Monthly Archives: July 2006

I want a WordPress performance tracker

I use “WordPress”:http://www.wordpress.org to publish this blog.  I like the package, but sometimes it seems more than a little slow.  I suspect a big part of the problem is my shared hosting with Pair.com, particularly the mySQL database.  As a result, I’m looking at other options for hosting a friends blog.  The thing is, I’m really flying blind here.

It would be cool if there were a service that kept performace statistics for WordPress performance at a variety of web hosts.  It could watch the ping services (like weblogs.com) to discover blogs, visit them and check for tell-tail signs of wordpress-ness, and then track the performace of the site over time.  Statistics could be rolled up using IP addresss and routing info so as to group blogs by web hosting provider.  It could also look at the performance information that many WordPress templates include as a comment in the generated page source.

It needn’t be limited to tracking WordPress performance either.  It could also track the performance and availability of other common dynamic web applications, like Drupal & PHPbb.

Peggy Noonan: “Convenient Lies”

Today, Peggy Noonan demonstrates why she should be severed from the mass-media and beaten bloodless. Maybe then she’ll stop spinning.

During the past week’s heat wave–it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday–I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world’s greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a believable conclusion on these questions: Is global warming real or not?

OpinionJournal – Peggy Noonan

She must have seen how well Al Gore has been doing with “An Inconvenient Truth” and thought she’d see how she could do with a convenient lie.

Stupid Continental Airlines CATCHPA trick

I’m trying to book a flight using the continental airlines website.  I clicked to check the cancellation/rescheduling terms and I was met with a CATCHPA.  I entered it, and I was told that I mis-entered the text and was given another CATCHPA.  I’ve now tried ten times or more and it still won’t take the text I’ve entered.  The distorted text isn’t even particularly hard to read.
If the airport I were flying into had more options, I’d book a flight with someone else.

Who gives a “shit?”

So what, Bush said “shit” while talking to Tony Blair about the death spiral between Israel and Hizbollah in Lebanon.  Why is it news that a middle-aged american male would use a swear in what he thought was a private discussion about an ugly international situation? Sounds about right to me.

What I want to know is why, days after that conversation, he still seems to be trying to get his shit together and “send Condi.”

From Islamic Terrorism to PORK!!!

Washington DC is an amazing place. Just take some Islamic Terrorism, let things stew in DC for a few years, and you get… Pork, and lots of it.

A recently compiled list of likely terrorist targets in the US has something in excess of 70,000 targets, including over 1000 casinos, ice cream stands, and all sort of other ridiculous shit.

I somehow doubt the list is going to do much to make us safer, but I imagine it’ll help make some congress people a little safer come election day.  Nothing like finding a new way to sling pork to your supporters to sew up a few more votes.

The Seattle Times: Local News: Dept. of Homeland Lunacy