Stupid Evil Bastard » Blogging

I’ll be turning off the importing of Google+ posts.

Les — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:51:00 +0000

It seems the inclusion of items I’ve shared through Google+ is confusing the hell out of a few people and I’ve had multiple complaints saying that folks don’t want to sign up for Google+ in order to read my posts. Ignoring the fact that there’s no need to sign up with Google+ to read anything I post publicly there or here, the extra but shortened content seems to be more problematic than useful for a lot of folks.

So I’ll shut off the importation plugin and go back to my usual much longer, but less frequent postings. The plugin(s) I was using for this process were a bit wonky anyway so it’ll be much less of a hassle for me. Perhaps this’ll motivate me to put more effort into posting by hand more often. Or at least I won’t have to keep repeating the same explanation to people.

Testing out Google+ Importer.

Les — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:58:50 +0000

You may recall that for awhile I was running the Google+Blog plugin right up until it stopped working. Which is odd, because it’s been working just fine for ***Dave on his site. I wasn’t entirely happy with how it formatted things, but I do share a lot of things from Google Reader which end up on Google+ which would be nice to have imported into SEB for a little extra content here. It’s mainly stuff that I don’t have enough to say about for a full-blown blogpost, but which I thought would be worth sharing with folks. So when Google+Blog stopped working and I couldn’t figure out why, well, I was a tad disappointed. Especially seeing as I’d paid a few bucks for it.

Today, out of curiosity, I did a Google+ search on the WordPress plugins database and discovered that there were a couple of other options for doing the same thing. One of those is the Google+ Importer plugin which seems to have most of the same feature set as Google+Blog, but actually works on SEB. It also seems to do a little better with the formatting. The one thing it doesn’t do, which the previous plugin did, is import comments from Google+. That’d be nice, but I’m less concerned with that than I am with just getting the content over here.

What does this mean for you? More new content more often on SEB. You won’t need a Google+ account to see any of it and I can selectively control what comes over by use of a simple hashtag.

SEB is now running on WordPress 3.3.

Les — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:44:53 +0000

Most of the changes are on the back end so it should be largely transparent, but if you notice anything wonky or not working properly then drop me an email and let me know.

Today Stupid Evil Bastard celebrates its 10th Blogiversary!

Les — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:01:33 +0000

It’s true. On this date ten years ago at exactly 7:27PM EST I wrote the very first entry on what would end up becoming Stupid Evil Bastard. It wasn’t called that at the time and the first entry wasn’t particularly special. It was also the only entry I wrote until the next month, mainly because I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it. The first real comment happened on January 2nd, 2002 on my Crimes and Misdemeanors entry, which was also the first really lengthy entry I ever wrote. I don’t know who “Joe” was or if he kept reading beyond that one comment, but it was a milestone just the same. You can see a little of what the site used to look like way back then via the Internet Archive. The first page was indexed on October 4th, 2002 and the template for the site had changed several time prior to that. The next major template was recorded on January 26th, 2003. You can poke through the archive there if you want to see other layouts. Since that first comment to today we’ve racked up some 7,201 posts with 84,424 comments. Not the most prolific blogger out there, but not bad for someone who’s attention span often doesn’t exceed 20 minutes.

This blog started after the events of 9/11 and more than a few entries are devoted to that topic and our national response to it. If you were around on the 18th of January in 2005 then you know that was the start of the first real period of unemployment I had ever experienced after working as a contractor for 4 years at Ford Motor Company. It would be 10 months before I’d find work again and another 10 months later I’d head back to Ford for the shortest contract of my career — a whole two and a half months before being laid off again. You might have been around when I talked about the death of one of my cousins that brought home the problem of so many folks without health insurance. Or perhaps you watched as I raged over the death of one of my best friends. So many things have happened which I somehow took the time to document here such as when my daughter decided it was time to move out. Hell, I even managed to finally get around to doing podcasts like I’d been meaning to do for, quite literally, years.

I had more to say, but I lost most of it thanks to one of the cats helpfully stepping on my computer’s power button and shutting down my system in the middle of writing this. But you can always hit the archives if you’re curious as to what other stuff I’ve written about in the past. Most of it is pretty mundane, but there’s some major stuff in there. Some of you folks have been following me for a very long time and I am both grateful and humbled by that fact. Many of you have helped me and my family get through the tough periods and many of you just dropped me a note from time to time to let me know you appreciated my attempts at literacy. My thanks to all of you who have stopped by to see what I’ve been up to over the years. You’ve made the past 10 years worth every keyboard stroke.

Testing out the WordPress Android app.

Les — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:18:27 +0000

Don’t think I’d want to do a huge blog post using this, but it works for short entries with cat pics.

A few notes and random updates.

Les — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:56:19 +0000

Just thought I should write a quick entry explaining what I am and am not up to at the moment. Especially considering that there was a flood of postings from Google+ that have suddenly stopped. The reason for that is that I have turned off that plugin for the moment as it was interacting oddly with the plugin I use to announce new posts on Twitter. It seems that every time the Google+Blog plugin updates an already imported entry (which it does to add in new comments from Google+) it triggers the new post announcement to be broadcast on Twitter. Not sure why as you can update a post in WP without the Twitter plugin rebroadcasting it, but that’s what it appears to be doing. So until I can either figure why it’s doing that, or I switch to a different Twitter plugin, I’ve shut it down for now.

The second thing I wanted to mention is that the 7th SEB Podcast is complete and awaiting the editing process. It was fun one to do, but the rhythm is a little off in this outing. George Wiman seems to think it was his inclusion that made things a little bumpy, but honestly I was having a very off day on Sunday with a brain that just wasn’t working quite right. First, I was almost an hour late to my own podcast because I got wrapped up in playing video games and lost track of the time. Then my brain just wasn’t working quite right and I struggled to come up with anything remotely interesting to say. Also, the end is a bit abrupt as George had another event to attend that evening that I didn’t know about (or, more likely, forgot about) that he had to leave for at which point I brought the whole thing to a close like a car hitting a brick wall. In short, if it’s not the best podcast we’ve ever done it’s only because I was flailing about like a brainless moron who’d been asked to host an intelligent discussion of topical issues, which is pretty much what happened.

Also, it’s not been edited yet as last night we went out and bought new smartphones as the wife’s old non-smartphone had recently met a nasty end and mine was on the verge of falling apart. Thus most of the evening was spent figuring out how to get them activated, transferring our old phone numbers over, charging them up, and just generally fiddling with them in an attempt to join the 21st century. So no editing of the podcast got done last night. Tonight isn’t looking much better as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was released today and I’ll probably be spending more time than I should playing that this evening.

I promise to have it edited and up by this weekend at the latest. Really.

That is, assuming nothing else comes along to catch my ADD addled atten… SQUIRREL!

Considering importing my Google+ activity to SEB.

Les — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:34:43 +0000

Part of the reason that my frequency of blogging has gone down over the past couple of years is because of my heavy use of Google Reader for keeping track of RSS feeds. Up until yesterday, Reader had a built-in sharing system where people who were following me could see what I thought was interesting from the many (many, many, many) RSS feeds I subscribe to. Technically I was including that content here on SEB in the Shared Reader Items page, though I have no idea how many, if any, of you folks ever bothered to check it. Most of you who would be inclined to do so were probably already subscribed to me in Reader already so had no need to do so.

Well, all of that came to an end yesterday with the roll out of the new Google Reader which is now integrated into Google+. A lot of folks are unhappy with the changes to Reader as the way those shared items get imported into Google+ is much less elegant than it was in Reader. On top of that, folks have to have Google+ account to follow your shared items from Reader, but they also get all the other crap you share in G+ which they may or may not want. I’m not going to go into whether these changes are a good or bad thing in this entry as it doesn’t really matter and whats done is done.

These changes do, however, present an opportunity. I’m a big fan of Google+ and it allows for sharing of items in a very “bloggish” manner such that anything I’m not inclined to write a huge entry about on SEB I tend to share over there. Of course if you’re not a G+ member and following me there you’re missing out on all that crap. But it turns out there is a plugin for WordPress called, oddly enough, Google+Blog plugin for WordPress that will take stuff I post in G+ and import it, along with any comments it has, into SEB. ***Dave is already playing with it on his blog and I was thinking I might try it out here.

Which brings me to my question: Is that something you guys would like to see? It would certainly increase the amount of posting activity here. The entries would be a bit shorter, but would consist of things I thought were worth sharing with everyone. I can set things up so that it either grabs everything I post to Google+ (which would include some twitter type updates in addition to shared items) or I could set it up as a page similar to the old Reader Shared Items page I’m about to remove (so I’m not sure why I linked to it earlier) or I could selectively share just the crap that caught my eye in Reader. Of course, importing that stuff would be redundant if all of you regulars here are already following me over there. So, what would you guys like to see, if anything?

Need your topic ideas for the next SEB Podcast.

Les — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:03:50 +0000

Blah blah blah...

The stars have once again come into alignment and that means we’re gearing up to do another Stupid Evil Bastard Podcast. This time ***Dave and I will be joined by George Wiman of Decrepit Old Fool. So you’ll be getting an extra third of pointless nattering with the next installment.

As per usual, we’re being lazy and asking you guys what you’d like to hear us talk about. Any questions you’ve been dieing to ask George? Or, for that matter, Dave or myself? You’ve got a whole week to get them in by leaving a comment on this entry or dropping me an email. Don’t be shy, we’re will to discuss just about anything. We might even have something insightful and ageless to say about it, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that last part. We’ll be recording it next Sunday assuming the rapture or something doesn’t happen before then.

Comment spammers are trying something new.

Les — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:15:00 +0000

But I don't LIKE spam!!

Been seeing an odd form of comment spam show up in SEB’s spam queue lately. The URL is a link back to Bing or Google’s homepage while the comment itself contains no links at all and is often mildly on-topic, but a short one or two liner that doesn’t really add anything to the conversation. The email address, however, points to a distinct domain. One such example is boco-boco.pl which serves up a Polish lace corset wholesaler’s web page if you go to it.

Not sure how this is helping them. Are they hoping that the email address will drive up page rank? Without it linking back to their site I don’t see how it helps. WordPress, like most blogging software these days, doesn’t publish emails on the comments page and links published in comments contain the “rel=no follow” tag anyway. The email address is primarily used for the notification emails and I’m often the only person who will ever see it.

As a spam strategy it’s pretty stupid as it can only possibly benefit Bing or Goggle as that’s the URL being used. Are they really that stupid or is there something really clever about this approach that I’m just not seeing?

Nothing like the smell of an autumnal SEB podcast.

Les — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:13:03 +0000

Blah blah blah...

Fall arrives tomorrow and with it comes the need to do yet another Stupid Evil Bastard Podcast. ***Dave and I have managed to coordinate a time this Saturday to record another rambling session of tangent taking, but as always we need your help!

Topics! We need your topics! What do you want to hear two middle aged white nerdy guys talk about for an hour (or more)? Need relationship advice? Want our political insights? We’re up for questions on just about anything no matter how ill qualified we happen to be to answer them. We can’t promise you the secrets to the ultimate questions of life, the Universe, and everything, but we’ll at least try to be funny when we make shit up.

So take a moment to drop a comment on this entry or send me an email with whatever you’re just dying to hear us address.