ladybug ladybug fly away home

and they did just that. I see very few of them around, no evidence of larvae, and too many aphids. Soapy water will have to do for now until I get more critters. There is a certain visceral pleasure in knocking the little parasites into the air . . . .

Darwin and Fink

Darwin – Open Source

Well, it turned out to be more complicated than I expected. The binary installation I did in Mac OS X failed when some files were moved at Sourceforge. So I had to pull them down by hand: annoying and inconvenient but not a showstopper.

On Darwin — the Aqua-less version — it was worse. Binary installations are not an option, and installing from source was frustrating.
Continue reading “Darwin and Fink”

cast a broad enough net, catch a sucker every time

The Register

You’d think no-one would fall for the scam – known as a 419, after the relevant section of Nigeria’s criminal code. But you’d be wrong: a few years ago, the Nigerian government placed ads in the FT, warning people not to be greedy and not to be suckers. If you got trapped, it was your own fault, so don’t go running to the Nigerian government for your money back.

If you have never gotten one of these little gems, you’re lucky. You’d think people would realize it’s a scam. The most recent one I read claimed the money — tens of millions — was the result of overbilled contracts: in other words, fraud. Any sensible person would immediately press “delete.” Not if your greed impairs your judgment, apparently.