lonecity.com

It became apparent a while back that the spam problem is getting just a bit out of control.  Lots of people have come up with ideas to combat the incoming flood.  Apparently just as many have found a reason to add to it.  The simple truth to it all is that until we hold advertisers accountable for the damage done by spam, adware, spyware, ect, they won’t take the measures needed to stop it.  The only way were ever going to stop getting viagra ads popping up at us is to hold the drug company who owns viagra financially accountable for damages when ads for their product pop up where they shouldn’t be.  Its true that they aren’t the ones posting those ads, but in the end they are the ones ultimately paying the people who are.  I’m getting off on a rant again so lets get back on topic.  The purpose of this article is to discuss how to use one of those many anti-spam tools to help boost your website’s Page Rank.

The tool I’m talking about is the rel=”nofollow” tag, or just nofollow for short.  Google introduced this as an extra bit of html code that can be added to your webpage to let search engines know that a link isn’t related to or approved by your site.  The premise was that people would use the tag wherever website users could post their own comments on blog’s, forums, ect.  That way if someone were to post a comment on my blog with a link to their website the link back to them wouldn’t count. 

Nearly every blog on the planet has the nofollow tag embedded into it automatically but the spam is still coming.  Wonder why?  Its simple.  It is easier for the spammers to just post their crap on every blog out there hoping to stumble on the few that don’t use the tag.  The end result is that we still get spam.  The people who honestly deserved a good link back for posting a valuable and insightful comment get penalized with no credit and the spammers go right on ahead.

If the nofollow tag is broken why do we continue to use it?  I think the tag is actually a great concept that was spoiled on the wrong cause.  Now webmasters have a way of putting weight to the outbound links on their site.  In fact I’d like to see a few other “weights” applied to the rel=”" tag.  Say something like rel=”high” rel=”medium” and rel=”low”. 

A search engine is a machine.  It can’t see things the way we humans do.  Personally I think google has done an incredible job of making thier engine capable of distinguishing between content and filler.  At the end of the day though there are always going to be things that get misinterpreted.  The rel=”" tag opens a way for us as webmasters to sort out those misunderstandings. 

Lets try an example here: say you have a photograph sharing website.  There is bound to be some turd who wants to post lewd content in the same album as your pictures of your adorable new born puppies.  Obviously this site is going to need a legal disclaimer.  Its also going to need a page with rules explaining exactly what is and isn’t appropriate.  Its probably going to need a webform to report abuse.  What do all of these pages have in common?  They don’t have anything to do with the content of the website.  When you list your site on the search engines, you don’t want people to find you who were looking for “report abuse” or “lewd photos.”  You want people to find your site that were looking for “photo sharing.”

The solution is to use the rel=”nofolow” tag with the internal linking of your site.  Pages that don’t conform to the sites main focus get the tag.  Pages that do have the tag omitted.  An example of a website that uses this strategy is SudokuPrinter.net.  The site is a very simple webtool that prints out sudoku puzzles.  The main page is about sudoku.  The site also has several other pages about sudoku including rules, how to play, facts, and crediting some of the people who helped in making the site.  All of these pages are linked together on the site without the nofollow tag because they all have the same content theme.  There is also a page where you can contact the site owner.  It uses a captcha and a webform to send email to the webmaster.  There isn’t any sudoku related content on the page, so instead of bieng linked like the other pages, every link going to it has the rel=”nofollow” tag.  The contact page is an important part of the site just like the other pages so it shouldn’t be left out.  The site isn’t about webmail or captcha though, so google shouldn’t be counting the contact form in its calculation of what the site is about. 

Your ranking in google and other search engines is a guess at how related it is to a given topic someone searches for.  If your site is only about sudoku it should rank pretty high for someone looking for sudoku.  The webmaster has just used the nofollow tag to let google and the other search engines know his site is about sudoku, not about webmail.  That way his site gets found when people are looking for “sudoku printer”, not when people are looking for “sudoku webmail.”  The former is obviously more attractive to a human, but to a computer the two terms are equal.  It just happens that alot less people are going to be interested or search for the latter term.  They are also not going to find what they wanted if they found the sudokuprinter.net website.

To sum it up: Your pagerank as listed in rank checker tools may not change from a simple trick like using the nofollow tag to weed out unrelated parts of your site.  However your actual pagerank will be boosted by doing so.  You will apply more of the rank that is assigned to your site twards the keywords and topics that your site is actually about by not applying any of your PR to pages that don’t fit the theme. 

This post is for those of you who have managed to read my blog from the very beginning.  both of you.  By now you are probably thinking that I am an uncaring son of a bitch with virtually no redeeming qualities.  and you’d be right.  By this point I have taken the time in my weekly rant to bitch about just about everything that pisses me off.  Well at least everything that has pissed me off in the last couple of months.  I don’t have time to write an encyclopedia to encompass absolutely everything that pisses me off.  Today I dediced to do something different. I’m going to write about something I like.

Its time to bring out the dog and pony show.  Set up the circus tent.  Be prepared with the smoke and mirrors.  Its going to take more than just a little bit of magic to pull of this trick.  I’m about to try and convice people there is more to me than just your average everyday run of the mill asshole.  We’re going to need bigger mirrors and a lot more smoke!

I’ve decided to use today’s post to talk about one of my hobbies.  I am somwhat of an anime fan.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those card carrying geeks who you find in costumes at convention halls.  I’ve never been to an anime convetion.  Maybe I should take that back.  I am one of those card carrying geeks at heart.  I’ve never been to a convention, but not because I wouldn’t want to.  Just a number of other factors seem to coalesce just right within me to keep me away. 

I am a workaholic and have been one since my first conscious memory.  That is a horrible curse I got from my father.  The poor guy has gone to work every day of his life untill recently a heart attack physically prevented him from doing so.  Now he lays in bed thinking about how he can get to work and pay the bills.  A dreadfull curse indeed.  Like him I have a will to go and do more, but I find myself going to work and thinking about doing other things instead of actually doing them. 

If you couple the workaholic factor with the other trait of mine lazyness you get a combination that actively prevents me from ever doing anything fun.  Probably why I’m such an asshole.  And Yes thats right I am a lazy workaholic.  The two don’t seem to fit together, but both traits are prominent within me.  I get up in the morning and give my everything to my work.  Then when the workday is finally done I convert nicely into a couch potato just long enough to recouperate so I can do it again the next day. It is during my couch potato phase that the anime geek rears its ugly head.  Maybe that second trait could be called exhaustion rather than lazyness, but I know deep down the truth is the former.

If I’ve learned anything from watching my dad go through his heart attack it is that I don’t want to be a workaholic anymore.  I’ve approached every day of my life thinking that someday I will make my fortune and retire.  Then I will have the rest of my life to do all the things I wanted to do while I was going to work every day.  It seems the math doesn’t quite work out the way I had it figured though.  Should I manage to make my fortune before I die I’ll be so old it will have long passed the time to have any fun.

So now it comes to the question.  Am I strong enough to break the workaholic curse and become somone who is fun?  Am I going to make it to an anime convention this year?  Maybe if I do, I’ll post a picture of myself here wearing a bunny girl costume.  You can go wash your eyes, but the image of a pasty 30 something chubby white guy in a bunny girl costume is now forever burned into your mind.

With my anime collection approaching 700 dvd’s I guess its time I made the next step and moved on to full blown geektitude.  I think it will be a while before I move on to cosplay but I think I am ready to venture into the con world.  I guess for a first step arguing about what my favorite series is and what the worst one is in a crowded hall full of my kindred spirits might not be so bad.  For posterity, the best series is a toss up between Saikano and Haibane Renmei.  The worst is hard to say.  Fist of the north star comes to mind, but there were a few other series that were so bad that I couldn’t watch them all the way through.

I think it is probably time I stopped watching the news.  Every time I watch I re-affirm the knowledge that the human race is doomed to extinction.  In the movie Men In Black there is a quote that goes something like this.  “A person is smart, People are stupid”  I’m sure I butchered the quote, but its close enough to get my point across.  Watching the news just makes me realize how little the collective human intelligence amounts to.  The strength of a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.  Likewise the cumulative intellegence of the human race is only equal to the stupidest person.

Through most of last week the news was going on about some polygamist compound the police broke up.  Apparently they got a phone tip from some little underage girl who was forced to “get married” so some bastard could rape her under the guise of his religeous beliefs.  The very concept baffles my mind.  I remember a similar story in the news where some mormon kids from B.Y.U. were expelled.  They were going to Nevada to get married so they could have sex without breaking thier religeon’s rules, and then having the marrige anulled the next day. 

The whole concept of a religeous belief is supposed to help guide people who may have trouble making the right decisions without guidance.  There really isn’t much point to it if you decide to do what any intelligent person can obviously tell is wrong and then obfuscate the religeous rules until you justify what you are doing.  I guess I’m just old fashioned, but I believe that you either choose to do good or do evil.  The choice you make doesn’t change if you wrap up what you are doing with a bunch of religeous crap.  Its still either good or its evil.

What upset me enough to take the time to write this post on my blog wasn’t the whole polygamist thing.  They’ve been caught and stopped.  One can only hope that sufficient punishment is dealt out.  The thing that got under my skin is the stupid lawyer who was on the news trying to say they needed to throw out all the evidence because the “rape” took place in a temple.  Some Legal mumbo jumbo that could have a misconstrued legal basis.  I’ll go back to my statement before.  Either you chose to do good or you choose to do evil.  I don’t care where there is a loophole in the law anyone with even an ounce of self respect would have realized that the argument was just plain wrong, and would never have uttered a word. 

For this and this alone I belive the Skumbag lawyer should be tried as an accessory to rape.  If he is honestly low enough to actually make that argument knowing full well that the police had a warrent and had found evidence within the temple, he truly is an accessory to rape.  Truthfully I know they wouldn’t be able to convict him.  In all reality the law only really fits in about 95% of the cases.  There is always some a-hole who figures out to do something so stupid that the law just can’t have enough caveats to cover it.  I used to belive it was the judges job to fill in for that other 5% with common sense.  After the McDonalds coffie cup incident I can’t even belive in that. 

The only way I’ll ever find peace with this is if some kind soul decides to handle the situation Al capone style.  The Skumbag lawyer can take a dirt nap along with all his bastard rapist buddies.  Then maybe someone who chooses to do good can find a loophole in the law to let good old Al off the hook since he would be the only one doing the right thing.  At the end of all this, All I can say is Thank GOD I am an Atheist.  My mind just can’t handle all the backward religeous rules that make right wrong and vise versa whenever the situation demands. 

For the record: At no point does forcing a fourteen year old girl to have sex with you ever become right no matter how many bibles you bend her over!

Unlike most people, I have never really felt a strong emotional attachment to the people around me.  I’m not talking about complete strangers here, I’m talking about my immediate family.  I guess this probably spawns from my upbringing.  I’ve always suffered from a fierce bullishness and total self dependance.  You’re probably thinking wait, these can be good qualities?  Well I admit I am somewhat admired for my ability to take on almost any situation without any outside help.  The problem lies in the fact that I am totally incapable of asking for or accepting that help.  If my car is broken down, I fix it. If something heavy is needed to be lifted, I lift it.  The underlying element here is that I have severe trust issues.  It’s not that I enjoy fixing my own car, but I don’t feel comfortable letting someone else do it.  I don’t even feel comfortable letting someone else drive it.  I just can’t. 

What broght out this confession?  A few months back a co-worker of mine had her sister pass away.  Normally this wouldn’t even catch my interest, but I really feel alot of respect for this particular person.  In the last couple of years she is the only person I’ve worked with whom I feel is like me.  She is totally competent in every respect.  Having done a stint as an Air Force Mechanic the woman is like a brick.  She exudes confidence and there hasn’t been a single task that she hasn’t been able to handle.  I see her take on jobs that normally would have been given to me simply because nobody else could handle it.  She is also quite intelligent and I find that things I discuss with her she actually understands.  I often don’t converse with people simply because they aren’t in the same intellectual class as I am.  (on a side note, that is one reason I really love the internet. Online I have no problem finding people who match or exceed my intellect where in daily life I seldom find that is the case.)  Getting back to this co-worker, I’d say she would be wife material if it weren’t for the fact that she is much older than I am and having kids almost out of high school.  Her sister went into the hospital for a surgery and didn’t survive the anesthesia. 

I watched this woman whom I had almost thought to be unbreakable turn into a sobbing mess.  I, having little human attachment, was obviously not real understanding.  I tried to be of some comfort, but I honestly don’t understand the emotion she was going throgh.  I must have seemed cold and uncaring.  Probably because I am…

I think it must have been this incident that started me thinking about what it would take to break me emotionally.  I tend to sit back and see things from an outside perspective.  I didn’t have to wait long for something to come along that would test my curiosity in this respect.  Last year I lost a weeks worth of vacation time because I didn’t get around to taking it before my company determined I had accrued too much and they diposed it.    It’s not that I wouldn’t love a vacation, but I’ve made myself too damn irreplaceable at work.  I just can’t take time off.  The whole purpose of taking time off is to get some sort of relief.  The problem is that I have so much to do when I come back that taking time off actually causes me more stress than if I just keep working. 

I was determined that I wasn’t going to take a loss on any more paid vacation time so I decided to figure a way to take a few days here and there at non-busy times so I could use it up.  The first installment of two days plus a weekend came due last week.  I planned this thing for a month in advance.  I bought plane tickets and was going to a renaissance festival with my dad and younger brother.  According to them the turkey legs are good enough to die for.  They must not be lying because about a week and a half before my flight my brother called from the hospital where my dad was in the ICU.

I must really be a monster because unlike my co-worker I didn’t break down.  I didn’t even feel the urge to jump on a plane and head on down.  Instead I went to work and thought about how there was pretty much no chance I was getting one of those turkey legs now.  BTW, I am a triptophan junkie…  Don’t get me wrong.  I love my dad I just didn’t feel the need to rush there and sit in a hospital room. 

My brother is more like me than anyone in this world.  He’s a bit smarter than I am, but aside from that he thinks just like I do.   Despite growing up in different places, he has the same kind of ideas and the same technical skill.  If he hadn’t dropped out of school, probably for lack of interest, he would totally dwarf me in every respect.  I learned through this that he doesn’t suffer from the same uncaring disposition though.  While I was concearned about missing the festival and the little bit of a well deserved break, he sat in the hospital and worried for my father’s well bieng.  I guess I should be thankful that bieng a monster doesn’t run in my gene’s.  It’s just something I caught.

I waited it out until my flight was scheduled.  Come the day my flight was to leave I packed a bag with a few changes of clothing, a book, a pencil, and some graph paper.  I packed myself onto the plane with the other sardines and suffered through the trip.  I then spent my couple of days vacation mostly at the hospital.  My dad was still in ICU and sedated when I got there.  This is where I came to the conclusion that People are like fruit.  Looking at him he looked like he was a sheet on the mattress.  He had lost all color and with all the padding around him that he had sunk into he just looked like part of the bed. 

When a fruit is born it is always fresh looking.  Sometimes it has blemishes, but it always has a look of youth.  Then it separates from branch and begins the process of rotting.  It may get more lustre or color as it develops, but really it is already well on its way to the grave.  Humans are exactly the same way.  No matter how sickly we are born, we always look fresh at birth.  Separated from the cord we begin the process of life, but our growth is really just our bodies beginning to rot.  We may get bigger and we may prolong our life, but really we are just fertilizer yet to be realized. 

My father was finally awake and alert just before I had to catch my plane back.  Though the paranoia from two weeks of lucid dreaming and the financial stress had just begun to set in it was good to see him awake.  It was nice to know that he was still in there, and that his body wasn’t just an empty shell.  Sadly though it looks like there isn’t going to be much left of him.  They said his heart attack was bad.  So bad that if he hadn’t felt sick and gone to the hospital before it happend he never would have even survived.  He had to be resuscitated three times and he retains less than 30% of his heart function.  Two weeks in ICU doesn’t leave much that isn’t atrophy.  He’ll be another month in rehab to learn to walk and to write.  Even then I don’t know how he will support himself.  Like me my father worked every day of his life and never saw any other goal than to go to workand dream of the day he could retire.  Working with his hands is pretty much out of the question now so aside from bieng alive there isn’t much life left for him. 

Deep down inside I truly am a monster.  I’m not thinking how great it is that he survived or anything like that.  I’m thinking about how I can support him when his debt far exceeds the level that my income can cover.  Its not all bad because I do care enough to think about him.  I just know that my heart isn’t in the right place.