The whimsy of the modern spammer
Just received the following spam (for the second time):
From: Neateye <nitaigouranga@aol.com> Subject: Gouranga
Call out Gouranga be happy!!! Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga …. That which brings the highest happiness!!
Don’t you have anything better to do, Neateye? Are you hoping I will investigate your exotic cognomen?
Ok, fine, you win. Googling…
Hmm, apparently the #1 hit is a Grand Theft Auto resource site. Definitely worth sending obscure spam for. But actually, the Urban Dictionary entry is a lot more enlightening (well, sort of…). It seems many others have commented on this oddity as well.
“I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes … to spread a lively terror.”
—Winston Churchill, writing as President of the Air Council, in 1919
Technology gone horribly right
Google maps now has a satellite view. It’s pretty sweet!
The Internet. It just sits there.
The joy of geekdom
I love being a geek, but sometimes it’s sad when something amusing happens that no one else would understand. As a result, I’m going to pointlessly explain today’s amusement in great detail, just to bore everyone.
Concentration and productivity
I was doing some obligatory Slashdot April 1st surfing (I swear their stories get crazier every year), and came across an article from a few days ago about “Attention Deficit Trait.” The basic idea is that some people do not have true ADD, but still suffer from an inability to think deeply or be productive when surrounded by distracting technologies, especially interrupting ones like cell phones and instant messenging. The guy who linked the article was critical, saying that of course people get distracted by distracting things, and that this phenomenon is not something new.
Wasting time
What weird misc. thing are you?Dancing Bacon I love you and you make me hungry. Get in my skillet, M’kay?
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“But clearly, Madame Giry, genius has turned to madness.”
--Raoul, “The Phantom of the Opera”
VoIP telemarketing spam
A link to an interesting article about VoIP appeared on Slashdot today. According to the article, some analysts predict that the recent VoIP boom will result in customers receiving 150 or more unsolicited telemarketing calls per day, even if they are on the “No Call” list (VoIP allows calls to originate from other countries, outside the jurisdiction of the “No Call” list).
While the statistics in the article are reasonable, I still think the analyst is being overly pessimistic. Sure, people buy things over the phone. But that’s when receiving somewhere between one and ten unsolicited calls per week. Imagine receiving 150 per day. How fast would you hang up if you hear the tell-tale “Good afternoon, sir”? How fast would you get caller ID installed if you don’t have it already (although I am admittedly unsure if there is an analogue to caller ID with VoIP). But I think consumers’ irritation level will absolutely skyrocket if they start receiving that many unsolicited calls. It will become a lot harder to sell things that way. And other companies will create methods to block unwanted calls. I’m not sure how the dust will settle in the end, but it will probably be interesting to watch.
Out of the 10Base-T, through the router, down the T1, over the leased line, off the bridge, past the firewall… nothing but Net.
Jolt Cola Cup: success?
The Jola Cola Cup happened yesterday. NOR won with 4 points. Allen was a close second with 3. Oz also scored a point. Paul, Nate and Jason did not score but had a big impact on the fight. All in all, I think most people had a lot of fun (especially during character creation), and the event was a big success.
Jolt Cola Cup
Preparing for the Jolt Cola Cup has consumed most of my free time for the past couple of weeks. Things are shaping up, and I am excited, but I am cutting things very close. I will get the rules packets printed up on time somehow. I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight, and will probably also need to work on it a bit during anime night, which sucks.
I weep for humanity's willful blindness
Must… stop… reading… horrible… Christian… propaganda… *gasps for air*
“I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature…Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world.”
—Thomas Jefferson
Video games are doomed
From an interview with Trip Hawkins, founder of EA and 3DO:
A must-read!
This essay is the best ever. All those other essays you have read are inferior to this one. If you think there is another, better essay out there, you are totally wrong, because no essay could possibly be as good as this one.
Arguing on the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you’re still retarded.
Living under fascism
Here’s a great sermon entitled Living Under Fascism. It does a nice job summing up the state of affairs in America today. There is some rhetoric that annoys me, but overall it’s a strong piece.
“I reject your reality, and substitute my own!”
—Adam Savage, “Mythbusters”
Shoryuken!
Which Street Fighter are you?
Test by Nathan
“[Star Trek] geeks used to be called Trekkies, but now insist on the less derogatory term Trekkers, which is the image control equivalent of adding a koala bear to the Nazi flag.”
—Wave Magazine
D&D is teh roxor!
Rebecca: “Why are you wearing a tuxedo?”
Sam: “Why does Superman wear a cape?”
—Cheers
A Fundamental Moral System, Part I
From The Hypothesis of Sentient Self-Destruction by Francois Tremblay:
The Empire expands
An interesting survey posted a few days ago shows that some Americans may be coming to their senses about the U.S.’s activities in the Middle East, at least to some extent.
Disappointment
From the inbox of Mr. Yours Truly:
Subject: Recent headline…
From: Anna
Date: 16:42
To: CurtisI went to check my Yahoo mail just now and saw this headline:
“Bush Begins New Term, Vows to End Tyranny”
I was all excited, until I realized he meant tyranny in other countries. =P
*sigh*
Best meme EVAR!
You scored as Mindfuck. Congratulations, you scored Mindfuck. You’ve probably seen a lot of movies, and have grown to hate mainstream shit. You’re looking for the movie that will leave you breathless, and with 21 questions to think about. Check out: Donnie Darko, Being John Malkovich, Pulp Fiction, Memento.
| Mindfuck | 95% |
| Sci-Fi/Fantasy | 80% |
| Drama/Suspense | 70% |
| Artistic | 65% |
| Romantic Comedy | 45% |
| Sadistic Humour | 30% |
| Mindless Action Flick | 30% |
Movie Recommendation.
created with QuizFarm.com
Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide.
Resolutions
The more I work on my post about a fundamental moral system (the one that will enumerate my “moral tenets”), the more futile it seems, and the more overwhelmed I feel. Actually, I am bouncing back and forth between reasonable certainty that what I’m thinking about is valid, and a terrible inkling that I’m fooling myself and just as blind as everyone else. I feel utterly philosophically inept, with my thinking dried up and impotent around every corner as tiredness overwhelms me. See, I’m even mixing metaphors now.
Another throw-away post
Here’s a thing I did a while back, before I had a LiveJournal. I found it while cleaning out some old files on my hard drive.