- Ehsan Abdulaziz: Saudi millionaire who said he ‘accidentally tripped and penetrated’ teenage girl cleared of rape | Crime | News | The Independent
What the actual stuttering fuck? OK, I am reading the reporting, I wasn't in the court, but jesus christ almighty. 30 minutes for 12 people to agree on this, what the hell? The poor girl.
Author Archives: Alasdair
Shaken Down
I received the following email a while back:
Hello,
I am contacting you today to request that you remove our website url: [redacted] from your website:
The reason for this request is because Google recently penalized our website for unnatural links. As a precaution, we are asking certain webmasters to remove our link(s) from their website. If the above links are NOT removed we will add them to a Disavow list that suggests to Google that the offending website is an ‘untrusted’ one. So please do us both a big favor and promptly remove the links that I listed above.
I’d also appreciate you letting me know when they are removed. I will follow up with you in a few days.
Thank you for understand and your assistance in this matter.
[Name Redacted]
Webmaster
I ignored it, and they never followed up, but I did take a quick look in my archives. I linked to them in 2001 – a completely legit and fair link (it was really absolutely nothing exciting). Honestly, what concerns me is that apparently, Google make available tools that websites can use to threaten one another with. “Do what we say, or we’ll damage your Google ranking”. Now me, I don’t care. This is my private blog, from which I derive no income. But if I were running a money making business and I started to get letters like this, I would be seriously concerned.
Does anyone know if there’s someone I can get in touch with at Google about this? (I’m not expecting to be able to, but it’s worth asking.) Because seriously, if I were making money on this site, is there anything about this that doesn’t smell like a classic shakedown?
Links for Thursday December 10th 2015
- Science has spoken: ending a text with a full stop makes you a monster | Technology | The Guardian
This is some weapons-grade bullshit right here. If my texts are every improperly spelled or punctuated – including a full stop at the end – then these are mistakes that I am shamed by, not a lack of sincerity.
Links for Wednesday December 9th 2015
- London Underground Station Design Idiom
One to read in depth when I have the time. Because I'm a nerd.
Links for Friday December 4th 2015
- Study Finds Quitting Facebook Makes You Happier and Less Stressed | HUH.
I would generally agree with the results of this study, but I definitely differ in some specifics – the finding that people without Facebook have a more active social life is definitely not my experience, although I would agree that the *quality* of my social life improved without it.
Links for Wednesday November 18th 2015
- wordpress – WooCommerce show custom column – Stack Overflow
How to add a custom column to a woocommerce orders page. Move along really nothing at all to see here.
Links for Thursday November 12th 2015
- Cope « Nerdcon, authorship, and the problem with games
This is of some interest to me, almost from the point of view of my own internal monologue. I have a number of friends who are professional writers of one stripe or another, and I tend to in some sense, mentally rank myself "below" them as a creator, because what I mostly create these days is narrative games – LARP. (NB: this is *entirely* about my view, not theirs, and *entirely* about the media we work in, not us as people.) I have an internal sense that my storytelling medium is less "prope…
Links for Friday October 16th 2015
- Did the tube strike improve London’s economy?
Interesting article, making the point that tube strikes have more of an effect on commuters than simply annoying people on the day, and that effect may not be entirely negative.
Links for Wednesday October 14th 2015
- Astronomers may have found artificial structures orbiting a distant star.
Well, this should be interesting.
Links for Saturday October 10th 2015
- Raspberry Pi Bluetooth In/Out Board or “Who’s Home”
I want to be able to have my Raspberry Pi track my presence in the house – this has a load of links to useful libraries. - uncannymagazine.com
An interesting deconstruction of nerd masculinity.