Category: Miscellaneous

Posts on topics that don’t fit in my other categories.

Blocking Google’s AI bot crawlers

Lynn

Google released some news about a new token that can be used to block their Bard and Vertex AI crawlers.

Google-ExtendedA standalone product token that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products.

Time to edit my robots.txt file again.

(See Here’s how to block OpenAI’s bot crawlers in your robots.txt file for why I’m blocking them.)

Block Google’s AI bot

Straight from the source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

That’s the important bit. It’s not even an example on the page, but at least the user-agent info is.

Happy times.

I don’t mind opting-in to things I consider helpful to the world at large. But this opting-out business is ridiculous. Businesses take intellectual property seriously when it’s other people trying to benefit from their property. But when they want to benefit commercially from other people’s property, they have no problem skipping the permission phase and hoping no one cares later.

Here’s how to block OpenAI’s bot crawlers in your robots.txt file

Lynn

I went looking for this information this morning, and although it’s nice that everyone wants to give you the entire history of robots.txt and web crawlers and the like, sometimes (okay, most of the time) I just want the info I came for.

Now I’m going to share, without all the extraneous history lessons.

Block OpenAI’s GPTBot

Straight from the source: https://platform.openai.com/docs/gptbot

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

This goes in the robots.txt file.

I don’t need more than the basics, because I’m not interested in allowing access to certain directories and whatnot. But you can follow the link for more details if you want something else.

On a different page, there was also information on how to block ChatGPT plugins from accessing my site.

Block OpenAI’s ChatGPT plugins

Straight from the source: https://platform.openai.com/docs/plugins/bot

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

To be honest, I’m not sure whether I want to block the plugins or not, but better safe than sorry. I can always undo it later simply by deleting the lines from my robots.txt file.

Why I’m blocking them

You could say this is a statement from me about copyright and you might be somewhat right. I own the content I write. But, in reality, it’s more about me making a statement about controlling where my writing and ramblings end up.

I ramble here because I want to share, but that doesn’t mean I want everyone in the world to just grab it up and put it wherever. I’ve blocked google’s image bot for years and years, and the same goes for the internet archive (when they honor it).

The fact is, my blog is my house, and I don’t like the idea of people coming onto my lawn, grabbing my signs, and running with them. Especially not so they can build a commercial product that benefits them financially and gives me nada.

Money hungry? Why, yes, I am. They’re more than welcome to pay me $$$ and license my content for training. I’d probably say yes. :D

A year later and I just realized…

Lynn

At some point, during one of my several theme changes for this site over the last year or two (probably this one), I’ve lost my sidebar widget that included my personal best records (and one or two personal worsts, but they’re only there to remind myself not to let it happen again). :o :D

Since I had copied the widget into OneNote at some point in the past, I didn’t actually lose them. They just weren’t on the site anymore. Now, my stats have their own page. :)

With that in mind…

Lynn

With the last post in mind (It’s a blog), I’ve decided to revisit a theme I used a while back but that I really liked because it showcased my blog posts better. Libre by Automattic is a theme that focuses on long-form writing, and that’s definitely a better fit for me than a theme that highlights images. I don’t take pictures.

I really don’t like photos. Family photos, especially. I don’t like looking at them, and when I do, they usually make me cry. Not sure what that says about me, but even if I’m happy when I start flipping through them, I will be crying by the end. Therefore, I have gotten really good at not taking photos, and not looking at them. :D

I also much, much prefer a sidebar on a website. I don’t know why so many themes don’t have them by default, but it makes it a pain to refit a theme so that I can have my sidebar. Libre has a sidebar on every page except the homepage, which is a setup I like! :)

It’s a blog

Lynn

Perpetualized is a blog in the traditional sense of the word. I don’t write articles; I write daily logs that I post on the web. Sometimes I fall off and don’t write for a while, and sometimes I write more than once a day.

After giving it a little thought, that’s really all I want from this site—a place to chat with whoever happens to drop by and a place to post about whatever is on my mind at the moment when I sit down to type. :)

Regular posting and this theme

Lynn

I’m planning to start posting regularly again, but in the meantime, I’m looking for a new theme for the site. I’m not really happy with the current one. I like it a lot as far as aesthetics, but I don’t think it works for easy access to the site’s content. I like columns. Sidebars. On my phone, it works, but most of the time, I’m looking at the site on my computer, and for that, it just wastes a lot of space.

Making changes

Lynn

I changed my website’s WordPress theme. I like this new one for the most part.

My sidebar is missing, and I miss it, but the options for themes with a sidebar were limited by my requirements and what I wanted. So I’m learning to live with it.

All the links you could find in the sidebar are now at the bottom of the page.

And the good news is that my archive pages, category and tag pages, too, now show a summary or excerpt instead of the whole post. So you can skim a little easier to find what you want, if that’s something you want to do.

I also added a new link into the top menu called “I write” to make it just a little quicker to get to some of those pages that were linked in the sidebar.

Overall, I’m happy with the change, but we shall see if I like it long-term. Sometimes it can take me a few weeks to really decide how I feel after I make a change. :)

1,499 posts about nothing?

Lynn

Well, I’m passing a milestone with this post. This is post number 1,500. :)

Most of the posts of Perpetualized.com are just my ramblings about my writing days. Considering it’s been about 7,000 days since I started this site, and about 3,550 since I started writing to self-publish (as opposed to writing to send to a publisher or hobby writing), that’s not so bad.

Most of the posts don’t really have any meaning for anyone but me. There are a few gems scattered around the site, though I admit they’re hard to find.

:)

A Windows 11 upgrade

Lynn

I resisted moving from Windows 7 until earlier this year. I finally had no choice because I bought a new laptop and it came with Windows 10.

I got used to it, as best as I could. I won’t say I liked it, but I didn’t hate it, so there was that.

But recently, my machine had been telling me it was ready for an update to Windows 11. I decided I would probably do it when I had time, because if I was going to have to live with 10, I might as well live with 11 instead.

A few days ago, I finally did. I’m glad I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. I like it better than 10, even though it’s not perfect.

There have been a few surprising little features that I like very much, like the ability to compare images when you select and open them together. Or how neat and tidy the “start” window is now. (I did have to re-pin everything there, but my pinned documents in the taskbar for some of my favorite programs stayed put.)

The recent updates to the Microsoft Office programs make more sense now. The look fits well with Windows 11.

The colors are dull (as they were in Windows 10 to some extent). There’s too much sand and tan and gray. The rounded edges are too soft and boring. Google’s redesign (and return) to rounded edges is much prettier, but WordPress’s dull colors and new editor look is no better. In other words, I’ve seen plenty of this style of design, so it hasn’t taken me long to get used to it.

Overall, upgrading Windows was a happy upgrade, for a change.

Don’t miss it

Lynn

Wow. I read back through my last two posts and I sound depressed (to myself, I have no idea what I sound like to other people). :D

I haven’t posted in a while, because I just haven’t wanted to. I haven’t been writing either. Just needed a break, maybe? Whatever it was, I think it’s come to an end. I’ve been tinkering with my books again, writing every day, and making time for some household stuff I’ve been ignoring for months.

In the mean time (during the no writing phase of this year), I’ve been reading. My reading list of fiction is up to 384 novels/short stories for 2020. That number, as always, misses some stuff, because I inevitably forget to write down everything I’ve read, and because I had to cobble together the number of stories I read during part of the year from Calibre and can’t include those I deleted during May–July 25 when I decided I wasn’t going to write them down anymore and then regretted it. Because I did regret it! (I don’t know how many I deleted but I only save stuff that I liked enough to possibly want to read again.)

As for posting, I don’t really miss it. I’m not sure when or if I’ll pick it back up, but it’ll be when I need it. As for right now, I’m content as is! :D

The distractions are piling up

Lynn

Yesterday I planned to sit at the computer for three hours and write but I didn’t make it there. I’m still fighting the distractions that are all around me right now.

Today, my new washing machine is set to finally be delivered. I ordered it on February 4. The delays on that have been crazy.

But boy do I have laundry to catch up when I finally get it installed. It’s going to be fun doing it because the space is tight and I’ve never installed a washing machine on my own before. The tight fit is my biggest concern because getting it into position is going to be a real chore.

Tomorrow, my daughter moves into her first apartment. Great timing because her university just asked all the students to move out for the rest of the month and move to online classes and I have a feeling that’s going to drag on longer than that even.

She was supposed to move today but spent yesterday rearranging plans to the point that I wasn’t sure what was going on until nearly my bedtime. :-)

I need to finish filing taxes for my 85 year old grandmother today, and help my daughter finish hers. She’s trying them alone for the first time this year but I’ve promised to answer questions and review them before she submits them.

I’m hoping to get started on this new plan I have and will detail later but I’m not sure I’m being realistic about it. I’m writing this post on my phone in bed because I woke up after four hours of sleep and couldn’t go back to sleep even though I tossed and turned for three hours trying. I can already tell it’s going to be one of those days.

I still had time yesterday for writing but what I didn’t have was the desire.

I’m in a different frame of mind today, but time is going to be short.

My annual Daylight Saving Time sucks post

Lynn

The forced change of the clock this morning is just one reminder that laws linger long past their need in our bloated government bureaucracies.

I just want the government to pick a time and stick to it. Standard time or saving time either one will work for me. Just stop making us deal with this horrible sleep disruption twice a year. Some of us already have sleep and circadian rhythm problems and don’t adapt well to changes.

Is anyone going to listen to me? Probably not, but I’ll send another letter, as usual! I am forever optimistic that this will be the year. :-)

I’ll leave you with this link: Daylight Saving Time Is Here Again. So Is The Debate About Changing The Clocks.

Hm. Spammers are assholes disguised as robots :D

Lynn

I had a spam comment to deal with in the blog comments today (I moderate all comments so these things never make it onto the site). I get a lot of them, and the anti-spam plugin I preferred got bought out and turned into something I didn’t like, so I end up manually dealing with a bit of spam that makes it through my ever growing list of blacklisted words.

The comment was short, with the usual link in the comment field that pretty much always gives it away.

I have not checked in here for a while as I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend :)

Because this is how you snow people into thinking you’re real: You say something that only an asshole would say.

LOL.

Delete.

WordPress 5 bug that’s messing up my publish dates for newly published draft posts

Lynn

There’s an annoying bug in WordPress 5 that’s popped up a few times for me lately and I finally sat down this morning and decided to see if I could figure out what the heck is going on. I found mention of it at the WordPress site, but it’s an eight year old bug that appears to have been fixed at some point. Only it’s not fixed, because this is exactly what’s happening here.

I had a post that I never finished in draft, edited in bulk quick mode to close a bunch of posts to comments and pingbacks, and when I used the unfinished post for my Year in Review—2019 post, it set the date to December 28 when I published it on January 1. I had to update it to the correct post date last night when I realized what had happened. (I posted the December progress post, backdated, and it still showed up before the year in review post that I had posted on January 1st, and I knew that wasn’t right, so a quick check of the post showed me the date was off by 4 days.)

So, in case you’ve found this post while looking for info about a WordPress publish date bug, there you go. Maybe this will help you remember not to quick edit drafts. Better safe than sorry and easier to remember than to remember to check the publish date every time.

Happy New Year. :D

(My test post that confirmed this bug is actually the bug I’m dealing with.)

A test post that turned into a post about writing and trusting the process

Lynn

This is a test post that I’m posting before I make a fool of myself complaining about a WordPress bug. I’d like to see if it’s reproducible before I publish that draft! This post was already a draft that I made on January 1st, but never posted, so it fits the bill for what I need to test.

At the moment, the Publish date is set to “immediately” which means there’s no publish date set on it.

Now I’m going to quick edit the draft, by changing something minor like adding a new tag. Then I’m going to edit regularly and check the date.

:D

Be back soon with the answer.

Well, it definitely messed up my dates. The date is set to the time of the quick edit: 11:01 a.m. Now, if I publish this post, I’ll have to remember to change the date and time. Or not, since I’m just using this post as a test.

I’m going to publish this, just because it supports my post about the bug. :D

It’s not a bad example of how I use writing to help me think things through. I pretty much write down everything, else my thoughts just spin too fast to really make sense of and I get distracted. Writing helps me focus. :D

In a related tangent, and to make this about writing, that’s why I like being a discovery writer.

If I try to consciously think about what’s coming up or what to write next in the story, I can’t bring it all together. I try to follow too many branches of the story. Writing it down keeps me centered in the story and actually creating it. I do not do well trying to make up stories if I’m not writing it down. On the other hand, I do fight that same problem while writing, which probably accounts for 50% of the reason I’m just not a fast writer.

For example, two days ago, I was cycling back through my current scene in progress because something felt off, and I added a line. That line led to another line and another, and then before I knew it, I’d branched off the current path I was on and started on a new one.

The problem is that the paths are somewhat incompatible, and yet, the second path wants to be there.

Why, you ask? Why not just delete it all after that point where I diverged and keep going as I am? I don’t know. I do that sometimes. And sometimes I don’t. I can’t always say why my muse wants me to make something work even when it seems like it won’t. At the moment I’m thinking it just wants me to keep writing until I find a way to circle back to that bit and it fits.

In my last book, this same thing happened in a scene and the end result was that I ignored the frustrated part of myself that kept saying just give up and delete the damn thing and keep going—that I’d come up with something just as good if I did (I often do), but I didn’t listen. I’m glad I didn’t listen. When I read those parts of the book back, what’s there was really good for that book. It turned out to be a pivotal moment for one of my characters and set off some really fun action and great character moments for others too.

Anyway, on to the real work of the day. :D I have to complain a bit about WordPress and then work on finishing my current book. :D

(Yep. It published at 11:20 a.m. as 11:01 a.m. Definitely a reproducible bug in WordPress.)