Gecko Bloggle

A B. K. Marcus has just posted this thing about how the Howells on GIlligan’s Island were rich, even though there was nobody on the island to enforce the worth of the money.

Kinda neat, kinda weird.

Click here to check it out.

Obituaries (08/28/04)

BURTON _ Joan Bell (nee Moroney). Born in Edmonton on January 11, 1922, passed away peacefully in Vernon Jubilee Hospital on August 24, 2004. Predeceased by her parents, Frederick Edward and Maud Ellen (nee Lauder), her sisters Helen, Margaret, Kathleen, Mary, Jean, Noreen and brothers, Patrick and James. Also predeceased by her beloved husband, William Donald Burton, in 1973. Lovingly remembered by her children, Tami Burgess (Ken), Wendy (Roger Tro), John, Mary-Anne Taylor (Brian), Bill (Jaqui) and Sherry (Jim Blom). Missing Oma are her grandchildren, John (Arwen), Diana, Anita (David Bergman), Michael, Kyle, Mitchell, Ellen, Dex, Harry, Kevin and great-grandson, Ripley. Very special thanks to Joanne Owens for her friendship, love and care of Mum these past few years and special thanks to the staff at Comfort Living for Seniors in Vernon. No funeral service by request. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Royal Canadian Legion would be greatly appreciated.

Rip and I went to Hornby Island for a week (the lady in the first few shots is Maggie, and she’s proof positive that Ripley prefers blondes). Check out the photos of Ripley and Daddy – Unplugged.

Don’t forget to play with the layouts/styles of this blog, using the WPStyle plugin at the bottom right of the blog.

Cause it’s cool, that’s why.

Okay, so I scared myself very badly tonight by not really reading all of the documentation and forums and stuff at the site for WordPress, and there was about an hour there where my database and file structure for this blog looked like maybe my web site had ’sploded.

Not so, but still… Really thought I’d cooked everything.

Clouds is a collaborative photomosaic of everything being sent in by kids with phonecameras.

It’s curently being SlashDotted right now, but I’ll have to check it out later.

Found this in the comments for the Slashdot story about SHA-0 Broken

Yep — that’s right. I’m not a crypto expert. Hell — I’m a layman compared to most /.’ers, and my user number proves it (all 7 embarrassing digits of it). But I do know this — if Slashdot crypto geeks are concerned about it, then we’ve reached the point of…

CARRYING A MIDGET AROUND.

Yes, it’s true. Every person with encrypted data on Earth will soon have to carry around a Level 10 Anthromorphic Hexidecimal Midget Encryption System. Or “Midget Key” for short. The midget will become part of every computer purchase where the user requires high encryption, secured communications, etc. Families without sufficient room to accommodate and feed the midget will have to run computers with the old and vulnerable encryption technologies.

Meanwhile, those of us with a Midget Key will need to have his/her encryption midget with us at all times. The midget will encrypt data locally by locking a portable hard drive to his/her wrist and preventing anyone OTHER THAN THE OWNER of said local data from accessing it again. To facilitate this local midget encryption, each encryption midget will be equipped with:

– body armor
– handgun
– lightweight sub-machine gun
– tactical nuclear or convential explosive self destruct device

Addtionally, each encryption midget will be required to communicate with all other encryption midgets around the world using special genetically encoded phones that cannot be replicated outside of the midget gene pool. The phone will be surgically embedded in the arm of each encryption midget and require a drop of said midget’s body temperature saliva to activate the phone (a.k.a. spit on the arm to make the call).

Why encryption midgets? They’re:

– portable
– eat less than an encryption giant and/or an encryption obese person
– tough as nails

Why tough as nails? If you’ve watched The Amazing Race at all this season on CBS, you have witnessed a midget drag her whiney, lazy cousin around the world. She has become the envy of other teams featuring health nuts, ex-Marines, and super-Christians. Who wouldn’t entrust their data with a badass little person that can grab a live electrified cattle fence somewhere in South America, cuss about it, and STILL manage to continue the race?

Get me THAT encryption midget, and you’ll never get a hold of MY data!

IronChefMorimoto

[Note — if the midget from the show mentioned above has been eliminated from said show, then our data is doomed. I’ve missed the last several episodes, so all may be lost.]

Can’t you tell?

Going to the island tomorrow, with Rippity Roo to see Gramma Yaya.

Let’s see if I remember how to NOT work… Does wearing my “No, I will not fix your computer.” t-shirt count?

Hello fellow netizens.

Okay, so a piece of spam made it through my filters today (fyi: during the day or two that I had no mail at all, and was trying to figure out what the heck was going on, I turned off my filter and started getting 10-20 a day instead of the 2-3 a week I’m used to, so I guess my filters are working, once properly configured), and it was this huge graphic trying to sell me something. No big shock there, but what I’ve been noticing more and more in spam is the tendency for the spammers to add entire words and paragraphs to their messages in order to pad them (and maybe allow some through based on content that would “overrule” the filters). Usually it’s just monkey-poundings in order to make each email unique in some way, so that they can’t be bulk deleted easily.

In this particular message, the following gibberish was added:

addictions boulevards midrange immaculately sating cowhide methodicalness craziness examiner imitated pop sans huddle crossword porphyry tallness seasonable achievable possible teemed identifies posit sculpt bernardino popularly accompanist hypocycloid
poet saturates schoolmaster positives hour saunter evictions braze etymology asher crackle technical tarry 9th searched bogs bolshevist tentatively humble angles bothersome coverall add covary terrorizing bookkeep bowstring
talon mention eureka boil evaporating exercisable hub postulate midscale medicate scare counsels hyperbolic counteracted boner plower pourer playground athenian scalable brandish admissible ajax poplin botulin schelling exposition
coverlet posters credulity schematic bravado acreage armenia terrapin euphemisms husband seat alpert crag micro expels poked hybrid menu adduct messing creates exclaimed pose televising mercurial excursus annalen
countrify exceptional boss polyhedron bowstring cozen horticulture aristotle exponentially icosahedron scholastically bluegrass mauve metallizations plead poled exalts scares ignorance exhortations craved searches accountable accountably expeditiously alfred mathematic
hungering methodology admiring schizoid accustoming counterargument scuba anglophobia covertly almaden course audrey alabamian scrupulous melon brasses scurvy excavate cowpox merciless saner tankers adamson armco horrid accurateness tarantara

In some deeply disturbing way, it’s almost pretty.

Anybody else seen stuff like this? The junk in this message was originally white (on white background), so sometimes you have to go look.

So yeah, that’s all I have to say.

Word, nords.

PS: Have I already posted about this CONTROL-A stuff? http://www.toccionline.com/creations/ctrla/ Pretty neat trick.

Found this circa Sept ’02, around the time we got our copy of “Letters from a Nut“:

Your request has been received by one of our Customer Service Representatives.
We will provide you with a response as soon as possible.
Thank you for choosing Shaw!

Here is a copy of the request you submitted:

Funny, she doesn’t appear to have had any kinda reply back from Shaw…