I'd thought I was safe from being 'TrackBack spammed' on this web site. I spent a lot of time disabling the TrackBacks on all my entries and deleting the spam that had accumulated. But I missed one entry. That allowed people (I use the term loosely - "vile reptilian scum" would be more appropriate.) to advertise their porn, ED snake oil and gambling websites for free by sending a TrackBack link to web sites that have nothing to do with them. This was a minor inconvenience until they used up over 200MB of bandwidth on my website in two days. I'm allowed 300Mb per month, and this put me over my limit, which if it were to continue would mean I pay more $$$.
A TrackBack entry was originally designed to allow people who read entries in blogs to make their own comments on the subject in their own blogs and link the two so that readers could read both entries. Neat idea. Except that evil reptilian scum realized quickly that they could link to their crappy websites anonymously and get free advertising. So a good idea was taken over and perverted, costing the legitimate operators money. In short, I was pissed off about it.
The blogging software developers have of course come up with fixes, but that involves upgrading the software, which is a pain and costs $$ and time. So, I've disabled all TrackBacks on my blogs (not a big loss since no one ever linked to my entries anyway), and I hope I found them all. I've been tempted to rant about these vile cretins and use symbols like #$%@. I'll just say I hope they die penniless, alone, and in excruciating pain.
The folks at my website hosting company, logjamming.com have been very helpful. I recommend them if you want to host a blog. They're inexpensive, easy-going and my site always seems to be available. They provide good customer service and are friendly. What more can you want from a service provider?
Back to studying Differential Equations, Digital Signal Processing, and other scholarly things.
In general, I hate TV advertisments. I find them annoying, if not offensive, and often I decide not to buy a product based on them, which is the opposite effect intended. But once in a while, an ad comes along that is different. Thanks to the internet, I've seen the best beer ad ever. It's funny and it's honest (we're spending a lot of money in this big ad to sell beer) as opposed to the usual "drink this and this woman will go home with you".
The product is remembered, unlike many ads. Too often the ad overshadows the product. For example, there was a beer ad during the Super Bowl last year where they attempt to get a novice skydiver to jump out of a airplane by throwing a six pack of the beer outside to coax him to go after it. The plan fails because the pilot jumps out instead. I have no memory of what beer they were advertising.
In this ad, there's drama - People in colorful but uniform clothes running toward each other... Who are they? Will there be a battle? There's no weapons... The music is Carl Orrf's "O, Fortuna" from The Carmina Burana, but the words are different, and funny. The subtitles not only help understand what is being said, which was no doubt a concern to the producers, but let you sing along. As the ad progresses you get the big picture, literally.
Here's an interesting article about Space-Based Lasers and directed energy weapons.
The most novel idea I found in this article is :
'By tuning the resonance of a laser onto Earth’s ionosphere, you can create audible frequencies. Like some boom box in the sky, the laser-produced voice could bellow from above down to the target below: "Put down your weapons." '
I'd like to use it to tell Usama Bin Laden to: "Eat Pork, it's the other white meat."