# Notice (Oct 19/05): So ends my stay here on Blogger. This morning Google implemented an anti-spam 'feature' that forces me to answer a challenge phrase when I want to post to my own blog. No notice of the change, nothing. Worse is that it doesn't even work! I type the phrase, submit, "An error occured", post deleted. Damn you, Google. Chances are I will revive my blog somewhere else, sometime soon. I'll post the new coordinates here as soon as they become available. (BTW, I'm unable to post anything to my RSS stream, so I'd appreciate it if readers could spread the word and ask people to take a look at this notice)

Update (Oct 19/05, ~noon): After a frustrating few hours (and not just trying out alternatives to Blogger), I've decided that this is a good time to take a break from all this. A day? A week? Who knows. But I need to step away from it before I pass a heavy magnet over the whole mess.

Update 2: According to this post, the reason I'm seeing the CAPTCHA (challenge phrase) is that Blogger has classified my blog as spam. Thanks. User for five years and now I'm spam. I searched the Blogger site, but there is no mention of how to get the spam flag turned off. There is also no way of contacting anyone at Blogger. Wow. Spam they say I am, so spam I must be. Maybe it is time to take a break.

Consider Six Apart as an example of what I'm talking about. 6A is like a black hole for creative people. Folks who, a year or two ago, were among the leading voices in the discussion of how weblogs were changing our culture, were coding all sorts of useful plug-ins for Movable Type, or were pushing the edges of web design are now focused on making software that generates revenue and aren't saying a whole lot about it. (Sort of ironic that working for 6A kills the weblogs of their employees, isn't it?) That's great for them, for Six Apart, their customers, and their partners, but it kinda sucks for the community as a whole.