FYI, the recent I haven't been doing much with this blog in the past year is I'm a new mother, and my new responsibilities, combined with my preexisting ones, don't leave me with much spare time. Sorry, loyal readers and spammers. Anyone interested in providing content should contact me by email.

We recently changed servers and updated the software, so the site should run much more smoothly. Thanks for bearing with us.

In an earlier post, I reported how words like "clbuttic" were created by censors using search-and-replace to change "ass" to "butt". According to Right Wing Watch, the American Family Association's OneNewsNow site automatically replaces the word "gay" with "homosexual", leading to the above story about athlete Tyson Gay.

Via SPIKE:

George Lucas has digitally re-mastered and restored the American classic Singin' In the Rain. The way Gene Kelly originally intended it.

Lately, I've been doing my blogging at She's Such a Geek!:

• Geeky Valentine's cards
• 3-D Sex and the Computer Scientist
• Unique grad program for bringing women into CS

Men, Women, and Sex

Recently, I ridiculed the idea that men think about sex two thousand times as often as women do (once a minute vs. once every couple of days). According to my highly scientific polls, 52% of men think about sex at least once a minute while more women think about sex every few days (27%) than do one or more times per minute (18%). The majority of women (55%), however, think of sex an intermediate amount. It looks like the sex sex difference is greater than I thought but less than the article implied. Still, I'm going to invest in divorce futures.

Beyond Satire

I also had a survey on whether to run personal items in this blog. Most people said yes, although a few would prefer that I stick to the "beyond satire" theme. For those people, you can use this bookmark or this feed to only get items tagged beyond satire. Let me know if you have any problem with them.

I updated the software on this site. Let me know if you see anything strange.

One improvement was the addition of captchas for comments. I'd been spending a lot of time dealing with spam, which should no longer be necessary.

Update (7/3/06): Site search now works!

Update (7/4/06): I installed Bad Behavior, and my comment spam problem seems to be gone! I may even be able to remove catpchas.

There's been a lot of comment spam lately, so I'm going to switch to moderation for comments from anonymous users. That means that, unless you're logged into the site, I'll have to approve your comment before it appears.

Update: I'm having to delete all comments that contain "ringtone", so don't use that word.

Editor and Publisher reports on the "'tribute' to President Bush" by "faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner". Some of my favorite excerpts from the article:

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”....

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."....

Addressing the reporters, he said, "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."

Apparently, Bush "stopped smiling about halfway through Colbert".

Update (5/6/2006): You can view an authorized copy at Google Video.

Sources: Crooks and Liars via boingboing via Google Blogoscoped. I found the photo at http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3460/2269/320/r3282836043.jpg via Main St. USA with the caption "Pay no attention to that little man in the corner".

My spam filter got overactive and quarantined non-spammy comments. I've manually approved the questioned comments and pruned back the spam filter. Sorry for the inconvenience.