Why I quit Wordpress

I used to run my blog on Wordpress and hosted my site at Dreamhost (I would recommend Dreamhost without reservation, BTW). But I found I was spending lots of time doing updates and I really don't have time for that. I also frequently noticed that my posts would get spam inserted into them to manipulate search engines via SQL injection hacks. Annoying.

So I closed up my Wordpress install over there and came to Blogger (who I can bitch about, but they're free). I've also used Google Webmaster Tools (also free) and I have used the webmaster tools since back in the Wordpress days. I liked Wordpress, it was fun. Learned some CSS skills. I liked Gallery for sharing images too (but now I use Picasa).

Anyway, upon setting up my blog on blogger, I noticed that my traffic logs had some strange guests (Ukraine and Russia? see below - click to zoom):

Weird, right? So doing some digging I checked the webmaster tools site for evidence of stupidity and there it was under my crawl errors (again, click to zoom):

Some script kiddie website had figured out a way to insert their serialz in my Gallery. WTF?

I love free software, I've licensed stuff under the GPL that I've written. The problems are: difficulty of necessary upgrades being performed regularly by casual users and the lack of commercial impetus to make a proper product.

I'm sticking with big names and commercial software for the foreseeable future.

The false economies of web reviews

Ever wonder why you never really read a negative review of a product on websites? I used to. In fact, I fell victim to purchasing a few less-than-spectacular products based on reviews posted on websites I trusted.

Take, for example (because this is really easy), any of the books by Timothy Ferriss. In particular, the book "The 4-Hour Body" is notable given the large amount of online hype it generated, particularly on high-traffic websites like gizmodo, and lifehacker.com (where it got a full week of excerpts and glowing reviews). Unfortunately, most serious book critics - like the NYT - considered the book to be nothing more than a laughable bad joke. Why, then, the disparity?

First of all, we should acknowledge that in addition to being a confirmed narcissist (based on his own writing), and a likely sociopath, Timothy Ferriss has been called the greatest self-promoter in the world by Wired Magazine in 2008. The guy clearly has a forcible personality which, coupled with nearly delusional lifehacking writings can sell lotsa books.

The bigger issue here is how advertising on the web is structured, particularly as it relates to product reviews. See that link to Amazon to purchase "The 4-Hour Body" (please don't click it). If you were foolish enough to actually buy this book, I would get a cut of the sale. Big websites like gizmodo and lifehacker make gobs of money this way, so tend to put out positive reviews of products so that people reading will click the linky-link and buy the product.

This is why I wanted to review this book here briefly: don't buy it, it's shit. And also to point out that you can't trust online reviews, even from great sources - they're all tainted by the almighty dollar.

Review: Yeast by Zainasheff and White

I bought this book because I wanted to (maybe) start doing some yeast ranching over at my place. See, I really love this Wyeast/Rogue Pacman yeast, but it's got very limited availability (special edition/once a year/blahblahblah). So I was hoping that this book would be a good one for the homebrewer that wants to get into yeast ranching to read.
Unfortunately, it's not. That's not to say it's not a great book (it is). Jamil Zainasheff has risen to the height of homebrewing royalty and is clearly a really smart guy. Chris White is the founder of White Labs, provider of pure liquid yeast cultures for homebrewers and commercial brewers. These guys are both experts in beer and brewing and the book is full of great information for beer geeks who really want a better understanding of yeast and fermentation. I would recommend it for the advanced homebrewer or commercial brewer. However, if you want resources on simple, reproducible yeast ranching, I would recommend the following (free) links instead and save your money for some other book or yeast ranching equipment.

Here you go:

• http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/slanting-yeast-133103/
• http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Making_Plates_Slants&printable=yes
• http://brewiki.org/Yeast/Culturing
• http://www.maltosefalcons.com/tech/yeast-propagation-and-maintenance-principles-and-practices
• http://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/osbornbrewing/539-yeast-ranching-home.html

The free information in those articles is much more practical and usable than the book. You will need a pressure canner like the one of the left here. I looked around at Wal-Mart and they don't really have anything suitable. I usually like to buy this kind of stuff at wally world because it's so ridiculously cheap.

The book is available here (Amazon).