-
The article I referred to at lunch
Where did I have lunch? What was the reference?
These things are a mystery. However, here is the article
Man accused of diverting others’ mail to himself
A man was charged with using scores of change-of-address forms to divert mail from all over the nation to his address in Beaver County.
Federal prosecutors this week charged Fred Hill of Aliquippa with wire fraud, accusing him of diverting mail from people both living and dead.
Postal inspectors said in court records that when they entered an Aliquippa home where Mr. Hill had stayed, they found “a significant volume” of abandoned mail along with lists of Social Security numbers and names of people in California, Georgia and Arkansas.
…
Since January, Fred Hill had used the Postal Service’s Web site to file 170 change-of-address forms since January, authorities alleged in court records. The same credit card had been used to pay the $1 charge for filing change-of-address forms online, they said.170!
On another note, Ralph of Luttrell Guitars did a wonderful job installing the new FishMan pickup.
That’s been my day so far.
-
Everyone watching everything
Bruce Schneier has a very interesting post about the current state of internet monitoring, which would seem to be pretty total. He links to a Daily Kos piece, which states
Specifically, this equipment was the Narus ST-6400, a machine that was capable of monitoring over 622 Mbits/second in real time in May, 2000, and capturing anything that hits its’ semantic (i.e. the meaning of the content) triggers. The latest generation is called NarusInsight, capable of monitoring 10 billion bits of data per second.
I recommend reading the whole thing. It seems to have no direct purpose, it doesn’t break a single code, and it does absolutely nothing to discover anything about the use of steganography (messages in plain site). However it does seem like it would be useful to discover the terrorist (or whatever) networks (probably with a lot of false positives).
In any case, I think it’s safe to say we have no digital privacy anymore.
-
Battle of the Banks
I’ve been searching for a new savings account lately, and my eye has been drawn to NetBank and HSBC Direct. Netbank has more fees, but they do publish their online Average Percentage Yield, whereas HSBC has no fees, but they do not list their APY outside of their promotion.
Have any of my loyal readers had any experience with these companies?
-
Monday round up
- Catch and release attention
- Google Earth now tracks flights.
- Michael Yon is in Afghanistan, with some stunning photography.
- A massive list of free utility software.
- Positive imaging.
-
30 miles
I decide to wreak my lonerism on the Georgia road system today and wind up going 30 miles; a personal best for the year. I also cracked 35 miles an hour on one downhill portion of the trek.
I rode to Stone Mountain and from there to Gwinnett county (Norcross I think) on Mountain Industrial, which changes names to Jimmy Carter Boulevard at some point.
I do NOT reccomend that particular route. Once you pass through Tucker the traffic gets quite scary in terms of both drivers and the actual roadway. I was the only biker I saw in the Gwinnett country portion of the journey.
The top picture was where I turned, it was some exit off of I-85. The low picture is sort of Easter-y I suppose.
-
Scouting photo sites
As soon as I get my model situation sorted out, the next fiddler photo series expedition will be shot here around sundown. I arrived too late last night for any good silouetting to occur, but I did fake it a bit in Photoshop. -
An interesting evening at Mulligans open mic night
Last night I attended the Mulligans Acoustic Thursdays event. While not really geared for me (I like the strict structure and announced keys of bluegrass) it wasn’t bad. I basically played with Matt Greenia and various members of the Sour Mash band for a few hours. While I am not a fan of the jam band sound, they do actually get up and play out, which is nice. I did figure out Me and Bobby McGee for this girl from the crowd to sing.
-
This should be a bumper-sticker
From the Mulligan’s (home of the HamDog) MySpace page.
If it has a face, we can deep fry it!
A review of their Thursday open mic will be here soon.
For those who don’t get the joke, the de facto motto of people who don’t eat meat for ethicquoal reasons is that “They don’t eat anything with a face.”
-
Another interesting Steyn column
About the Persian Peril. It features the notable quote “Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue”.
Meanwhile, over on FoxNews, you can read the article Academics Develop Formula for Perfect Butt.
Which is
(S+C) x (B+F) / (T-V).
* S = overall shape (a ripe peach being just about right)
* C = circularity (rounder is better)
* B = bounciness (less wobble is preferred)
* F = firmness (too much push to that cushion loses points)
* T = skin texture (no cellulite, please)
* V = the ratio of one’s hips to waist. Finally, do the math.…
But science really settles nothing, says booty expert Sir-Mix-A-Lot.“They got to be juicy, round, with a little jiggle to it,” the “Baby Got Back” rapper told The Post yesterday, laughing hysterically. “The bubbliness does matter.”
But there’s only one way to measure the most desirable derriere, he said.
“You know it when you see it,” he said. “We could debate this all day.”
Really, that was a real article.
-
But I had my fingers crossed…….
Here is most of last night’s South Park courtesy of YouTube.com. It would seem that Comedy Central did indeed censor the episode, and that was not a pr trick. Oddly enough, the image of Mohammed DOES appear in the opening credits to the syndicated version of the program.