Scamming the spammers
How to beat the Nigerians (or the Cote D’Ivoirians, in this case) at their own game, and get some lovely handcrafted art out of the deal.
Archive for Reads
Perspective on the atom and atom guts
I was reading way over my head today on quantum computing (link to the PDF here, from the Ethel the Aardvark’s Weensy Book Of Funderful Algorithms [made you look]). Quantum computing is just starting to be a (scary and exciting) real thing. How scary and exciting? No more secrets, Marty.
The gist of it is, properly harnessed, the mind-bogglingly counterintuitive quantum states of electrons can be used to do a certain type of math problem called Fast Fourier Transforms quicker than puberty on a mayfly, and FFTs done quickly enough will (among other things) make it practical to factor the products of arbitarily large prime numbers, the very unfactorability of which is the basis of modern cryptography. So much for your DRMs and your secure wire transfers and your Colonel’s Secret Recipe.
The other thing that blew my mind atomically tonight was this eleven-mile web page.
bk_keywords:Atomic Kitten, Sneakers.
Hitler or Coulter?
Is Ann Coulter a lying harpy or merely a fraudulent gorgon? I’m not one to get drawn into the fray, but I did enjoy taking the “Who Said It: Adolf Hitler or Ann Coulter?” challenge.
I got 12 out of 14, mostly because of context and linguistic cues (Hitler was a better writer). The two I missed were Coulter quotes I attributed to Hitler.
Also fun:
An article about a formerly gay Christian psychotherapist named Richard Cohen — maybe he’s got a “Jesus made me kosher and fabulous” t-shirt? — who happens to help other men become formerly gay. He does this by cuddling with them and hugging them.
bk_keywords:Lying Liars.
Wytookie alert
In these times of peril, it’s good to know that FEMA is looking out for all of us.
This comes to you courtesy of Mr. Tall Dave.
That dude can write
Here’s something I apparently wrote 19 years ago, courtesy of my very pregnant sister Sarah.
One can only imagine that similar items from my past will trickle into the public realm for many years, and probably continue after my death, just like it went down with L. Ron 2Pac.
Will someone please forward this to the Swedish Academy? My Nobel for Literature is in the freakin’ bag!
Beetle Juice
This has been buggin me for quite some time. Do you know about the cochineal and the carmine? No one ever believes me.
Today I read a short story
Here’s Isaac Asimov talking about The Last Question, first published in 1956:
This is by far my favorite story of all those I have written.
After all, I undertook to tell several trillion years of human history in the space of a short story and I leave it to you as to how well I succeeded. I also undertook another task, but I won’t tell you what that was lest l spoil the story for you.
It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything — and I’m satisfied that it should.
