12/13   I was reading somewhere something that implied that google's popularity
        algorithm could tell if the link to your site in someone's page was
        "hidden."  Can someone here confirm: if I have a link to may page on
        another page that is either a.)  The same color text as background or
        b.) a "spacer" image that is a link.  Will Google discount that link?
        \_ No one knows how google really works.  A form of security through
           obscurity to protect their pagerank thing.

12/now  Hey do ya think we could get the motd any shorter and more boring?
        Let's see: 1) a link to chapter 1 of an old book, 2) trivial dns
        lookup issue, 3) emacs question with joke answer.  Why bother even
        having a writable motd if it's going to be stripped of *everything*
        worth reading?  There's no technical questions/answers, no cool
        stuff about, well... *anything*!  And it's always worse on the
        weekend when there's fewer bored people at work to add new things.
        [*laugh* and then the same idiot deletes this whole thing]
        \_ If you're so strapped for amusement that you rely on the motd,
           I weep for you.
           \_ weep away, just stop erasing everything. just because im pathetic
              doesn't mean im not right about others stripping the motd.
        \_ who knows?  what makes these fucking censors tick?  why do they
           want the motd to become pointless?  mysteries we may never know.
        \_ Instead of trying to beat the system, why don't you just try to
           make your page better and more relevant? How hard do you really
           think it is to detect that technique? Can you guess how many
           people we have who work on quality full-time to prevent this kind
           of thing? --aaron@google
            \_ because, 1.) I am starting a new service which competes with
               long-existing services,  Since I am funding this all myself,
               I can not affort to pay SEO's to place "legitimate" links on
               their already ranked web sites. 2.)  Part of the service i am
               offering to clients is that there page will not link back to
               my page which in turn links to a bunch of their competitors.
               This basically hozes me, since my competition creates sites
               that then link back to themselves, racking up points, but i
               am not going to be able to do this.  Because of this, my site
               could very easily be much better and "more relevant" and still
               not have as high a score as my competition. -cuek_saja@yahoo.com
               \_ If your site is good, people will come, regardless of what
                  you do.  If your site is bad, people will not come,
                  regardless of what you do.  If you are starting to ask these
                  sorts of questions now you have already lost.
                  \_ BS.  If they can't find the site, they'll never know
                     whether it's good or not.
                     \_ Consider: http://www.google.com didn't have to circumvent
                        google.  People found it because it was good.  Be
                        good, don't be evil.
             \_ As for your second question, i think the color trick would
                be easy to dectect but the image trick would be hard.