Some notes:

Fahim and I have been carrying on an interesting email conversation about his program. I’d like to point out, as I did to him, that I’m not calling him a thief, just that something about me using it felt a little icky. He also pointed out to me that he never claimed to be doing anything other than building an alternative to Blogger for his own needs, and giving it away for free in case others might find it useful. He also is considering a couple of my suggestions. Yay!

I rewrote ThothPop, which was long overdue. The new version (I lost track of numbers a while ago) includes all of the engines I use on a regular basis, a less inclusive approach than before. I’m the only one who uses it, anyway. Look for it in projects.

A new feature in the sidebar - Misdirection. Its purpose is basically to point out things I’d like to call attention to that people may have missed. Like, say, ThothPop. Due to my previously mentioned limited hosting, I had to do it in Javascript, which may lead to problems for some browsers. Complain loudly, if so.

If it’s in the about section, then it has been changed in at least some way, if not completely.

The idea of getting referral fees off of my own birthday presents was just too perverse to pass up, and I have become an Amazon affiliate. (I may be a whore, but at least I’m in good company.) If you happen to be feeling generous and are intent on shopping Amazon, why not do it through this link?

Ack, part 2. Though why someone from the department of justice would be searching for ‘goatees’ is probably an even better question than why Netscape led them here.

This guy is working on a program that basically aims to replicate the functionality of Blogger on your own desktop. I’ve been playing with it, and it comes awfully damn close. But not quite. There are several big, big reasons why it couldn’t replace Blogger for me, but most of them, the technical ones, appear to be fairly easily fixable. It could soon be in actual competition with Blogger for its core users. (Those being folks who have limited hosting and fundage, like me. This is why Greymatter and Frontier are not competitors to Blogger.) Which, combined with the not inconsequential fact that he is basically reverse-engineering the functionality of Blogger and moving it to the desktop, may explain why Pyra is annoyed with him. Looks like this might get ugly interesting ugly.

Should the FBI allowed to use evidence gathered by keyloggers without a wiretap order? A federal judge is going to decide today. The FBI argues that the keylogger didn’t record emails — a claim which 1) doesn’t even pass the giggle test, and 2) they aren’t offering any technical details to back up — and that therefore only a regular old dime-a-dozen search warrant was necessary. Riiight.

We couldn’t have asked for a worse test case, though. The defendant: Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr., second-generation mobster.

What the hell?

The situation does prove to be an interesting sort of social experiment, however. Metafilter becomes an entirely different beast with a greatly reduced amount of traffic and, more importantly, no mathowie. Two days, 12 posts, 91 comments, and three double posts. That’s exactly twenty-five percent Crap™. Draw your own conclusions about the workload involved in keeping the site useful on a regular day.

On another note, does someone strictly have to be dead before they can be canonized? Wasn’t there something in Vatican 2 about that?

I was forced to watch (taped) Big Brother earlier this evening. Has there ever existed a more singularly uninteresting group of people on television? (And I ask that question with full knowledge of just how deep into the abyss of dullness television has previously descended.) I’d rather watch C-SPAN in slow-mo. And yet, 8 million Americans willingly subjected themselves to it last Wednesday. My own beloved husband watches it.

Right, then. It has to be stopped. We must find a cure, and soon, before more minds are claimed by this neuron-annihilating drivel. The question remains, though: poison, explosives, or just ask really politely?

The nameserver meltdown explained: it’s hosted on Matt’s pacbell DSL. Which, only naturally, goes down from time to time. I can’t decide if that is sublimely hilarious or very, very not funny.

Those crazy kids. Warms yer heart, dunnit? (We also would have accepted: It’s like one of those crazy Hollywood movie romances. Except, you know, with smart people or Somewhere in between You’ve Got Mail and The Matrix, this happened.)

If every word of this essay on the ties between Calvin & Hobbes and Fight Club — cleverly titled I Am Jack’s Younger Self — makes perfect sense to you, then you are entirely too pop-culture literate for your own good. You are strongly urged to close your browser, turn off your TV, put down your book, recycle the newspaper, and immediately go outside. I’ll see you there.

I have been unable to access metafilter, apparently due to some problem with the nameserver (everything served by turlyming is inaccessible), since I woke up this morning. It’s killing me, I tell you. I just knew I should have written down the IP… (Some people seem to not be having problems.)

Two makes a trend: what’s with all these old rockers coming out? In this case, I’m guessing it might possibly have something to do with the fact that their new album has failed to chart. Just a guess.

Is Google editorializing? (…again? Hint: look at the category recommendation.)

The Cook Islands are sitting on a gold mine. They could stand a good chance of becoming the default TLD for gay porn, if they only tried. Niue’s .nu is nothing. must fight urge to register bigfat.co.ck…

Steady Partners Source of HIV for Young Gay Men “Young gay men may now be more likely to contract HIV from a steady partner than through casual sex. Researchers speculate that a higher rate of unprotected sex among young men in long-term relationships is to blame.” You are not safe. I am not safe. No one is safe. Repeat thrice.