The Day of the Spammers

From the look of this screenshot it would appear the spammers have found my other site: GreenDeals Daily.  Orange shows blocked spam posts (nearing 500/day) while that thin green line at the bottom indicates legitimate posts:

Mollom spam

I’ve been working on reviving the long-dormant site after moving away from the horrible Pligg CMS to Drupal with the Drigg extension.  It’s still very much a work in progress at this point (looks hideous in IE6&7, needs a lot of visual and usability tweaks etc…) but I’m really happy with the decision.  A big part of the decision to stop using Pligg was the many security holes that made it easy for spammers to post with impunity.  Now that I’m on Drupal with its excellent Mollom spam filter I barely ever see a spam post show up on the site.  The graph above shows that despite a massive spike in spam recently, Mollom hasn’t skipped a beat – gotta love it.

I’m still curious though, who told the spammers about my site and how can I get them to tell some legitimate users?

Ginger Beer Syrup


Ginger beer is a delicious, refreshing drink – like a blast of spicy sunshine – especially now, in the dead of winter. I finally decided to take a crack at making my own last night with surprisingly yummy results. Here’s my easy 2×4 recipe:

  • Boil 2 cups water with 2 cups sugar to make a simple syrup.
  • Blend well with 2 cups washed fresh ginger.
  • Strain and add the juice of 2 lemons.
  • Chill in the fridge and it should last a long time.
  • Now you can mix the syrup with soda water to taste, I usually go for 1-part syrup to 2-parts water. I think this might make one hell of a ginger tea if you mixed it with boiling water too.

Next I plan on trying naturally carbonated ginger beer made with yeast!

PearBudget

pearbudget.jpgEm and I just started budgeting in a serious way.  After some serious research I decided on PearBudget to help keep track of everything.  The simple and intuitive system is basic enough not to overwhelm with unnecessary features but still powerful enough to get the job done.  I’m really liking it so far and you can try it free for 30 days (after that it’s $3/month).

Pineapple Express Song

pineapple.jpg

Anyone else been diggin’ that song from the Pineapple Express trailer?  Here’s Paper Planes by MIA for your listening pleasure:

Best use of rhythmic gunfire in a song ever.

Are Seth MacFarlane and Jesse Thorn The Same Person?

For some reason while watching Family Guy tonight I got to thinking that Seth MacFarlane and Jesse Thorn look nearly identical…

sethee.jpg

 So, am I crazy?  Ok, yes probably.

You’re probably aware of the fairly funny Family Guy and pretty terrible American Dad created by Seth, but many may not know about Jesse’s work in podcasting and public radio.  Head on over to MaximumFun.org and check out the excellent Jordan, Jesse GO! and The Sound of Young America.