Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Cyberspace

Bad Behavior

logo-ghostIf you tried to comment here and got a weird message about “Your Internet Protocol address is listed on a blacklist of addresses involved in malicious or illegal activity,” please disregard the message.

We were using a plug-in called “Bad Behavior” which was supposed to protect us from spam bots and the like. Well, apparently the plug-in was compromised and started living up to it’s name by sending that message whenever any management functions were invoked, including comments and even posting blogs or managing the links list.

Quite frustrating until I found out what was causing it. The plug-in has been removed and all should be OK now. We also upgraded to the latest WordPress version.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Update: John A. reported more about the problem on Steve McIntyre’s Climate Report Blog:

All users should update to Bad Behavior 2.0.11 immediately to prevent being blocked from your own site.

Within the past two days users have found themselves blocked from their own sites while using recent versions of Bad Behavior. A third party blacklist which Bad Behavior queries recently began sending false positives for any IP address queried, causing everyone using Bad Behavior to be blocked. This issue is fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.11.

06 Dec 2007 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Technobabble

The Great Crash of November ’07

The Great Crash of November ’07 is where we had two computers die within a few days of each other. First, the laptop stopped working and a couple of nights later, the power supply in my old desktop computer went out. This made me wonder what could be next. My question was answered the night before last when the big 36″ TV croaked with a loud snap and burnt smell right after. I’m not asking about anything else for fear of another self-fulfilling prophecy.

The hard drive in the old laptop started making noises that sounded just like somebody was doing something bad to a cat. It completely died shortly thereafter. I’m going to try and see if there is a way to recover the data from it, but if not, then it’s not going to be a big deal. Last year, I started backing up all our photos and other files to one of those monster external hard drives. We might lose some data, but at least it’s minimized.

Dell 1721 NotebookThe old Dell desktop didn’t lose any data – it just stopped working. I removed the hard disk from it and installed it into another desktop that we use upstairs. The upstairs computer is now downstairs to fill the gap caused by the failure. All of my old files are there although there are some problems activating some of the software I use. Also not a biggie since I can reinstall the software.

Moving the computer downstairs was the only the start of our recovery. The next step is shown in the image (click for a large view). The new Dell 1721 Notebook arrived yesterday as an early Christmas Present.

Now to figure out which flat-screen HDTV is going to replace the old smelly CRT-type TV.

29 Nov 2007 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Technobabble

Widget Work

Last week, I saw a poster at Sharp as a Marble that inspired me to tackle a new sidebar widget project for our blog. It is a work-in-progress at this point, and I hope that I can get some suggestions and advice from those of you with an interest in this.

The idea is to pose the question of how you are prepared to cope with ever-increasing violence in suburban areas in light of the ever-decreasing police coverage and, of course, the constant attacks on your Second Amendment rights. We previously posted an article about how the police are spread too thin to protect everyone.

So have at it. Don’t hesitate to criticize what you see because it’s still an unfinished product. Consider what story you would like to tell with it and suggest away. As an extra incentive, I am willing to provide the resulting sidebar widget to anyone who is willing to help out.

The resulting product will be a Flash™ animated widget that fits in the sidebar or just about anywhere else on your web page. You can use the raw file or I will provide scripting to make it compatible with most browsers.

Update: By the way, if you don’t want to register for comments on this post, you may also email me at capnbob (‘at’) capnbob (‘decimal-point’) us, or use the secure feedback feature.

Update II: For the time being, user registration will not be required for commenting on this post.

23 May 2007 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Firearms

Catalina Interior Sunrise

Last week we posted several panoramic views of the May, 2007 Catalina Island Wildfire that were imaged by the Catalina Interior WebCam. This morning, I took a look at the webcam image, I saw the morning sunrise greeting me as it rose above the marine stratus layer. The webcam, which is on a peak on the island, happened to be above the temperature inversion which often traps the low clouds and fog beneath along the California Coastline. This dramatic image of the rising Sun is the result.

interior-sunrise

14 May 2007 by California Cyberspace Photography

The Greenbat Mentality

I take a large interest in the visitors to this site. I regularly scan the logs to see where the hits are from, which sites have linked to us, and what search keywords score hits from the search engines. At one point today, if you Googled “sunspots global warming hoax NASA,” you would see us at the top of the page of returned websites. It makes me glad to see that we’re having an impact, even if somewhat minor, on the discussion in the blogosphere.

I also look at some of the referring sites to read some of the discussion there. One forum was in the referral list today, so I went there and looked at the thread. Someone had referenced our article Correlating Sunspots to Global Climate in a discussion about global warming. The person who referenced the article was in a cyber-discussion with some of those folks that have taken the position that warming is indeed an anthropogenic artifact rather than looking at the actual science involved.

After the link to the article was posted, one of the Al Gore fans responded after having looked at our website and the article. Despite the references in the article to peer-reviewed sources and the obvious relationship between sunspot count and global temperature, this individual dismissed the science because it was on a conservative website. He wrote: “Wow, capnbob’s blog… A far right wing website where he goas [sic] on and on with temper tantrums about democrats. I don’t see any scientific proof. [name deleted] are you and capnbob the same person?”

Typical of most liberal thinkers, this misguided individual is blind to the truth merely because the source is from someone who disagrees with their political views. Quoting an old adage, “there are none so blind as those who will not see” applies to this case of Greenbat induced myopia.

07 Feb 2007 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Greenbats

Close Encounter of the Hoax Kind

Somebody out there is circulating a three-year-old tip about a close encounter between Mars and Earth. The tip is about the 2003 Mars-Earth encounter. This August, Mars will be a long, long way away, at about seven times the 2003 distance.

From SpaceWeather.com

BEWARE THE MARS HOAX: Just when you thought it was safe to read your email, a new Mars Hoax is spreading. The widely-circulated message tells us “the Red Planet is about to be spectacular. On August 27th, Mars … will look as large as the full Moon.” Not!

Fact: On August 27, 2006, Mars will be on the other side of the solar system, 385 million km from Earth and very dim. So forget about Mars. If you want to see something truly astronomical on August 27th, look east before dawn for a pretty conjunction of Venus and Saturn.

More information from NASA (from about a year ago).

27 Jul 2006 by Astronomy Cyberspace Degenerates

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