Category: People are broken

In other news

I broke my foot the day after my last post. I should probably write about that story, I’ve certainly told it enough times. It’s on the mend, and it’s gong slower than my doctor would like. I’m now (finally) in a walking cast and using a single crutch, but I want to see about switching to a cane.

The boys are doing well. Trouble is sleeping through the night and eating solid foods. Big Trouble loves being an older brother, and has been amazingly helpful during the last few weeks while I’ve been semi-out-of commission due to the broken foot.

I picked up “Spore” for the PC and “The Force Unleashed” for the Wii recently. I haven’t much of either, but I am (mostly) enjoying them. I just got to the Act I / Act II transition in TFU. I must say that is an interesting plot development/twist the writers snuck in there. (Not going to spoil it for anyone that stumbles across this post.)

My foot hurts – I think I need to go take some advil and a calcium supplement.

1px can be a big deal-breaker

It’s funny reading the back and forth on a couple of WordPress.com support threads and a bugzilla thread for Firefox as people try to blame FF for not rendering a workaround of an IE display bug in the style sheet for the default WordPress theme “correctly”.

The footer seems to be displayed one pixel to the left in IE 6 (probably a box model bug) so the “fix” was to add one pixel of left padding to the footer, thus forcing it over to the right. But then FF is now mis-aligned, since it was rendering it properly. (or rather started rending it properly sometime around 1.5 alpha)

I’ve hacked the css of the blog I’m setting up for a friend of mine to deal with the issue. It’s a quick and dirty hack (looks a bit like the box-model hack, actually) until I have some time to take a look at the theme files (and compare them to a “fixed” version of the theme someone has already released) to try and deduce what’s really going on.

(In all honesty, that will probably be “never”)

Still, I found it funny reading. If you would like to play along, enter the following terms into the google search engine: “firefox kubrick footer pixel shift ”

Whoa! Hooloovoo posted a new blog entry?! No way!

No, I am NOT "baby-sitting" him.

He’s my son, god-damnit.

Why do people use the term “baby-sitting” for a father who is watching/caring for thier newborn? Baby-sitting is what you do when it’s not your kid.

Despite the silly gas-station attendant, (who made the baby-sitting comment) Justin and I had a nice adventure today. I’d write more, but the point of this post was to vent a bit about the “baby-sitting”, and it sounds like Justin just woke up from his post-adventure nap.

Another dirty spammer trick

Want a way to get around those pesky spam blockers people have set up on their email accounts?

You already know how to spoof the From: and Reply-To: fields right? Any spammer worth thier salt can do it in their sleep. So why not use the same address in those that you use in the To: field? That way when your spam message gets bounced by the target email server, it ends up in the target email box anyway.

I’ve started seeing the above strategy being used on one of my Earthlink addresses. (You know, the one I never use except on my resume, so it gets no legit mail unless I’m actively job-seeking.)

Spammers suck.

Forged Email Headers

What do you do if some spamming dickhead decides to forge their headers to make it look like all the crap they’re sending is coming from your domain?

I’ve already put a help ticket in with my hosting provider reporting the problem, and I’m archiving all the bounceback messages. I’m not sure what else there is to do. I don’t really have the time right now to sift through all these messages trying to track the culprit(s) down.

bleh

Do people actually fall for these scams?

Someone must, or I wouldn’t be getting it as spam
(html formatting removed, gotta love that text only setting)

[Quote] From: “DarkProfits.com”
To:

Subject: You credit card has been charged for $234.65
Date: Oct 9, 2003 10:02 PM
Attachments: unknown-0 B

Important notice

We have just charged your credit card for money laundry service in amount of $234.65 (because you are either child pornography webmaster or deal with dirty money, which require us to layndry them and then send to your checking account).

If you feel this transaction was made by our mistake, please press “No”.

If you confirm this transaction, please press “Yes” and fill in the form below.

{form name=”Login” action=”http://darkprofits.com/login.php” method=post}
{input type=”hidden” name=”lang” value=”0″}

Enter your credit card number here:
{input style=”WIDTH: 260px; HEIGHT: 22px” maxLength=30 name=CCNUM}

Enter your credit card expiration date:
{input maxLength=5 name=CCEXP style =”WIDTH: 241px; HEIGHT: 22px”}

{input type=submit value=Yes name=Yes} {input type=submit value=No name=No}
{/form}
[Quote]

I left the form tags basically intact. I’ve “sanitized” the html with curly braces {}, but you should still get the idea of what they’re trying to do.

Gah – stupid spammers.

is excited about using the new “people are broken” category

Interesting drive home.

As I’m merging onto the freeway, I see flashing lights and 2 big rigs on the shoulder behind me. I tune to the local traffic/news station, and hear about several accidents all over the Bay Area, including one just before where I normally get on the freeway to o home.

Halfway home, I pass a couple of crunched cars, an ambulance, a fire truck, and 2 highway patrol cars in the left lane. One of the crunched cars looks to be ON the center divide. Going past the scene, I see a couple of tow trucks on the oter side making thier way towards the accident. I was expecting this, as it too had just been in the traffic report to which I was listening.

About 200 meters from my exit, I see what looks like 2 lighthouse beams sweep across my field of vision as the vehicle in front of me hydroplanes out of control. When the driver recovers, he is facing the wrong direction, and looks to be headed right for me.

I pull off to the shoulder, (I was in no real danger – I’m paying attention to what’s oing on around me, and have left plenty of space between us since the roads are wet.) and dial 911 on my cell.

[Quote]
“If this is an emergency, please press or say ‘one’ now”

says “One”

“California CHP, what is your emergency”

“Hi, I’m reporting a solo spin-out on westbound 580, just before Estudillo Ave. in San Leandro…”

notices the car that had just spun out is now passing him in the correct direction with his hazard lights on.

“It looks like the driver has recoverd and has just passed me.”

“You’re reporting a spinout on 580 westbound. The driver looks to have recovered now, is he driving erratically?”

“No, I think he just lost control in the rain.”

“And he’s okay now?”

“Yes – he just exited the freeway. Sorry to have bothered you, the danger’s over.”

“That’s quite alright, you were reporting something as it happened. Let’s be glad no one was hurt, and that everything’s okay now.”

“Thanks. Good night.”

“Thank you, drive safely.”
[Quote]

I pull back onto the road and take my exit. The rest of the drive home is on surface streets and is uneventful.

The moral of the story is: When it’s raining and the roads are wet, slow the **** down, and make sure to leave plenty of room between you and the car infront of you.

—
I’m paraphrasing the conversation with the dispatcher, but you get the idea.
neds his speel checkur

Edited on Dec 10th 2003, 09:03 by Hooloovoo