Category: the value of X

phishing gets more sophisticated?

This was a recent piece of phishing spam that looked a lot like a real eBay communication. It’s even addressed to me, rather than to “member@ebay.com” or something similar.

Phishery

But that link? Nah, I don’t think so.
Now playing: Balalaika Gap by Camper Van Beethoven from the album “Cigarettes And Carrot Juice- The Santa Cruz Years (Disc 1-Telephone Free Landslide Victory)”

pinhole camera update

Well, the glue seems to have worked (Gorilla Glue is strange stuff — takes some getting used to).

Interesting feature this camera body has that I didn’t realize: there is a little dark-slide on the viewfinder window that allows you to black out that window, so you can make sure your camera is light-tight.

So now it’s time to run some film through it. It has a threaded tripod mount and will take a cable release, so all in all, this might be a good test.

Continue reading “pinhole camera update”

glad I didn’t read this a month ago

On the advice of Neil Gaiman, I picked up The King of Elfland’s Daughter and looked up some information on the author.

Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.

I was a little surprised at this. I won’t say that my NaNoWriMo attempt is similar but there is something in the stuff I wrote that could be a very faint echo of this, though without the bloodthirsty aspect.

The Elfland book seems to be very good. Strong stuff though, needing to be taken in sips, not great draughts.

Now playing: Humpty Dumpty by Aimee Mann from the album “Lost in Space”

does defining yourself by what you hate make sense?

In my experience, liberals define their beliefs in terms of what they want or hope for, while self-identified conservatives are always against something — taxes, business regulations, entitlements. What does that say about the two creeds?

I’ve never met a Conservative I didn’t like…:

I’ve never met a Conservative I didn’t like…
…possibly because I’ve never met a Conservative.

I’ve met lots of people who call themselves Conservatives. Some of them are Right Wing reactionaries and authoritarians with none of the respect for tradition, fiscal responsibilitity, suspicion of strong, centralized Government, and belief in civil discourse that characterize true Conservatives. Wanting to burn down the world to make it over new, even if that Brave New World will have no Liberals living in it, is not a Conservative attitude.

These “Conservatives” are Radical Reactionaries. They sometimes like to call themselves Revolutionaries, but they are revolutionary in the way the Luddites were revolutionary or the supporters of the Pretender Bonnie Prince Charlie were revolutionary. They want to go backwards. They are in revolt against the contemporary world, and not every revolt isn’t a revolution.

This opener is in response to this post. Both worth a read.