De Re Militari is back up

Aside

Just a quick info post.

Anybody who has tried to follow the link to DeReMilitari on the sidebar of the blog in the past few weeks has discovered that Google says it is a malware hosting site. They were hacked at the beginning of the month but are now back up. They are having to completely rebuild their site because apparently the malware got them good. So far they have their review section up because it was not affected by the hack. The rest of their site should come back up over the next few weeks or months.

Glad to see them back they are an invaluable starting point for Medieval research.

Officially Retired from the Military

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

As of 010001NOV2011 or midnight on November 1st for the civilians out there, I am officially retired from the United States Army after a combined total of 8273 days or 22 years, 7 months and 24 days I am kind of a civilian again. I don’t have to cut my hair and I can grow a beard if my lets me. It came faster than I thought it would but I am proud to have served and glad to be on civvy street again at the same time. Now I just have to go out and find a real job, great economy for that huh?

Oompa Loompa in My Garden

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

As my wife and I were harvesting the carrots from our garden yesterday we pulled up an Oompa Loompa. I am wondering if I should use this as my profile picture.

Oompa Loompa in its Natural Habitat

The Oompa Loompa Song

This is just a picture of my dog enjoying a beef rib bone

Pirat enjoying a bone on a crisp October day

Spam Comments on my Blog

Posted on September 13, 2011 by Patrick Shrier

I get about 15-20 spam comments on my blog every day. Most are the “Thanks for that Awesome posting, it saved MUCH time” variety. They usually have a link in them to anything from Viagra ads, penis enlargement, cheap homeloans, to how to get student aid. I am currently doing an experiment to see many of the “thanks for that Awesome posting spam I get as a percentage of all the spam I get. My gut tells me that the “awesome posting” spam is about 50% of all the spam I get. I have recieved 31 spam comments in the past two days and 18 of them were the “awesome posting” comment.

"Thanks for that Awesome posting, it saved MUCH time"

I use the Akismet plugin to stop spam. It is an excellent program and for personal blogs you get a free activation key. It stops almost all my spam and because of the way I have discussion set I have to approve every comment the first time and then a person can comment without me having to approve it. It is the only way I have found in the four months I have been blogging to avoid being overwhelmed with spam.

I will probably do an update on this in a week or so. What is amazing to me is that this blog is not extremely high traffic, I only get between 20-30 visitors a day, and I still get so much spam. I would love it if I got as many legitimate comments as I do spam.