It was a long day, and we stood in way too many lines, but we’ve made it to Hawaii! (Unfortunately, the room’s “data port” is just an easily-accessible phone port. Back to dial-up…)
Category: Life
Time Travel Spam Returns
Back in 2002, people all over the net started getting email from a “time traveller” looking for a dimensional warp generator. Most people assumed it was a joke, and some decided to play along by setting up fake stores or even arranging a drop-off. The “time travel spammer” was eventually identified as spammer Robert Todino, who, unfortunately, was quite serious in his belief that time travelers were interfering with his life. The fake store, the mock DWG made from old computer parts, the offers to supply his equipment, all unwittingly fueled his belief.
This all came out in mid-2003, and aside from immediate fallout and a brief spate of (probably copycat) AIM appearances late last year, the field seems to have been quiet.
Well, guess what showed up in the spam traps over the weekend!
Hello <address removed>,
I’m looking for a good trans_universal transportation unit. Do you have the Mccoy g series self generating watch or similar newer models available? I also need other items you may or may not have available. Please send a (separate) email to me at: <address removed> if available and let me know your terms on doing business.
Thank you
Paul
They’re baaack!
Other sightings: here [archive.org], here [archive.org], and here. Edit: Somehow it seems appropriate that these sightings are now only accessible via the Wayback Machine. (July 28, 2006)
Mail-order Tumbleweeds!
Just what I always needed! Proving that “you can sell anything on the Internet,” it’s Prairie Tumbleweed Farm [archive.org], purveyor of “organically grown,” “100% Y2K-compliant” tumbleweeds.
It wouldn’t be much use here in Orange County, where all you have to do is pull over to the side of the road at the right time of the year. Maybe in the off-season.
(Via the Daily Sucker. You have been warned.)
Desperate in Decency
It looks like the FCC isn’t completely insane. After four months, they concluded that the now-infamous Desperate Housewives locker room promo isn’t indecent after all. “Although the scene apparently is intended to be titillating, it simply is not graphic or explicit enough to be indecent under our standard.”
I saw the spot—or at least something that matched the description exactly—and it was no more explicit than typical prime-time fare. I thought it was cheesy, but I honestly didn’t think any more about it, so when the controversy hit, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was.
But it took them four months to figure this out?
Ah, well, I suppose it’s fast for the FCC. I mean, it took them more than a year to clear a complaint against Angel, by which time the series had been off the air for nine months.
(Incidentally, I’ve never seen a single episode of Desperate Housewives. It just doesn’t look like my kind of show.)
Does this taste funny to you?
(In case you’re wondering, it’s a receipt item for Land O Lakes butter.)
That Annoying Typing Bug
From the Gnome 2.10 release notes:
In the past, while typing something into one application when suddenly your instant messenger offered a chat request from your friend, your words would be typed into the chat window. Imagine if you were typing your password at the time. This should no longer happen in GNOME 2.10.
In addition, if an application takes a long time to start, your work will not be interrupted when it finally opens its window.
About time someone fixed this! The window focus-stealing problem has plagued just about every desktop out there. I think Windows is the first one I noticed that attempted a solution (blinking the taskbar button instead of switching to the dialog box). And since I often fire up several programs at once, it can get really annoying when I start typing my password into one, hoping I’ll finish before the other window appears and drops the last three letters into my web browser or something.
Unfortunately I’ll probably have to wait for Fedora Core 4 to really use it, unless I want to go even more bleeding-edge than I already am.
Judicious Activism?
There’s been a lot of talk on the conservative side of the fence about “activist judges” and “activist courts.” There’ve even been calls to limit the 200-year-old principle of judicial review.
Of course, there’s also been a lot of talk about appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court so that, given a suitable legal challenge, they can overturn Roe vs. Wade and make it possible for Congress to pass laws banning abortion without resorting to a constitutional amendment.
So can someone tell me, how is this not judicial activism?