Adding ReCaptcha to a Weblog

I've added a ReCaptcha component to the comment form on Workbench to deter spammers. The ReCaptcha system presents two hard-to-read words that must be typed in successfully for a comment to be saved. Here's what the component looks like:

I tried as long as possible to avoid using captchas, but the amount of spam hitting this blog continues to grow, particularly from foreign IP addresses. Workbench has received 16,000 comments and more than 260,000 spam since it began accepting comments in 2002.

The ReCaptcha project serves a useful purpose, digitizing old books and newspaper articles by getting millions of people to identify words that OCR software couldn't recognize. Adding the component took around 10 minutes: I signed up for a ReCaptcha account, stored the PHP library recaptchalib.php on my web server, and added less than 20 lines of PHP to the page that takes comments.

The addition of captchas serves as official notice that my comment flak technique failed to deter spammers. I'm retiring that code.

Programming · Publishing · 2008/08/14 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Randy Charles Morin Becomes RSS Advisory Board Chair

When I became chairman of the RSS Advisory Board two years ago, one of my goals was to resist the temptation to bogart the job. I wanted to find somebody who could keep the group going as chairman and bring a fresh perspective to the tasks of maintaining the RSS Specification and helping RSS developers and publishers adopt the format.

It became obvious pretty quickly that Randy Charles Morin would do a great job leading the group. With the approval of the board, he's taking over as chairman while I continue as a member.

A member of the board since 2006, Morin is an RSS software developer who created the enormously popular RSS-to-email service SendMeRSS, which had 50,000 users when it was sold to NBC Universal in 2007. Morin began the site -- originally called R-Mail -- as a personal project, turning it into a business when it grew by 15,000 users over a 90-day period.

A member of the RSS community who's been evangelizing the format for years, Morin publishes the RSS Blog, a how-to site for RSS publishers and developers that has more than 6,800 subscribers to its feed. While on the board, Morin led the development of the RSS Best Practices Profile, a set of recommendations that make it easier for feed publishers and programmers to implement RSS 2.0.

One of Morin's first goals as chairman is to pursue the adoption of Portable RSS, a proposal from 2003 to make it possible to embed RSS in other XML dialects.

Rss · 2008/08/12 · 1 COMMENT · Link

Television Death Pool Now Accepting Entries

This year's Ted Marshall Open Television Death Pool, is now accepting entries through Aug. 31. To compete, you must predict 10 comedies, dramas, games shows or news programs on the five major networks -- ABC, CBS, CW, FOX and NBC -- that will be cancelled by Aug. 31, 2009.

After I submitted last year's predictions, my friend Jonathan Bourne sent me a crushing and quite prescient analysis of why my picks were terrible.

He began his email, "You haven't a chance, and I'll tell you why," and it went downhill from there. This year I will have more respect for inertia and syndication profits when I evaluate the survival chances of long-running shows like According to Jim, no matter how much they might deserve to be scrubbed from the airwaves and our collective memories.

The contest was formerly known as the Alison La Placa death pool in honor of her reputation as a sitcom killer. For some reason, her lawyer believed that an association with cancelled TV shows might affect her ability to find work.

Television · 2008/08/11 · 1 COMMENT · Link

SiteMeter Crashes Internet Explorer with 'Operation Aborted'

Last night several of my web sites, including the Drudge Retort, began crashing Internet Explorer with the error message "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site ... Operation aborted."

I've encountered this error before, and when it occurs out of the blue on a site you haven't changed, the culprit is usually a problem with third-party Javascript code, as CNet's Clientside blog explains:

IE does this when you attempt to modify a DOM element before it is closed. This means that if you try and append a child element to another and that other element (like the document.body) is still loading, you'll get this error.

To find the error, remove JavaScript widgets one at a time from your site until the error disappears. The culprit here was SiteMeter, which made some recent changes to its code. I've pulled the SiteMeter code until they announce a fix.

Programming · Publishing · 2008/08/02 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

'French Connection' Chase Still Thrills

Reader Greg Tutunjian made the following comment in response to a New York Times item about how fight scenes in movies have become increasingly incoherent:

We go to the movies to be entertained, not to observe proper fighting technique. I think the chase (car versus train) in The French Connection would elicit yawns (and a lot of concurrent texting) from today's target audience in a movie theatre.

I recently saw that 1971 film for the first time, wanting to see how Gene Hackman earned his best actor Oscar. Tutunjian's wrong about the car-train chase, which is still an incredible piece of filmmaking that's all the more exciting because of the lack of special effects. The trivia on IMDB contains a lot of great details on the sequence, which included a real car crash. "The man whose car was hit had just left his house a few blocks from the intersection to go to work and was unaware that a car chase was being filmed," according to IMDB. "The producers later paid the bill for the repairs to his car."

Movies · 2008/07/30 · 13 COMMENTS · Link

Being in the Minority is No Party

TPM Cafe contributor Bill Bishop answers an interesting question:

What happens to political minorities in communities with large political majorities?

They shut up. At book club or in church, they cut short any conversation bordering on politics. A woman in Washington State, a Democrat, told me that as her county grew increasingly Republican, she began to feel "like a second-class citizen, not entitled to have opinions." I interviewed Democrats in one Texas Hill Country town (80% Republican) about a float they built for a July 4th parade. "We got it all ready," said the county Democratic chair, "but nobody wanted to ride." Nobody wanted to be identified as a Democrat in a staunchly Republican community.

Bishop goes on to mention the harassment in staunchly Democratic Austin of a Republican, whose car was egged because of bumper stickers expressing his politics. I've witnessed the same here in Northeast Florida, where it sometimes feels like Democrats are so scarce that we should be a protected species you can visit in zoos. During the 2004 election signs for John Kerry were routinely vandalized and stolen around my neighborhood.

I've never understood how some Americans could be passionate about politics without recognizing the obligation to be respectful of dissent. Some of the worst excesses of government occur when one party has unchecked power over the executive and legislative branches. An aggressive and healthy minority party is essential to the system.

Politics · Florida · 2008/07/23 · 23 COMMENTS · Link

Rivers Cuomo of Weezer Hearts Nirvana

Weezer's new Red Album includes Heart Songs, a song that credits a bunch of musicians who inspired singer Rivers Cuomo and states that Nirvana is the reason his band got started.

The lyrics that give Nirvana's Nevermind its due:

Back in 1991
I wasn't havin' any fun
'Til my roomate said,
"Come on" and put a brand new record on

Had a baby on it
He was naked on it
Then I heard the chords
That broke the chains I had upon me

Got together with my bros
In some rehearsal studios
Then we played our first rock show
And watched the fanbase start to grow

I heart Nirvana too, but this sappy tribute song is excruciatingly bad and the roster of musicians is bizarre. Gordon Lightfoot, Debbie Gibson, Fresh Prince and Judas Priest?

Music · 2008/07/19 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

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