I’ve added “Basic Instructions” to my comics aggregator. Tip of that hat to Seth Gordon for pointing me at this fine comic! UPDATE: Because the author of “Basic Instructions” sometimes publishes his strip after people have already read their daily comics, I’ve also added “Basic Instructions (1-day delay)”, so you can use that one instead… Read More: UPDATED: “Basic Instructions” added to comics aggregator »
GoComics.com changed their Web page format and broke my screen scraper again last night. I’ve updated my comics aggregator to support the new page format as of this morning.
For some reason lost in the mists of time, I decided at about 7am yesterday that I just had to upgrade my Fedora 14 desktop to Fedora 15. Sometimes I get these weird ideas… I followed the instructions on the Fedora Web site for upgrading using yum, and 2,978 downloaded packages and several hours later,… Read More: Fedora 14 -> Fedora 15 upgrade notes »
Somebody seems to be using my email address in a weird, ongoing way that doesn’t seem to be benefiting them in any way. The fact that I can’t figure out why they’re doing it concerns me, because I have to suspect that there is some benefit to them, which I just haven’t been able to… Read More: Who’s using my email address, and why? »
For those who use my comics aggregator, note that as of yesterday, the comics.com web site has merged into gocomics.com. I’ve just updated the aggregator to reflect this. The comic strip “That’s Life” appears to have been lost in the shuffle; I’ll check again at some point in the future to see if it resurfaces… Read More: comics.com has merged into gocomics.com »
Last month, I wrote about Google’s surreal attempts to collect from me a debt I don’t actually owe, and my unsuccessful attempts to make it stop. Things have gotten much worse since then. I sent a letter (appended below) to the office of Google’s CEO over a month ago. There has been no response. Today,… Read More: Google AdWords is still staffed by poorly trained monkeys »
I try to make a habit of giving out “tagged” email addresses to web sites when I sign up for accounts / mailing lists / whatever. For example, when creating an account at widgets.com, instead of just signing up as “jik@kamens.us”, I might sign up as “jik+widgets@kamens.us”. It ends up in the same mailbox regardless,… Read More: A study in contrasts: handling stolen email lists »
Back when I was doing my week-long Shave a Redhead for Israel fundraiser, Google’s search index was taking an unusually long time to index the fundraiser page. This was a problem because I was publicizing the fundraiser and telling people they could find it easily by searching for “Shave a Redhead for Israel”, but they… Read More: Google AdWords is staffed by poorly trained monkeys »
An interesting comment showed up a few hours ago on an earlier blog posting of mine about Barack Obama: “Just wanted to say that I am eployed at a large Pharmaceutical company in Clayton NC and I support Barack Obama with all my heart. I would love for all my friends and colleagues to re-elect… Read More: Astroturf for (or against?) Obama »
Today, I received a second letter from HSBC, claiming once again that they sent me a Statement Available Alert on January 13, despite my twice providing proof that they did not. They also claimed that they were not in violation of the Truth in Lending Act because the Act only requires them to make statements… Read More: HSBC gets it wrong a second time »