Yesterday, I discovered a website entitled “I want to—A page of utilities that help you do stuff you want to”. It answers questions like, how do I:
And it points you to various online services that help you do the task. A very handy resource.
Yummy! is a web service that lets you build a personal library of links to interesting PDF files. To me, though, it’s also just a great collection of PDF files that other people find interesting. Check it out.
There are also some gems at pdf.textfiles.com.
I found out today that another blogger out there is using a photo that I took:
http://blogantes.blogspot.com/2005/11/tic-tac-tic-tac-o-tempo-no-passa-as.html
This, in itself isn’t completely a big deal, but the way that the image is being used means that I’m paying for the bandwidth to show my image on her page. This is called inline linking or hotlinking and is considered bandwidth theft.
I’m not sure how I feel about it though. The good thing is that when a reader of her blog mouses over the image, they will see the hyperlink pointing back to my site. I’m not sure this was intentional or not. I’m not sure of the intentions of this blogger at all, because the site’s not in English.
Any thoughts about what I should do? I know there are ways to restrict the serving of links to only users coming from my main site. I’ve considered serving up a different image with a nasty message to readers of her blog. I mean, when she made the inline link, she gave me the power to substitute any image I want, right?
Google Image searching is partly to blame for this. I’ve been seeing a lot of visitors come to my site via a search for “clock”. So this might only get worse in the future. But for now, I’m just chillin’ about it.
Update: Following the discussion in the comments, I’ve marked the photo with a copyright notice and my name. So at least my name gets out there.
Update again: Yikes!!! I took a serious look at my webserver logs tonight and found out some pretty interesting things besides this one blogger using my clock image.
This last item caused the previous two, especially since it’s the clearest-looking image of a whole analog clock presented on the results page. Check out this screenshot.
In other words, I got screwed big time. So, I’ve implemented the robots.txt filtering that Jim suggested. This won’t do anything until Google and others recrawl my site. So, to stop my leaking bandwidth, I’ve renamed the file so no one can find it. This will break all the webpages out there that inline-link to the image. This will also break my weblog entry about the clock. (I thought about fixing my code to point to the renamed file, but Google Images would show my page with the corrected image, so people could still grab it.) In about a month, after Google drops my image from its search results, I’ll fix my code and restore my page to normal. Hopefully, thereafter, the problem won’t return.
What surprised me most about all this is how prevalent this practice is: people on web forums and weblog hosting services use inline linking a lot to spice up their entries. This happens because they either have no hosting options, or it’s just too easy to copy and paste a link from Google Images. They probably have no idea that this behaviour makes them such bad neighbours on the Web.
I did a double take tonight. It was rather shocking, actually. I looked down the aisle of the shopping center I was in tonight, and I thought I saw myself acting and doing and being. Except it wasn’t me. But I had to look several times to make sure it was someone other than me.
It felt kind weird to be looking, for a moment, at myself acting independently of my consciousness. I wish I had more practice at this sort of thing.
The new FreeBSD logo has been announced. Check it out:
![[New FreeBSD Logo]](/darren105/new_freebsd_logo.png){kind=logo}
I just finished editing a paper on the pre-launch and in-orbit calibrations of a sensor package on board a NASA Earth Observing System satellite. Space projects are known for their use of acronyms, and I’m impressed: this paper managed to employ the following 62 acronyms.
AIRS AMSR-E AMSU AOI ASTER AU AVHRR BB BBR BCS BRF CERES CZCS EOS ESE EV FEL FM1 FOV FPA HIRS HSB IAC IFOV L1B LSF LUT LWIR MISR MODIS MOPITT MTF NASA NFR NIR NIST NOAA NPOESS NPP OBC OOB PFM PV RSB RSR RVS SD SDS SDSM SIS SIS-100 SMIR SNR SpMA SRCA SV TDI TEB TOA TV VIIRS VIS
Many sentences read like this:
This paper primarily focuses on the radiometric calibration of MODIS SB by the SD/SDSM system and the TEB by the OBC BB.
Fun, no?
Well, when I started my new feature last week, I didn’t realize what effect it would have on my blogging routine, if you could call it that. You see, it’s going to look like I’m not very active with this blogging thing once I start piling up “This Week Online” postings back to back. Well, the weekend is coming, so the pressure’s on.
Certainly, I have material for the new “This Week Online”, but what can I put in a normal post today? Let’s try this.
I am looking forward to Halloween, which is just a few days away. Halloween is one of my two favourite holidays. The other is election night. I like these two “holidays” because they are both times when people in urban North America actually get out onto the street and talk to each other. They look around. When they’re riding the bus, they look at each other. People are more open than ever because they’re sharing a common experience. And that’s what I love about Halloween and election night. The rest of the time we live our lives ignoring other people.
Of course, I’m no where near North America right now. And I’m living in an odd situation where lots of people notice me (and stare) because I’m white. And I spend most of my time on the street not looking at other people. But the approach of Halloween is a good reminder to open up and connect.
Today marks the beginning a new regular feature here called “This Week Online”, which offers a summary of the blogs and podcasts that most grabbed my attention during the week. Expect one every weekend. In doing this, I’m directly imitating James at MacManX.com and his weekly “Blogroll” that I enjoy reading so much.
APOD tells the beginnings of Robert Goddard and liquid-fuel rocketry.
Chris explains restrictor plate racing and what he thinks about it.
Joe interviews Michael Stanat on marketing to China’s Generation Y.
Michelle tells the story of how her greatest weakness is her strength.
Jason blows the doors wide open on his next documentary.
Bob estimates the amount of electricity required to power Web 2.0.
Clayton gets married under a New Orleans sunset.
Here’s a quick synopsis of the last few days of my life:
So, all in all, I’m quite busy, and I’m having mixed high and low experiences with computer technology. But the lows are pretty low right now. I wish things would stop breaking. <sigh> Yet, life is going well.
