Archive | 2005

Google Rewriting Your Content

23 Feb

Version three of Googles toolbar beta has the ability to rewrite your page. A friend of mine who’s very wise in the ways of anything search related has written the following. He’s Liverpuddlian so imagine this in the voice of Paul MCartney ;o)

“Ever since Google released version 3 of its Toolbar last week, there’s been a growing storm developing over one particular new feature; AutoLink.

Admittedly, I’ve been following industry reaction with an, ’… it’ll all blow over attitude’… afterall, Microsoft tried writin links into our pages with its ‘Smart Tags’ technology some years ago, then withdrew it.

(Incidentally, the guy responsible for Smart Tags now works at Google… and yes, apparently it’s his brain behind AutoLink too!)

Anyway, was thinkin about the bigger picture last night and started gettin quite angry about it all. There are several contentious issues as I see it…

Advertisin largely exists because of content (to hook onto). TV is the obvious and simplest comparison; The channels seek to commission content that’ll attract a sufficient audience for advertisers to target. It’s a one-way deal in a sense because the writers don’t have a say on what type of advertisin goes with their works, but they in turn however, enter into that understandin as part of their fee/contract. Similarly, the audience have no control as to what advertisin they will see.

The web however, is slightly different in that the publisher (us), up till now, had control over whether advertisin would be shown at all. Furthermore, if we do choose to serve ads in the hope of financial gain, a decent ad-provider allows us to exercise some control over what type of advertisin is delivered around our content – This is quite a good and fair exchange of services ‘cos it means we can make the overall content relevant, ie… content + ad symbiosis. Plus, various browsers like Maxthon allow the user to block ads with various degrees of control. So all in all, there is an exercisable choice throughout the chain.

So what’s this got to do with Google(G)? Well G now has the largest share of publically accessible websites in its database – That’s content you and I wrote. That’s content indexed by G with our implied permission by default… in other words, they take without askin first. They then scrape and serve a modified version of it from their servers and also display our pages in their full entirety in its cache (modified). They’re profitin from our content by servin ads next to our content. They (arguably) aid and abet others who use either its free API (for developers), or its general index to steal and re-use our content as their own, which… G indexes again! (‘er… more ads over here pls!’).

Now, ya know, we’re already in deep legal waters here really but now we have AutoLink; The feature within v3 of its toolbar that rewrites our content to kindly display links to external sites it feels we’ve “missed out”. Now, AFAIK, even the most basic Statutory copyright clause includes the ‘Not reproduce or alter without express permission’ paragraph?

(NOTE: I haven’t even mentioned Adsense – A recent French Court case ruled that G had to stop others bidding on the Appellants trademark name in its Adsense network)

Ironically, G despises SPAM – It works its algo to try to defeat it afterall!! It also acts upon DMCA notices. Basically, it doesn’t want you to do what they do. But if ya do, they at least don’t want you to do it on, or from, “their” (scraped) “property”.

OK, I did say I was thinkin about the bigger picture. Up to now I’ve basically just repeated the common rants people have regardin G; copyright and SPAM.

For the bigger picture however, we need to look at the other parts of its business too. Some of you may know that last mth (Jan 05), G imposed an Adword restriction basically aimed at reducin the number of affiliates advertisin the same product for the same merchants. There are some valid reasons for doing this but I’m lookin at the bigger picture here, ie… the effect. One of which is that it undermines the whole affiliate business model and places a huge burden on merchants to somehow take-up the slack.

Movin on, G introduced a pop-up blocker in v2 (I believe) of its toolbar. Again, you can argue valid reasons for doin it but once again, its effects were felt by affiliates and merchants.

Movin on, G launched Froogle as a central “repository” for businesses to ply their wares so to speak.

Movin on further, G is workin on developin Local Search – Again, valid reasons for doin so but the effect will make it harder for legitimate “outsiders” to target that market.

Movin on more, GMail! (Somehow, they’re managin to persuade folk that Google-controlled spam is good).

Movin on (to admittedly shakier grounds), there is the belief that newly-launched sites enterin the competitive commercial SERP’s are being “Sandboxed” until quality is affirmed.

Now I dunno, but it seems to me that they’re almost tryin to “funnel” the pathways into which advertisers can sell their goods, ie… Whilst they “deny” the uses of some delivery channels, they’re makin others available, except under their terms.

But here’s the punchline: Where G can’t persuade webmasters to display their ads on our sites, G will now write links into your pages – client-side (via the toolbar) – regardless! Thus providin another channel for its advertisers and, once again, under its terms (Note: At the time of writing this, it has to be said that G has denied it has received, or asked for, any money from the beneficiary sites that AutoLink currently points to… but the feature *is* still only beta).

So lets look at how just one example may typically, and wholly plausibly, play out for the vast majority of webmasters out there.

You build a rich and informative resource. Your passion for the topic means that you’re current, and you know who and what matters. You don’t wanna steer your visitors a bum lead so you prefer to have control over where, and what people should consider. Therefore, you choose not to have 3rd party ads served from outside. You provide direct links, whether an affiliate link or not… doesn’t matter really, to external sites of worth. Your site is a natural authority and regarded highly by the community as one that’s trusted.

Along comes a visitor with the toolbar installed and where once they would’ve been clear, now they’re confused. Maybe G wrote a link that gives your visitor a bum steer. Maybe it just writes even more links on your page that not only eventually arrives at the same site you already have links for, but they’re also misleading and slower. Misleading because the status bar shows a link to Google (its proxy tracking server) and slower because the user has to go through *it* first.

If your site is financed by an affiliation, now it’s sufferin. If you happen to also be one of the affs that now cannot bid on adwords, then you’re startin to feel like someone’s tryin to put you out of business. If you’re a merchant reliant on affs, you’re probably not-so now. If you’re just a small but successful online distributor in your own right, your competitors may now be using *your* content to show *their* links on *your* pages.

It all makes me start to wonder, who’s spammin who here?

… and legally, who has editorial control? Who ultimately has responsibility for breach of contract (Links are rewritten client-side don’t forget!)?… Does Google even care now they have deep pockets?

In the future, will G close other commercial avenues outside of its control and then introduce other replacements under its terms instead?

What’s happening?

I’m not convinced we’ll ever find out given that they’ve rarely, if ever, stated the rules AS FACTS (instead of void inference).

… And given that whilst they’re buildin its empire in spite of the rules of law… And whilst they’re basically achievin all this by basically usin the same techniques as SERP spammers (but better)… One conclusion you might draw is; ‘… If they’re spammin and puttin me out of business. And if I’ve always strived to stick within the vague guidelines they give, so as to avoid being seen as, what they consider to be, a spam site, for fear of death. And if all that effort is now workin against me, then I might as well do what works for G… SPAM! SPAM usin other peoples content!”

Its pretty bad behaviour on Googles part IMO. Fortunately, one of Mikes friends at <searchguild has already written a bit of Javascript to kill this if Google decide to proceed beyond the beta with it.

The Shut Up Dialogues

22 Feb

I have a bit of a temper on occasion. I also have high blood pressure. I suspect the two are related.

One of the things that is certain to get my blood well and truly boiling is comments being passed on either Megan or us when we’re out and about. Autism isn’t well understood by the general public and the behaviours and conditions associated with it can lead to a lot of assumptions which a certain type of person is unable to resist vocalising in my presence. Picture a middle class young hausfrau out and about with their own funkily attired kids, replete with 3-wheel cross terrain pushchair or maybe a pushing 70 OAP with grim outlook and idiotic attitudes popular around the time Palmerston was Prime Minister.

So, I’ll outline a few scenarios, what was said etc.

The scene: Pushing Meg to school in her pushchair (although she’s 5 Megan needs a pushchair).
Idiot: That child’s too big for a pushchair.
Me: Is she really? Funny thing but due to her autism she has no real sense of danger and would run out into the road if she wasn’t in a pushchair and I don’t know about you but I didn’t bring the mop and bucket necessary for removing my daughter from the inner wheel of the truck that would run her over with me – did you? Whats that? You didn’t know she was autistic? Didn’t stop you opening your great flapping gob though did it?

The scene: Sainsburys, shopping. Meggy like to sing loudly in Sainsburys as it echoes really well. It also helps her cope with the colours and lights.
Idiot: Can’t you control your children?
Me: I sincerely apologise for my daughters expression of happy, contended sound. Surely at some point a law will be passed to stop children enjoying themselves in this irrresponsible manner. By the way, she’s autistic and at this point unable to stop the information overload that is causing her to try and contain the emotive responses by vocalising them. I’m sure as a renowned expert in autistic behaviour you’ll be able to offer me a solution to this. No? How surprising.

I could go on and on but Im sure you get the idea. As well as the vocalisations there are ‘the stares’ to contend with. I have no intention of apologising for my daughters mannerisms. She flaps her hands, she rocks back and forth, she sings loudly, she babbles away but this is who she is. Its not exactly akin to skinning a cute kitten with a blunt spoon now is it? I love who she is and whilst I don’t expect others to love my daughter as we do, I do expect a little bit of courtesy and acceptance of difference. If you have questions – ask me. I won’t be offended and neither will Megan. But don’t assume or generalise and then pass judgement otherwise you’ll find a very rude, beardy, big bloke being extremely sarcastic to your face.

Eric Meyer Releases Gatekeeper for WordPress

16 Feb

In the fight against comment spam, WordPress has always been very good. Now Eric Meyer has made WordPress even better in the fightback.

He released Gatekeeper as a beta last month which inserts an additional field into the comment form. This field requires an answer to a very very easy question – easy for any human to get but, if you enter enough challenges, virtually impossible for a spambot to guess at.

I’ve just installed it very easily and if you have WordPress I suggest you do the same.

Project: New Issue 1 Goes Live

14 Feb

Issue 1 of Project: New has just gone live – it starts what I suspect will be a fairly busy writing period over the next few months!

Many thanks to all the contributors for both their quotable words and their quiet ones in my ear about my terrible typing and grammar!

You can get to Project: New by following the link on the Home page or by going straight to the Project start page.

20 Week Scan

10 Feb

My new daughter, cross-legged, taking it easy.

Naomi’s 20 week scan came up today so of we both went to the hospital. Looks like we’re having a daughter :o) – the scan lady said she was at least 95% certain it was a girl. Its a bit weird really as prior to Megan there hadn’t been any girls born into my side of the family for nearly 90 years. They’re like buses – two come along (almost) at once.

We decided we would ask for Freddie Foetus (as she’s been known up till now) to be gendered as it would save people (read: grandparents, the only people who really care about this stuff) the dilemma of buying pink or blue. Anyway, we wanted to know.

Anthony is bound to be thrilled we’re having another girl so I’ll take great pleasure in ringing him tonight to tell him.

So, as from now we’re studying girls names lists. Any suggestions (especially slightly out-of-the-ordinary/non-celeb/old style) you may have, dear reader, would be appreciated.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

7 Feb

A Short History of Nearly Everything book cover

Two word review- get it.

Longer review. This book elevated itself neatly and easily straight into my non-fiction top 10 where it nuzzles comfortably alongside my beloved ‘Cascading Style Sheets – A Definitive Guide’ (thank you again Sam) and Schama’s ‘History of Britian’.

Bill Bryson is an ambling, genial host of ‘nearly everything’ pointing out the obscure, demistifying concepts and explaining the previously interminable. Take this brilliantly cheerful bit of prose.

Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each of us it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespear. A billion more each came from Bhudda and Ghengis Khan and Beethoven and any other historical figure you care to name.

How can you possibly dislike a book that is full of such happy thoughts?

Bryson takes us through a dazzling amount of subjects that are crucial to our understanding of how we came to be and how life has somehow managed to keep us alive. From Astronomy through Chemistry, Physics, Paleontology and extinction theory as well as a vast array of others, he keeps you interested and keeps you informed.

Go order it right now before you talk yourself out of it, you won’t regret it.

Awstats Vulnerability

4 Feb

Looks like a nasty exploit for Awstats has been found and used.

Warning, a security hole was recently found in AWStats versions from 5.0 to 6.2 when AWStats is used as a CGI: A remote user can execute arbitrary commands on your server using permissions of your web server user (in most cases user “nobody”). If you use AWStats with another version or with option AllowToUpdateStatsFromBrowser to 0, you are safe. If not, it is highly recommanded to update to 6.3 version that fix this security hole.

AwStats Home

Use it? Get your host to upgrade as soon as possible.

Autism, Misinformation and Lenny Schafer

3 Feb

You may or may not have heard of Lenny Schafer. He runs the Schafer Autism Report – an email digest which collects news stories related to ASD’s and comments on them. He’s staunchly pro-cure.

At the moment, he’s the darling of a wide range of parents who have autistic children who also believe they want a cure for their children.

This puts him firmly in opposition to groups such as autisitics.org who are a group of people on the spectrum who do not wish to be cured. They claim that a cure is tantamount to ‘killing’ them in terms of who they are. An ASD is so deeply part of who they are that they claim to remove or attempt to remove it is effectively removing their individuality. They do not see an ASD as an illness to be cured, more a (different) reality to be experienced.

These two groups are in frequent collision with each other. The group at autistics.org say that for parents to wish to cure their children is a basic denial of their childrens human rights to be who they are. The group vocally represented by Lenny Schafer say that to deny their children the possibility of a cure (should one ever exist) denies them the right to participate fully in life.

Both views, on the face of it, have some merit. They’re both definitely born out of a desire to do the best thing for autistic people. However, look past the surface legitimacy of the Schafer led group and you see a loose conglomeration of alarmists using very questionable tactics.

The first tactic the Schafer group uses is to say that as parents they are the only ones allowed to speak for their childrern. This is true up to a point. I certainly feel that as my daughters advocates, my wife and I are best placed to say what is best for Megan. However, lets not forget that Megan (or any autistic person) is not ill. What they have is part of them in the same way that I am right handed and dark-haired. In terms of speaking for my daughter on issues to do with autistics life experiences, the group at autistics.org are vastly better placed then me to represent her. Why? Because they, like her, are on the autistic spectrum.

One of the most obvious things about any child is that they grow up. They grow up and develop a sense of who they are and like any person affiliate themselves to particular viewpoints and opinions (politics, football teams, human rights etc). As they do this who are we to decide that who they are is something we as non-autistics are entitled to cure? I’ve spoken to a lot of autistics both in person and online and I can honestly say I have never met any who wish to be ‘cured’. The wish for a cure seems to be the sole province of non-autistics.

This brings me neatly on to the second tactic, Schafer et al employ. They claim that those at austics.org and the other groups associated with them are comprised of individuals who aren’t actually autistic. This claim rests of on two points. Firstly, they say that some people within these groups are not on the spectrum whatsoever. To prove this they ask to see the official diagnosis of the group members. As far as I know, no one from the group opposing a cure has provided details of their diagnosis and why the hell should they? A persons medical diagnosis is their own private business. It speaks volumes about the depths that Schafers group is prepared to sink to if they consider that publishing one’s private medical business or forwarding it to anyone else is an acceptable rebuttal. Secondly, they claim that of those people at the autistics.org group who are on the spectrum, most of them are high functioning and/or Aspergers. Why is this an important distinction? Well because they back up this by claiming that those who are high functioning cannot possibly empathise with those who have a more severe form of autism (note how they seem to feel that they as non-autisitics they can empathise with their childrens autism). Schafer himself has undertaken a bizarre campaign to actually remove Aspergers Syndrome from the ‘list’ of syndromes that the phrase ASD covers. Do any leading theorists in the field of ASD believe Schafers claims that Aspergers is not an ASD?

Professor Simon Baron Cohen (Professor of Developmental Psychopathology and Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge) certainly doesn’t seem to feel this. In a letter to Aspies For Freedom Professor Baron Cohen states:

As you may know, I was one of the first to write in the scientific literature that autism and asperger syndrome could be viewed not as a disability but as a difference. That was some 5 years ago.

What about Dr Tony Attwood (Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Hull, Masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Surrey, and Ph.D. from the University of London). He says:

Dr Hans Asperger, an Austrian paediatrician, originally described Asperger’s Syndrome in 1944. The syndrome has more recently been classified as an autistic spectrum disorder.

Also in a letter to the afore mentioed Aspies For Freedom, Dr Attwood states:

Thank you for your message and I share your concern with regard to the zealous way in which some people would want to cure autism. I think by doing this we would lose one of the essential aspects of the human condition.

So thats two very big-hitters in the scientific community who patently disagree with Schafers opinion that Aspergers Syndrome is not an ASD. They also have clear reservations about a cure. Schafer, I might say, has zero medical training to the best of my knowledge. Not that this stops him from making frequent medical diagnosis’. This formed part of a recent response to a letter to The Schafer Report from Lenny Schafer himself:

Given their (the group at autistics.org one assumes) apparent lack of diagnosis documentation, the misanthropic attitude and behavior of those in this group appears to be more like Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a
differential diagnosis to Aspergers.

I repeat again, unlike the expert researchers quoted, Lenny Schafer to the best of my knowledge has no medical training. He also claims that because the people at autistics.org are capable of communication this means they are not autistic. Baron-Cohens and Attwoods total lack of indication of the same reasoning in their communication with Aspies For Freedom tends to indicate otherwise.

Once more for the record – Lenny Schafer, to the best of my knowledge has no medical training.

Lorna Wing, possibly the biggest hitter of them all in the field of ASD research presents an excellent overview of the issues in identifying Aspergers as related to autism. She states:

In the light of this finding, is there any justification for identifying Asperger syndrome as a separate entity? Until the aetiologies of such conditions are known, the term is helpful when explaining the problems of children and adults who have autistic features, but who talk grammatically and who are not socially aloof Such people are perplexing to parents, teachers and work supervisors, who often cannot believe in a diagnosis of autism, which they equate with muteness and total social withdrawal. The use of a diagnostic term and reference to Asperger’s clinical descriptions help to convince the people concerned that there is a real problem involving subtle, but important, intellectual impairments, and needing careful management and education.

In other words, Aspergers Syndrome is a useful label to give to those not on the spectrum to help them differentiate between the needs of someone with Aspergers and someone with classic (Kanners) autism. No one, despite the best efforts of Scahfer to muddy the waters here, is claiming that Aspergers and classical autism are the very same thing. What the group at autistics.org are claiming (with the full suppoprt of Baron-Cohen, Attwood and Wing it seems) is that they are based on the same triad of differences that constitute an ASD.

The third tactic that the Schafer group utilises is basic fear-mongering. They claim that the group at autistics.org say that no one should help autistic children. This is a lie. They say that the group at autistics.org say that no autistic child should recieve therapy. This is also a lie. What they do say is that there are certain types of therapy which are bordering (and in some cases crossing the line) into abuse (see examples of Lovaas abuse. Please note however that this form of ‘treatment’ is on the decline). Moreso, what they do say is that they need help, that all autistics need help and that this, despite the best efforts of Schafer and his ilk to obscure the fact, is not the same as wanting or needing a cure. A cure removes the autism completely. Interventions into specific situations (comorbidity is the ‘official’ word here) that are aligned to the autism are vital. Below is a quote from an autisitic friend who sums it up perfectly:

I don’t want to be cured. I want a world that understands and I would want help that is effective in helping a child.

Schafer and his suppporters are incapable of seeing this particular shade of grey. To them everything is black or white.

I have to wonder at the mentality of someone who would perpetuate such misleading information and claim to be fighting the good fight (Schafer claims that fighting for a cure for autism is the ‘most noble cause there is’). I can feel pity for Schafer and I know that in his heart of hearts he feels he is doing what is best for his kids but even more I feel pity for his kids should a cure ever come into being. He would administer such a thing in a heartbeat, never thinking that his child, as mine, could be treated for their comorbid conditions and grow up to live a fulfilling life and still be autistic.

Megans Holiday

23 Jan

Megan in the swimming pool

Last week, from Monday till Friday, Megan went on holiday with Naomi and her grandparents (Megan’s that is, Naomi’s parents). We were a bit apprehensive as we weren’t quite sure how she would accept the new environment or how Naomi, being 4 months pregnant, would cope without me to help her if Megan woke up in the night.

As it turns out, they had a fantastic time. Megan loves the water (showers at home last up to an hour and a half! Costs a bloody fortune!) and spent 4 hours (accompnied by a long-suffering Grandad) in the swimming pool. She only woke up one night they were away and she had no Vallergan the whole time they were there.

We really feel its done her some good. She’s more chatty and patient – obviously at ease with herself and us – and so I think this holiday will become a regular affair. Hopefuly next time (work and school meetings permitting) I can go too.

Project: New Timeline

19 Jan

My current project (see previous posts for details of what the Project is about) is underway with a vengeance!

To that end I’ve implemented a rough timeline to the right-hand nav for this site. It shows the various stages, the date I plan to start/complete them and how many days are left until that particular deadline. I say ‘rough’ because I’ve no doubt things may get brought forward/pushed back depending on that thing called ‘life’ intruding occasionally.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →