Tag: blog

Being Human in an Internet Bot World

Humans are slow and somewhat unpredictable, at least compared to a bot scraping this web site. I actually like that. After all, my posts are meant to be read by humans and not bots. I welcome bots only if they provide a route for humans to my site, such as search engines. For all other bots, known and unknown intent, you will receive a 403 if I can help it.

Skipping Breakfast, or the Fasting 16-8 Weight Loss Diet

The standard practice is to eat breakfast every day. The saying “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” has been drilled into my tiny brain since birth. For me it just was not so important. Over the years I have deviated from this breakfast practice on many occasions, mostly without issue. I say mostly because I often inadvertently delay until well past lunch. This is the 16/8 fast, don’t eat for 16 hrs a day, but eat for only 8. It is not as radical as you might think, as most of the time you are asleep.

Seattle PI Ceases Production. It’s a Pity.

Seattle PI Globe, AP Photo/ Elaine Thompson

Seattle PI Globe, AP Photo/ Elaine Thompson


It is with deep regret that today, March 17 2009, the Seattle Post-Intellingencer has written its own obituary and ceased production of its paper version. In business from 1863-2009, the 146-year old Seattle newspaper served more than 117,600 weekday readers. While the online version will continue, the PI has layed off 90% of its reporters, whittling its staff down to 20 reporters, a shadow if its former self. The PI will certainly be missed.

Increasing Efficiency of Drupal 6’s Feed Aggregator

Drupal 6's Feed Aggregator works well

Drupal 6's Feed Aggregator works well


I really love Drupal 6’s feed aggregator. It has the ability to aggregate numerous RSS (Really Simple Sybndication) news or blog feeds, categorize them, and keep them current, all in the effort to save you the trouble of going to each news source and hunting for relevant news. All you have to do is chose a category, read the summary and click the link for the article you what you want.

The Ultimate Objective of Chinese Blogging


TThere is no question that contributing on the web in China is fraught with a level of personal risk not seen in the West. Here, no one really cares what you write, provided it is not racist and does not defame anyone.

___In China, blogs and blog service providers get shut down on a regular basis. No explanations or warnings are given. This is what happened with a large Chinese blog provider Bulldog.cn last month. A blog that has run for one year is considered to be long lived. Search for the most popular blogs in China and you’ll find many that are posted on local blogrolls no longer exist. Here today, gone tomorrow. You’ll find previously vibrant URLS shuttered, all content gone, no comments allowed, no explanation given. It’s all very subtle.

I moved my Blog to DonTai.com


Today I moved my blog from dontai.Wordpress.com to my own hosting space on Site5, primarily because I wanted to experiment with the dizzying variety of themes and plugins. WordPress.com was gracious enough to host me, but I think I was about to outstay my welcome. I wanted to download themes and install plugins, which i could not do. The basic functionality was there, but flexibility was not.

I sure was not disappointed. I only got around to looking at the first 10 pages of themes, and the first 10 pages of plugins. There sure are a number of very busy WordPress themers out there.