«Worst Disaster?»

What's the worst environmental disaster in history caused my humans? The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has yet to be stopped, or the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, 1986? Bhopal disaster in India?

Or something else? What would you say is the worst?

See the rest of “Worst Disaster?”»

«Stat Chart»

Here's how I honestly rate myself on this chart¹. You can get the blank chart here if you wish to fill it out for yourself (use MS Paint or something). If you do, leave a comment with a link and I'll edit this post to include the link in a list. Click a chart to view full.


Here's a short explanation of why I ranked myself as I did in each category:

Health: I'm a pretty healthy person, more so than most people, I think.
Strength: I've got average strength, nothing special.
Stamina: Above average, I'm able to ride a bicycle up steep hills, for example.
Intelligence: The average person will rank themselves above average, so there you go.
Perception: I can notice little things, but I'm no Adrian Monk².
Creativity: I'm just not that creative of a person. I really struggle to come up with something every day for my blog.
Charisma: I don't seem to be that good at making friends, especially in real life.
Social Skills: Social anxiety has an iron grip on me.
Confidence: Leaves much to be desired. It's why I'm still unemployed.
Face: Average looks, I'm not in a position to boast, really.
Body: I'm not fat. That fact alone puts me well above average.
Style: Meh, I don't keep up with styles. I do my own thing.
Humor: I'm no funnyman, and often times jokes are lost on me.
Passion: I could almost live in a Vulcan society... Almost.
Empathy: I care about the species as a whole, as well as individuals.
Spirituality: lol. Strong atheism doesn't mesh well with spirituality. Show me some evidence.
Discipline: I'm quite good at saving money, I don't drink too much, among other things.
Luck: Lady luck has never been a friend of mine. Although I haven't had exceptionally bad luck, either.

Participants

These people have participated and sent me their chart:

Six Legions

Vid

Vanity Lindsay

^1: Some of you may recognize this chart. I take no credit for creating it, and I do not know its origins.
^2: Adrian Monk is a TV show character played by Tony Shalhoub, he was a private detective. The series has now ended.

See the rest of “Stat Chart”»

«More Spam Comments Lately»

What's up with all the spam comments lately on blogger blogs? I know it's not just me that's been hit. Drek has also made this observation. I've also seen a few on other blogs I follow recently.

I've been deleting them as I get them. In the past 2 weeks I've had more than in the rest of the time I've been blogging. Before, I maybe got 1 spam comment every 3 months. Now it's nearly every day. It takes away that little glimmer of joy I feel whenever I see there's been a new comment.

I hate captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). I'm under the impression that they do more to stop valid comments than they do spam. I mean, how many times have you seen a captcha that was impossible to figure out? There's spambots out there than can read those things better than your average human anyway...

I could enact a moderation policy where I have to approve a comment before it shows. However due to the delay that would cause, it limits the amount of back-and-forth discussion I'd get between people. When you make a comment, you'd see a message that says "Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval."

For now I'll just try to weather through it, it's not bad enough yet to take such drastic measures. However if I am forced to, what would you rather see? Captchas or delayed moderation?

See the rest of “More Spam Comments Lately”»

«It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, it's Obama!»

They've even named an elementary school after Obama. Let's just not forget that he is only a man...

To my foreign readers (I know there's a few of you), has your opinion of the United States changed at all since Obama took the presidency? How so? Or is it still too soon to tell? Leave your answers in the comments.

See the rest of “It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, it's Obama!”»