

Blogging, that much-maligned pastime, is gradually but surely disappearing from the Internet, and so, consequently, is a lot of online freedom and fun. ...

Blogs are necessarily idiosyncratic, entirely about sensibility: they can only be run by workhorses who are creative enough to amuse themselves and distinct enough to hook an audience, and they tend to publish like-minded writers, who work more on the principle of personal obsession than pay. The result is editorial latitude to be obscure and silly and particular, but the finances are increasingly hard to sustain; media consumption is controlled these days by centralized tech platforms—Facebook, Twitter—whose algorithms favor what is viral, newsy, reactionary, easily decontextualized, and of general appeal.

Let the flies drop, Sleepless in Midland still has a beating heart.

------

3:51 PM 1/23/2018

Typepad may have recovered from attack

We noted previously that Typepad (this blog's host) has been the victim of a vicious DDoS attack which took them off line completely for a several days. And blogs like mine (with the blogs.com suffix) were off even longer.

Anyway, as of this morning, 4/24/14, they may be out of the woods. I hate to sound too optimistic because the last victory celebration was premature. But here's hoping.

It really must be hard on the poor workers who had to pull all nighters to sort it all out and straighten it up.  Kudos to them.  And let's add one more hope: that the culprits get what's coming to them.

Typepad hit hard by DDoS attack

The Typepad.com employees must have really felt the pain as they worked to recover from a horrendous the DDoS attacks.

What a cruel thing for someone to do. But what was the motivation? It could have been an extortion attempt. But lately we've seen some awful things done to innocent people because of their political beliefs. So it's easy to conjure up a conspiracy theory involving a politically motivated effort to silence some political blog and a refusal by Typepad owner, Say Media, to give in. Maybe we'll find out some day.

Meanwhile, Sleepless in Midland appears to have gotten back online as of around 2:00am today after being down for a few days. Keep up the good work, Typepad!

Google, Gmail and privacy

Anyone with a healthy dose of skepticism has been avoiding Google products for quite some time. And it's not that surprising to see a privacy advocate issue a news release like this: Google Tells Court You Cannot Expect Privacy When Sending Messages to Gmail -- People Who Care About Privacy Should Not Use Service, Consumer Watchdog Says. This admission from Google was supplied in a court filing in a class action suit alleging that Google violated wiretap laws by collecting information from emails sent to or from Gmail users. Via Naked Security.

Google defends their process by contending that their automated system of extracting email content in order to target ads at users is a common business practice which other free email services are doing and that they've disclosed all of this to their users, who, by the way, have consented to it.

The suit may get dragged out for a long time, or it could get dismissed by the judge, or maybe Google will end up settling it by agreeing to a few minor changes to their terms of privacy plus a few million dollars paid to the plaintiffs' attorneys.

But regardless of the outcome, there remains the issue of trust. Google doesn't say how long they store the emails, although we can hope that the duration is at least limited by the life of the equipment on which it is stored. Google's filing says they have 400 million Gmail users, and apparently those users are satisfied with it. But it's good bet that very few have actually read the agreement they accepted when they signed on. They merely accept whatever Google does in exchange for free email.

Privacy has been eroding for a long time, and in the last ten years that erosion has drastically accelerated. And recent disclosures tell us that our emails are legally available to government agencies. So there's another level of trust required if we are to believe that said agencies will not use the data to or detriment.

What should we do? There's a good article describing how to get Google out of your life -- see How I divorced Google. Some of the things he suggests are fairly common place, such as removing and blocking cookies and trackers. Others are more complicated, like redirecting hosts files.

As for search engines, the author suggests DuckDuckGo.com because they don't retain or forward any information about the user. I like the Netherlands based Ixquick.com because they say right up front that they won't comply with Prism.

But the most obvious suggestion is to simply avoid Google products.

Typepad requires bloggers to accept trackers in order to log in

Yesterday I was trying to log into my Typepad account to put a blog post online, but the log in failed. I went down the checklist: correct user name, correct password, cookies accepted, but still no luck after multiple tries. After some experimenting, pausing Ghostery worked.

Ghostery is a Firefox add-on that blocks trackers -- the web bugs that track your behavior as you browse the web. To watch/hear a good talk on the subject see the Ted talk Gary Kovacs: Tracking our online trackers where Mr. Kovacs explained how after one typical day his web behavior was being tracked by 150 sites.

Once Ghostery was turned off, the Typepad log in portal worked. In the meantime, these little trackers had attached themselves to my computer:

DoubleClick (advertising)
Facebook Connect (widgets)
Google AdWords Conversion (advertising)
Google Analytics (analytics)
ScoreCard Research Beacons (beacons)

Where will the history of my browsing habits end up? There's the NSA trying to record the online and telephonic lives of every living American. President Obama's Big Data program is compiling information to formulate a strategy to convince us all to love Democrats on election day. Marketers are gathering information to help target and persuade susceptible individuals to buy their products. Maybe it's all three of those. And there are probably other groups, some unfriendly, on the buying side of the information stream.

I've sent a query to Typepad asking how to opt out. I'll add an update when they answer.

Update:  The Typepad help desk answered "No."  Users can't opt out.  My work-around was to create a separate Firefox profile to be used only for connecting to Typepad.  And hopefully the trackers Typepad installs on that profile can't trespass into my main browsing profile.

Facebookers, what's up with all the comments?

Beginning Thursday night there has been an avalanche of comments left at this blog, and all the commenters used a Facebook url.

Something is going on. I suspect it has something to do with the Facebook IPO that occurred Friday. And GM's announcement that they weren't making any money on Facebook advertisements might have been a factor. Whatever the motivator, it appears to be a move to get members to put a Facebook presence on other social networks. Maybe Facebook management implemented a contest or something to encourage its members to leave random comments on blogs. What's the prize, Farmville subsidies?

Anyway, the comment moderation feature at Sleepless in Midland has been temporarily activated. No comment gets published without management approval. The comments that won't get approved might fall into one of these categories:

1) The comment has nothing to do with the topic of the post to which it is made; or

2) The comment reads as if it is a direct message to someone who has not appeared in the post or a previous comment.

The rules may vary from time to time.

Blogger Appreciation Day

I ran across this at a couple of blogs, so it must be unofficially official -- Blogger Appreciation Day. Verified here, here and elsewhere in the blogosphere. And best of all, it's quadrennial. What a great way to celebrate leap year.

So here's a shout-out to some blogs I appreciate:

Archaeotexture -- Where Jeff gives us a perspective we should appreciate whether or not we agree. And he's got great taste in movies, but dammit, he doesn't do way enough movie reviews.

The Fireant Gazette -- Where we find Eric, the guy I would definitely go to before doing any Fracking.

The list could go on, but let's finish with That Janie Girl, a delightful and entertaining blogger who loves hunting family members and dogs. [I had to do that, sorry. Should read: "loves hunting, family members, and dogs, but not necessarily in that order."]

If your blog isn't listed, don't take it personally, I still appreciate you. I'll catch up in 2016.

How to get blog comments -- make errors

Bloggers love 'em. Or maybe they hate 'em.

They are the people out there who seem obsessed with other people's mistakes and can't wait to tell them about it. Maybe it's the I'm-smarter-than-that-jerk syndrome.  This clever cartoon exaggerates the situation, but that's what makes it so funny.

Found here but originally from ShoeBoxBlog.com.

Emotionless emoticons

Did you ever run across an emoticon that left you scratching your head?

Wikipedia has a catalog of emoticons that go well beyond the simple smiley face.  My favorite:

<°))><

It means "fish," although it takes a little bit of straining to associate an emotion with a menu item, especially since it contains more characters than the word. But someone must have done it.

That link comes via AlexDavies.net where he features interesting word clouds mined from tweeted emoticons.

For a much larger collection, see pi's smiley list which contains faces such as:

=:-)  Smiley is a punk rocker; however
=:-(   Real punk rockers don't smile.
}:-(   Toupee in an updraft; and
$-)  Yuppie/Just Won A Large Sum Of Money.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be one for "you just wasted a bunch of time."

Fear shuts down Lone Star Times blog

Bloggers all across the country are following the mess created by the Righthaven lawsuits. If anyone doesn't know, Righthaven LLC is the company established for the purpose of recruiting clients and suing bloggers for copyright infringement. It's a nasty, nasty business, and Righthavenlawsuits.com was set up to counter that nastiness.

But now we learn about a victim that didn't even get sued but is shutting down for fear of being sued. Lone Star Times was a great blog, and it's sure to be missed by its many fans. But it's bye bye. Here's what they say:

The proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” however recently came in the form of our growing awareness of the legal uncertainty and jeopardy faced by bloggers being sued in mass-fashion over questionable copyright claims. See here and here for more information, if you want to learn more.

Put simply, from a risk/reward standpoint even the remote possibility of getting entangled in this type of mess wasn’t worth it. The time to pull the plug had arrived.

What's needed is a clarification in the copyright legislation of just what "fair use" means. But that would require a Congress with the people's interest at heart. The matter will probably take years to resolve through litigation. And in the meantime, there will be a hole where Lone Star Times once stood so proudly.

Glenn Beck launches new website

Glenn Beck launched a new website called The Blaze, about which Mr. Beck himself says:

Too many important stories are overlooked. And too many times we see mainstream media outlets distorting facts to fit rigid agendas. Not that you’ve ever heard me complain about the media before. Okay, maybe once or twice. ...

We want this to be a place where you can find breaking news, original reporting, insightful opinions and engaging videos about the stories that matter most.

The Blaze will be about current news — and more. It’s not just politics and policy. It’s looking for insight wherever we find it. We’ll examine our culture, deal with matters of faith and family, and we won’t be afraid of a history lesson.

Seems that most conservatives who get bit time media recognition these days end up loved by some and loathed by others with few in between. If you fall in the "loathe" camp you might enjoy gawker.com's derisive piece, Glenn Beck Launches News Website Mostly About Glenn Beck. But judge for yourself whether the items about Beck at The Blaze are as self serving as gawker.com would like you to infer.

An invitation to join a social network or malware?

The other day I got three emails telling me friends wanted to send me a "teddy." Funny thing is, each of those friends denied sending such an email.  The links in the emails directed me to the website you can see in the screen shot on the right.

So what gives? The emails invited me to register at www.shtyle.fm and supply all sorts of personal information in order to receive the gift. Sorry, no can do.

I don't know whether it was a trojan horse or aggressive marketing, but when emails get sent out without the knowledge of the sender then something smells phishy.

Spam, Spatter and Spews

In an article about a new Australian anti-spam law, Paul Ducklin at Sophos blog gives us some great new appellations:

SPIT - spam using internet telephony
SPIM - spam over instant messaging
SPASMS - spam via SMS
SPATTER - spam via Twitter
SPEWS - spam through electronic web submissions.

He calls them acronyms, but that's no reason to quibble when the material is so full of richness.

Bloggers are well aware of SPEWS, those sneaky advertisements disguised as innocent comments left at blog entries. C-SPAM perhaps?

What does the internet think?

This search engine, though some mysterious way, tries to analyze positive and negative attitudes toward words and phrases to tell us what the internet thinks. To find out, click What does the internet think? According to the disclaimer, "The results are merely a reflection of a majority in search term results for said search-engine(s)." And the results are indeed interesting and maybe even informative.

So let's give it a trial run and see what the internet thinks about layoffs, war on terror, swine flu, bird flu, global warming, WMD, weapons of mass destruction, and cash for clunkers. (The Google engine was used for simplicity.)

What does the internet think about this?

Query	Negative	Positive	Don't care
Layoffs	94%	4.8%	1.2%
War on Terror	36.5%	63.5%	0%
Swine Flu	74.4%	13.6%	12%
Bird Flu	27.5%	65.9%	6.6%
Global warming	54.6%	32.8%	12.6%
WMD	15.9%	55.7%	28.4%
Weapons of mass destruction	11.5%	73.6%	14.9%
Cash for clunkers	16.7%	83.3%	0%

Your results may vary.

Eric's back

Great taste, less filling.

Back from hiatus, it's the new and improved Fire Ant Gazette. Check it out.

Oh those local blogs!

Visits to this site dropped off this past week, and I'm wondering if it might be due to all the exiting action up town. (It's old news now, Jessica's Well taking the Midland Development Corporation to task over the MDC's decision to award two million bucks to a company for a parking garage.)

Granted, it's a pretty big deal, and observers may be wondering why the complainers are doing nothing but complain about it. What else could they do? Initiatives and referenda are authorized by the City Charter -- see Article VII, and why should Californians have all the fun? It takes a committee of five plus signatures on petitions of at least 10% of the qualified voters, which comes to a little more than 7,000 signatures needed.

Aside:  I don't mean any insult by this, but I just can't stop smiling at the image of a petition table manned with people with bags over their heads.

And one more tiny bit of irreverence. The other day we had the opportunity to observe the remarkable spectacle of a newspaper man planting a big wet compliment on Jessica's Well. It's enough to make one speculate that there may be a job offer pending between them. But to show just how far out of the loop I am, I didn't even know Jessica's Well was hiring.

Typepad comments not working

The commenting feature of blogs has to be one of the main reasons why blogs have become so popular. So when it's not working it sure is missed.

Beginning sometime in the past day or so Typepad's comments stopped working, and unfortunately, the commenter doesn't realize it until he/she tries to save the comment. Bummer.

Typepad provides a good service, and the staff has always done a great job. So hopefully they will get the comment feature back up and running soon.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone who has tried to leave a comment, and sorry for inconvenience.

Where's the world's wealth?

WorldMapper.org is a very enlightening website which has on display several cartograms -- maps with the land mass adjusted to exhibit the comparative size of various things.

The one you see here is titled Wealth 2002 with the borders adjusted to show purchasing power as of 2002. Little wonder that the U.S. is considered such a juicy target by so many within and without the country.

Wealth Growth and Wealth Decline are equally enlightening. Via a post in Discovering Biology displaying a worldwide rabies distribution map.

Happy Birthday Typepad

The blogging service Typepad is celebrating its 5th birthday this year. As one of the early users I can say they have served me quite well over the years. Oh, there have been some problems here and there, but they've been quick to find solutions, and people answering the "help" questions have indeed been helpful.

There's still one little problem, though. They used to have a "search" button which allowed subscribers to search for keywords in prior posts. Well, it's gone. I may be one of the few who noticed, but with over a thousand posts at Sleepless in Midland there's often a need to link to or update an old post. The last time I asked about it they replied that they are working on it, so I still have hope.

That's my quibble. How about some good news. Go to their celebration page to see some success stories, including how a couple met through their blogs and got engaged.

Happy birthday, Typepad! (And please don't sell out to Microsoft or Google.)

Updated:  They brought back "search!"  Thanks, Typepad!  You guys/gals are terrific!

Surfing the web on a Sunday afternoon

A couple of cool sites:

The food pornographer -  Take a look at this site just before a meal if you really want to kick start your appetite. Her "about" page says she lives in Perth, Australia, and while she's not a professional photographer, "She takes her camera everywhere with her. Her workmates have grown accustomed to their lunches being photographed." Via A Welsh View.

Spill.com - A movie review site, via Crimlaw who sums it up thusly: "I just wasted over an hour of my life watching raunchy, animated movie reviews on this website. It's hilarious. Not work friendly. Not family friendly. Just fun." Agreed.

Blog readability

Just how smart does someone have to be to read this blog?  Not very.  No advanced education required here.

Check your blog's readability level.  Link.

Via Volokh.

The Big Gold Dog gone but not forgotten

I'm a little late arriving to this wake, but there's been a bit of attention paid recently to the death of Wallace Craig's dog, that's Wallace of Streams.  The loss of a pet is such a terrible thing to endure, and for some people it probably rivals the loss of human loved one.

A dog can give the unconditional love that even one's mother probably couldn't give.  So when a loyal pet passes on it can be gut wrenching.

I attended a session today in which a speaker talked about the standard end of life documents, the health care power of attorney, the physicians directive, etc.  And in thinking about some of those things I began worrying about what would happen to my dog if I died.

He's not a youngster, but he's got a few more years left in him.  He's a great pet, but it might be hard to place a nine year old dog in another home.  And it's possible that my own death could mean a death sentence for the dog.  Goodness, that's depressing.

Hmmm, maybe I should make a provision in my will to leave a few bucks to a "no kill" shelter on condition they take him in.  It's worth a try.

Lookee who's back!

After a long absence Jessica's Well has returned to the scene.  Welcome back!

Local Blogger to Blog One Day for Charity

Eric at The Fire Ant Gazette has requested that the other local bloggers help in bringing as much attention as possible to his participation in a fund raising event described as a blogathon in which he has agreed to write in his blog once every half hour for 24 hours beginning at 8 a.m. on August 6.  The hoped for result is that people will be so moved as to donate money to his charity of choice, Midland Fair Havens.  For a more details about of his charity work go here.

A Fatwah against a Blogger

Gullyblog writes in Resistance is Futile that a fatwah was issued against a fellow blogger, AnarchAngel.

Technically, a "fatwah" is issued by an Islamic scholar or religious lawyer -- see definition of "fatwah" here --  but let's not get overly technical.  What seems to have happened is the FBI has contacted AnarchAngel about a possible threat against him.  AnarchAngel tells all about it in Fatwah.

So why would anyone want to threaten AnarchAngle?  See for yourself at Team Infidel where a viewer can see MPG clips of a Koran being shot full of bullet holes along with other things done to a copy of the Koran that would likely get screaming headlines in the New York Times had they occurred at Gitmo.

In "This guy does HORRIBLE things to the Koran" AnarchAngel explains why he did it:

Actually, I've recived surprisingly little negative reaction to it. Almost disappointing really, because I know how most of us freedom and gun lovers who read me every day feel about that stuff, so I'm preaching to the choir as it were. I got a lot of GREAT negatives on some of my other controversial essays, like "Homophobia is Offensive". Great negatives means your message is getting out beyond your social mirror, and into the hostile intellectual world out there.

I want to see your negatives people. I want you to THINK about WHY we did this.

Careful what you wish for, AnarchAngel.

But, AnarchAngel probably doesn't have anything to worry about.  While his actions may have been a bit more overt than simply writing a book critical of Islam like Salman Rushdie or even the harsher criticisms of Theo Van Gogh, Islamic radicals will probably steer clear of him.  Their modus operandi is to make a surprise attack against people who aren't in a position to easily defend themselves.

And that's what sets AnarchAngel apart.  He's ready.  And he's armed to the teeth!

Deepest, Darkest Secrets, For All to Read

There are weblogs for all sorts for reasons.  And here's one that serves as an outlet for people with secrets they need to share.   The blog owner invites people to mail in a postcard with their secrets on them for posting.

Some are funny.  Some are sad, and some are downright disturbing.  See them at PostSecret.

(Via slapdummy.)

Carnival of Cordite #21

Attention gun enthusiasts and 2nd amendment supporters:  Carnival of Cordite #21 is up and running, and there are some fascinating articles linked there.

Blogging Midland Expats

There are a couple of blogging Midland expatriates out there who deserve some attention.  Trey Barker is a deputy sheriff in Bureau County, Illinois, who's an excellent story teller, in fact, he's an author.  And although he has just gotten started with his blog, Bullets and Whiskey, it certainly has some great potential.   His latest book, "2000 Miles to Open Road," is due out this month.

Then there's Aunti Cracker.  What can I say about Aunti Cracker?  Perhaps I should just let her speak for herself:  "Aunti is a politically incorrect psychopath and Midlander stuck in Liberal Land."  Be sure to let us know when the Oregon turns into a red state, Aunti C.

Too bad they had to move away, but how are you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?

Freakonomics, the blog

Although I haven't yet read Freakonomics, I'm riveted to the tv every time the author, Steven D. Levitt, makes an appearance.  His research has bought to light some information and theories that just aren't available elsewhere; the economics of drug dealing gangs, for example.

What a thrill it was to learn that he and co-author Stephen J. Dubner have a Freakonomics blog.

It's a fun site in which to browse around.  And it's not all economics.  The little bits of gossip, such as speculation that Al Franken has taken up residence in Minnesota in anticipation of a run for senate, make for juicy reading.

Texas Blogfests

There's an Alamo City Blogfest taking place in San Antonio this June 25.  And replies to my inquiries about it resulted in news about another -- possibly rowdier -- Hill Country Blogfest that will take place in New Braunfels that whole weekend.

Thanks to Christina at Feisty Repartee, who today is blogging about swimwear, and Jerry at Confabulation, who today is blogging about his his bucket garden, for all the info.  I almost made plans to go to one in San Antonio, but as it turns out, I won't be able to make either of them.  Maybe next year.

In the meantime, some local bloggers had a blogfest of their own.  See a photo at Streams.   (What?  No pocket protectors?  No green eyeshades?  No pajamas?)