Serously, I’m just fooling around with http://images.google.com – a picture search engine.
spider monkeys, bigfoot… ever wonder what anger or shadenfreude looks like? now you know. 🙂
12 hours after reconnecting to DSL.
over 900 ports scans on my firewall. Geez… is it because it’s summertime, and all the kids have time on their hands?
Ah well… I’m glad the sucker’s there. ZoneAlarm. Schweet, and free. Neener neener, script kiddies!
I wonder how Tman & Pix are…. I’ve not heard from either in a while. They’re both nice folks, and a cute couple… but so *busy* all the time. (Note to self, let pix know her program is done, if she still wants it.) School, work, or my wor cuts into any hanging out time we might get. Same goes for my younger brother. I need to set aside some time to spend with him this week… maybe Sunday night, after my sweetie’s gone to bed, or sunday am, before she gets up. I need to put a good sound card in his system, and just goof around some. We don’t see each other enough, considering how close we live to one another now.
Also, now that Dan’s done teaching summer school, I think we can get together some morning and get a smoothie or so at the groves (did I mention that I’m right behind Mack’s Groves, now? I should count the steps from my front door to the cash register there. They’ve not called me lately about the website… I wonder if it’s finally stableized enough that they’re happy, or if they took the nephew off the net.
quick comment about the HTML post, earlier… a lot of the last bit was tongue in cheek, thus the 😉 at the end… I may not have gotten that idea across very well. (Some of the e-mail replies to the list are, to say the least, very misinterpretive of what I had to say.)
not so evil news –
The Flying Woman finally crash lands
Historic plane wreck ‘spotted’ from space
The wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft which disappeared in 1937 may have been found.
That’s too cool. I love when old mysteries look like they’re getting solved…. Call Leonard Nimoy! ‘Time for an In Search Of’ reunion!
exegesis ek-suh-JEE-sis, noun;
plural exegeses -seez:
Exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation of a text.
Exegesis comes from Greek, from exegeisthai, “to explain, to interpret,” from ex-, “out of” + hegeisthai, “to lead, to guide.” Thus an exegesis is, at root, “a leading or guiding out of” a complexity.
No variety of love is too trivial for exegesis. No aspect of love is so ridiculous that it hasn’t been exhaustively reviewed by the great thinkers, the great artists, and the great hosts of daytime talk shows.
–P. J. O’Rourke, Eat the Rich
Push The Ailment If You Have The Cure
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About two years ago, newspaper, magazine and television news stories began popping up across the country about a little-known malady called social anxiety disorder. Psychiatrists and patient advocates appeared on television shows and in articles explaining that the debilitating form of bashfulness was extremely widespread but easily treatable.
The stories and appearances were part of a campaign, coordinated by a New York public relations agency, that included pitches to newspapers, radio and TV, satellite and Internet communications, and testimonials from advocates and doctors who said social anxiety was America’s third most common mental disorder with more than 10 million sufferers.
So successful was the campaign that according to a marketing newsletter, media accounts of social anxiety rose from just 50 stories in 1997 and 1998 to more than 1 billion references in 1999 alone. And about 96 percent of the stories, said the report in PR News, “delivered the key message, ‘Paxil is the first and only FDA-approved medication for the treatment of social anxiety disorder.’ ”
The plug for a drug was no accident. Cohn & Wolfe, the public relations agency coordinating the campaign, did not serve at the pleasure of the doctors and patient advocates who participated in the education campaign. Instead, the agency worked at the behest of SmithKline Beecham, the pharmaceutical giant now known as Glaxo SmithKline, which makes the antidepressant Paxil.
Searching For The Truth
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Attacking an increasingly popular Internet business practice, a consumer watchdog group Monday filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission asserting that many online search engines are concealing the impact special fees have on search results by Internet users.
IRS Advice, Don’t Follow Our Advice, Except For This Advice
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A Treasury Department sampling of service at IRS walk-in centers this year found agents gave taxpayers incorrect or insufficient advice on their tax questions 73 percent of the time — a slight improvement over last year’s 81 percent error rate.
Gooey Viagra
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New treatments in the pipeline for sexual dysfunction
Could a rub-on gel boost erections? Topiglan is one product that is being studied for this use.
Now That Its Up, What Happens?
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A new therapy could offer help for millions of men suffering from premature ejaculation, British psychiatrists said Friday.
A SMALL PILOT study of a latex rubber ring has shown that it can relieve the problem that afflicts an estimated 29 percent of sexually active men.
Samurai Psycho
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A MENTAL patient escaped up to seven police officers who had been called to his home before he was shot dead in the street while wielding a samurai sword.
Police said that they tried to restrain Andrew Kernan by using CS spray outside a busy pub in Liverpool and opened fire only when it failed to subdue him. Mr Kernan, a 37-year-old schizophrenic, was taken to Royal Liverpool Hospital but died from injuries to the chest.
Police had gone to his house after being alerted by his family when he became disturbed. It was unclear yesterday how Mr Kernan, who was wearing pyjamas, was able to leave the house and arm himself with the sword.
From Alan Taylor, re: Mystery Music.
Just wanted to say thanks to all of you who helped in trying to find the Artist & Title of my mystery song ( http://www.kokogiak.com/gedankengang/default.asp#07007200110 ).
The Mystery has been solved and I’m a pretty Happy Camper – it couldn’t have been done without all of you.
Of course, most of you are probably wondering who it is…
It was composed by David Byrne.
From the Album ‘”Music for ”The Knee Plays”’ released in 1985.
Full details and more thanks here: http://www.kokogiak.com/gedankengang/default.asp#0717200114
Thanks to folks that offered help here!
After blathering on in an e-mail list as to why you shouldn’t send HTML to folks back and forth… I figured I’d post it here, too. most writing done in a while.
My sympathies to all e-mailing from company environments where every message gets converted to HTML. Indeed, there is nothing the individual can do as this is almost always corporate policy and will not be changed. The reason is usually to tack on a corporate message of some sort to every outgoing piece of mail, and the editors of these programs to add commercials or corporate disclaimers and disavowals all default to HTML. Since this is the bailiwick of corporate Legal or Human Resources, don’t expect them to look beyond the default setup.
Just to repeat the process in another order to show the sequence:
1) You write message scrupulously formatted in plain text, the format of champions.
2) But squatting on the outbound queue is a software suite for covering corporate asses. It reads everything outbound, and depending on how much
money you spend it can:
a) Virus check. Ha, as if. Even if it costs nothing because the software is on hand and part of a corp license, only the Dalai Lama would be evolved enough to *slow the queue down* just to be civil. OK, I exaggerate… slightly.
b) Check for hot words like ECHELON and quarantine anything doubtful. Remember, as most corps phrase their E-mail Usage Policy “use of the company e-mail system implies consent to the conditions outlined in this Policy”, and that means you said it’s OK for them to read your mail. They promise not to unless they *really* want to.
c) Check for words related to internal projects to prevent company secrets from going out.
3) It adds some advertising or legal boilerplate to distance the company from anything this bozo might say out to the real world.
a) The message was composed in an HTML editor and is in HTML format for that extra something that HTML always adds.
b) It tries to add the HTML coda to the plain text message, only to find that plain text doesn’t support color or graphics.
c) So the plain text message in converted to HTML so the HTML coda can be added. And the world takes another step towards the Endtimes.
HTML is code that is interpreted in order to display the message in the chosen font and color and so on. It has access to the abilities of macro-enabled e-mail clients. It used to be said that e-mail couldn’t infect your system with a virus because it didn’t run anything, it just carried it.
That is no longer true, and I can’t thank Microsoft enough for making that the standard.
These “features” can be turned off, but they default to On.
I can think of plenty of Ad Prac 101 reasons for making e-mail bigger and enabling macro “viruses” that can be written by grade schoolers.
According to Steve Gibson’s page – http://www.grc.com
“Windows XP’s new support of the full raw socket application programming Interface (API) allows for the creation of fraudulent and damaging Internet traffic. This has never been possible under Windows without first modifying the operating system with third-party device drivers – which has never been done by malicious programs.”
and
“For the first time ever, applications running under the Home Edition of Windows XP – whether deliberately executed or running as hidden “Trojan” programs – will be easily able, without modifying the operating system in any way, to generate the most damaging forms of Internet attacks.”
Denial of Service attacks on corporate routers, things like that.
Security software is going to be a hot item, expect weekly updates. Home firewalls for everyone with a cable modem. Net traffic updates on the commute to work. E-mail “going down” on a regular basis due to spam traffic and macro viruses.
Those gosh darn personal computers at home are a clear and present danger to business. They need to be regulated and licensed and restricted and above all controlled. 😉
you will find the flash movie at come.to/hatten
Here’s the Lyrics, translated, many of you have probably seen it before
My sweeties feeling under the weather, so went to bed early….sending her loving, comforting thoughts. *kisses and loves*
In other news DSL is back! hooray! Yeah, baby! I can surf and talk again!
On Video – Monty Python/Red Dwarf
In Belly – Woo… it was a luau-a-go-go..pineapple chunks, sweet peas, veggie dogs and ukulele music abounded as I crooned tiny bubbles to Newton (Who played at my feet as I threw milk rings for him to fetch as I ate. Looking sort of bad… my laptop’s spacebar is missing taps when I smack it with my right thumb. I’ll have to read my insurance policy, and see about what repair involves. I don’t imagine it’ll be much trouble. I don’t want to take it apart myself if it voids any repair warrantee.
Windows Utility Boot Disk w/CD-ROM Support
To create a boot disk to use to boot a system during troubleshooting, save the following file and then run it to extract the bootable image to a floppy disk.
Windows 95 Download (boot_cd.exe — 730k) Windows 98 Download (boot98cd.exe — 662k)
Boot Diskette File List
attrib.exe
autoexec.exe
cabs.bat
chkdsk.exe
command.com
config.sys
debug.exe
drvspace.bin
ebd.sys
edit.com
fdisk.exe
finder.dat
format.com
himem.sys
io.sys
mscdex.exe
msdos.sys
nec_ide.sys
regedit.exe
scandisk.exe
scandisk.ini
sys.com
uninstal.exe
Author: So, you’ve had a chance to look over the changes I want made to the online article, yes? When can I expect to see them?
Mike: Well, I had a couple of questions about that.
Author: Yes?
Mike: Uh… I’ve been looking at the changes, and it seems… I just wanted to make sure I understood…
Author: Yes?
Mike: …that you want your tables to, uh, look like ass.
Author: Yes. The tables are unsatisfactory as they currently appear.
Mike: So you want us to change them, so that they look like ass.
Author: Correct.
Mike: Total ass.
Author: That’s right.
Mike: You want us to take these perfectly clear and well-formatted tables… and turn them, basically you want us to turn them into an ass-cream sundae.
Author: Exactly.
Mike: With extra ass-sauce on top.
Author: You are exactly right.
Mike: …
Author: …
Mike: …
Author: So when can I expect to see those changes?
What happens during a full moon when a werewolf has bitten another wolf?
Is it piracy music when you’re copying someone who samples other music?
Today’s bonus word of the day: coulrophobia: fear of clowns. This particular phobia seems to be pretty wide spread for some reason. The majority of the people I know dislike clowns, the level of distaste ranging from the merely “icky” to the very direct “if you come any closer, I’m gonna shove that joy buzzer right up your oversized clown trousers”.
http://phobialist.com/ there’s a lot of ’em.
I long for customized random search buttons. The random journal as it is now doesn’t do a lot for me, as my interests are usually a bit different than the average LJ-er, (according to statistics, the average LJ-er is a 16 year old girl… I’m Double that age and a male (worse, I’m a pod-person)). What I’d like to see is the user search engine return soon, so you can type in parameters. (and I’d like to add a parameter… “no foul language or l33t” text in a post. That way I could bypass the folks on a rant, or talking smack pseudo script-kiddy code. (and folks could find the same, if they wanted to read that stuff.) Heck, in the theme of Chris’s recent post, I wonder if there’s a clean way to implement a message size one, too.. “must contain at least 10 words” or whatever. I bet there is. (that’d snip out my Cap’n Kirk Joke…) Or, for example, have it cut out journals that use phrases or people you don’t like… (For example, don’t use anyone already on my friends list, or my blocked list, or anyone who uses too many ellipses (…’s, a guilty pleasure I partake in myself.)
The random feature hasn’t helped me find any journals I like to read in a long time. However, the interests list, and mutual communities are a great idea for mining for new folks. Stef’s latest idea of describing a friend and having you guess about them is another great idea.
crux KRUHKS, noun;
plural cruxes, also cruces KROO-seez:
1. The basic, central, or critical point or feature.
2. Anything that is very puzzling or difficult to explain or solve.
Crux is from Latin crux, “cross, torment, trouble.”
The crux of why I just made a poo joke isn’t as confusing as it might appear. 🙂