Dimensional warp generator needed

Filed under: Personal | 4 Comments

This is the best spam I have ever gotten… In fact I have gotten it twice (making it even more funny). Feel free to share your best spam.

From:michaelk@bahn.de
Subject: Dimensional Warp Generator Needed

Hello,

I’m a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Since nobody here seems to be able to get me what I need (safely here to me), I will have to build a simple time travel circut to get where I need myself. I am going to need an easy to follow picture diagram for a simple time travel circut, which can be built out of (readily available) parts here in 2003. Please email me any schematics you have. I will pay good money for anything you send me I can use Or if you have the rechargeable AMD dimensional warp generator wrist watch unit available, and are 100% certain you have a (secure) means of delivering it to me please also reply. Send a separate email to me at: info@federalfundingprogram.com.

Do not reply back directly to this email as it will only be bounced back to you.

Thank You

Update: this guy is for real… Wired tracked him down!

Dead pixel policy

Filed under: Web/Tech | No Comments »

MacMerc posted an internal document from Apple that spreads light on their dead pixel policy. Pretty cool except that now I’m going to be full of anxiety when I buy the laptop I have been waiting months for (Jobs, get off your butt and release the new PB’s).

Update: Well, now we know that Apple Legal reads the site :P.

In Google News

Filed under: Personal | 1 Comment

MobileTracker made it into Google News. Hella cool. I’ve been busting my ass to keep up the 60% monthly growth. Maybe this will help.

Update: It doesn’t help nearly as much as BoingBoing. Xeni Jardin kicks major butt.

POST variables via cURL? [make money + updated]

Filed under: Web/Tech | No Comments »

Anyone know the best way to send POST variables via cURL? Basically I want to be able to have my script be able to hop through registration hoops. No, I am not automating registrations to send spam. I just want to have scripts access pages that need a log-in (that I pay for).

If anyone can give me the code in PHP to access let’s say current NYT articles (given any username/password), I’ll PayPal you $25. It doesn’t have to be complete, I just need the cURL curl_setopt() stuff. Once I get it working, I’ll send you the money. First working solution wins.

Deal’s off. I’ll roll my own. Oh, and the new PHP|Arcitect has the answer. God I love that thing.

Technorati watch list

Filed under: Weblogs | 2 Comments

I paid $10 to have a Technorati watch list in NetNewsWire. I’ve used the service (just going to the site) so much, I figured I’ve probably cost David Sifry as much in bandwidth charges. About time I give back. If you don’t use Technorati, don’t call yourself a blogger (or at least an ego-blogger).

USPS tracking is a joke

Filed under: Rant | 763 Comments

Call me a conservative, but the USPS is worthless. Take for instance their “tracking”. It was instated because consumers were laughing at them for not having tracking, and then going to UPS/FedEX/Airborne even though it costs more. Imagine paying more for a better service?

Anyway, USPS finally got with the 21st century (a while ago, but this is still relevant) and has tracking on some shipments. Everytime I have had a package coming via USPS that includes tracking, I check the site religously. Every time I get greeted with the same thing: it’s been shipped.

Yes, just that it has been shipped. I knew that. I couldn’t be checking it if it didn’t ship. Like the moron I am, I keep checking for updates (something that UPS/FedEx/Airborne do all the time) and nothing changes. I then receive the package, and then check the site (see, wasn’t kidding about the moron part). Still nothing. A few hours later it updates and said it has been delivered. Again… I KNEW THAT.

This faux tracking is nothing more than a bureaucratic tease. It half works–I keep checking just in case they get their junk together. It’s a lost cause.

So why do I ship with USPS? Stupid Amazon. I can’t see paying extra so I can track how slow it’s taking. I’m not sure how they decide who to ship with, the last time I selected “super saver shipping” (AKA free), they sent it UPS and I got lovely/timely meta data.

Tying a domain name into TypePad [updated]

Filed under: Links | 2 Comments

So how do we tie a domain name into TypePad? I think I want to make blog.n3rd.net map to iheartmena.typepad.com. Easy enough, but it’s my understanding that I can have it not just re-direct, but actually be the new domain name. Any help would be appreciated.

I was really counting on this feature because I picked my domain name just to put a smile on the faces over at Six Apart… Now that everything is public, I don’t want to have that “stalker vibe” that would so easily come with my domain name.

Update: From the beta list email…

The most common request we’ve had from our users is wanting to know if and when we will support pointing domain names like example.com to TypePad sites like example.typepad.com. We plan to enable this feature, which we’re calling “domain mapping”, before September.

No worries

Filed under: Rant | No Comments »

Cookies won’t hurt you. Server logs will. HTTP is stateless. Don’t count on anything working if you refuse to come to the 21st century. In the end though, it doesn’t even matter—kids like me will still track and thus market your ass no matter what you do.

12 hours ’til TypePad

Filed under: Praise | 3 Comments

W00t! Only 12 21 hours to go until we can all fork over our savings to the folks at Six Apart. Seriously, any company with a CTO daring enough to wear the shirt of a competitor in a promo photo is a company that deserves your money.

Update: OK, so I was a little mixed up. Not quite sure how… I must have been dreaming about SixApart. That’s pretty scary. Anyway, not much longer now!

Currently reading [updated]

Filed under: Personal | 4 Comments

Read a few good books in the past few weeks… I don’t have space for a TypeList, so here they are:

Speaker for the Dead – Orson Scott Card – Set in the future when we find the 2nd alien race. We killed the first, and try our best to not screw up the second.

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – Set in the early 19th century, a young sailer who has everything going for him gets wrongly accused and put in prison for 13 years. His rise back to power (and his schemes to get back at his accusers) is as good as it gets.

The Count of Monte Cristo is also a movie… I’ll have to check it out. Its got really high marks on Amazon and a decent rating at IMDB

I’ve heard they are making Ender’s Game a movie (Speaker for the Dead is the 4th in the same series), but I cannot find any details.

Update: If anyone wants to do a bookshare, I’m open. I have three more coming from Amazon… Shadow of the Hegemon, Fightclub and Survivor (another novel by Chuck Palahniuk). So, if you want any of these or the ones above, let me know what you have in exchange. Media rate is cheap.