Randomness

Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal.  To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2005/02/

Much like the Earl Grey last week, today I reaffirmed that Chai Tea tastes like ass.

I rock so hard I oscillate. 😀

It seems I may have unwittingly adopted an Open Source project: ArbitroWeb. ArbitroWeb is in my collection of security tools for bypassing the firewall and proxy at work. In the year or two that I have been running it, I have fixed a few bugs, tightened down some security problems, and have been slowly working on adding some new features. These patches have been submitted back to the author, who seems to have completely disappeared. If this is the case, I may have just become the new de facto author/contributor/maintainer of the project.

That whole Napster “do the math” ad campaign about how it would take thousands of dollars to fill up your iPod through iTunes or only $15 through their service is really getting on my nerves. No, I have not actually seen any of the ads, but I hear people talking about it all the time. Fact. People have existing CD collections that they have already paid for, can rip, and then can load into their music player. Fact. People steal music. Few admit to it, but everybody does it. Fact. The Napster service is $15 per month for as long as you use their service, but once you stop paying, you no longer have access to your music. Let's say I live until I am 90 and I want a particular album. With iTunes, it is $10 and the album is mine forever and I can even burn it to CD. With Napster it ends up being $10,800.00 to keep the album. $15 * 12 [months per year] * 60 [years remaining]. I did the math.

Today, I got tricked into opening a piece of spam because I was just skimming through my inbox and the spam filter does not quite catch everything. The spam in question was from “Conrad Haley” with the subject line “I talk to my pets.” The name was so close to a real person that I know and the subject line was a believable one from Conrad. While Conrad does sometimes send silly email about COOKS and PRAWN, he rarely asks me for my credit card number.

“Parcel Direct” takes parcels, but is not terribly direct. More specifically, they sit on your parcel for several days in West Virginia, then several more in Wisconsin before sending it out somewhere where it cannot be tracked for several days. I have no idea where my parcel is, but it was supposed to be here a few days ago.

P.S. Northwest Noise, The Delta Park Project, and The Area 51 Show are good Portland-based podcasts. The first is just a couple of funny guys with a microphone. The second is a husband and wife team. The third sounds more like a professional comedy troupe. The Area 51 Show typically has a number of fake commercials, including this one. (It is less than a minute and you HAVE to keep listening until it gets crazy about half-way through).

Posted in: Code Dear Diary Quotes

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *