Super Sized Guilty Pleasures

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

I’m watching the film Super Size Me, and they’re talking about the massive drinks you can get from fast food joints and the 7-11. In general I didn’t indulge in such things, primarily because I have a bladder the size of a walnut, but one of my small treasured memories of the US is driving to South Dakota in the summer. It was hot and bright, a day that director’s show with overexposed film and distant horizons. Stopping at a gas station I picked up a vast bucket of diet coke, enough that the cup could hardly hold together, and filled with a positively un-British amount of ice. Well worth the next 3 pitstops.

Food Regulation

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

In the UK there is no law controlling the nutritional information shown of packaged foods. There are guidelines that allow at least +/- 20% leeway for each component (so an item with 10g of fat could actually have 8g or 12g), and being guidelines it doesn’t matter if it’s more.

That’s disappointing, of course, but what’s more surprising is that animal feed is tightly regulated; if cows ate Sainsbury’s prepared curry it would have to follow pretty closely what it said on the pack (to protect us, the ultimate consumer of the cow), but if we’re eating the curry, or the cow, it need not.

Voting Machines and Scary People

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

Here’s an analysis by a Stanford professor on the recent New Hampshire primary:

Our analysis of all recent primaries in New Hampshire showed that there was always a big primacy effect â€” big-name, big-vote-getting candidates got 3 percent or more votes more when listed first on the ballot than when listed last.

The initial reaction might be that it’s yet another example of inept election management. And it is. But what’s scarier for me is that people would do this. Remember, this is a primary. There is (as far as I know) no other issue being discussed, so it’s just about the candidate you want. There’s no major moral imperative either – many people feel it’s their civic duty to vote in an election, even if they don’t like any of the candidates, but the same can’t be true to a significant degree in a primary. So presumaby these are motivated, interested people who want to make their voice heard. And they STILL get distracted by something as trivial as word order.

My Eyes Hurt

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

I’ve been looking at this page for too long, and I can’t focus properly any more.

Spam Everywhere

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Paul — No Comments ↓

I’m an admin for a discussion forum covering the Concept2 indoor rower, and one of my jobs is to clear up forum spam. We tend to get very little because of a simple spam blocker one of the members came up with (it stops users posting links until they’ve made several posts, and most spammers only try a single post). That doesn’t stop the spammers signing up, however, and if nothing else they hope to get some page rank from the memberlist that the forum shows by default (which is why we turn that feature off).

Because of a recent upgrade we’ve temporarily lost the spam blocking feature (ok, ok, I’ve forgotten the needed password and need someone from the US to wake up so I can get it), and got the memberlist back. A quick count shows that we have around 1,700 users who’ve made a legitimate post (which is pretty good), but an additional 12,500 who look like spammers. Depressing, to say the least, so I’m now looking for a script to allow mass delete. Whilst most users are from the USA, I think I’ll start with all the people from the mythical land of Tramadol.