So I’m pretty much used to having to re-login almost every time I visit the Work Stoppage these days, because I visit so rarely because – let’s all say it together – JIM sucks.
It’s a new experience, though, to find that WordPress has finally gotten tired of nagging me and updated itself to version 2.7.
Actually, I suspect I have JR to thank for it. Thanks, JR!
We now return to your regularly scheduled suckage.
So here we are again. The sun has gone down, and I feel fully justified in replacing the sun’s deadly rays with the soothing light of my computer monitor. As you can see, I’ve been fiddling around with the Ongoing Work Stoppage’s template, banishing the beiges for a soft blue and finally putting something in the header. Having a picture in your header is very Web 2.0, I understand.
As I mentioned below, it’s suddenly late May. I don’t know how that happened, nobody asked my opinion; I would’ve been perfectly happy to carry on with February for a few more weeks just until everyone had gotten their bearings. Now finally the internal pressure to Write something, dammit, who cares how inane it is? has built up enough for me to do something about it and 2008 is just about half gone.
So, State of the JIM: I’m still looking for a job – quantum geochemists aren’t in white hot demand, apparently (I know, I’m just as baffled as you are) – still living in BC, and still not being as social and/or creative as I ought to be. But, my Davis work is published (and apparently getting a good response), the last paper from my PhD is finally ready to submit, and I know the Food Network’s broadcast schedule almost by heart. So, you know, things are going pretty well all together.
As to why I haven’t kept up with the Work Stoppage – I just haven’t had anything to say, really. But I realise that the more you write, the more you end up having to say, so not writing because I can’t think of anything to say is self-defeating. What I mean is – I’ve decided I’d better start filling up the Work Stoppage with writings whether I have anything to say or not, so strap yourselves in and make sure you’ve installed a clean drivel filter. You’re going to need it.
It is no longer February. It stopped being February a long time ago. It is now almost June.
WordPress is updated, and I’m now ready to get started again. But first: outside.
Because even though I haven’t written anything since February, it’s too nice a day to spend in front of the computer.
Yes, you can tell I’m still unemployed, can’t you?
So, I’ve been get insane amounts of comment spam lately. A couple hundred or so a day. This is a rather sudden increase from about two weeks ago, when I was getting maybe ten a day.
Either the spammers have gotten a new algorithm or there’s someone new who is very enthusiastic.
Anyway, it’s not showing up on the site, at least. Unless you’re on the Work Stoppage’s “Approved” list (a highly sought after honour), all comments get bunged into a queue where I can approve or delete them by hand. So those of you who comment aren’t likely to have trouble doing so. But you know, of course, that even with 200 spams a day I have to look through them just in case some valid comment is lost in the somewhere. And, naturally, the more obnoxious plugs for swedish gangbang tiger prawns there are, the more my eyes glaze over and I’m likely to miss something.
I am such an attention-monger that the idea of deleting even one valid comment bothers me. It is a blog, isn’t it?
So I thought I’d try this Akismet plugin that the WordPress folks seem very pleased with. Which required me to sign up for a WordPress account to get an activation key in order to use it, which I was reluctant to do, since I already have fifty bazillion usernames and passwords for stupid things all over the Interballz and I really needed one more. But, hey, if it saves the comment of someone out there who wants to shower me with approval, what the heck.
Now, after one day of active use, the Akismet is amazing. See, what it does? It creates a queue for all those comments that its algorithms determine might be spam! Then I can look through the queue to double check no valid comments might have accidentally been caught in the spam trap, and then delete them!
Exactly like I was doing before!
Except now I have two spam queues to look through! Yay!
GARHG.
Anyway. If you do make a comment, and it doesn’t show up in a day or so, sorry about that. You can email me instead. It’s up there. Oh, and putting in an email address when you fill in the comment field makes it easier to put you on the “Approved” list, so I you don’t have to worry about your comments vanishing.
I’ve noticed in the past that sudden spam onslaughts like this usually die down in a week or so. I hope that’s the case this time.
I was a very bad post-doc and took most of today off, missing a talk this afternoon that I kind of wanted to see. Hopefully my scientific career will recover. Oh, and I have a new bedroom light fixture, that lights up and sits on the ceiling without falling down and everything. I haven’t tried to open it up – that didn’t work out so well last time – but I at least have some idea of how I would do that. There is a little metal bit that looks exactly like something that unscrews.
Anyway, in popping in this afternoon, I did accomplish a couple things here on the Work Stoppage – bigger font sizes, a bit less wasted screen space and, oh yes, another Hydrogen Guy post. I admit this one’s probably very self-indulgent. It may not be noticeable yet, but there is a definite storyline in these things, beyond seemingly arbitrary changes to certain characters’ names. It intends to summarize what our heroes and villains have been up to since I inconsiderately put them all on The Great Hiatus. I’m calling it “The Files of Hydrogen Guy: Nucleosynthesis!”, and I’ve put links to all the installments so far on this page, which is also linked on the sidebar for your convenience.
Happy weekend!