Ben Michael Ward is a Web Developer living in San Francisco.

This is the blog. You should also take a look at my main site, ben-ward.co.uk, and follow on Twitter.

Mar 11 2010 ∞

Disqus now encourages reckless enabling of third-party cookies

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Open up Settings > Privacy. Then, make sure Accept cookies from sites is checked. Also, make sure Accept third-party cookies is checked as well.

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Optional: If you would rather add an exception just for Disqus, click Exceptions… and add disqus.com as an allowed domain.

For a fairly long time now, browsers have been configured not to allow third-party domains (or, to use their real name “advertisers”) to set tracking cookies on computers via embedded advertising. Now, in the age of (kinda crappy, JavaScript-dependent) comment widgets like Disqus, it is apparently acceptable to provide blanket instructions to users on how to undo that small step forward in sane privacy settings, because it’s inconvenient for a single piece of their functionality.

That final paragraph about adding Discus as an exception to the blocked cookies setting should be the only paragraph. The rest of it is up there with ‘Hey, just disable your virus scanner’ in terms of lazy idiocy, and to present the entire scenario as an error (red highlight, ‘warning’ language) is completely disingenuous.

If you’re a third party widget of any kind who needs this kind of non-standard, much-abused functionality, you should be asking for permission, not telling the poor user that their system is at fault when it’s not.

+ §

Subtle Permissioning

Since this isn’t your photo and isn’t public, the only person you can add to it is yourself. Are you in the photo?

Flickr’s people tagging feature has interesting restrictions on who you can/can’t tag in other people’s photographs, depending on other privacy settings. The UI approach is smart, in that when you run into it you get a decent explanation. Although, I am starting to find that I no-longer have a firm grasp on what Flickr does and doesn’t permit me to do in different situations, not to mention whether (and where) this stuff is configurable.

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How to handle not being at South By South West in Socialite

Socialite is a rather magnificent Twitter (and Facebook, RSS, Flickr) client for Mac OSX. I really need to write up ‘how I use it’ properly at some point, because it’s full of really smart, but quite buried little features that make me happy.

One of the more obviously useful features, though, is Smart Folders, which are just like smart folders everywhere else in Mac OSX, and can be used to filter content. The picture above shows how I’ll be coping with my absence from South By South West this year.

Mar 09 2010 ∞

How San Franciscans View the Bay Area - San Francisco News - The Snitch

Ahem.

(Via Timoni)

Mar 08 2010 ∞
Cameron rejected the view that he was too weak to take on Ashcroft. “I would put it to you that it’s now time for the BBC to go after the Labour party and ask questions about their donors and where they pay tax.

David Cameron comes out fighting over Ashcroft · The Guardian

Apparently, every self-defence of the Conservative party must be accompanied by an attack on the BBC. Somewhat terrifying.

+ §

You hear a song, quiet on the radio, underneath somebody’s conversation. You don’t know this new song, but it helps you to remember two bars of another, different song. You desperately want to hear this second song, but you don’t recall anything but those two bars (which are now repeating over and over in your head.) You want to hear that song, but you can’t, because the song that’s playing isn’t that song.

It’s been 24 hours since I couldn’t remember the name of that song.

+ §
The States seem to have an aversion to products with “blood” in their name. I have to go out of my way to buy German Blutwurst, for example. Fortunately the British are so traditional that they wrap around and become progressive, offering these delicious breakfast cakes. I enjoy them much more than bacon or sausages.

rentzsch: The British Junk Food Report

Rentzsch covers the basics of snacking when you visit England. I really want some black pudding, now. And wine gums.

Mar 05 2010 ∞

Coffee Project Vinyl

Woah, it’s like you took two of my favourite things in the world and combined them; lattésque 10” vinyl. (The band Coffee Project are on MySpace. Not something I’m fussed by, alas, else I’d be all over this.)

Via Notcot.

Feb 20 2010 ∞
In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

Andrea Fay Friedman—an actress with Down syndrome—voiced a character with the same condition in Family Guy. There was a gag about being the daughter of the former Governor of Alaska. Sarah Palin continued her selective indignation about retard jokes on Facebook, roping in one of her other daughters to write about how offensive it all is.

The show that mocked her baby brother, Trig (and/or others with special needs), in an episode yesterday.

And:

People with special needs face challenges that many of us will never confront, and yet they are some of the kindest and most loving people you’ll ever meet. Their lives are difficult enough as it is, so why would anyone want to make their lives more difficult by mocking them?

—“Fox Hollywood - What a Disappintment

Thing is, the Ellen character in Family Guy? That character is strong, capable, smart and a total fucking bitch; just like anyone. Her condition is not played for laughs, it’s not a gag, it just ‘is’. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to do when we’re finding messages of social progress in episodes of Family Guy, but then I’m not the one who freaked out about it without watching the show.

In short Bristol and Sarah are both Palins.

Also, Family Guy isn’t very funny, so save yourself the trouble with that.

Via. Huffington Post.

Feb 18 2010 ∞
Well, yeah, of course it’s extreme. You don’t know anything about the individual. He could have had other issues, certainly. No one likes paying taxes, obviously.

Scott Brown (R-Mass)

Viva la difference. Apparently the occupation of ‘terrorist suicide bomber flying an aeroplane into a building’ provokes sympathy and calm, psychological consideration if you just do it in the name of Republican economics.

Self parody is long gone. This is genuinely tragic.

Scott Brown quote from Not Ready for Prime Time, Talking Points Memo.

+ §

Across Britain thousands of people took to their computers and mobile phones to be comprehensively wrong about freedom of speech and the role of the Press Complaints Commission.

@Nickking said: “Don’t understand why PCC are not acting on #janmoir comments on Stephen Gateley. When 25,000 offended people complain it has to be offensive.”

But Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, explained: “No it doesn’t.”

The Daily Mash - Twitter Filled With People Being Wrong About Jan Moir Again

The Daily Mash straying dangerously close to posting straight up actual-factual news analysis. Bonus points for captioning a picture of Twitter with “The power of wrongness”.

Feb 17 2010 ∞

“Auto tune last played radio station”

Filed under “checkboxes disappointing to T-Pain”.

+ §

*grumble* *grumble* economic recovery *grumble*

Feb 16 2010 ∞

“Into Dust” — Mazzy Star

Oh, God.

Feb 14 2010 ∞

“Putting repeat drunk drivers behind bars”

It seems as if this might only make matters worse, or is your copy editor hitting the sauce too?

Drink Drivers Beware

Putting repeat drunk drivers behind bars, making roads safe for you and your family.