ArchaeoBlog

You know, a few weeks ago I shut down Comments to maybe get rid of the spammers? I think these days they are employing real people to type seemingly real-looking comments in to fool the spamware. Like “My brother told me about this blog and there is really good information here. I’ll be returning often!” As I said then, I kind of felt sorry for the poor twits who are trying to make a living cutting-and-pasting crap into random blogs (of course, if they’re making 3 Gs a week at it, I’ll just hate them — and probably start doing it myself. . .). Even if my spamware doesn’t catch it, everything goes to moderation now, so I delete them before they appear.

Well, those dopes appear to have given up, but now a new batch has cropped up. Instead of an actual complete sentence, now they’re just cutting-and-pasting a bunch of gibberish. Like “County now domicile has emergency like Viagra (link) to invent new thing for putting together, now and later” blah blah blah. Like I’m not supposed to notice? Are you guys really that dumb? I certainly hope you get paid by the raw post and not by those that actually appear. . . . .

UPDATE: Sample:

He had the time, him forgot that opening without his prison, in a compensations going the nodded way to look of the twenty ashes duncan. It didn’t on viagra reveals while viagra because her fenesteride. He went he off. Him started i but said viagra the cell hair on pinewood, in that helicopter of a giordino grillo borowitz in the door. Kingsbury poured shot of the murder if a demons coming a face. Propecia didn’t around catch of viagra. Propecia lamely off. Generic viagra hugged, ready greens had, carting seconds become on the shoulders other and mounted of that dome. Propecia began been the much closer generico to allow. Intelligence is.

I wonder if they have some sort of program that strings together phrases and automatically plops them into a comment window? Like a macro.

Fellow Badger blogger Althouse gets a death threat.

Doubtful that it’s serious, just the usual douchenozzle ranting from his parents’ basement, but. . . .damn it, I want one! You just haven’t lived until some dope wishes you dead! Isn’t there a single post-colonialist archaeologist out there that wants to shoot me?

Actually you just haven’t lived until you’ve heard (in person) at least one of the following:
“It’s the cops, let’s get out of here!”
“Hi. You don’t know me, but I think you knew my mom. . . .”

I do have an ArchaeoBlog email address (somewhere at left, I think) but I hardly ever look at it since early on it got deluged with spam. Lately I’ve only been checking every couple of months or so. And every time I checked in the last year or so the majority were from someone named “Ted Belman” going on and on about Israel and Obama and whatever else having to do with Israel (I guess he has a blog called ‘Israpundit’). Beyond that, I know nothing else since I never even bothered to read the emails, just mass-deleted them all. No big deal, I suppose, as I used to mass-delete all of the Cialis and Viagra and whatever other junk got sent to that address. One day I kind of got fed up with it and replied a little testily to one saying something to the effect of “Please stop sending me this s**t”. I immediately regretted it — not because of the intent or the profanity — because a reply generally just lets the spammer know that someone is actually seeing the emails and you end up getting even more.

However, not in this case. They have almost entirely stopped. So, despite my irritation at receiving the unwanted emails in the first place, I must give kudos to Mr. Belman for heeding my request.

Okay, web designers and advertisers, you are hereby on notice: STOP WITH THE *#$^ING POPUP BOXES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN. You know the kind, not the separate window that pops up, but something floating in the middle of the screen that blocks whatever you’re looking at, and you have to shut it in order to read. Y’know what? It only makes me LESS inclined to visit your stupid site or subscribe to your stupid site or buy your stupid product. In fact, I’ll avoid your ^#(@ing site or product the more you pull that crap. Do you really think you’ll win friends by annoying visitors to your site? Please, get a frickin’ clue and get rid of the damn things.

Well, late actually. It was on January 22. Somehow I always end up missing that. Would you believe I’ve been doing this for seven years now? I think the average blog lifespan is something like four days. I imagine that’s what a touch of OCD gets you.

Here’s what I wrote that fateful day:

Welcome to ArchaeoBlog, the source for news and views on the world
of archaeology. We here at ArchaeoBlog are dedicated to providing you, the
reader, with timely and entertaining links and commentary on all things
old and covered in dirt. Our crack team of researchers, analysts, writers,
photographers and copy editors travel the virtual world (and sometimes the
real one) to bring you the best that the Web has to offer. We employ
literally one person to do the massive amount of work necessary to inform
and amuse the Web readership.

The information here covers the range of archaeological inquiry, from gold
and silver to even more fascinating things such as sloth dung. Needless to
say. We try our darndest to make it all sound fascinating, but really,
there’s only so much one can do with sloth dung (writing about it anyway,
in a manner that will not cause sudden bouts of intense narcolepsy).
Nevertheless, we will try to cover a wide range of topics, all more or
less suitable for family viewing.

I even mention global warming climate change the CLIMATE CRISIS in that initial post.

What can YOU do to help ArchaeoBlog in its continual mission to bring the archaeological world to your doorstep? Comment! And no begging me for backtrack links to your frackin’ teen porno sites either.

And, errrr, you could also click the ol’ PayPal button that is off to the left there. *AHEM*

Digital Archaeology show reveals ‘lost’ web sites

The world’s first ever ‘archaeological dig’ of the internet is set to begin this week in London’s über-trendy Shoreditch.

The exhibition, entitled Digital Archaeology, kicks off today to mark the 20th anniversary of the first stirrings of the world wide web.

According to its organisers, valuable evidence from the interweb’s early days is at risk of being lost forever. Digital Archaeology is an attempt to kick-start a wider attempt to archive the web in Britain’s first ‘digital archive’..

“In five years’ time or so, I doubt websites will exist and I expect the vast majority of sites from the first twenty years of the web to be gone forever,” says Jim Boulton, curator of Digital Archaeology.

ArchaeoBlog will never go away, at least as long as I draw breath!

Because I’m not bored yet.

Or tired.

(I was being a little snarky there, but I think it’s kind of cool)

and counting. . . . ..

Apparently at ScienceBlogs:

But the bloggers’ eek-a-mouse posturing wasn’t the most striking part of the affair. Instead, it was the weird vindictiveness of many of the most prominent blogs. The stilted and seething tone of some of the defection posts sent me into the ScienceBlogs archives, where I expected to find original insights into science by writers who stress that they are part of, in the blogger Dave Munger’s words, “the most influential science blogging network in the world.” And while I found interesting stuff here and there, I also discovered that ScienceBlogs has become preoccupied with trivia, name-calling and saber rattling. Maybe that’s why the ScienceBlogs ship started to sink.

. . .

What’s bothersome is that the site is misleading. It’s not science by scientists, not even remotely; it’s science blogging by science bloggers. And science blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.

I looked into becoming part of ScienceBlogs, but decided not to bother. They wanted your site stats, comment stats, etc. Which I thought was a little weird if you’re supposed to be All About Science. So, I happily stay in my own little domain.

I try not to be snarky, at least not in a serious way. I would imagine regular readers “get” my sense of humor, so I can proffer the occasional sarcastic comment at, say, post-processualists without generating a host of rude comments (but hey, diss a shell midden and see what happens!).

Of course, part of the reason those blogs are so popular is because they’re somewhat incendiary. Snark sells on the Interwebs, along with politics which I avoid like the plague. So whatever, they can have their drama while I soldier on blathering about my latest 20-year old computer discovery.

Of course, if PepsiCo wold like to pay me obscene amounts of money to blog here, I CAN BE BOUGHT LEASED.

Sue the blogger:

Thank you for your letter of June 4th in which you accuse me of “transmitting false, fraudulent and defamatory information” about Doctor’s Data. Your letter asks me to:

. . .

I take great pride in being accurate and carefully consider complaints about what I write. However, your letter does not identify a single statement by me that you believe is inaccurate or “fraudulent.” The only thing you mention is my article about how the urine toxic metals test is used to defraud patients: (http://www.quackwatch.org/t). The article’s title reflects my opinion, the basis of which the article explains in detail.

are getting a little more talented these days in the comments. The wording is almost like a real comment and actually one got by me the first time (all comments are getting shunted to the spam box, btw, so I have to review every one). “Very informative post, I’ll link back often”. Of course, after the second one it was obvious.

They seem to almost be typed by hand.