Saturday was busy; Sunday was pleasantly quiet. Either way it wasn’t a talkative web weekend for me. I woke up at 4:45 AM on Saturday for some network maintenance at work, which went very well indeed; I went to bed around midnight, after the Ring of Honor show. Lotta video games in between. Sunday I just slept and caught up on movies and watched wrestling. You know how it is. (I feel a little like I should belch around here.) ...
I got a cute spam this morning: From: service@paypal-ebay.com To: Durrell durrell@innocence.com Subject: Notification of PayPal Limited Account Access PayPal is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we would like to restore your access as soon as possible. ...
As an English major, I’ve heard the story about Alan Sokal, physics professor (original), who got a paper published in a postmodern literature journal. In fact, I’ve heard it one too many times. Consequently, this report fills me with utter glee. It might be worth rereading some of Mr. Sokal’s discussions about his hoax, by the by. He never meant it to demonstrate that the study of English literature is inherently flawed; rather, he was making some fairly interesting points as a leftist regarding the dangers of whole-scale adoption of structuralist dogma by the American radical left wing. This is a point too often missed when discussing his hoax. I hope he has something to say about this one — I think it’d be an interesting read.
In sharp contrast to the previous: [I also like apes](http://web.archive.org/web/20160401193151/http://web.archive.org/web/20160401193151/http://blaklion.best.vwh.net/ape.html (original) “Super Non-Human Simians”) (original). Thanks, Max!
I can’t ever resist a good discussion of online identity (original). This one seems to me to assume that pseudonyms must by nature be fragmentary. I think that this is true if you assume that our online identities are discrete units, without overlap, but I also think that such an assumption would be false. I can’t speak for the law bloggers whom TPH discusses (original), but for me, a pseudonym shares many aspects of the “real” me. Alice, at least, seems to agree with that (original). I speak English; so do my theoretical pseudonyms. I’m sarcastic; so, generally, are they. On the occasions when I’ve had reason to construct a shield around my identity, it’s been a matter of thinking about what I want to change rather than building a persona from scratch. ...
I’ve thought to myself, from time to time, that J. K. Rowling’s world is just a little bit on the bigoted side. The Washington Post has an nice editorial on the subject. Mind you, the tendency isn’t reserved for fantasy — it might have been interesting to cross reference Slan for an example of the same thing with a scientific spin. (Hey, that review was written by Tasha Robinson. She used to be a housemate.) When it gets right down to it, the distaste of technology we find in the Harry Potter books is just another avenue through which we express our desire to be different. ...
By way of the distinguished Charlie Stross, I present you with the best Nigerian counterscam ever. It’s easy to respond to Nigerian 419 scams, but it’s hard to do so in a manner which will entertain anyone but yourself. This guy figured out the trick. Like all good tricks, it involves Cthulhu. (You might say he leveraged his secret knowledge to produce humor. Bwah hah ha.)
Worth reading: Salon’s [interview with Michael Chabon](http://web.archive.org/web/20110219121425/http://web.archive.org/web/20110219121425/http://www.salon.com/books/int/2002/10/22/chabon/index.html (original) “Salon.com Books | The lost adventure of childhood”) (original), on the subject of his new novel Summerland. I haven’t read the book yet, because I was far too broke to buy hardcovers over the summer, but I rather expect to remember to pick it up soon. I think that Chabon’s sense of wonder makes him one of the best authors out there right now. Summerland sounds like a glorious expression of that sense of wonder. ...
My former employer, CMGI, is going to transfer to the NASDAQ SmallCap market on November 1st. The requirements for being listed on the NASDAQ SmallCap market are somewhat less rigorous (original) than the requirements for the main NASDAQ market. It does retain the minimum share price of $1 requirement, however, which CMGI doesn’t currently meet. I would expect a reverse stock split sometime in the next 180 days.
I can’t help it; interesting web pages always come in threes, maybe. Or it’s just the season. In any case, I can’t resist this followup to my CMGI comments. Apparently, CMGI had trouble because David Wetherell built his house on an Indian burial ground (original).