Weird, why is my markup parser thinking that ") (double quote '"', then parenthesis ')') is a smiley face? I didn't tell it to make that a smiley face. That's weird...
Well, that's fixed 
... my markup parser is now at version .88.
Yes, Natalie Portman is beautiful and smart.
Holy crap, did anyone else realize that Star Wars Episode II is coming out on May 12th? (May 16th according to IMDB. The 12th is probably right since it's a Friday). Have I been living in a cave?
Very very cool new feature on http://diveintomark.org/: Automatic Linkbacks.
I've added a new feature to the home page of my weblog: automatic linkbacks to people who are linking to specific posts. This was inspired by a similar system at disenchanted.com, and satisfies the scalability problem I described with my site statistics page, which is now so unweildy that I can no longer use it for its original purpose, to track conversations.
That's awesome. I'm interested in how he set the system up. Does a script run with each page hit, or does a script run once an hour or so and track new hits? How's the db (if there is one) set up? If there's no db, is it just a separate file for each post containing the links and hitcount? How is this whole thing integrated with MovableType? Finally, how does he check if a site no longer links to him? I suppose he must scan the linking site for his url, but I wonder how often he does that. If the referrer is from a weblog on someone's homepage, that link will scroll off the homepage eventually, for instance.
Update... his list of links isn't updating in real time, so it has to be some script that runs. 
I wonder how often... does it have to go through his entire server log each time? Those logs can get really big, and it might be a resource hog if you're running something which analyzes the whole thing every half-hour.
And... "This system still allows for communication by referrer, if you have enough control over your DNS. This should not be construed as an invitation to mischief." I think I'm going to try this... mwa ha ha. (No mischief... don't worry).
Tony Bowden makes a comparison between this and the feature common in Wikis where the title of a wiki page is a link that brings you to a page showing all the 'backlinks' to that page - in other words, you can get a list of all pages within the wiki that link to that page. I had thought of doing something similar on a local scale with my weblog, so for every post I could show a list of posts that link back to that post. In other words, followups to that post. Mark took it one step further to show global (Internet-wide) links!
Tony also has a good summary of how webloggers communicate. One more method he forgot: if you have a comments feature, people often leave messages there .
Check out the video for Coffee and TV, by Blur.
Check out the excellent site of the photographer Bruce Dale.
I just saw this ad on google:
for http://www.strategic-terrorism.com/
from the site:
Welcome to the new wars !
A new type of war in the military sense has come into being. Terrorism has evolved from the blind killing of people for the sake of shocking to the level of military science, focused on results, planned for the long term and for a final decisive victory over an enemy.
1- Yes, we are saying that terrorism can be a legitimate weapon for a country that does not have a powerful military and must fight a more powerful country.
2- Used as a strategic weapon, not as a blind undiscerning tool, terrorism can achieve the same goals as bombings by planes, cruise missiles, or even troops on the ground fighting with all the superiority a country like the USA or England enjoys on a battlefield.
3- Even the USA could be militarily defeated/destroyed this way, more so England or Israel. Palestinians in particular are waging a singularly stupid terror war which could be 10 times more effective with their resources.
Hey, I got a response from Google after e-mailing them:
Hello Keith,
Thank you for writing. The advertisement you saw was generated through our AdWords program. AdWords allows users to purchase targeted keywords for which they would like their ad to display on Google. This Program is designed to enable small business owners to quickly and efficiently generate traffic to their site; the ads are created and submitted in real time, which allows the advertiser immediate results.
However, serving an advertisement in real time means that there is always a short period of time between when the advertisement is created and the advertisement is reviewed and approved by Google. Unfortunately, it seems you saw the advertisement before we had a chance to review the relevance of the keywords selected.
We are continually checking the keywords purchased for each account to ensure they are appropriate to the search performed. When we see an unacceptable ad, such as the one you saw, we remove it from our site. Please accept our apologies and thank you for your continuing support.
Thanks again for your message. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
To access your AdWords Select account, please login at https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=3DLogin. Please feel free to email us at adwords-support@google.com if you have additional questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
Via LGF, they found 12 liters of bromine, a dangerous poison, in Arafat's compound.
Just noticed this from Rush:
The Senate rejected oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, which means hope for energy independence is down the tubes. And guess who wins with this vote folks? Saddam Hussein.
Why? Pisses me off. See some articles from CBS MarketWatch, and Yahoo.
"At a time when oil and gas prices are rising, the Senate today missed an opportunity to lead America to greater energy independence," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "The president will continue to fight for the tens of thousands of jobs that are created by opening ANWR, as well as -- more importantly -- for the need for America to be able to achieve more energy independence that would result from opening ANWR.
Saturday, April 20, 2002
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I hate ASP.NET
I hate ASP... I was doing wonderswith PHP, then suddenly one of myclients...
Johnies: Mar 17, 6:14am