Monkey Musing Daily Open Discussion #6 9/17 - 9/30/2007

[2NJSons_Mom]

38 Guests, 7 Users
Users active in past 15 minutes:
2NJSons_Mom, klaasend, greeneyedlady, San, Tamikosmom, sharon, MumInOhio
 
Most Online Today: 247. Most Online Ever: 247 (Today at 04:31:21 AM) 

**************

Did I sleep through something this morning???

That can't be right 

Yeah, a little sync issue, maybe?

[MumInOhio]

38 Guests, 7 Users
Users active in past 15 minutes:
2NJSons_Mom, klaasend, greeneyedlady, San, Tamikosmom, sharon, MumInOhio
 
Most Online Today: 247. Most Online Ever: 247 (Today at 04:31:21 AM) 

**************



Did I sleep through something this morning???

That can't be right 

Yeah, a little sync issue, maybe?

I slept in today and didn't turn the computer on until after 5AM, but did notice there was a lot of guests showing then, I believe around 50, and thought it strange.  But then 'somebody' mentioned Shango yesterday afternoon and that always draws a crowd.   Not sure of the time difference with Europe.

[Dugga]

Yahoo's crawler paid us a little visit in the wee hours of the morning today.

247 massive tentacles digging deep into the crevasses of the monkey cage.

[2NJSons_Mom]

Yahoo's crawler paid us a little visit in the wee hours of the morning today.

247 massive tentacles digging deep into the crevasses of the monkey cage.

Can you expound on that a little more, Dugga.  What's up with that?

[klaasend]

Yahoo's crawler paid us a little visit in the wee hours of the morning today.

247 massive tentacles digging deep into the crevasses of the monkey cage.

Can you expound on that a little more, Dugga.  What's up with that?

Yeah, what does that mean exactly 

[MumInOhio]

Question please Klaas, while we're waiting for Dugga... If I'm a guest on 4 different threads  does that make me 4 guests?  TIA

[Dugga]

This discussion has prompted me to address a little something in the software that has bugged me a bit. When a spider crawls our site, it generates a false "most online" number. Well, it's not really false, but the number online weren't actual people - it was a spider. Because of this, I just reset the numbers at the bottom of the home page. The new numbers will be more accurate "human" statistics.

I'll explain.

We submit all of our sites and site pages to search engines. We tell Yahoo, Google, MSN, and about 750,000 (seriously) other search engine and link sites that we're "open for business". We tell them that our site is online, and we'd like their system to come crawl (or "spider") our web site's pages, catalog what is written there, and place this information in their search databases.

Google is a very courteous crawler. it usually crawls with only a few connections and does it slowly and deliberately. Google is pretty much on our site in one form or another most all the time. It takes them about 4 to 6 weeks do dig thru everything and get a fresh catalog before starting over.

Yahoo's crawler isn't quite as courteous. Yahoo shows up more like a full busload of tourists at a Waffle House. They don't kill the site, but they sure do pack the place out until they're done with their business and leave.

The end result of these spiders (or "robots" if you prefer) catalogging our web site is that soon, a large quantity of the content you guys have created here thru various postings will show up in the search engines when someone does a search on a specific term.

They've got a lot of secretive formulas that determine what searches show up first in a search engine, but overall the more relevant a conversation on a page is, the more likely it is to appear in a search. That's a plus for staying on-topic in a forum thread - it helps your search engine rankings.

So, long story short, Yahoo came in like gangbusters last night and read our entire site, and according to the new statistics package I installed just now, a few stragglers from Yahoo are still paging thru our content. Whatever new stuff they found last night is now a candidate to be included in their search engine.

The benefit of this, obvsiously, is that now anyone who goes to Yahoo looking for "Shango" information might end up here. 

[Dugga]

Question please Klaas, while we're waiting for Dugga... If I'm a guest on 4 different threads  does that make me 4 guests?  TIA

Oops, forgot to mention this... It does not, Mum. You're only logged in once from a single connection. The site tracks you by your internet address, so no matter how much you hop around, it only counts you once.

[2NJSons_Mom]

Thanks for explaining that, Dugga.  It's always good to be enlightened...

Now, if I could figure out why I'm getting so much spam in Yahoo, that would be a plus.  A friend said she thinks she has it because she answered a survey.  Have any suggestions?  (they all go to a bulk folder, but they're pretty freaky...)

[MumInOhio]

Question please Klaas, while we're waiting for Dugga... If I'm a guest on 4 different threads  does that make me 4 guests?  TIA

Oops, forgot to mention this... It does not, Mum. You're only logged in once from a single connection. The site tracks you by your internet address, so no matter how much you hop around, it only counts you once.

Thanks Dugga, that's what I thought and thanks for the crawlers explaination!

[MsVada]

Dugga

That was the best explanation ever!  Even a not so tech savvy person like me understood it completely. 

Thanks!

MsVada

[MumInOhio]

Dugga

That was the best explanation ever!  Even a not so tech savvy person like me understood it completely. 

Thanks!

MsVada

Agreed and I need to use spell check

[Anna]

Thanks for the info, Dugga!!!

I was looking on the Site Meter page and saw that both July and August were better than average months as far as visits to the site goes.

So since the new format, traffic has actually increased it seems rather than there being less as some say it seems.  I think there are just as many here, at least reading, but the posting is not all on one massive monster thread any more but spread out on the different topics.

[klaasend]

Question please Klaas, while we're waiting for Dugga... If I'm a guest on 4 different threads  does that make me 4 guests?  TIA

No, I don't think so.

[klaasend]

Police Investigate Suspicious Package Found in Downtown Charleston
Friday , September 21, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297603,00.html
 CHARLESTON, S.C. —

Police in Charleston have closed off portions of a major downtown street while they investigate a suspicious package.

Police say customers at a coffee shop noticed the package in some bushes outside an office building on Calhoun Street before 9 a.m. and called authorities.

Police say the device is attached to a cell phone.

Police say some classes at the College of Charleston have been canceled as a result of the suspicious package.

Calhoun Street has been shut down between King and Pitt Streets

Update:

http://www.live5news.com/home/9916967.html

Suspicious Package Detonated Downtown
UPDATED from Live 5 News
Police have detonated a a suspicious package found in downtown Charleston after evacuating the area.

Police evacuated the area near the College of Charleston campus after the package was found just after 9:00am on the sidewalk near a parked car outside the BellSouth building on the corner of Calhoun and Coming

[MsVada]

Police: Woman carried fake bomb into airport
Officials arrest MIT student, who said device strapped to chest was art

BOSTON - An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.

Star Simpson, 19, had a computer circuit board and wiring in plain view over a black hooded sweatshirt she was wearing, said State Police Maj. Scott Pare, the commanding officer at the airport.

“She said that it was a piece of art and she wanted to stand out on career day,” Pare said at a news conference. “She claims that it was just art, and that she was proud of the art and she wanted to display it.”

Story continues below ↓
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
advertisement

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simpson was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. A not guilty plea was entered for her and she was released on $750 bail.

Student released on bail
During the hearing, Simpson smiled as she entered wearing a T-shirt and sandals. After she posted bail, she left in a taxi with a man who identified himself as her boyfriend, but neither would answer more questions from reporters.

Prosecutor Wayne Margolis had requested $5,000 bail, saying Simpson showed a total disregard for the situation she was in — an airport after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Ross Schreiber, who was appointed to represent Simpson, said she was not a risk to flee, was a good student with no prior convictions and she cooperated with authorities.

He said she had gone to the airport to meet her boyfriend. “She was there for legitimate purposes,” Schreiber said.

Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. “She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.”

Simpson is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology sophomore from Hawaii, officials said.

Device included flashing lights, Play-Doh
The battery-powered rectangular device had nine flashing lights, and Simpson had Play-Doh in her hands, Pare said.

The phrases “Socket to me” and “Course VI” were written on the back of her sweatshirt, which authorities displayed to the media. Course VI appears to refer to MIT’s major of electrical engineering and computer science.

Simpson was a member of MIT’s swimming and diving team in 2006, according to the team’s Web site, which lists her hometown as Kihei, Hawaii. MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards said aside from confirming she was a student, the school did not have any comment.

She was arrested about 8 a.m. outside Terminal C, home to United Airlines, Jet Blue and other carriers.

Woman followed police protocol
A Massachusetts Port Authority staffer manning an information booth in the terminal became suspicious when Simpson — wearing the device — approached to ask about an incoming flight, Pare said. Simpson then walked outside, and the staffer notified a nearby trooper.

The trooper, joined by others with submachine guns, confronted her at a traffic island in front of the terminal.

“She was immediately told to stop, to raise her hands and not to make any movement, so we could observe all her movements to see if she was trying to trip any type of device,” Pare said. “Had she not followed the protocol, we might have used deadly force.”

Pare said Simpson took a subway to the airport, but he was not sure if she had the device on at that time.

The major praised the booth attendant, but said the incident is a reminder of the terrorism threat confronting the civil aviation system. Two of the four passenger jets hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, took off from Logan.

The city was the focus of a major security scare Jan. 31 when dozens of battery-powered devices were discovered in various locations. Bomb squads were deployed and some transportation links were closed temporarily. They turned out to be a promotion for the Cartoon Network.

[Anna]

Ohio cop on leave after video shows woman being hit by stun gun - CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/21/ohio.taser/index.html?eref=rss_topstories


I thought tasers were to be used only in the place of otherwise lethal force.  Seems cops are using them on anybody who doesn't mind them or just at will.  This is insane and can kill people.  There was a time when cops were expected to be big enough and strong enough to subdue suspects.  I think the student was tasered last week because the small female campus police just couldn't do anything with him and were inadequate to do their job.  Not sure what this guy's problem was that he couldn't control a woman but why was she in the police car alone so long that she was doing all those things?  I would try to get away, too, if they tasered me.  People have been killed by that as these cops well know.  I do not support the use of tasers on the whim of cops in this manner.  That should be a last resort before shooting somebody and never used just because the cop is angry he/she can't get control of a situation.  Just my opinion.
.

[Lala'sMom]

Wait!! Let me get this straight...there are spiders that crawl around in this forum....well, that figures....just my luck!  So do those crawlers get counted along with everything else or did you say they were excluded? Do they show up as a guest?  I bet you already answered this, sorry.  I seem to have missed that info after I read spiders and crawl.

[klaasend]

Wait!! Let me get this straight...there are spiders that crawl around in this forum....well, that figures....just my luck!  So do those crawlers get counted along with everything else or did you say they were excluded? Do they show up as a guest?  I bet you already answered this, sorry.  I seem to have missed that info after I read spiders and crawl.

LOL - Lala's you are so funny.  If you look at the main forum page now it will tell you how many "spiders" are here.  But....they aren't real spiders  

[Lala'sMom]

I was a comedian in my previous life.