It really pays for politicians to check what their oft-overlooked web support staff are getting up to. Especially if they have designed one’s webpage using somebody else’s template. Because there are several problems with that.
Ethically, obviously, if one’s web design team rips off code that somebody else has created without attribution, it’s not a good look.
If, as part of that ripped off template code, one’s web design team has been so lazy that instead of copying images used for the styling, they are hotlinking to the original images on the original designer’s website, then that is bandwidth theft as well, which is also not a good look.
But you know what’s really not a good look?
When the tech-savvy original web designer realises what’s going on, and also realises that he can thus craft his own message to appear on the politician’s website simply by changing the image on his own site that the web design team has linked to. (Are y’all following this?) No hacking required, all that was done was changing an image on his own web-host. Totally legal.
So this is what John McCain’s MySpace page said for a few hours yesterday until someone noticed the new message:
“Today I announce that I have reversed my position and come out in full support of gay marriage…particularly marriage between passionate females.”
Full story (with screensave of how the adjusted image looked on McCain’s site) here.
That is so awesome that I think I’m going to cry.
That. Is. Smashing.
Although this is an interesting comment on Mike’s post:
Good point…
‘txt on ur prez candidate(‘s myspace)’!
Mad props (as I believe the younglings say these days) on the post title Tiggy.
How was Paris? Be there m’self again in a couple of months.
I’m curious, TT.
Was it wrong that McCain used Mike’s template without attribution, or wrong that he used it at all? Certainly Mike’s myspace template is far less hideously fucking ugly than the rest of myspace, which makes the ugly stick, that imaginary stick ordinary ugly people and things are hit with, look like a pretty good looking stick. In fact, myspace makes the ugly stick look like a pretty smokin’ hot stick.
If he was making the effort to make the web a less fugly place to visit, and if he’d just added the ‘template by X’ line, I’d have said very very very good on him.
Oh, yeah, yeah, bandwidth-hogging is bad, no questions. That’s why I’m boycotting gravatar.com until they get their filesharing shit together.
I gather from Mike’s comments that many people do use his template and he’s generally cool about it but:
a) McCain’s people hotlinked without permission directly back to key components thus stealing Mike’s bandwidth;
b) a pollie going all Myspace is trying to send a message that he or she is all jiggy with this cyberspace thing but a clumsy lift and load move like that sends quite the other message; and
c) it was a fun prank anyway.
Personally I’m going with b as the most egregrious. This guy’s angling for leadership of the most wired (in every sense) country in the world and his staff couldn’t see Mike’s move coming? Not a switched on campaign team.
When it comes to filling the Oval Office these days, fuck ideology, I’d just settle for simple compentence and some basic grasp of what a wired 21st century is gonna offer.
Me did block quotes funny. Not used to all this funky 21st century technology. Can LP mod reverse order above?
Thankee.
Done, Nabs.
Paris was stylish and tasty, though cold and grey. We thoroughly enjoyed it, although the kids were bemused at times. They had more fun in the snow in Norway.
Thankee Tiggie.
Well you did go there in winter. Aim for their spring/summer next time. In Paris around 14 July is a hoot. Alphajets overhead, the Cuirassiers clattering over the cobblestones and the local arrondisement Pompier parties catching fire.
Last time I did it on Quatorze Juillet, we were on a rooftop overlooking the Champs du Mars as the Effiel Tower fireworks erupted, off our tits on reasonably priced and excellent coke and champers, belting out lines like “mercenary phalanxes” as a member of our party rendered La Marseille in Jimi Hendrix style on his Stratocaster with his Marshall amp propped on a 17th century chimney pot.
Paris. It, along with London, New York and Rome, is a true city for adults who don’t always care to be grownups.
Salut! to that, Nabs.
Oh yeah. It won’t affect the polls directly, but people who know and care about these things – some of whom are also mid-level politicians that all candidates are courting at the moment – will know that McCain’s staff have been caught out as rank amateurs.
I wonder how much they were getting paid? If the job was being done by interns or similar volunteers, then that’s just cheap. And if they are supposedly pros, they should be sacked out of hand for cause.
“Careful With That Ripped-Off Website Template, Eugene”
Best. Title for a Blog-post. Ever.
Believe me, I’ve heard (and also done) some pretty amazing riffs on “Careful… Eugene” in my time, but yours is the best. Bartender! Three quarks for Muster Tigtog!
Nabakov: “When it comes to filling the Oval Office these days, fuck ideology, I’d just settle for simple competence…”
Wouldn’t we all. Jaysus H. Christmas, ye wouldn’t think it was THAT much to ask for.
It was certainly wrong that his campaign used the template without attribution (intellectual property and all that), but it was much worse that his campaign deeplinked the pictures, stealing bandwidth, especially given the designer of the template explicitly asked people not to do that.
Overuse of bandwidth can cost money, depending on the contract.