blog() or die;

if your fs is case-insensitive, please make globbing case-insensitive...

$ ls -l | grep -i graphics
drwxr-xr-x     7 nharkins  nharkins       238 Apr  9 23:20 Graphics

$ ls -ld graphics
drwxr-xr-x   7 nharkins  nharkins  238 Apr  9 23:20 graphics

$ ls -ld graph* 
ls: graph*: No such file or directory

(reformatted the drive case-sensitive for a while, but various osx apps don't like it)

$ python -c 'print -1**0'
-1
$ perl -e 'print -1**0 ."\n";'
-1
$ echo '-1^0' | bc
1
$ python -c "print pow(-1,0)"
1

Got asked about bigint math last week, and although I know how it's done, I don't think I ever actually coded it (instead relying on the dozens of libs that surely were built for speed), so yesterday I wrote one, and while checking some results, I learned something interesting about Apple's Desk Calculator app:

AppleDeskCalc

Just heard about what sounds like a new spammer technique from my dad: apparently, someone signed up a myspace account using his email address, and now he's getting friend requests, and no doubt the link about the other person has spam links on it. Somewhat similar to the old the-bounce-is-the-spam technique, the spammers are banking (their time and effort) that mail from myspace will get through the intended victim's spam filters.

Of course since read access to an external email address is the most common, albeit high-latency, form of delegated authentication (sorry openid, maybe someday! :), my dad could easily claim control of the myspace account via a Forgot-Password? link, change event->email preferences, and most importantly also change the Forgot-Password? question/answer if it exists (tangent: I wonder how many bloggers have mentioned their Mother's Maiden Name, First Pet, or Elementary School publicly).

But ideally no spams (or confusing links to links to spam) should ever arrive, so in my opinion, all web2.0 sites should add an email confirmation step (same as if they lost their password) to their signup process, and keep accounts in limbo/unable to ping others until it is completed.

I'm sure usability freaks (i say that with much love, a dear friend is one :) will cringe at this suggestion, as they likely did to captchas ("now you want both!?"), but it's common sense, really. It prevents devaluing your product's communications (if your company's emails are blocked everywhere and you can't get it unblocked by cooperating, might as well close up shop!), and it provides a trail. It took 10 years for the feds to figure out how to catch email spammers, so it'll be a while until web2.0 has the same level of attention, but if you can force the criminals to use the known vector of email, you're making it easier for them to eventualy get caught, and stop abusing your service. (Just finished watching Season 5 of HBO's The Wire, and yes in some things I'm hopelessly optimistic. :)

"to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens". 

Before:

Hairy-pussy

Shaved-pussy

 
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/05/12/ranking-the-politics-of-supreme-court-justices.html
 
"The more conservatives join a conservative court, the more conservative each [conservative] justice gets. The same thing doesn't appear to be true, curiously, for left-leaning judges. The authors find that the court's liberal justices are driven to vote more ideologically not when their numbers grow but when they begin to drop. The fewer justices there are on the court appointed by Democratic presidents, in other words—meaning the more outnumbered the liberal justices are—the more liberal those justices get."
 

damn lighting made it so ya can't see the lyrics... need someone to photoshop them back in!

photo.jpg

for the uninitiated:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickroll#.22RickRoll.22_internet_phenomenon

http://xkcd.com/351/

...and check out this cool lisa lisa cult jam song while you're at it: http://tinyurl.com/2q9j9y

i wonder what's in this office cupboard...?

whats-in-here.jpg

....

omg-cups.jpg

 
yet another friend just emailed me the "girl's sexy costume warehouse big sale" joke commercial on youtube (that i saw on comedy central a week or two ago). i'm sure others have blogged the shit out of it, so i'll spare you and not expend the 3 clicks necessary to embed it here (mentioning-and-NOT-embedding is the new cool thing). if you don't know what i'm talking about, you can search for the damn thing yourself. the internet's great like that.
 
it's somewhat interesting that it's no longer possible to instantly assume which forum came first,
as comedy central has started playing random shit they found on youtube without explanation.
 
anyway, it definately got me nostalgic for the early days of east coast commercials.
having been a latch-key child, some classics come to mind:

* The horrid boss' wife/daughter from Atlantic Transmission.
* Doors Unlimited.... Unlimited.. Doors!
* Jacoby and Meyers Personal Injury Lawyers. (immortalized in beastie boys lyrics "got more suits than...")
* I-Deal!

for some reason, their obscurity has been my barometer for whether the internet has truly arrived or not.
no video yet (few household vcrs in the early 70s), but this implies to me that we're getting close!:
 

IDEAL CLOTHING COMMERCIAL Retro JINGLE FROM THE 60's 70's

note: for some reason, they made the jingle un-embeddable, but it can still be played on youtube here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oQFlkK9nYYs

addendum: almost forgot this wacky joint, from which i wound up living a mere 2 blocks away, and is probably responsible for my love of sans-a-belt pants. (bonus: the channel 17 station id thing at the front! ):

Krass Brothers 6

another addendum, for posterity, i'll give in and embed the girl's sexy costume warehouse clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=V4rUiV_Hh74

damn vox embedding doesn't work via safari. will re-edit from firefox later.

Girls's Costume Warehouse