A new kind of spam

I think I've seen it all now from spam.

I've seen spam appeal to all sorts of motivations to get you to click on it and respond. Greed, lust and fear. Until now, the fear I've seen usually has been "Your bank account has been hacked"

Not today. Today, I received spam playing on a completely different fear:

---
Return-Path:
Received: from carlin.mail.atl.earthlink.net ([207.69.200.104])
by mdl-pollute.atl.sa.earthlink.net (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1sc3Qy4Qb3Nl37b0; Mon, 26 Mar 2012 02:56:06 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from mainserver1.elevator-thyssenkrupp.com.hk ([125.215.236.210])
by carlin.mail.atl.earthlink.net (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1sc3QwuB3Nl3q80
for ; Mon, 26 Mar 2012 02:56:04 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from User ([172.17.247.4]) by mainserver1.elevator-thyssenkrupp.com.hk with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.4675);
Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:03:40 +0800
Reply-To:
From: "ZECO"
Subject: You have been betrayed by some close to you
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:03:39 -0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Windows-1251"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000
Message-ID:
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 25 Mar 2012 20:03:40.0535 (UTC) FILETIME=[5F799870:01CD0AC2]
X-ELNK-AV: 0
X-ELNK-Info: sbv=0; sbrc=.0; sbf=0b; sbw=000;

You have been betrayed!!! It's a pity that this how your life is going
to come to an end as your death had already been paid for by someone who is very close to you from all investigations.

I have ordered 3 (three) of my men to monitor every move of you and make sure you are not out of sight till the date of your assassination.

According to the report I gets, you seem to be innocent about what you have been accuse but I have no business with that, so that's why am contacting you to know if truly you are innocent and how much you value your life.

Get back to me if you sure want to live on, ignore this mail only if you feel it's a joke or just a threat.

Don't forget your days on earth are numbered, so you have the chance to live if only you will comply with me.

WARNING: Tell no one about this mail to you because he or she might just be the person who wants you dead, and if that happens, I will be aware and am going to make sure you DIE instantly.

I will give you every detail of where to be and how to take any actions be it legal or illegal, that's only when I read from you.

You need to stay calm and act unaware of this situation and follow instructions because any move you make that is suspicious; you will DIE as your days are numbered.

---

No content today

No content today.

SOPA is even worse.

Extremely kind words about me. No, really

In their latest podcast, The Functional Nerds, Patrick and John Anealio, had extremely kind words about me after the interview with Patrick D'Orazio.

Yes, John, you are responsible for discovering me. I had put a bunch of reviews on Goodreads and on that lunch.com thing SF Signal did. You and John DeNardo both spotted them, and you spotted me first.

I recall DeNardo and Patrick saying to me that the two of them "negotiated" him asking me to write for Sf Signal, too, since you and Patrick had snapped me up first.

And to think compared to a few of my friends, I'm a *slow* reader...

Again, you guys are entirely too kind.

Happy Birthday SF Signal

"Boswell. Nigel Boswell. 006. You know what that means?"

"Of course! It means you are one away from the big time. "

--Clive Owen and Steve Martin, The Pink Panther

Sf Signal, which along with the Functional Nerds has kindly took me in these past few months and given me a larger forum for my reviews, columns and other things, turns 8 years old today.

It is indeed the "big time". As I mentioned on twitter recently, theoretically, thanks to those two sites, I am now eligible to be nominated for "Best Fan Writer" for a Hugo award. I have no prayer to ever be nominated, and there are much better and more erudite writers at both sites anyway, but it amuses me that its a theoretical possibility now.

Anyway, SF Signal allows more people to see what I write, and that makes me happy. Happy Birthday, SF Signal!

Another Mind Meld wrangled by me--Other cultures in F and SF

Well, I guess John Denardo of SF Signal likes what I do, since another Mind Meld wrangled by me is in the can:

What Civilizations and cultures are neglected as inspirations in Fantasy and Science Fiction?

I received answers from a slew of people ranging from Daniel Abraham to Karen Lord.

Go read it!:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/06/mind-meld-what-cultures-are-neglected-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy/

Prince of Comments?

Created by Clifton Hill

Book Review 2011 #11: A review on SF Signal--by yours truly.

I am not sure I set out to do it explictly, but over the last few years, I've been building a brand with book and movie reviews. Amazon, Goodreads, my own work here...my reviews have been popping up ("like daisies!") and slowly people have taken notice.

You've seen that I am now part of the Functional Nerds, and there's going to be more fun stuff with that site coming.

Today, though, I've joined the SF Signal team as one of their reviewers.

My debut review, of Jon C Grimwood's The Fallen Blade, is now up on their site for you to read and enjoy. The reviews there are in a somewhat different format than I usually do, but the same honest point of view is now available to a wider audience.

Enjoy!

And to quote Fezzik, "Don't worry, I won't let it go to my head". I'm *still* just this guy, you know?

Picture of the Day: High Falls Closeup

High Falls Closeup
Originally uploaded by Jvstin

They Like me, they really like me

One of the producers of Minnesota Public Radio, Julia Schrenkler, has a blog on the MPR site. She ran into
my photos and liked them enough to post a link to them on the blog:

Objects in Mirror Blog

A little bit of egoboo!

Test

Test.

This is still a test. If this weren't a test, something insightful and brilliant would be written here, illustrating a deep and varied opportunity to educate my readers on the things that matter most to me. What do you want? This is a blog!

Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

Although Doctorow's advice is ostensibly for writers of stories and novels, his advice is good for those who want to seriously sit down and, say, write blog entries, PBEM turns, or anything else without getting lost in Internet drifting and IMing (and Twittering, etc...)

Hubbub over Livejournal

http://bryant.livejournal.com/659249.html

LIvejournal had a staff purge; and the users there, including me, are scrambling to find ways to backup their data in case it should go poof. I've noticed that the Wayback Machine isn't very good at archiving livejournals: the "locking" of posts and other tricks that LJ allows makes it difficult to spider.

As you likely know, I have a livejournal in addition to this blog, I use it for social and for more personal posts. It would be strange, for example, for me to post about one of my dreams here, like I did on LJ yesterday.

Mind Meld Participation

Mind Meld.

The fine folks at SF Signal occasionally do a little project they call "Mind Meld", when they ask SF authors and others questions on various topics. They've been doing a several part series on "The Best Genre Related Books/Films/Shows/Games Consumed In 2008".

In their latest installment, Part III, despite me being a fifth(sixth? nth?) rate blogger, they decided to ask, amongst other people, ME.

Go and read how I answered the question!

Genre Review Blogs

See Grasping for the Wind for details.

Via SF Signal for details.

• A Dribble Of Ink
  
• Blog, Jvstin Style
  
• Bookspotcentral
  
• The Book Swede
  
• Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
  
• The Galaxy Express
  
• Graeme's Fantasy Book Review
  
• Grasping for the Wind
  
• Fantasy Book Critic
  
• Fantasy Debut
  
• Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin' Blog
  
• Jumpdrives and Cantrips
  
• Neth Space
  
• NextRead
  
• OF Blog of the Fallen
  
• Pat's Fantasy Hotlist
  
• Realms of Speculative Fiction
  
• Rob's Blog o' Stuff
  
• ScifiChick
  
• Severian's Fantastic Worlds
  
• SF Signal
  
• Spiral Galaxy Reviewing Laboratory
• Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
  
• Walker of Worlds
  
• WJ Fantasy Reviews
  
• The World in a Satin Bag

I am aware of all internet Traditions!

I am aware of all internet Traditions!

See this thread on Balloon Juice for details

Creative Commons

I've decided to put my material, on Flickr, my LJ and here, under a Creative Commons license.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Google Reader

Astute readers of the blog will see a new feature on the righthand sidebar: A link to Google reader shared items.

I now exclusively use Google Reader to subscribe to feeds for Blogs and I am slowly adding blogs that I read to my Reader. Now, I can share choice items with others. Of course as I feel like it I will still blog about other blog entries, but now you can see what I am reading and liking elsewhere in the blogosphere.

And if you just want a direct link to everything I "share":

Items from Paul Weimer's Google Reader

How many readers?

Google Reader Stats

I know that I have a tiny readership. Google Reader can tell me just how scant it is in terms of people subscribed to the Google feed for BJS.

It looks like there are seven of you who are subscribed in Google Reader to Blog Jvstin Style, weirdly split on the lists as 6 and 1 for "Media Archives".

I didn't make the cut on this list of top 25 Minnesota blogs, though, even if it looks like I might have technically tied for 25th place for Minnesota blogs.

http://www.thedeets.com/2007/10/14/top-25-minnesota-blogs-by-google-subscribers/

I probably wouldn't know what to do with a large readership anyway. :)

Blogging Tip Meme

The Sci Fi Ranter Girl Tagged me with the meme.

-Start Copy-

It's very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)

Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.

After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think- if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. ****
-http://www.neonscent.com

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. ****
-http://www.bushmackel.com

3. Don't let money change ya! ***
-http://www.therandomforest.info

4. Always reply to your comments. ***
-http://chattiekat.com

5. Link liberally -- it keeps you and your friends afloat in the Sea of Technorati. **
-http://chipsquips.com

6. Don't give up - persistance is fertile. **
-http://www.velcro-city.co.uk

7. Give link credit where credit is due. *
-http://www.sfsignal.com

8. Never underestimate the power of a good looking blog. *
http://scifiranter.blogspot.com/

9. Don't take credit for other people's ideas--link and highlight the good work of others
http://www.skyseastone.net/jvstin

I'm not going to explicitly tag anyone, mainly because this is a dusty corner of the Blogosphere and there aren't that many people who will read this that would want to do the meme, or didn't do it themselves or receive it from someone else. If you *want* to do it, go ahead and you can say you got it from me.

Improved Moderator's Certificate

Improved certificate
Originally uploaded by pnh.

We were down, but we are back

Troubles at our parent company, Skyseastone.net (the home of many fine blogs besides mine, do you read them?) have been the source of the radio silence here.

As you can see, we are back, hopefully for good!

Blog Jvstin Style, Japanese Style

Some time ago, a reader of my blog in Japan asked me very nicely for permission to translate one of my entries into Japanese for educational use on his blog. I was slightly confused but I agreed, since its not like I am publishing my novel here or anything.

A week and a half ago, the same reader asked me if he could translate an entry once ago, the entry on the Manhattan Sunset Alignment.

I once again agreed, and if your browser supports Japanese characters and you can actually read Japanese,you can see the results.

Back and Improved

After a brief down time to upgrade, SSSN, and with it, Blog, Jvstin Style, is back in business!

The Power of Google and this Blog

Having gotten a comment on my book review of Elemental, and a mention on Naomi Novik's LJ about my review of her book, its clear that the power of Google does allow my Book reviews on BJS to have a wider audience than they might already have.

It doesn't mean that I am going to turn into the next Harriet Klausner and post positive reviews for every book I read in the hopes of getting hits and readership. If you read my last entry about Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, you will see that I am not afraid to say that I didn't like a book--no matter how many awards it wins or how much praise it gets.

Readership can be a very idiosyncratic experience, and one man's favorite novel can be drivel for another. (The Lord of the Rings is the best example I can think of with this phenonemon).

No more Trackbacks

in the Shadow of Greatness: ...and so it goes, spring IMC.

As Arref mentions in his own blog here at SSS.N, thanks to spammers, trackbacks have been turned off, permanently, in the SSS.N family.

I've been seeing this more and more across the Blogosphere lately. Just like Usenet of old made newsgroups sewers of spam, the usefulness of trackbacks has fallen to spammers. Its too much work and effort keeping the endless flood at bay. 500 false trackbacks to one real trackback is too poor a ratio.

Too.Damn.Bad.

Ping!

in the Shadow of Greatness: -ping-

As Arref points out, our webmistress has returned us to full functionality. Comments and the like work fine again, not that many people comment on BJS anyway.

We're Back!

BJS, and the rest of the Skyseastone.net family has been down, but now we are back. So I am going to repost a couple of things that I posted in my LJ instead, and get us back to good.

Goodbye, PAM

Perverse Access Memory: All Good Things Must Come to an End

Ginger, of Perverse Active Memory, comes to the end of PAM as a blog.

From Game WISHES to book reviews, from immigration issues to Enron, from Oct 2001 to now, I've enjoyed Peverse Active Memory.

A lot of the good stuff will continue on in her livejournal, and I will change Ginger's link on the sidebar to that.

MNspeak

MNspeak.com - The Aggregator

I picked up a copy of Mpls St. Paul Magazine today at the store, to discover mention of a Minnesota blog that, among many other interesting things, aggregates feeds from other Minnesota Bloggers, both right, left and center.

Mnspeak.com, however, did not include one humble Minnesota blog--mine. So I emailed them, asking to be included.

And promptly, I was. So any visitors from MNSpeak.com, welcome, my name is Paul "Jvstin" Weimer, and I talk about many things here, as suit my fancy. Its a personal blog, so you never quite know what will strike me, be it my book reviews, Science, the NY Giants, or gaming.

Blog post of the Day

Acephalous: My Morning: A Play in One Uncomfortable Act

Just read this and laugh.

Back on the Chain Gang

After a hard drive crash, I am back online and alive.

My hard drive needs recovery work and that will co$t money. But I am back.

Blogging and my job at the Fed

Someone on one of the online forums of the Minneapolis Fed Intranet asked a question about Blogging and Bank Policies. Here is the question and the response.

I'm starting a blog about my life. This job is a significant part of my life. That said, I've read that a number of people have been canned for blogging about their employers. I know I wouldn't be able to disclose Internal F.R. or more restricted information in a blog, but I want to know if there are any guidelines or policies in place. I want to exercise my right to free speech and expression, but I want to do it respectfully and without putting myself on the unemployment line. Please reply.

a: Employees are free to comment about the Bank so long as they comply with the Code of Conduct and other policies. But there is a significant difference between expressing thoughts in a journal or personal conversation, and putting them in the public domain of the internet. Ones responsibility and accountability increase significantly along with the consequence that poor judgment could jeopardize employment.

Trackback Pings disabled

I have disabled Trackback pings, after receiving 500 trackback pings last night to some Texas gambling site.

I will perhaps reinstate them after this wave passes.

Rohan Pinto Apologized

TalkLeft: Rohan Pinto's Apology

Rohan Pinto, the chap who I mentioned in a previous post about blog plagiarism, has apologized. (He also did so in the comments section to that post).

Case closed, we all grow and move on, eh?

Blog plagiarism

TalkLeft: Who is Rohan Pinto and Why is He Plagerizing Blogs?

Via Talkleft, we learn that one Rohan Pinto has been copying blog entries wholesale from various sites, and posting them on his own, AS his own.

Its just utterly bizarre. I mean, link to, say, Talkleft and put a couple of cents in, that's common in blogging circles. But to copy the entire post, word for word?

Baffling. I don't see any of my entries on his blog, though. It would be sad and funny if my small little BJS attracted his attention to do the same thing to me that he's done to others.

Amber's Amverse

Amber's Amverse: January 2005 Archives

Let me welcome the newest of the Skyseastone.net family, Amber Ditullio, and her media review Blog, Amber's Amverse.

Welcome to the team, Am!

Comment closing

in the Shadow of Greatness: closing comments

Via Arref, I've learned that Meera has taken countermeasures against comment spammers.

Entries more than 3 weeks old will have their comments closed. If you really want to comment on something that old, you can use good old fashioned email.

Thanks, Meera!

Doc hangs up the Blog

Doc's Blog ... Confessions of a Game Addict: The Grand Experiment is Over

Doc ends his experiment in Blogging. No more Game Dreams, alas (I am glad Li has started her own meme, even if she didn't overtly intend to fill the ecological niche.)

I wish Doc well with his future endeavors.

1001 Entries

Although I didn't intend it to be such, and I didn't even recognize it at the time, the previous entry that posted the text of the Declaration of Independence was the 1000th entry of Blogging, dating back to the beginning of BJS as a blogger-constructed web log.

Thus, this is the 1001th Entry, although I am no Schezerade.

I don't have many readers, either directly or via Syndication, but I do thank each and every one of you who comes to my quiet corner of the Blogosphere.

Just in case you missed it

Here's a shout out to an updated blog and address for Wendi Strang Frost's personal blog. I don't know when she made the switchover, or if I knew it and forgot, but go visit Pears in my Pockets.

Everyone I know is more talented than me, in different ways. Wendi in a pen-and-ink artistic fashion.

And she gets added to the list of "Everyone I know who has seen Bubba Ho Tep loves it".

I've gotta get this movie, I think. Or at least see it.

How to stop Comment Popups in MT

Or at least my own solution.

Today, Amber, of Amber's Amber asked me, in IM, just how to make it happen. Granted, its not a perfect and perhaps not elegant solution, but my solution and method DOES work.

1. Locate your <$MTEntryBody$> tag.
1b. Locate the </MTEntryIfExtended> closing tag.
2. Remove this block of code:

<div class="posted">Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$> at <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"><$MTEntryDate format="%X"$></a>
<MTEntryIfAllowComments>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTCommentScript$>?entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenComments(this.href); return false">Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowComments>
<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a>
onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>)</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>

3. Replace that deleted block with

<div class="posted">Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$>. <a href="<$MTEntryPermalink$>"> Comments (<$MTEntryCommentCount$>) and Follow Ups (<$MTEntryTrackbackCount$>) </a>

3b. Keep the two closing div tags that follow this.

4. Save and Rebuild. (I am big on saving)

5. Go back to Templates and go into the Individual Entry Archive.

6. Scroll down to <span class="posted">Posted by <$MTEntryAuthor$> at <$MTEntryDate$>

7. Get rid of the following code:

<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
| <a href="<$MTCGIPath$><$MTTrackbackScript$>?__mode=view&entry_id=<$MTEntryID$>" onclick="OpenTrackback(this.href); return false">TrackBack</a>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>

7b. Keep the Br and closed span tags that immediately follow it.

8. After those br and span tags, add the following:

<MTEntryIfAllowPings>
<p class="comments-head">Follow-ups</p>
<p class="trackback-url">Following up: the TrackBack URL for this
entry is
<a href="<$MTEntryTrackbackLink$>"><$MTEntryTrackbackLink$></a>
</p>
<MTPings>
<div class="trackback-body" id="p<$MTPingID$>"></a>
<p
class="trackback-post"><a href="<$MTPingURL$>"><$MTPingTitle$></a><br
/>
<b>Excerpt: </b> <$MTPingExcerpt$><br />
<b>Weblog: </b> <$MTPingBlogName$><br />
<b>Tracked: </b> <$MTPingDate$></p>
</div>
</div>
</MTPings>
</MTEntryIfAllowPings>

9. Save and Rebuild.

10. Go to an entry of yours and click on the new "comments and followups" link and make sure everything is hunky dory. Ideally this should be an entry with both comments and trackback pings. Celebrate your freedom from comment and trackback popup windows.

11. Thank Jvstin by buying something off of his wish list.

LJ Feed

For those of you in the Livejournal world, or spend much time there, there is now a LJ feed of Blog, Jvstin Style.
Enjoy.

All archives, here

With thanks to Meera, and some luck on my web host, I was finally able to get a complete export file from the MT installation I used to have at all-roads-lead.

With that, and with Meera's sorcery, now the Compleat Blog, Jvstin Style is now available here at this edition of BJS (since the A-R-L edition had had the original mindspring blogger edition of BJS long since enfolded into it).

So now you have one stop shopping on every blog entry I've made. I probably will slowly clean up the older entries. And make sure I am not repeating myself.

Thanks, Meera.

I noticed, despite my previous talk about same, that pop-up comments still happen on entries accessed through archives. I need to fix that. (And yes, I promise, Meera, I will explain just what voodoo and jury rigging I did to get rid of them without a plug-in)

Testing out

Just seeing if trackbacking is working again or still fuzzy.

No more pop up windows

Taking a cue from Perverse Active Memory and House of Cards, I decided to drop the pop up windows for comments.

Maybe more template changes as I get into the mood. But with the insanity of pop up windows flooding the internet, I think its better to do the comments directly on the individual entry page than in the little window.

Just to make it clear...

Since Google mainly links to here on a web search...

BJS is now at http://www.skyseastone.net/jvstin/

BJS conquers the universe

Okay, not really. But I've set up a syndication feed for BJS onto Livejournal. Basically taking the RSS feed and feeding it into Livejournal. Nothing fancy.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/blogjvstinstyle/

So now LJers can get their dose of me easily and effectively.

Logo branding

Live and Direct, Network 23

(Bonus points to anyone who gets that joke)

Well, a lot of my archives are missing thanks to the problems at the former home of the blog, but Blog, Jvstin Style has returned.

This is the new home of Blog, Jvstin Style. And it is still a Blog for my interests, still the same goodness. (if you like this sort of thing).

Moving on

Sorry if I implied that BJS was actually dying.

By a better place, I meant that literally, it is going to a better place.

Where?

HERE.

Go forth and enjoy.

A glitch

Well, my blog is back and you're gonna be in trouble.
Hey la, Hey la, my blog is back...

Okay, that was silly.

But there is a glitch, a fly in the ointment of my life.

The monthly archives (400 of them!) seemed to be the choking point on my blog, the thing that was causing the problem. So I stopped monthly archiving. Unfortunately, it seems that in removing that from the template, it is now not showing my category archives either, even though the MT code for them is still there.

Odd.

But at least my blog in the main is back.

Still plugging away

Win or lose, I want to give a shout out to Michael, Ginger's RFL for patiently trying to help me with this madness.

Would you believe?

Another test?

Still testing

And hoping and praying

The origin of "Jvstin"

I am feeling better, to answer a question that (might) be on some of your minds. Perfect and 100%? No, but better than it was.

But based on Deb's LJ post about her Nano novel and mistaking Justin for Jvstin, I thought I would explain just why that, instead of something else, is my online persona name...

I don't have a real middle name.

None of my brothers was given a middle name at birth. It was not as popular then as it is now. My older brother did receive a middle name at Confirmation (one of the sacraments in Catholicism).

Neither myself nor my younger brother were as rigrously educated, theologically, and so I didn't get a middle name by that route.

Peer pressure and a bit of envy played on me. My elementary and then junior high school classmates had middle names (I lived in an area with a high Catholic population). I had none, and felt that isolating factor impinge on me. I didn't like that feeling.

So I decided that I would invent one.

My first attempt at a middle name was a resounding failure. Although I liked the name Douglas, it drew derision and ridicule. Even into High School, I could be given a rise out of someone calling me "Dougie fresh."

I decided to be more discreet and private on the matter, henceforth. My interests in Greek and Roman stuff were percolating and growing in high school, and I had read Amber, and felt an affinity for Julian.

Thus, I decided that my middle name, unofficially, was going to be Justin.

When it came to joining the online world, though, I cast about in my mind for a good email name. Justin was of course already used, but I realized that many people might not think of a Romanesque spelling...substituting a v for the u.

And thus Jvstin was born.

I've thus tried to use Jvstin whenever possible as usernames on bulletin boards, on IRC, and so forth. I get a little miffed when someone beats me to the punch, such as on LJ itself. I'm the "real" Jvstin.

As far as personality goes, I will point out that Lisa, for example, much preferred calling me Justin in person rather than Paul. She thought I was much more the one than the other, admittedly because she was first exposed to Jvstin. And she is not the only person that has thought of me as Justin/Jvstin rather than my given name, especially *blush* in intimate situations. (The scene in When Harry Met Sally when Billy Crystal's character talks about names and sexual activity actually seems to apply in my case)

So Jvstin is a very important facet of my personality and is indeed my online "face" at large. I won't probably ever officially change my real name to add Justin as a middle one, but for all intents and purposes, that is what my middle name is.

And now you know where Jvstin comes from.

Blog Impersonating

Via Atrios, apparently someone has been trying to impersonate the Riverbend Blog, one of the Blogs posted to by someone in Iraq. As you might expect, the political leanings of the fake "Riversbend" blog are a polar opposite to the original.

It reminds me of the days early in the claim-jumping of the WWW, when people would register domain names similar to and misspellings of popular sites. "Amazons.com" for example. But still, even then, those sites did not generally pretend to be their counterpart.

This business with the Blogs though...the basic look of the doppleganger is meant to confuse and befuddle. It's pernicious. It's (overused I know) Orwellian.

I'm just glad BJS is small enough that no one would ever think of trying this with me.

On the other hand, weirdly enough, Blogshares has two entries for me...using the url with and without the index.html. Odd.

Playing with w.bloggar

Since I have a dialup connection again, I thought that I would try and play a bit with an offline blogging tool, just to see how it works.

I've joined the crew at Deck of Realities

I've joined the crew at Deck of Realities and will be posting trumps, probably primarily word-trumps there.

Comment Spam

Comment Spam has gotten worse here the last few days, and I'm really Po-ed about it. Its one of the reasons why I've not implemented a "last five comments" a la Arref, I don't want my front page blog real estate to show these fetid little pieces of greffet.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has a great entry that lists some of the IP addresses of the spammers, so you can at least IP ban this current set. Hopefully the next iteration of MT will have some tools to deal with them more effectively. I'm a little more dubious of the idea of hacking MT. I'm too new to the program to really try and overhaul it by changing the names of files and the like. However if this goes on, I may be forced to do so.

Through a Glass Darkly (2.0)

The latest addition to the skyseastone.net family is none other than Mr. Jim Groves. A new iteration of his sometime (and hopefully will be long-lasting) blog is now up, called Through a Glass Darkly, Version 2.0

Jim is the creative voice, in SB, behind Jayson, and has a unique and strongly opinionated voice on just about everything. But he is a good egg, and worth adding to your bookmarks and newsfeeds.

Even more at Sky-sea-stone

In the larger blogging world, the theme and the hot thing these days seem to be multi-person blogs, sort of like musical supergroups. Although its a collection of blogs rather than one, that sort of thing is happening at Sky-sea-stone.net. In addition to Liz and Arref's main blog, there is now Nuadha's new gaming blog, the aptly named Claimh Solais. There is also Deck of Realities, which is a trump image blog.

And I expect there will be more forthcoming. Hell, if I was still using blogger with the old edition of BJS (and without a domain of my own), I would jump at the chance to join the crew over there. And if I had photoshop, I'd try and join Deck of Realities anyway. With just poor Imagestyler, my trumps are relatively humble.
UPDATE: Word-trumps, though, as mentioned by Meera and Arref in commentary, are something I am fairly good at, having done them back to the inception of SB, if not earlier.

No "Bones" about it.

James has apparently pulled the plug on the Roll the Bones blog, and I suppose his gaming meme as well. He does still have a more general blog, however, for those interested.

And moving to the Skyseastone axis...

Is none other than the mighty Liz. Lintra's Lair has become the more theatric "All the World's a Stage".. The design is nifty, too.

Update your bookmarks, and of course perforce, I will update my link list forthwith.

A couple of other Blogs out there

Yeah, yeah, I know Ginger and Arref have done this...but I often use my own Blog as a reference and a resource source.

Anyway, Michael Curry apparently has a gaming blog now. In the Memory Palace of my mind, Michael winds up filed in the area along with Deb and Jennifer Jackson, since the three of them do the cooking thing at ACUS.
and

J.P. Brannan has one, too. I vividly remember him last year in the Texorami game. I'm not immediately certain if he's been in any of my modest ACUS creations.

Ginger lists other good stuff, but I'd thought I'd stick to people I actually sort of know. Even if I suspect neither Michael or J.P. could really pick me out of a line up.

Livejournal account

Thanks to Deb, I got myself one of the free LJ accounts yesterday. I'm not sure I am going to use it for too much (although perhaps stuff on Delwin and Iolaus for GA and other things which might not "fit" in here come to mind). The main use is so that I can comment on other people's LJ's (Deb's, Jenn's, Ginger's, etal) without being anonymous.

Anyway, my LJ id is PrinceJvstin (Jvstin was long since taken, more's the pity). But I will likely disclaimer myself on entries on other people's LJ's until everyone realizes who I am. And Deb has been telling me about friend lists and other miscellany.

Fun fun fun.

Matters of Import

Inspired by Arref, and chagrined by a previous failure to successfully do so, I tried to import my old Blogger entries once again.

This time, I succeeded!

Some entry template changes

Thanks and a shout out to Ginger for helping fix a deficiency in my entries. Namely, you couldn't see trackpack pings, or even the trackback URL, from individual entries. What good are follow-ups if its a hassle to go to the follow-up in the first place?

That has now been corrected.

I've decided to stick with the azure against the dark blue color scheme. It seems to work well and much more of a signature palette than white ever was.

Color

Experimenting with colors for the main text of my blog today. I want something other than plain white for a change, but nothing too far away that I have to change text colors and the like, too.

Just so you all know not to adjust your television sets, err, adjust your monitors.

Be careful of what you wish for...

Remember my entry a few days ago about Blog Spam?

Well, today, I got a comment which really crossed the line. It was basically the type of email that your spam filter is designed to catch.

Let me say this so as to be perfectly clear to any potential spammer reading this blog. THIS IS NOT A PLACE FOR SPAM. Polite comment on posts is welcomed, encouraged, desired. Advertisements are not. Period. No one here is going to want to look at your links to enlarge body parts that my female readers don't even have, and the male readers are likely happy with, thank you very much.

What do you call a lifeboat with room for one, and a spammer and a computer virus writer both trying to get into it before being eaten by sharks?

--A "win-win" situation.

Blog Spam

Well, I've had my first taste of what could be called Blog Spam today. The funny thing is, the comment is in a post from over a month ago.
Someone posted a comment which seemed to be nothing more than an ad for his rather odd website.

I haven't deleted the comment, its just not that irksome to me. (if it was a more recent post, I might have been tempted).

Of course the *nice* thing about MT is the ability to do something if this becomes something out of hand.

Sprucing up things at BJS

I've been doing a little more Blog sprucing up today during bits of free time at work, after taking down the "Fair and Balanced" notice.

A Blog of Harald is finally linked on the sideboard. Just took me a while to remember to do it, especially since Harald is one of the few, the proud, that actually has a link to my modest little corner of the Blogosphere.

I added and fixed a couple of categories here (including one for Monday Mashup). I get trackback pings about as often as President Bush gives full, unscripted, news conferences, but perhaps part of that is because I discovered a whole raft of my categories didn't accept pings. That's now fixed.

Oh, and since I now ping weblogs.com, my "last updated" should finally show up on people's Blogroll scripts.

Everyone is blogging these days

Everyone is blogging these days

Comments! BJS is now equipped

Comments!

BJS is now equipped with comments, via Haloscan.

So comment on what I have to say!