This is an actual letter sent to a Bank in the US. The Bank thought it
amusing enough to publish in the New York times.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to thank you for bouncing the cheque with which I endeavored
to pay my plumber last month. By my calculations some three nanoseconds
must have elapsed between his presenting the cheque, and the arrival in
my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the
automatic monthly deposit of my entire salary, an arrangement which, I
admit,... [More]

…as our menu has changed. Try this phone number:

510-809-4466

for a fun look at Enron’s current phone menu. Somehow, it just seems funnier on the phone.

The March 2002 issue of Windows Developer Journal has a tech tip that anyone who uses the STL with Visual C++ has been waiting for. If you’ve tried this, then you’ve likely gotten warning #4786, which tells you that the fully-qualified name of the class you are using is too long to fit into the debug information and will be truncated to 255 characters.

The reason behind this error is pretty stupid. You see, a while ago, I had a cross-platform project that compiled in Visual C++ 6.0 on Windows... [More]

In a glorious case of turnabout-is-fair-play, the Libertarian Party has launched its own ad campaign, similar in style to the one launched by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) that equates buying drugs with supporting terrorism. One of the ads (PDF document), featuring the haggard visage of the U.S. drug czar (who is highly in favor of punitive controls of drugs − i.e. continuing the drug war) with the caption:

<q>This week, I had lunch with the President, testified before... [More]

The Smithsonian Magazine ran Crackdown! (abstract only, sorry) in their February 2002 issue, talking about the red scares in 1919 and 1920. Though they don’t make an explicit connection to today’s situation, the timing of the article makes the implication clear: if we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. (I know, sooo melodramatic).

<q> Invoking the wartime Espionage Act of 1917 and the 1918 Sedition Act, Palmer sought to flush out “Reds” and socialist supporters remotely... [More]

The Hologram Revolution in the February 2002 Discover Magazine (halfway down the page) reports on a new technique pioneered by a Frenchman, Yves Gentet, that produces the most stunning, realistic, high-resolution holograms you’ve ever seen.

It’s a pity they included only the small picture, because the larger one in the magazine is impressive. In the smaller one here, you can, to some degree, see the depth that is represented in the hologram, and you can kind of see that the frame is no... [More]

Media Mergers

Mega Media Merger Mania on AlterNet covers a February 19th federal court ruling that deregulates the media industry even further. Two rules were struck down:

<q>The first is a 60-year old Federal Communications Commission rule that limits the number of broadcast TV stations a single company can own. The cap is currently set so that a single company cannot reach more than 35 percent of the national TV audience. The second FCC rule prevented a company from owning both a cable... [More]

Zoloft

So, now that we’ve all learned how to become Olympic champions (eat at McDonald’s, drink Budweiser and chug Zoloft, which, by the way, shouldn’t be a surprising sponsor of the Olympics, since Study Finds Utah Leads Nation in Antidepressant Use). Mark Morford reports in Numerous Mormons On Prozac that Utah has twice the national average in anti-depressant usage.

<q>Other states with high antidepressant use were Maine and Oregon. Utah’s rate of antidepressant use was twice the rate of... [More]

Here are two pieces of news from The Register that dovetail nicely. Three new MS security holes − two nasty describes 3 new bugs in Microsoft’s products.

The first bug affects all recent versions of SQL Server 2000, Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 and could give access to the local hard drive to an attacker. The attacker would have to know the name of the file and would receive only read privileges. This is a relatively mild attack, but since most people install to default folders, it... [More]

Ars Technica is running a great article called Microsoft .Net aims to demystify .NET and clear up some of the misunderstandings and deliberate obfuscations surrounding it.

“In a remarkable feat of journalistic sleight-of-hand, thousands of column inches in many “reputable” on-line publications have talked at length about .NET whilst remaining largely ignorant of its nature, purpose, and implementation. Ask what .NET is, and you’ll receive a wide range of answers, few of them accurate, all of... [More]”

Alternet has a quick interview with Noam Chomsky called Noam Chomsky on the Drug-Terror Link. Several questions are asked about the U.S. government’s latest attempts to link drugs with terror. He reminds us that, in fact, the connection is there, but mostly that the U.S. has been a huge proponent of drug operations throughout the world since World War II.

<q>Terrorism is now being used and has been used pretty much the same way communism was used. If you want to press some agenda, you play the... [More]

The “Axis of Evil” described by George Bush in his first State of the Union has been received differently throughout the world. Those nations that were included in it were surprised to be singled out, considering several countries the U.S. is allied with are far worse proponents of terror than they are. Just not the good kind of terror. The kind the U.S. is willing to support. Are you listening, Iran? Also, if you might have ICBM capabilities, then your evil existence justifies (no it doesn’t)... [More]

In a little-reported press conference before the Olympics, SatireWire reports that Bush Asks Non-U.S. Olympians to Unite…

<q> … We have a problem because the enemies of justice, the enemies of liberty and prosperity, would like nothing more than to see America’s weaknesses exploited. They would like nothing more than to celebrate our humiliation on the international stage that is the Olympics. You must not let this happen. You must help us strike another blow against the forces of tyranny... [More]

So I’m sitting there reading the morning paper the other day, flipping through the sports section. Suddenly, right after the page listing the lovely adult stars that are coming to a club near me, I see a half-page ad letting me know that if I use drugs, I’m funding terrorism. I quickly checked to make sure which drugs they’re talking about and, luckily, the pack of cigarettes and bottle of scotch I’d been steadily working my way through weren’t on the list.

What was on the list, you ask? I... [More]

The U.S. Justice Department settled their case with Microsoft, in which they found that while Microsoft is a monopoly and has been for over a decade, the U.S. unfortunately has too much growth and economy riding on their stock (recall that the announcement of the finding of fact against Microsoft in 2000 precipitated the bursting of the dot-com bubble), so they decided to let them keep doing what they’re doing, with nary a nod to the thousands of companies either gobbled up, run out of business... [More]

SatireWire announces that the FBI to Issue 5-Day Terror Forecasts…, which should add some level of organization to dealing with terror. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stated:

<q>We in law enforcement are duty-bound to report inherent danger, so we will continue to alert the public to serious threats,“ said Ashcroft. “But we also understand how frustrating it is to organize a family picnic or corporate event, only to have it washed out by the late-breaking specter of impending doom. So... [More]

Mark Fiore of the SF Gate makes cartoons in Flash. He’s got one from February 6, 2002 called Lair that depicts the possible hiding location of the most sought after man in America.

This isn’t really humor, per se, but it’s a sort of game.

In this age of hastily-typed emails, chat messages and online posts, we’re exposed more and more often to the grammatical shortcomings of others as well as common spelling errors. Mindy McAdams has published an excellent spelling test for American English.

<q>I compiled a list from many sources and edited it to 50 commonly misspelled words, making my choices based on my 11 years of experience as a copy editor. … The spellings... [More]

1. You get very annoyed with out-of-towners who think the subway is unsafe.
2. You actively avoid bars that people from the outer boroughs frequent.
3. You figure that a date costs at least $200.
4. You have not seen a bank teller in several years, because your idea of going to the bank is using the ATM at your corner deli.
5. You haven’t smelled grass clippings in over a year.
6. You haven’t “called shotgun” in a long, long time.
7. You think that New Jersey seems really far away.
8. You plot the Barney’s Warehouse... [More]

DAWN published an interview with Osama Bin Laden, given on November 9, 2001. In it, he declares:

“I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.”

The Telegraph has an analysis of a video that has been circulating for the last few weeks in Islamicist circles. I can’t tell from the quotes if this is the same interview of not. A lot of the quotes match up, but the Telegraph is a... [More]

There’s an email making the rounds that ponders the significance of the number 11. A guy ‘Dave’ posted a very funny response; the kind of response everyone should have to this kind of message.

Original Letter

• The date of the attack: 9/11 − 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
• September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
• After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
• 119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
• Twin Towers − standing side by side, looks like the number 11... [More]

It’s only the Constitution by Nat Hentoff on AlterNet provides more details on John Ashcroft’s plain for domestic vigilance. One of the more interesting provisions is “roving wiretaps”:

<q> … a single warrant for a suspect’s telephone must include any and all types of phones he or she uses in any and all locations, including pay phones. If a suspect uses a relative’s phone or your phone, that owner becomes part of the investigative database. So does anyone using the same pay phone or any pay... [More]

It seems granting full partner trading status to China isn’t going to be the boon Microsoft expected. As a provision of gaining status, China has agreed to crack down on piracy, and, in particular, to stop using pirated software and operating systems in government agencies. Microsoft saw this as an opening for massive profits from newly-licensed software from a large established user base. The Register published Red Flag Linux beats out Windows in Beijing, pointing out a Gartner Group document, ... [More]

CNN/Sports Illustrated has the latest on Simon Ammann in Gold Again…. Switzerland has changed gears in the winter Olympics from the ski hills to the ski-jumping hills. Simon Ammann comes out of nowhere to take both of the individual events in the ski-jump, the K90 and the k120.

<q>The 20-year-old Swiss, who looks as if he could pass for 14, joined Finland’s Matti Nykanen as the only jumpers to win events on both hills in the same Winter Olympics. Nykanen did it in Calgary in 1988. …... [More]

<p class=“notes” align=“center”>Received via email.</p><table><tr><td class=“label”>Feudalism</td><td>You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Fascism</td><td>You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Communism</td><td>You have two cows. Your neighbors help take care of them and you share the milk.</td></tr><tr><td class=“label”>Totalitarianism</td><td>You have... [More]

The New York Times published Cheney Is Set to Battle Congress…, which covers statements he made in a series of interviews over the weekend. Apparently, he feels that, as a public servant, with the public paying his salary, when he has meetings with other public officers (Secretary of Energy, for instance) about public energy policy, Congress has no right to know about it. In fact:

<q>We’ve seen it in cases like this before, where it’s demanded that presidents cough up and compromise on... [More]

The Sunday, January 27, 2002 Doonesbury brings back Buttsy at a ‘Sin Lobby’ party and introduces a new character, “Mr. Jay”.

SatireWire has breaking news that Australia Gets Drunk…, which details Australia’s drunken journey from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic.

<q>After what witnesses described as an all night blinder during which it kept droning on about how it was always being bloody ignored by the whole bloody world and would bloody well stand to do something about it, Australia this morning woke up to find itself in the middle of the North Atlantic.</q>

Thinking about getting a Segway, but worried that your friends won’t think it’s cool enough? Is replacing your fat-piped, tinted-windowed, one-foot-high-spoilered, ground-effected, neon-lit, decaled Honda Civic with a vanilla electric scooter that’s good for the environment just too much to take? Worry no more, now you can have the sweetest wheels around and save the planet. Where Are My Pants? offers the Segway − Type R (Don’t worry, it’s got NOS).

Newhouse News Service published Database Flaws Could Hamper Any National ID System… by Margie Wylie about the data-integrity problems that existing large databases contain. For example, the large database used to generate credit reports is rife with errors:

<q> … A 1998 study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that 29 percent of credit reports contain serious errors — for example, false delinquencies — that could cause credit to be denied. Some 20 percent of credit... [More]