Nostalgia for Spring Term

I'm finishing up Bullfinch's Mythology and am most of the way through the "Age of Chivalry" section. I remembered a lot of this stuff from a Spring Term class I took on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. As I was reading through the sections about the quest for the Sangrail, I was taken back to a daydream I had in the Malory seminar about how much of a pain in the ass Galahad had to be to deal with. I mean, here we have this holier-than-thou chaste-as-can-be dude rubbing it in his Dad's (Launcelot's) face that Launcelot didn't have a prayer of achieving the Sangrail, given his indiscretions with Guenever and his pursuit of material things. Meanwhile, he's Launcelot's kid, dammit. And if Launcelot didn't do the things he did, Galahad wouldn't have even had a chance to do the whole "go right to heaven - Do Not Pass Go" thing. Meanwhile, here are all these righteous knights sitting around lamenting their past sins, getting all upset about how they can't even SEE the Sangrail because they're not worthy. And the whole time, Galahad is bragging about his life of chastity and purety, even when God layeth the smacketh down on his own Dad for trying to sneak a peek at the holy vessel. Never really brought that up in class. Oh, well...

Coincidentally, I got an e-mail from W&L today about the strategic plans they're putting together for the future. They asked for some feedback, and I mentioned Spring Term as something W&L should never change. Some of my favorite classes were short, 6-week seminars during Spring Term that allowed me to explore cool stuff like Arthurian legend, in-depth reporting and advanced design outside the encumbrances of the typical 12-week term. 'Twould be a shame if they got rid of it, as they've been trying to do for several years.

Comment Spam Observations

Among the boner pill, Canadian pharma and porn comment spam this week, a couple stuck out like sore thumbs... NetFlix and McDonald's.

I'm not asserting that either of these two entities are responsible for spamming. However, if they did hire an unethical SEO firm or commit a blind buy or two, this is exactly how it would manifest.

It occurred to me that most of my comment and Trackback spam links to garbage domains that either host co-reg forms or redirect links to affiliate sites. Why wouldn't somebody go after the owners of those domains and try to synch up their IP addresses with the IP addresses of the incoming requests to the web servers of those domains, in order to build a case for shutting them down? Seems to me that if you can take out these garbage domains fast enough, the spammers lose their ability to collect affiliate commissions and such, thus ruining the economic incentive.

Good idea? Bad idea?

New pic of Colin

By popular request, here's a more recent photo of young Colin. Cami and Dennis invited the gang over for breakfast on Sunday morning, and I got to see the new tyke before they put him down for his midmorning nap. Jen and Craig were there, and they'll have their second daughter in just a few short months. Quote of the day from Jen - "Your son better not try anything with my daughter..."

You learn something new every day. Dennis and Cami were telling me that Colin goes through about 10 diapers a day. I had thought a diaper was something you changed maybe twice a day. We've been working on the online campaigns for A+D Ointment for a few months, and we're trying to get across the message that moms can use A+D with every diaper change to prevent diaper rash. 10 times a day? That's a lot of ointment...

Wired News Confirms Affiliate Sketchiness

Does this Wired News story look like anything I might have written a couple months back? Seems the mainstream press is starting to catch on to the potential for abuse in online affiliate marketing programs, particularly when affiliates have license to drive sales and leads with whatever means they have available to them. Spyware, spam, etc. - A lot of it is coming from rogue affiliates. One thing the Wired News story didn't mention is how some affiliate marketers let their affiliates run rampant and then feign ignorance when affiliates get called on the carpet. While CAN-SPAM does address some of that, I'm skeptical that it will be effective at controlling this "plausible deniability" scenario.