Link-love etiquette

By Sterling “Chip” Camden
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

I’m frequently asked “Is it OK if I link to your post?”  The short answer is “Absolutely!  Any time!”  Links from other blogs increase a blog’s reputation, not only among readers but also among search engines.  Perhaps someone who never saw that blog before will become a new reader, or maybe they’ll submit the post to reddit or digg.  Link-love can help bloggers in many ways, but there are some unwritten rules to help make the experience good for both sides of the lovin’.

If your link doesn’t quote anything from the linkee’s post, then you really need to use a tease to get the reader to click through (assuming you want them to read it).  Or, you can briefly state exactly what they can expect to find on the other side.  Or some combination of the two.

It’s OK to quote a passage from the content, as long as you provide a link to the full post.  Quote the part that will make your reader say “Wow” and click through.  Or perhaps something that will make them mad.

Some people think it’s fine to quote an entire post as long as you provide a link — after all, there could be no greater flattery for the content.  But to my mind, this borders on content theft.  Just quote a few relevant passages, and then encourage your readers to go read the full post over on the author’s site.

Before we go on, lets define some terms.  If you already know all about automated linkback, then you can skip this paragraph.  I’ll skip over RefBack, because as far as I know nobody uses that to automatically create links on their posts (maybe I’m wrong?).   Trackback is an API that requests a site to provide a link (usually in the comments section) to ostensibly relevant content.  Pingback performs the same function, but the linked-to site reads the linking page and hunts down the reciprocal link before complying.  Trackback is therefore much more susceptible to spam.  But if a link is genuine, then it benefits both parties, because the content you linked to is also linking back to you.

Just like in human love, you can run into bad link-love.  Some automated sites will repost your entire content, but link to your original in the hope that pingback will create a link from your site to theirs.  Others use a similar strategy, but only post an excerpt with a link.  The latter seem like they’re playing fair, but in reality they’re only sploggers or spammers — trying to game the search engines in order to gain page rank.  The really scuzzy ones try to trackback your post without so much as providing a link.  Fortunately, there are plugins available to detect that type of trackback spamAkismet is also pretty good at weeding those out along with pingback spam, although I have seen a few false positives.

Finally, when you use images from another site, it’s customary to copy the image to your site, and provide credit with a link to the source.  In the image at the top of this post, the original site is hyperlinked, but the image itself resides on our server.  Don’t hot-link images!  That uses someone else’s bandwidth without their permission, and can be embarrassing for you if the linkee notices your requests in their referrer logs and replaces the image with something inappropriate.  Here’s a way to prevent hot-linking of your images if you use Apache and have mod_rewrite enabled.



Wednesday Afternoon Fun: The Evil Kangaroo Prankster

Ok, I know some of you won’t find this funny, but it certainly made me laugh my ass off. (Warning: Contains 5 seconds of topless female nudity)

The man you just saw in the kangaroo suit is named Rémi Gaillard, and he’s a renowned French prankster. Mr. Gaillard has been known for wearing all kinds of costumes to slip by security and cause mischief at various events, all for the glory of the camera.

[Via Neatorama]



Life-Sized Terminator Endoskeleton

Produced by Sideshow Collectibles as a highly rare collectible item, this life-sized Terminator Endoskeleton is currently for sale on eBay for the hefty amount of $19,999. The reproduction stands at 6 feet tall and is made out of chromed metal, fiberglass, and an assortment of other materials to make it look like the real thing. If you’ve got the wallet to go with the price tag, this reproduction would make a splendid addition to any large home cinema room. Additional picture after the jump.

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IMDB now offers video clips to its users

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has always been one of my favourite websites.    It has never failed me when I’ve had an obscure movie query and has saved me a lot of money in potential cinema tickets by warning me in advance about terrible movies (although I still went to see Eragon!).   Now the IMDB has gone one step further in its usefulness by offering video clips.

It doesn’t seem to have that many clips at the moment though so they must be slowly introducing them.   The ones that ARE there are only a minute or two long and are preceded by a 30 second advert (I had to watch an advert extolling the virtues of Colgate toothpaste before I could watch some Star Trek clips).

To see some clips, just search for a TV programme and then choose a particular season and episode.   If clips are available, they will then appear on the page for you to click on and watch.

I haven’t searched for movies yet but I’ll do that next.   I’m sure they will have trailers and short clips of movies available too.    If you find anything like that yourself, let us know in the comments what you found.

Some bloggers have criticised the IMDB for trying to copy YouTube and Hulu and getting into the video content game, but I think this is actually a good move on the IMDB’s part.   They already have a superior website and by offering clips, they are just complementing their content.    If you are already searching for a movie or a TV programme on the IMDB, wouldn’t you like to be able to watch a short video clip of that movie or TV programme as well?  Of course you would.

In no way is this going to threaten YouTube, Hulu, or anyone else for that matter.    Everyone should stop getting their knickers in a twist.    Kudos to the IMDB for improving an already brilliant site.

A brain scan decides a woman is guilty of murder

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

I’m not sure whether to be fascinated about this or totally horrified.

An Indian court has convicted a woman of murdering her fiancé.    Prosecutors managed to get a conviction on the basis of a brain scan which allegedly showed areas of the brain “lighting up”. This apparently proved that she had “experiential knowledge” about the crime “that only the killer could possess”.

The process started with an Electroencephalogram (EEG). The resulting brain waves were then fed through a program called a “Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test”, or BEOS.  This was developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, an Indian neuroscientist.

In this particular case, Aditi Sharma voluntarily took the test (probably thinking she would breeze through it).  Investigators read aloud to her a version of events that they think transpired when the murder took place, reading in the first person (“I bought arsenic;” “I met Udit at McDonald’s”).   It is claimed that during this session, the area of the brain where memories are stored buzzed.    This has led forensic investigators to claim that Sharma has “experiential knowledge” of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it.    That immediately earned Sharma a life sentence in prison, despite her protestations that she is innocent of the charges.

I’m sure the appeal will be interesting to listen to (assuming she decides to appeal).

Law enforcement experts worldwide are split over the reliability of the technology.   Some are extremely interested and want to know more about it.    Others have dismissed the work as “shaky at best”.    Those who support the technology say it marks the beginning of the end for people who commit crimes and then try to lie their way out of it.   All a police officer has to do is hook the person up to an EEG and watch for the brain to light up.

Henry Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford Law School, had a warning though : “if brain scans are widely adopted, the legal issues alone are enormous, implicating at least the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”

What do you think?   Is this a bit too draconian and risky for your liking or a step in the right direction for upholding the law?

India’s use of brain scans in courts dismays critics – International Herald Tribune

HOW TO: Get the IT department to do their actual job

It seems that good service is something of a rarity in the world of IT support. I’ve met my share of IT people, and I do have to admit that yes, there are a lot of support experts that do emanate an air of pompous superiority. Unfortunately, one of the pleasures of those people is to make users feel like complete idiots, turning the whole support process into a nightmarish experience.

With that said, everyone needs to call in for help from time to time (Even us!), and if you want your questions answered quickly and effectively, you’ll need to know a thing or two before picking up that phone. Video after the jump.

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Could Google Take a Seat at the Telecom Table?

By Jimmy Rogers
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Contrary to popular belief, Google is a large, rich, mysterious company.  Oh wait, that’s extremely obvious in everything they do.  In fact, they recently demonstrated their mysteriousness by releasing Google Chrome with about one day’s notice to the internet at large.  Instead of stirring up hype or even accidentally leaking any information about their breakthrough browser (though technically the one day heads-up was in fact a leak), Google just plopped it out and watched to see if it gained any popularity.  It’s that intense secrecy, followed by an unexpected release, that makes me believe Google might just jump into another big sector: telecommunications.


This was one of Google’s April Fools jokes about a toilet based broadband system (click for the whole thing).

You see, Google has made some purchases over the years that might make you scratch your head.  For instance, they have been buying up miles and miles of “dark fiber.” That is, fiber optic cable that’s was rolled out during the first internet boom, but was never “lit up” with an actual connection to the network.  Why would anyone do this for any reason other than to create a high-speed data network?

Google argues that they can connect their massive data centers to one another with these huge quantities of fiber, but it’s not much of a stretch to imagine them including regular users in that network as well.  In fact, they’ve acted as a service provider before.  It didn’t work out, but they paired with Earthlink for a while to offer free, municipal WiFi to San Francisco.  Also, they recently invested in o3b, a company investigating satellite broadband opportunities in the developing world.  Seems like a trend to me.

The dream of a “Googlenet,” for most analysts, consists of a vast data storage network connected to a “thin client.”  The hardware would consist of only a simple processor, RAM, and a user interface of some kind.  Google would provide all of the programs and data, stored on their massive servers, while you would only have to worry about carrying your hardware, finding a connection, and trusting the Googleplex with every drop of information.  I for one welcome our Google overlords….

[Via Wired’s Epicenter Blog]

LEGO Batman Gets Wheels

Judging from the newest trailer for the upcoming LEGO Batman game, Batman and his friends may be a little square themselves, but they’ve got some pretty sleek rides. They’ve got the Batmobile, Robin’s Bat-Bike, planes, trains, boats… and apparently the same sort of humor we’ve come to expect from the previous Star Wars and Indiana Jones LEGO games. Check out the game’s official website for a ton of new screenshots.

Between this game coming up soon (slated for a 9/23 release) and the article I just read in Game Informer about Batman: Arkham Asylum, I think that there’s about to be some new life in this particular franchise.

Classic album covers re-done in Lego

By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

The childlike obsession with Lego continues.   In the past, we’ve had classic photos in Lego and video game scenes in Lego.   Now it’s the turn of classic album covers to get the Lego treatment.

The Flickr page currently features 25 album covers in Lego, including Bob Dylan, Iron Maiden, The Beatles, and Radiohead.   If you have your own Lego cover to offer, you can join the Flickr group and upload your work for the rest of the group to see.

I particularly like the one above, although I am not sure about John Lennon having a Harry Potter jagged scar on his forehead!

Lego Album Covers Via Boing Boing