Shedding writer’s block [via MetaFilter]
www.MyCatHatesYou.com [via DaveZilla]
New Yorker cartoon: “I know it’s tech support, but for two-fifty a minute, I expect you to talk dirty.”
SatireWire: Least-used chat e-bbreviations. IQTMPOA.
SatireWire: Computer virus making to be prosecuted as hate crime for targeting stupid people
The Onion: Who Says Java Programmers Don’t Have A Sense Of Humor?
CNN: Polar exploration wins Bad Sex award. A description of an unwelcome seduction that compares it to a polar exploration has won one of Britain’s least coveted literary prizes — the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.
The Register: No-HTML plug-in for Outlook. Among the more ostentatious security pitfalls deliberately coded into Outlook is its determination to accommodate the mighty Direct Marketing Association (DMA) spam lobby by refusing to allow users to shut off HTML.
So, naturally, this plug-in is not from Microsoft, but it appears to work reasonably well anyway. If you absolutely must run Outlook…
The Mail program that comes with Mac OS X supports HTML mail, but it has a checkbox in the preferences to disallow loading of remote images and running scripts. Which means that you can still view pictures inline that your friends mail you as attachments, but web bugs and other tracking features of HTML spam are completely blocked. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at the source of some of that cute, cuddly spam sometime; you’ll most likely find an invisible image like this: <img width=1 height=1 src=”http://some/spam/tracking/server.com/track.cgi?email=your@email.address”>. This is called a web bug; you never see it when you read the email, but your email program dutifully loads the image from the remote server, giving the spammer the very valuable information that your email address is real and active.)
Bottom line: turn off this “feature” if at all possible. In Mail under Mac OS X, it’s a checkbox in the preferences (I forget where exactly, but there aren’t too many preferences, so presumably you can find it yourself.) In Outlook, you might try the No-HTML plug-in. Or, if possible, switch to a mail client that allows you to turn off HTML crap entirely.
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© 2001–present Mark Pilgrim