I just managed to roll my own RSS feed for comments. It is available here: http://people.etango.com/~wrodina/blog/comments.xml
This is more or less for my own use (so I can review them in my aggregator, and not have to load a web page each time), but I'm proud that it worked so I thought I'd share.
Woo.
This is one of the saddest stories I have read in quite some time:
David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space.
Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon.
Full story is here.
This one got by my spam filters. Normally I just delete messages like these, but there were some amusing points I noticed, so I thought I'd do a breakdown here. Enjoy!
charles soludo
> Dear Friend,
>
> I am charles soludo, a deceased client of ours, by name MR Thomas
> Greg,who hereinafter shall be referred to as our client,died as a
> result of a heart-related condition in November 2001.
"Charles Soludo" appears to be the name of the Central Bank Governor in Nigeria. Hm... Nigeria. Nigeria. Why does that country sound so familiar?
> I am contacting you to assist in repatriating the money left behind
> by my client before it is onfiscated or declared unserviceable by
Oh, how I hate it when money is onfiscated.
> this bank where this deposit valued at $13.5M (Thirteen million five
> hundred dollars) is lodged. This bank has issued me a notice to
> contact the next of kin, or the account will be confiscated since the
> lodgement was made in my branch and all the effort to locate the
> extended family has failed.
I thought you were the Central Bank Governor? Why not just put the smack down on them?
> My proposition to you is to seek your consent to present you as the
> next-of-kin and beneficiary of my named client, so that the proceeds
> of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a
Somehow, I doubt that a white boy from the midwest will pass for next-of-kin of a Nigerian businessman: "No, he was my father! I swear! I have that Michael Jackson skin condition thing!"
> mutually agreed percentage. This is the best period to claim this
> fund as we are fast approaching the first quater payment of the
> physcal year 20045.
Actually, by my count we have 18,040 years to go before that deadline.
> All legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next-of-kin
> will be provided. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable
"Honest" cooperation? You mean I should honestly pretend to be someone I'm not so you and I can steal 13.5 million bucks?
> us see this transaction through.This will be executed under a
> legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the
> law. If this business proposition offends your moral values,do accept
> my apology. Please contact me at once to indicate your interest as it
> were.
If it's legitimate then why are you worried about offending my moral values?
> Be rest assured once more that the transaction is 100% risky free and
Oooooh, 100% risky free? Or 100% risky?
> there will be no hitches either now or in the future, as every
> supposedly loose ends have been knitted. Please while replying this
What loose ends? I thought it was legitimate?
> mail include your telephone number fax and banking details.
Sure thing -- I often send my bank account and credit card numbers out over email to strangers.
> PLEASE ACCORD MAXIMUM CONFIDENTIALITY AND SECRECY TO THIS
> TRANSACTION.
> Best regards,
>
> charles soludo.
> Respond before it is late.
What's the time difference between Pittsburgh and Nigeria? I don't know if it's late there or not.
> __________________________
> Cashette stops spam. 100% effective and free! Go to http://home.cashette.com
That's about the greatest end to this message that I could have imagined!
In the past year, the earth has seen:
- some of the worst flooding in history in Mexico
- 4 severe hurricanes in Florida
- flooding in Pittsburgh, PA (my hometown) with the highest single-day rainfall ever
- the highest number of typhoons ever to hit Japan in a single season
- the worst drought in 50 years in China
- quite possibly the worst earthquake/tsunami ever in Asia
- snowstorms in California and Texas
- torrential rainfall and mudslides in California
To quote one of my favorite programs, Family Guy: "You want an explanation? GOD IS PISSED!"
Normally I am not one to make New Year's resolutions. Perhaps it's the cynic within me, but I never feel as though I can keep to something for an entire year.
Perhaps I am gaining in wisdom with age, or perhaps it's foolish optimism -- but either way, I have made two resolutions for the year of 2005:
1. Lose 25 pounds. This is hardly earth shattering... it works out to roughly 2 pounds per month. I feel that this is a reasonable goal and something that I can keep to for a year. Unlike my friend Mr. Mascolino, I will not be making my progress a matter of public record. If I do well with it, I'll probably post my ending result at year-end. I am anticipating making this a 2-year project to lose 50 pounds... but I'm going to go one year at a time here.
2. Learn Assembly Language. Why? I have the desire to learn something inherently geeky for no other reason than just to learn it. I've got some programming training and skills under my belt: Visual Basic, HTML, PHP, ASP, and Ada, as well as being able to more or less "follow" a reading of some C and other high-level languages. My thinking is that assembly language is, bar none, the absolute most powerful programming language available -- one that lets you come down to the level of the hardware and interact with it directly. So I thought a year would be a good time frame for me to gain a basic understanding of coding in assembly; I will try to post some of my learnings here as time permits.
Depending on how this year ends up, I may or may not be making any more resolutions. But we shall see.
About 2:30 this morning, I awoke to a most peculiar and annoying sound. Of course, it took me a moment to realize that it was my phone ringing. And while generally I ignore the phone if I don't feel like talking, there is apparently some sort of subconscious reflex that forces people to answer a ringing phone when half asleep.
It was my neighbor calling. She was very politely calling to tell me that the horn on one of our cars was stuck on.
I hate cars.
Anyway, once she mentioned it, I could hear something that sounded like a horn in the distance. As I opened the front door and stumbled outside into the heavy rainfall, it got louder. Much louder. I discovered that it was, in fact, our little green Neon wailing at the top of its lungs.
My wife had mentioned to me earlier that evening that there was some sort of leak in the roof that was dripping onto the steering wheel when it rains. I figured I would take it to the mechanic sometime this week and have it looked at. Of course, our weather forecast calls for heavy rain that began last night and will carry though into Thursday. My guess is that enough water dripped into the steering column to short out some of the wires and cause the horn to engage.
I ran down into the basement, and wished that I had a proper-sized adjustable wrench so I could disconnect the battery. I grabbed a wrong-sized wrench and a pair of pliers, and headed back up to argue with the battery.
After a couple minutes, my neighbor (the father of the girl who called me) came out to see if he could help. A minute or two later, a nice police officer pulled up alongside and did the same.
Not at all embarrasing.
My neighbor went back inside to see if he had a wrench, and the police officer offered to give it a try with the pliers. He did manage to get one of the terminal wires off, and silence filled the air. I heard his radio kick in afterwards... apparently someone on my street had called in about some kind of alarm going off in the area. He was able to clear that call right away, now that my horn was quiet.
The policeman and my neighbor left, and I rigged up something with rags and a plastic bag to keep the dripping water from going into the steering column. Then I went back to bed.
I have no idea why all my neighbors heard the horn but we did not. Of course, this kind of thing never happens on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, I have done some research this morning and found out where I can find the fuse and relay for the horn, so when I go home I may try to pop the fuse out and reconnect the battery, so at least I can drive the car to the shop.
Did I mention I hate cars?