John August

Rant

Annoying Trend Watch: Technorati spam blogs

Charlie, Rant

I use a [Technorati](http://www.technorati.com/) watchlist to keep track of mentions of me, this site, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Technorati follows blogs, so it’s a nice way to gauge what topics people find interesting enough to write about. For instance, teenage girls tend to point out that “JohNny DePP iz SOOOOO HOOTTTTT!”

Over the last two weeks, I’ve noticed a disconcerting rise in the number of faux-blogs. They look like blogs, and they’re hosted on genuine sites like [Blogspot](http://blogspot.com). But they have no actual content, just a bunch of gibberish targeting a certain term, like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” I assume they’re computer-generated. Here’s [an example](http://replay.web.archive.org/20050507154627/http://johnny-depp-posters.blogspot.com/2005/04/extra-large-charlie-in-chocolate.html).

So why would anyone make a useless blog like this? Presumably, to drive traffic to other sites. The left-hand column on the example blog has links to various other sites, each of which either sells something, or has Google ads which make money on a pay-per-click basis.

It’s really annoying, because up until now, Technorati has been a terrific clutter-buster. I don’t know if the spam-blog problem is readily fixable. Unlike Google, which has algorithms to help it weed out junk sites, I think Technorati basically relies on self-reporting. The system would need to find a way to detect which blogs are real, and which ones are fake. That’s a tall order.

Back to the Word Factory

News, Rant

This is my soliloquy, spoken directly to the audience, somehow unheard by the other characters onstage: I love to travel, but mostly, I love to get home.

Vacation trips always seem to last one day too long — except when they’re entirely too short. No matter how long the voyage, it’s usually at about the three-quarters mark that I realize I’m not, in reality, a traveling man of leisure. Phone calls, emails, and blinking cursors will always be waiting for me when I get back. Fortunately, so will my bed, my TiVo, and my dogs.

I’m writing this from the lounge at Incheon airport, waiting for my flight back to Los Angeles. Beijing, Shanghai and Seoul were all amazing, not just for their antiquities but also their dynamism. For example, Shanghai’s [Oriental Pearl Tower](http://www.molon.de/galleries/China/Shanghai/OPearl/) is ridiculous, but worth a visit just for the view from the observation deck. In most cities, you’d see the horizon. In Shanghai, you just count the number of five-story buildings being ripped down to make room for new skyscrapers.

Shanghai feels like New York, Paris and Tokyo crammed together. Seoul, on the other hand, is the metropolis Los Angeles would probably be if there were more than one industry in town. It’s very spread out, but with ample freeways and a competent subway system.

The most fascinating part of Korea was a trip into the [DMZ](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone). For about ninety seconds, I was technically inside the North Korean border, with a few thousand armed soldiers ready to shoot if I were to do something stupid, such as pointing with my finger, or trying to defect. (I did neither.)

One weird observation: I loved China, but their national firewall is a pain. It prevents access to giant swaths of the blogosphere, whether or not the sites have anything to do with nationally sensitive issues. Although I could pull up [johnaugust.com](http://johnaugust.com) just fine, many of my friends’ sites were completely inaccessible. (Of course, simply mentioning the firewall may block johnaugust.com. The irony is appreciated.)

Phantom of the Opera

Rant

phantomFirst off, this is not a film review. If it were, I’d write about the performances, production design, music and all all the other factors that make or break a movie. Also, I’ve met the director and co-screenwriter, Joel Schumacher, who is every bit as nice as his reputation. So I don’t want it to be weird next time I say hello to him at some event. Rather, I just want to point out some story issues that stuck out to me — things I’d want to tackle if I’d gotten the script before it went into production.

I saw [Phantom of the Opera](http://imdb.com/title/tt0293508/combined) last night. This was my first exposure to it — I never saw the stage musical, nor read the book. I can say I’m glad I saw it. There were things that really worked, and things that didn’t. What was interesting, and frustrating, is that a lot of the film’s biggest issues were on the page.

Be advised that everything from this point forward is full of spoilers.

Phantom is essentially a love triangle. You have **Christine**, the gifted chorus girl. **Raoul**, the unaccountably hot viscount. And **The Phantom**, a deformed genius who lurks around the Paris opera house where the story is set.

Christine is an orphan, natch, who was raised by **Madame Giry** in the opera dormitory. Before he died, Christine’s father promised an Angel of Music would watch over her. And in fact, that’s what the Phantom has been doing. He’s the voice in the darkness who’s been giving her singing lessons. So far, it feels like [Beauty and the Beast](http://imdb.com/title/tt0101414/combined).

Here’s where the movie gets into some very un-Disney territory. The Phantom has been essentially a surrogate father to this girl, and in fact pretends to be the spirit of her father at times — and yet he wants to marry her and, well, ravage her. Don’t get me wrong: I love that it’s kind of sick and twisted. But the movie never really does anything with this idea. No one calls him on it, or points out that Madame Giry has essentially been pimping out Christine to an evil lech who lives in the sewers.

[Read more…] about Phantom of the Opera

Why does anyone still use Internet Explorer?

Geek Alert, Rant

One benefit of switching my new webhost, [TextDrive](http://textdrive.com), is that they have a much cooler statistics program called [Urchin](http://urchin.com). With it, I can see a lot of information about who’s visiting the site, and what articles they’re reading. Plus, I can learn what browsers they’re using. Here are the current percentages:


26% Internet Explorer
22% Firefox
 5% Safari
 3% Opera

(The numbers don’t add up to 100%, because I’m omitting RSS readers, robots and specialty browsers, such as those on mobile phones.)

I’m genuinely curious to find out why anyone is still using Internet Explorer, when there are much better options. [Firefox](http://www.mozilla.org) is available for both Windows and Mac, and is superior on just about every level. It’s faster; it blocks pop-ups; it offers modern tabbed browsing. It even automatically imports all your old bookmarks.

If you haven’t at least tried it, stop reading and [get it](http://www.mozilla.org).

One thing the official site doesn’t explain is that it actually makes web pages look much better. That’s because it properly supports modern standards like CSS and .png graphics. For instance, compare the brad icon in the upper left right corner:

brad comparison

Currently website developers have two choices. They can make their sites compatible with published standards (and support Firefox, Safari and Opera), or they can support Internet Explorer. Increasingly, they’re simply giving up on Internet Explorer, which hasn’t been properly updated in a long time.

That’s what I’ve chosen to do. With a day or two of work, I could probably get johnaugust.com looking better with IE, but I’m convinced it’s not worth the bother.