News You Can Bruise for 2002 May 27

Addendum: I don't feel that way about broadcast advertising, only about advertising that's addressed to me personally (even if it was part of a mass mailing). Broadcast advertising I don't like but I can deal with.

On a brighter note, I present the Food Circus: "Direct your attention to the center ring, where we will prepare roast duck in mushroom gravy!"

A crawler crawled my site and spammed many addresses (including, humorously, qpoeta@roma.antiqua.it) with a spam scam, but Kris was the first to claim it:

• Organization/Country: Angola/Angolan government-owned diamond company
• Amount: $12,000,000
• Kris' Cut: Not specified
• Proposed Crime: Fraud

And one more old-school from Kevan Davis: he says he was "actually disappointed at how piffling $15 million seemed".

• Organization/Country: Nigeria/Wife of former (and late) Nigerian government official
• Amount: $15,000,000
• Kevan's Cut: 20% ($3,000,000)
• Proposed Crime: Just plain money laundering

Whale meeting ends in fury; "It's payback time!", say world's whales

Wow! Danny O'Brien was just in my room! He and a friend, Quinn Norton, brought Seth up from San Jose, where the three of them had been attending BayCon. Seth was meeting Sumana at my house for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, so I got to meet and talk to (and have a photo op with) Danny. Seth and I showed him the Latin spam and he promised to send me a Yoda spam he has.

I'm still in Danny O'Brien shock. The only thing that could make this better would be if Brian Behlendorf (the world's biggest NTK fan) were also to meet Danny O'Brien, and if in the course of conversation Danny were to casually mention his acquaintance with me (in continuation of my longstanding plan to flummox Brian).

I have the vague feeling that I somehow let Danny O'Brien "get away" by not going with Sumana and Seth to the bridge (Danny and Quinn were going to drive them part of the way). However, that is silly. In addition, the bridge was from the beginning a Sumana/Seth joint venture in on which I'm loath to butt, and there's a lot of game work to do (Seth previewed my game; I think I need to make the prelude shorter).

No funny comment, it's just cool: Astronomers Find Jupiter-Like Weather On Brown Dwarfs

My mother sent me a bunch of engineer jokes, of which two I hadn't heard before:

1. To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
2. What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil Engineers?

   Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.

Do I dare to register breadedclams.com?

Oh, I forgot to mention that Sumana and I went to Kevin's new (and awesome) house yesterday and helped him move stuff. We also ate pizza, which was delicious. And Sumana got a bike. The end.

Disturbing Spam Subject Lines: Stop begging lenders. Have them beg you!