Yesterday, I commented on how a blog's visibility in Technorati could be increased simply by linking to other blogs. Well, looking at Technorati's number one ranked blog, the Huffington Post, it appears that this game is being played by many; maybe too many. Take a look at the Huffington Post's listing on Technorati, it's post reactions list is filled with links to Huffington Post (over 362,000, in fact) ranging from relevant, to weak. For example, what exactly does "Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report" by Robert F Kennedy Jr and Brendan DeMelle have to do with a site that sells Male enhancement drugs? Nothing really. There is not even any original content there, just a direct link to the news article on Huffington Post. This is just a blatant attempt to increase incoming links and ratings. 

This is one of my pet peeves with online services. Today I signed up to something on a website, and, after selecting a password, they emailed it back to me unencrypted. If I choose my own password, then I already know what it is, and do not need to have it sent to me as a reminder. Moreover, the whole point of passwords is that it provides some means of confirming that it is in fact me, and not someone else that is trying to access my account. So sending it to me in an email and having it stored unencrypted on a server, and then visible in my inbox, defeats the purpose of having the password in the first place. There is no point in having encryption of any sort in a log on system if the passwords are transmitted unencrypted elsewhere.