Log -- David Chess

log (2002/10/25 to 2002/10/31)

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Enter command:
Thursday, October 31, 2002
So I'm much too sleepy to do anything but put up a paragraph or two to satisfy the eagles. Hallowe'en was fun, the little daughter went t-or-t'ing outside the neighborhood for the first time, with three (four?) friends from school. I wore my usual huge polka-dot bow tie to work and got some amused looks (one person said "Nice tie!", and I said "Finally someone notices!").
Let's see. From Hotsy Totsy to an older Hotsy Totsy to some questions on Edge.org to a particular one that seems somehow noteworthy:
What is the difference between the sigmundoscope and the sigmoidoscope? Less cryptically, how is everyday narrative logic different from extensional mathematical logic?

Yeah.
No More AOL CDs dot com (yet another site that really needs a prominent "what is this site all about?" link high on the front page).
Yawn...
Tomorrow: perhaps the first novel excerpt!
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
david chess is the founder
david chess is back from vacation
david chess is talking about
david chess is brilliant
david chess is a research staff member at the ibm watson research center in hawthorne
david chess is camping out over here
david chess is camping out ov
david chess is old skool liberal
david chess is to level names what slige is to levels
david chess is brilliantly funny
david chess is treading on my turf in his web
david chess is very interesting here on libertarianism and whether or not people really should be allowed to
david chess is over here temporarily
david chess is kind enough to suggest another example of loglike fictionlike pageslike
david chess is reading ken mcleod stuff as well
david chess is writing one too
david chess is the scribe for the curvature of the earth is overwhelmed
david chess is ghod
david chess is
david chess is utterly brilliant
david chess is ambivalent about his attraction to some sex toys of the patriarchy

Well, my ego likes Googlism. Thanks to Caterina for the pointer. (I vaguely recall having heard about this before? Is it an Old Thing?)
peanut butter is still a healthy choice for kids
peanut butter is in
peanut butter is here
peanut butter is very homosexual
peanut butter is now red lipstick
peanut butter is the breakfast of champions
peanut butter is not for everyone

On Metababy, someone posted (what I now recognize as) the result of running Googlism on "sex", earlier today. Appropriately enough, when I entered "Metababy", Googlism replied "Error connecting to database".
Who owns which bits of logical space. Note all the amusing historical artifacts.
From gorjuss, another amusing toy. Fritter away hours!
Nigel Campbell writes to say that he's back, which is very neat. He takes good pictures and writes good things. (Maybe when I'm done with my next novel I'll start more actively taking pictures again; I haven't even finished organizing the last couple hundred.)
Tuesday, October 29, 2002
Another late night fiddling with the laptops and obsessively Metababying. Well, I should enjoy it while I can, since in a few short days I will have given up all that for a month, for The Novel.
During November I will of course never procrastinate for hours playing with silly things like Metababy when I should be getting the wordcount up. That will be right out, I will deny that completely.
On our JavaScript hack from yesterday, a reader writes:
you are correct sir [link]

Indeed yes; just one of many fine examples of things that people put into public image hosts for reasons that continue to puzzle me. Probably not associated with an eBay auction in this case.
Speaking of images, here's one solitary Klez-borne image from this week:
a comely woman
This one has a particularly gratifying story behind it: I've been communicating on and off with a variety of 419 scammers, hoping to amuse myself and waste their time, but so far without results worth blogging except for this: the image above was sent by Klez to an address that I've never used except for one letter to a 419 scammer. So I guess the poor fellow has a virus infection. Awwwww!! *8)
(I shouldn't feel too good about this, of course, since he's probably sending infected attachments to his various victims, at least some of whom may not be really clever computer-wise.)
And speaking of 419ers, Boing Boing links to another Slate piece on the subject, this one making the interesting claim that the Nigerian cyber-café industry, and perhaps the entire wired future of that country, is pretty much supported by the 419ers and their little hobby. Plausible? Beats me.
Reason Triumphs, at least for awhile: US Court Protects Doctors Who Recommend Marijuana. That pesky First Amendment interfering with the fight against global terrorism once again.
Monday, October 28, 2002
All sortsa inneresting chaos on Metababy. On Friday morning someone posted a bunch of pages with images from the "pictures of me and my friends" section of someone's personal website, with insulting captions of various kinds under them (real mature and admirable behavior, eh?), and in the afternoon the person noticed, and in retaliation removed big random chunks from about two-thirds of the pages of Metababy.
Those of us with saved copies of our favorite Metababy pages put back much of the site within a few hours, and there was some dialog with the offended person, and he owned that he had perhaps slightly overreacted, and some of us metababies said it was good to see that chivalry was not dead (the most-taunted pictures were of ladies), and things settled down a little.
Then sometime on Saturday or Sunday or something, someone (else?) stuck these skull images onto about half the pages of Metababy, and also apparently went to the website of whoever owned the skull image and dared him to do something about it, and that person rather casually deleted every page from Metababy (at least I think it was every; when I noticed it there were only about a dozen pages there, and I think those had been restored by various metababies).
After the second wave of destruction, some pages got recreated again, but people were less thorough about it. Both a "why bother?" sort of feeling, I think, and a "let's see what sort of new stuff grows" sort of feeling.
Since then, there has been some more posting of pages reridiculding the images that caused the first wave of destruction (but they get deleted pretty quick), and there has been a huge wave of embedding images of Thora Birch (who is some actress or something). No one has become angry about that and deleted the entire site; not yet.
Fascinating place, Metababy. I haven't looked at it since this morning; who knows what's happened to it since.
The Klez virus seems to have mostly stopped sending me interesting images, but something similar was discovered by the Metababians: If you replace the last six characters of:
http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=??????

with six random digits, there's a decent chance that you'll get some random image or other (and, be warned, a nonzero chance that it'll be more or less hardcode porn, although most of it isn't). This is apparently a public image-hosting service that people use to host their teapot pictures for eBay (and their sex pictures for what purpose I cannot at the moment guess).
So that's fun. Someone made a Metababy page that loaded three random possible images from there. (Someone apparently mutated that page into a page that created random pages on Metababy, but that didn't last long, and I missed it.) I won't point you to an archived copy of that page, so as not to tempt you to hammer by poor server looking at all the interesting images, but here's a JavaScript hack that's roughly the same thing: nine sequential images (or absence thereof) from a random point in the namespace, in a three-by-three table.
(Note that when it works, it sometimes takes a long time to load; also all images are coerced into 200 pels wide; some are actually much (much) larger than that.)
Spam Subject Line o' the Week: "Re: Important message for <firstname, you>".
A reader writes:
Hi.. well i was reading your log and you posted something about a yahoo webcam hack? i was wondering if you have one... if so can you plz send it to me? Thanks in advance

I have written him back, begging for him to tell me what a Yahoo Webcam Hack is, and why so many people are so eager to find one.
The End of an Era: Tale Retires (link from ntk).
From Steve, a page of very very cool Flash toys. Gotta learn that there "Flash" stuff someday.

But anyway! Soon all these geeky computer things will be driven entirely out of my mind, for once again I am writing a novel! (Speaking of "out of my mind".) I've signed up at NaNoWriMo (gave them a fifteen dollar donation for all their good works), I've got a working title, I've got a year's worth of plot ideas saved up (looks like this one's going to be a fantasy of some kind, rather than the quasi-realistic quasi-European style of the last one), and I'm getting ready to rock!
M is, understandably, dubious. *8)
But it was such fun last time I can't bring myself not to do it again, despite the fact that I can't imagine where I'm going to find the time. We'll see! Expect the Log to be about little else come next week...
In domestic news, Fall has officially begun, in the form of the first pumpkin and pecan pies of the season. And tonight is the Parent's Preview for the PTA Book Fair, which M is running yet again, so she's out at the school, and I'm supposed to drive random children to random places at random times during the evening; I really should have made a list or something. Ah, well, winging it has worked out pretty well for me so far; why should tonight be any different? Maybe the kids themselves can remind me where they're supposed to go next.

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earlier entries

older log newer log reply about archive search home words site news talking place linkwatcher Enter command:	Thursday, October 31, 2002 So I'm much too sleepy to do anything but put up a paragraph or two to satisfy the eagles. Hallowe'en was fun, the little daughter went t-or-t'ing outside the neighborhood for the first time, with three (four?) friends from school. I wore my usual huge polka-dot bow tie to work and got some amused looks (one person said "Nice tie!", and I said "Finally someone notices!"). Let's see. From Hotsy Totsy to an older Hotsy Totsy to some questions on Edge.org to a particular one that seems somehow noteworthy: What is the difference between the sigmundoscope and the sigmoidoscope? Less cryptically, how is everyday narrative logic different from extensional mathematical logic? Yeah. No More AOL CDs dot com (yet another site that really needs a prominent "what is this site all about?" link high on the front page). Yawn... Tomorrow: perhaps the first novel excerpt! Wednesday, October 30, 2002 david chess is the founder david chess is back from vacation david chess is talking about david chess is brilliant david chess is a research staff member at the ibm watson research center in hawthorne david chess is camping out over here david chess is camping out ov david chess is old skool liberal david chess is to level names what slige is to levels david chess is brilliantly funny david chess is treading on my turf in his web david chess is very interesting here on libertarianism and whether or not people really should be allowed to david chess is over here temporarily david chess is kind enough to suggest another example of loglike fictionlike pageslike david chess is reading ken mcleod stuff as well david chess is writing one too david chess is the scribe for the curvature of the earth is overwhelmed david chess is ghod david chess is david chess is utterly brilliant david chess is ambivalent about his attraction to some sex toys of the patriarchy Well, my ego likes Googlism. Thanks to Caterina for the pointer. (I vaguely recall having heard about this before? Is it an Old Thing?) peanut butter is still a healthy choice for kids peanut butter is in peanut butter is here peanut butter is very homosexual peanut butter is now red lipstick peanut butter is the breakfast of champions peanut butter is not for everyone On Metababy, someone posted (what I now recognize as) the result of running Googlism on "sex", earlier today. Appropriately enough, when I entered "Metababy", Googlism replied "Error connecting to database". Who owns which bits of logical space. Note all the amusing historical artifacts. From gorjuss, another amusing toy. Fritter away hours! Nigel Campbell writes to say that he's back, which is very neat. He takes good pictures and writes good things. (Maybe when I'm done with my next novel I'll start more actively taking pictures again; I haven't even finished organizing the last couple hundred.) Tuesday, October 29, 2002 Another late night fiddling with the laptops and obsessively Metababying. Well, I should enjoy it while I can, since in a few short days I will have given up all that for a month, for The Novel. During November I will of course never procrastinate for hours playing with silly things like Metababy when I should be getting the wordcount up. That will be right out, I will deny that completely. On our JavaScript hack from yesterday, a reader writes: you are correct sir [link] Indeed yes; just one of many fine examples of things that people put into public image hosts for reasons that continue to puzzle me. Probably not associated with an eBay auction in this case. Speaking of images, here's one solitary Klez-borne image from this week: This one has a particularly gratifying story behind it: I've been communicating on and off with a variety of 419 scammers, hoping to amuse myself and waste their time, but so far without results worth blogging except for this: the image above was sent by Klez to an address that I've never used except for one letter to a 419 scammer. So I guess the poor fellow has a virus infection. Awwwww!! 8) (I shouldn't feel too good about this, of course, since he's probably sending infected attachments to his various victims, at least some of whom may not be really clever computer-wise.) And speaking of 419ers, Boing Boing links to another Slate piece on the subject, this one making the interesting claim that the Nigerian cyber-café industry, and perhaps the entire wired future of that country, is pretty much supported by the 419ers and their little hobby. Plausible? Beats me. Reason Triumphs, at least for awhile: US Court Protects Doctors Who Recommend Marijuana. That pesky First Amendment interfering with the fight against global terrorism once again. Monday, October 28, 2002* All sortsa inneresting chaos on Metababy. On Friday morning someone posted a bunch of pages with images from the "pictures of me and my friends" section of someone's personal website, with insulting captions of various kinds under them (real mature and admirable behavior, eh?), and in the afternoon the person noticed, and in retaliation removed big random chunks from about two-thirds of the pages of Metababy. Those of us with saved copies of our favorite Metababy pages put back much of the site within a few hours, and there was some dialog with the offended person, and he owned that he had perhaps slightly overreacted, and some of us metababies said it was good to see that chivalry was not dead (the most-taunted pictures were of ladies), and things settled down a little. Then sometime on Saturday or Sunday or something, someone (else?) stuck these skull images onto about half the pages of Metababy, and also apparently went to the website of whoever owned the skull image and dared him to do something about it, and that person rather casually deleted every page from Metababy (at least I think it was every; when I noticed it there were only about a dozen pages there, and I think those had been restored by various metababies). After the second wave of destruction, some pages got recreated again, but people were less thorough about it. Both a "why bother?" sort of feeling, I think, and a "let's see what sort of new stuff grows" sort of feeling. Since then, there has been some more posting of pages reridiculding the images that caused the first wave of destruction (but they get deleted pretty quick), and there has been a huge wave of embedding images of Thora Birch (who is some actress or something). No one has become angry about that and deleted the entire site; not yet. Fascinating place, Metababy. I haven't looked at it since this morning; who knows what's happened to it since. The Klez virus seems to have mostly stopped sending me interesting images, but something similar was discovered by the Metababians: If you replace the last six characters of: http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/pubimage.asp?id_=?????? with six random digits, there's a decent chance that you'll get some random image or other (and, be warned, a nonzero chance that it'll be more or less hardcode porn, although most of it isn't). This is apparently a public image-hosting service that people use to host their teapot pictures for eBay (and their sex pictures for what purpose I cannot at the moment guess). So that's fun. Someone made a Metababy page that loaded three random possible images from there. (Someone apparently mutated that page into a page that created random pages on Metababy, but that didn't last long, and I missed it.) I won't point you to an archived copy of that page, so as not to tempt you to hammer by poor server looking at all the interesting images, but here's a JavaScript hack that's roughly the same thing: nine sequential images (or absence thereof) from a random point in the namespace, in a three-by-three table. (Note that when it works, it sometimes takes a long time to load; also all images are coerced into 200 pels wide; some are actually much (much) larger than that.) Spam Subject Line o' the Week: "Re: Important message for <firstname, you>". A reader writes: Hi.. well i was reading your log and you posted something about a yahoo webcam hack? i was wondering if you have one... if so can you plz send it to me? Thanks in advance I have written him back, begging for him to tell me what a Yahoo Webcam Hack is, and why so many people are so eager to find one. The End of an Era: Tale Retires (link from ntk). From Steve, a page of very very cool Flash toys. Gotta learn that there "Flash" stuff someday.
	But anyway! Soon all these geeky computer things will be driven entirely out of my mind, for once again I am writing a novel! (Speaking of "out of my mind".) I've signed up at NaNoWriMo (gave them a fifteen dollar donation for all their good works), I've got a working title, I've got a year's worth of plot ideas saved up (looks like this one's going to be a fantasy of some kind, rather than the quasi-realistic quasi-European style of the last one), and I'm getting ready to rock! M is, understandably, dubious. *8) But it was such fun last time I can't bring myself not to do it again, despite the fact that I can't imagine where I'm going to find the time. We'll see! Expect the Log to be about little else come next week... In domestic news, Fall has officially begun, in the form of the first pumpkin and pecan pies of the season. And tonight is the Parent's Preview for the PTA Book Fair, which M is running yet again, so she's out at the school, and I'm supposed to drive random children to random places at random times during the evening; I really should have made a list or something. Ah, well, winging it has worked out pretty well for me so far; why should tonight be any different? Maybe the kids themselves can remind me where they're supposed to go next.
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