Spammers are apparently using trojan horses to get more hosts through which to deliver their shit. I first observed what looked like distributed spam attacks early this year, but I couldn’t find any reference to malware being used to recruit hosts to the effort. I now feel vindicated. For what that’s worth.

Feeding America: the Historic American Cookbook Project

from The Golden Compass:

“Why en’t you cold, Serafina Pekkala?”

“We feel cold, but we don’t mind it, because we will not come to

harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn’t feel other

things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the

Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin.

It’s worth being cold for that.”

Along with all you voyageurs re-enactors, let’s add some Elizabethans! It should be quite a party.

fatherdan at memepool seems to be a thoughtful person. I’d like to link directly to his bit about Tim Robbins’s speech at the National Press Club, but I don’t see a way to do it. It was posted to Commentary on 17 April.

Cisco has prepared a draft of “lawful interception” capability, to be offered as an option on “any product that a service provider is likely to purchase[.]” I’m given to understand that their Catalyst products already supply monitoring capability, but for all I know that’s an ad-hoc capability that’s been hacked together by service providers. To my mild surprise, I buy the argument that if Cisco doesn’t supply the capability, somebody else will, and it might end up casting a wider net. It just underscores that if you care about the privacy of your data, don’t send it in the clear across the wire. And if what you’re doing is likely to attract the attention of anybody serious, don’t send anything across any wires (or over the air) at all. Or at least no wires or air that can be traced to you.

Here’s a more detailed idea of the Sampo, from Rune X of the Kalevala:

On the third night Ilmarinen,

Bending low to view his metals,

On the bottom of the furnace,

Sees the magic Sampo rising,

Sees the lid in many colors.

Quick the artist of Wainola

Forges with the tongs and anvil,

Knocking with a heavy hammer,

Forges skilfully the Sampo;

On one side the flour is grinding,

On another salt is making,

On a third is money forging,

And the lid is many-colored.

Well the Sampo grinds when finished,

To and fro the lid in rocking,

Grinds one measure at the day-break,

Grinds a measure fit for eating,

Grinds a second for the market,

Grinds a third one for the store-house.

A co-worker just forwarded me this article about a machine that will turn just about anything into oil and other useful products. It’s like a cross between a Sampo and a Mr. Fusion. It sounds unbelievably promising.
Update: the article above now requires payment to read, but Discover magazine published an update in July 2004 that (as of January 2005) is free to read.

My favorite surplus catalogs are also online: American Science and Surplus and IMEX.

Instead of research on Peeps, Peeps do research.