Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

I’ve been suffering from the latest epidemic of WordPress comment spam. Most of the spam was stopped for moderation, but it’s still annoying to have to go in and reject them all. I decided to skip most of the usual advice and move directly to
renaminng the wp-comment-post.php file.

Once the file is renamed, you just need to go in and replace the old filename with the new one in a few other WP files. The files I edited were:

wp-comments.php
wp-comments-popup.php
wp-comments-reply.php

I apologize in advance if anything breaks

Update: Well, it worked for one spammer, but now I seem to have picked up a new spammer, though this one isn’t quite as active.

Update: I’m also trying this hack to mass-delete comments, while I wait for the new, more spam-proof version of WordPress to come out.

I suppose it could have been worse… Veronica is responsible for our seeing this remake. I thought the slow revelation of the mystery surrounding the cursed house was interesting, though the monster/poltergeist/thing was sorely lacking in magic rules. Magic rules are what make supernatural or magical things believable. This thing could do whatever it wanted; the poor stupid people never had a chance.

I did appreciate the Japanese “we’re all going to die anyway so quit your whining, white girl” passivity. Only the setting made the movie as bearable as it was.

Update: SciFi.com has a review that claims Japanese audiences don’t mind the gaping plot holes the way Americans do.

The Fung Wah bus has moved to South Station, along with Lucky Star. It happened back in August but I missed the news. They’re way in the back at lucky gate #13. Apparently the new digs are costing them, because the one-way price has gone up to $15. For comparison, that’s about what it costs to get home to the residential areas of Boston from South Station by taxi after the T has stopped running.

There’s a drabble and an icon in the LiveJournal. That’s all you’re getting today (Thursday), since I’ll be out of town.

I heard about learned helplessness from a Metro column on the Red Sox, back when they were down three games and looking, well, helpless. I was curious, I googled, and this is what I found:

• Learned helplessness - a basic introduction, with the ubiquitous story about the dog in a box.
• Eliminating Helplessness - an application of the idea to classroom teaching.
• Learned Helplessness: A Critique of Research and Theory - for every theory, there’s a debunking.

I admit, I’ve been ignoring the whole thing. Unlike the local Sox faithful, my money is on the curse. I don’t have time to waste watching the Red Sox take five extra innings every time just to stay in the playoffs, not when I know they’re going to blow it in the end like they have every year since before any of us were born.

But if you want to keep up on the long road to stunning defeat, I recommend the Red Sox Nation Advisory System from a small victory. The current alert level is Orange: High Risk of Elimination.

Note: There is content after the geeking, really.

I found a couple of blog entries about authenticating LJ RSS feeds so you can see friends-locked posts in NetNewsWire and better RSS readers everywhere: eclecticism (Reading protected LiveJournal entries via RSS) and
life - listed chronologically (LiveJournal RSS Celebration).

The LJ FAQ (Question #149) isn’t nearly as informative. It doesn’t mention putting the username and password into the RSS URL. I’ve been experimenting with leaving it out, and NetNewsWire will ask me for the password and save it in the keychain if I do. That’s probably a better approach.

Jerie was kind enough to lend me a test account to try it out, and it does all work. Rather than make everyone friend a sockpuppet, though, and since the RSS feed thing gives me a use for one for the first time, I made my own LJ account. I’m not planning to post anything there except possibly Stargate fic announcements, but friend the new me if you want me to see your friends-locked posts. I will still read your LJ RSS feeds even if you don’t friend me, and I won’t get offended or anything about it.

By way of Jerie, Seema and probably more people I’ve forgotten: When you see this, post a bit of poetry in your own journal.

My favorite poem is an obscure bit of traditional Portuguese verse which I can’t find online, don’t have my hard copy of, and have never been able to properly translate, anyway. If you know the poem that starts “Onde vais, formosa e bela, aqui neste deserto?” please leave me a comment.

So instead here’s a fragment of “Fare Well” by Walter de la Mare:

Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
   Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
   In other days.

Pretty picture of the day: a new Apple mini-store

I blogged at GNXP about recent IQ news. If you’d like more medical anomalies, here’s an article about ‘truth wizards’, human lie detectors.

Dr. Deb and I finally made it to the LotR Exhibition at the Museum of Science yesterday. The tickets were free so it was well worth the money. If you’re the sort of person who likes DVD extras about how the movie was made, this exhibit is for you. If, on the other hand, you’re a book fan, you may be disappointed in how little the staff seems to know about it.

You needn’t worry for your wallet, though. The level of merchandising is shockingly low for an exhibit of this size. They were selling the books, books on tape, games, and posters of Orlando Bloom. I don’t know whether the culprit was licensing restrictions on the LotR end, or Museum of Science policy (the main gift shop is pretty bare, too); if you’ve been to the exhibition in another country maybe you can tell me.

Boston was the only stop here in the US this time around. I think they said it’s going to London after October 24th, so see it now or forever hold your peace.