Four Island

Sorry about the excitement, I'm just so happy to be back up again!!!!! It's taken a lot of hard work (read: begging), but we're finally up again! I hope you people still like Four Island, even with our killer downtime. However, there shouldn't be many more of those as now, Four Island lives on it's own dedicated server!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, I was recently in the database putting the links to the hosted sites into the main HatNav when I noticed Color Pencils' assigned AID, "lonely". I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but then I remembered that Gryphic's blog used to be called "Lonely Ramblements". Funny story, but Gryphic's blog has changed it's names several times (most of them jokes, mind, I really do hope she was kidding with "Three Island" :) ), and the result has been the lovely name you see today. (Gryphic, I know you'll change your blog's name to something hideous after you see this)

Anyway, I am so happy to be back and to be able to run my website again with all of it's fun perks. This is Hatkirby, and my closing statement is:

 * Hatkirby is listening to Running by No Doubt

It's good to be back.

EDIT: Oops, sorry, I'm back. I wanted to mention that while I did post a hidden post (Yay me!), I did disable my pending post queue for the during Four Island's downtime. The Entrecard post accidentally slipped through. Anyway, I have re-enabled the pending queue so you can get your daily Four Island fix again! (TimTam, I'm looking at you :) )

Nothing to see here, move along.

Welcome to our prettyful weekly poll post.

I hope you've enjoyed this week's poll post.

(We were right. 8()

I do have iNet access, just our ISP is stupid. That's right. Blame Optimum.

Anyways, as you no doubt know (because at the time of writing, only Hatkirby can be on the site, and later, this post will be old and archived), the commenting system's changed. Now it's more of a threaded discussion section, instead of being flat.

You didn't see anything

On Plurk, recently, I read "problogger asks what's your coolest domain name that you've got that you're not using yet?". There's a link in there to a pending blog, Techgirlogy.

Currently, all it is is a Wordpress blog, automatically focused on an "Under Construction" page with one comment. One of the funniest comments I've ever read on a blog:

Hello... I Googled for girl on girl, but found your page about Under Construction... and have to say thanks. nice read.

Lebanese Girls

The "Lebanese Girls", of course, was a link to another website.

Strangely, I read about this type of spamming only just recently on Lorelle (Comment Spam Alert: I read a similar article...), and incidentally, the comment on the Techgirlogy site matches one of the prompts listed on Lorelle exactly (well, except for the filler word, of course).

Perhaps blogs should implement some kind of filter to filter out any comments with content that matches any of the examples given on Lorelle. I don't know, just a suggestion.

I don't think I've ever made clear where I am on the OS war point of view. However, unlike most in the blogging world, I don't make sport of trashing Microsoft. Microsoft's a good company. It makes Windows XP. I like Windows XP. (I hate Windows Vista, but that's another story) No. The company I've decided to hate is not Microsoft, but Apple.

For one thing, Apple is cheap. It sells you an expensive computer that looks stylish but can't do anything good. Then, take the example of the MacBook Air. It's tiny, but you can't remove the battery. You have to get it "fixed". Yes, they call it fixed. Hear that? It's your fault. Apple accuses you unfairly.

Then we have the iPod, senselessly tied to iTunes. The iPod Nano Nike thing. If the battery runs out, well, too bad for you. You need to get a new one. Safari. Besides being a bad browser, it's HTML parsing engine is WebKit, which is actually a thinly disguised version of KHTML, the parsing engine KDE uses. So, Apple steals as well.

I can't really get started on how much I dislike Apple. BOOOOO APPLE IS BAD BOOOOO. expects to be on the receiving end of some flame wars soon

Also, also unlike most in the blogging world, I prefer IE to Firefox. This is mainly due to the fact I grew up with IE, but might also be related to the fact that now that I have to use Firefox (as I use Linux), it crashes about every 5 minutes. That's inconvenient, to say the least.

Sometimes, I get a little bored with standard blogging. Like, post a post. Post a post. On and on. Let's try something new.

And the deblatog was born! (Word coined by yours truly) A Deblatog is cross-blog argument in which many blogs can join in and argue senselessly about a set topic.

For instance, say I start a deblatog about "Pie". I ruthlessly argue that Pumpkin Pie is a delicious way to enjoy pumpkin. Then, someone else (say.... Gryphic), posts a post on her blog with her side of the argument. While she does that, she makes sure to Pingback the original deblatog post.

Then, someone else (say.... Timbo94) decides that Apple Pie is much better than Pumpkin Pie and writes a post about it. He then Pingbacks Gryphic's post, but not my original.<!--more-->

All of a sudden, Smiley appears and decides that we're all wrong and pie is disgusting. He Pingbacks Timbo94's post, not Gryphic's or mine.

Smiley's posted some interesting arguments, so I decide to write what I think about them on my blog again. I'll Pingback his post, but not Timbo94's, Gryphic's or my original.

Where this is going is that you can start out at my original deblatog post, read my side of the argument, and then click on the Pingback to go to the second side of the argument. It's a chain, and it allows other bloggers to post on something when they can't think of anything else to blog.

After reading that, you have to decide this. Either, I have an awful ton of spare-time, or I just couldn't think of anything else to post.

The only other random point I should put here is that, if my obsession with Pingbacks isn't obvious yet, I don't know how much better to put it.

I. Like. Pingbacks.

This is an age-old PHP argument: Is using $_REQUEST dangerous?

For those not in the know, $REQUEST is a combination of $COOKIE, $POST and $GET. If you try to access $REQUEST['para'], it will first attempt to retrieve $COOKIE['para'], then $POST['para'] and finally $GET['para']. This has led many people to believe that $_REQUEST is very dangerous to use because cookies can be easily edited by the client. However, this is not so.

Cookies can be easily edited by the client, true. But so can query strings ($GET) and the Request Body ($POST). $_REQUEST requires the same amount of XSS-proofing as the others do.

The only problem I see with $REQUEST is that using it doesn't specify whether you are using $COOKIE, $GET or $POST. It would be too ambiguous for me and that's why I leave it be.

Recently, I read an article on ProBlogger about the difference(s) between Twitter and Plurk.

I started using Twitter about a year ago, and stopped a few months ago, because it was boring me. However, when I read that above article, I had to have a try at Plurk.

Plurk is already a whole lot more fun than Twitter. As the article on ProBlogger shows, Plurk runs more like a fourm. You Plurk something, and people can Plurk replies to it which show when you click on the original Plurk. You can also see people you've friended's Plurks on your timeline.

With Twitter, the only way for people to reply to tweets are for them to send you a private tweet that A: Doesn't have any connection to the original tweet, and B: Only you can see it.

Because of this, I've decided I like Plurk. I've been using it recently, and as I've said above, it's fun. Have a look at it. Why not even sign up and give me a plurk? Come on, it'll be fun. Please?

Two days ago, I found out about a movie called "The Number 23". It's a movie about the 23 Enigma, the belief that everything adds up to, in some way, the number 23.

Now, this being Four Island, it's quite obvious that I wouldn't believe such a thing. I'm more likely to believe that everything is four, and let's face it, it's true.

But, I can be very paranoid. FACT: I took the battery and SIM card out of my phone before watching the trailer for The Ring. So, being paranoid as usual, I decided to add up the time of my birth. 4:06 PM. (Yes, I know, I was born at FOUR o'clock, and I'm very proud of that fact) Obviously, 4 and 6 doesn't equal 23. But.... this is 12-hour time. What about 24 hour time?

16:06

Added together, 22.

Ok, it may not be 23, but think. You may recognize that number from elsewhere on Four Island. Yes, April 22nd is Trider's CIEday, and Four Island was created on September 22nd.

Coincidence? Yes, I think so. But still, the senseless paranoia is fun. And as an added 23-tidbit, look at the post I linked to earlier in this post about everything being Four. It may be Four-centered, but look at the publish date. That's right, January 23rd.

EDIT: After closely examining the Everything is Four post, I realized another snippet of apophenia. The time that the post was published. The digits add up to 22.

Well, in all of my random spare time, I've come up with a random Related Posts game. Random.

Want to know how to play? Of course you do.

1. First, go to the newest Four Island post
2. Check to see if there any related posts. If there aren't, go to the next most recent post.
3. Once you've gotten a starting post, the game starts. Every chooses a related post.
4. On the related post, check to see if there are any related posts that you haven't been to already. If there aren't, the game ends for you. If there are, you get one point.
5. Choose a related post that you haven't been to already
6. Repeat steps 4-5 until the game is over for you.

Once the game ends for everyone, the person with the most points wins.

Like it? Think it's completely random? Well, that's what you get. I'm INSANE about the new Four Island.

Also, as a sidenote, I've modified the way that Pingbacks display here on Four Island. Instead of saying:

Someone has posted a link to this post on URL

Pingback

It will say:

URL

EXCERPT OF LINKING POST

Pingback

This makes much more sense, I believe. I'm still open to any Pingbacks! Remember, the test Pingback is still going, so continue to Pingback The New Four Island!

And, another sidenote, I've added a Top Commenters to the sidebar so you can see those commenters who are really.... commenty. However, it is a little disheartening to see me with 84 comments, and the next person down with 14 comments. That's a BIIIIIIIIG difference, and one that I hope will shrink. Pwease?

EDIT: Remember the downtime I talked about yesterday? Well, you can forget about it. Maybe. I don't know, but it seems a possibility that it'll be avoided. Just wait until tomorrow to see.

EDIT: Remember, feel free to play the Related Posts Game and posts your results here. I'd be happy to play anytime as long as someone else does.