A couple older relatives and friends of mine recently got burned by a spam/malware/phishing issue that traces back to desktopdate d0t net. Does anybody have any experience/knowledge of this?
I’ve found this but at least one of the people involved claims to have not clicked on the email, but still had many invites issued on their behalf to the contents of their address book.
So, my father-in-law is now on Twitter. That’s really the start of a million cheap jokes, but in this case it’s actually rather appropriate. Twitter is all about expressing opinions without having the space to fully articulate them, and as such you have the freedom to fire off little nuggets and not feel compelled to turn it into a full-length post/email/etc. For all that half the world makes fun of Twitter, you have to admire how well it’s done. That said, I really don’t understand a lot of twitter-culture.
P.S. I am certain that you could get a Sociology/something doctorate simply by monitoring and cleverly analyzing Twitter’s trending topics. Maybe bin them by genre/category, probable age group/demographic, etc then look at growth/decline rates, etc. I know that papers have been written using topics to model desease/contagion, but if you can figure out how to monetize the trends then you could retire at 30 35 40.
#mafiawars
#NIN
Vampire Diaries
Facebook Lite
Joe Wilson
Goodnight
Jay-Z
Steelers
Nfl
Glee
Just when I’d finally accepted the fact that Tom Cruise is crazy (duh) but it’s still ok to watch his movies, now I’ve made a horrible discovery and will never be able to watch a Jason Lee movie the same way.
Eh, it hopefully won’t be a big deal, as long as Lee doesn’t make it a big deal, but still… should I have been surprised? Did other people know about him/others on the list?
Biggest surprise to me: Greta Van Susteren – yes she’s on Fox, and that’s worth a few crazy points, but she has an education, for one, and by all accounts was a pretty good lawyer, so oh well.
So, another item that was stuck in draft purgatory for a month or so before I was able to actually post it…. a circle of iPhones that are both listening to and playing a very abstract kind of “music.” Each one picks up ambient sounds, runs that through a series of software filters to make it sound more musical, and finally plays the result back (with rhythm).
As each iPhone is picking up the tune from the other iPhones it’s playing it back through the same filters, and so on and so forth. All while the software is “judging” each “cell” of sound, to see if it’s interesting or loud enough or so forth, and cells will live or die based on that criteria — in essence, a musical organism.
a warning: it’s not exactly friendly to the ears, especially the first one – don’t use headphones.
When the blocks of granite in Franconia Notch that formed the Old Man in the Mountain’s face (finally) broke off the cliff face in the spring of 2003 (how’s that for a run-on sentence?), there was a lot of discussion about what to do.
One idea was to re-build the face, but instead of using concrete or granite, architect Francis Treves suggested using glass: “the grand metaphor with this piece of glass on the mountain is it’s not really a piece of glass, it’s a piece of ice,” Treves said. The Old Man, he added, “was sculpted by the glaciers; the ice gave it birth.”
When first proposed, Treves’ idea was met with considerable criticism – perhaps the “loss” was too recent to have any satisfactory solution? Anyway, I was intrigued by the sheer scale of Treves’ solution, if skeptical of the actual implemented result.
Personally, I miss the Old Man, but I am doubtful that any attempt to actually rebuild/replace the original formation would be satisfactory. My understanding is that they will/did install some carved rock blocks down in the parking lot, has anybody been to the Notch since ‘07?
Given the popularity of W7 RC, there has been a lot of concern that all current Windows Vista users will be orphaned, abandoned by the Redmond giant.
A “Save Vista” campaign has been organised by InfoWorld. “We detected a deep anxiety over Vista among technologists and consumers alike,” said editor Galen Gruman. “We decided to do something about it, launching a petition drive to ask Microsoft to keep selling Vista after the planned October 23 end-of-sales date.” The petition has already gathered over ten signatures. “‘Seven’ is just sucking up to latté sippers. Like Hummer, like Chrysler, like Edsel, Vista is a great American name that shows the might of full-sized American industrial production. It’s a monument to everything that makes us the country we are.”
Several industry leaders have added their voices to the effort:
“I fully support this initiative. My computer business employs 200 people; the best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward.” – M. Shuttleworth, London
“I can’t tell you how much Vista has done for my business. So many people depend on it.” – S. Jobs, Cupertino
“Vista is the one thing that will keep people seeking out and using systems that are at the forefront of technology. It’s been the best thing for all of us.” – L. Torvalds, Portland.
Some deep thoughts from our old buddy Joe:
Think about those words: “Wildest dreams.” Most of us, I suspect, have some pretty wild dreams. I don’t expect any of my wildest dreams to come true but if I win a billion dollars tomorrow or get asked to play second base for the Cleveland Indians or win the Pulitzer Prize or have Jenna Fischer just call … to say … she loves me or have Morgan Freeman call to say he’s turning Soul of Baseball into a movie, well, I won’t be able to lie and say I never dreamed them.
So, what would be beyond my wildest dreams? I don’t know. If I could come up with something, by definition, it would not be beyond my wildest dreams.
But I have to say this … I suspect what has happened to the Snuggie is beyond these people’s wildest dreams. I mean …
And, unrelatedly except for “huh?”, check this out. Has anybody actually seen this commercial on TV? It’s allegedly a real product, at tiddybearcomfortstrap.com.
