Aug 23, 2006 09:41
- A study I hadn't seen before gives us strong evidence that people using cell phones while driving drive more dangerously than .08% drunks. This certainly maps to my recent experience. As a courtesy to others, I never make calls while in motion, and always hand the phone to Carol if it rings while I'm driving. The only calls I answer while driving are calls received from Carol when I'm alone in the car, and the calls themselves are always deliberately brief.
- Try as I might, I simply cannot explain this one. Perhaps one of my Jewish readers can enlighten me.
- A recent spam campaign has targeted me with messages directing me to "Break out your two-piece bikini!" Sorry, I'm from Mu Arae. My bikini has five pieces.
- It would be a useful feature in email clients to put up a warning icon when the links in the message don't match the domain from which the message came. Nearly all phishes have return addresses forged from a bank or EBay or other large concern, but links in the message pointing to domains in Outer Slobovia. Sure, there are legitimate reasons to do this, but a simple orange icon (meaning "possible danger; be careful") could be helpful for non-technical people.
- In researching yesterday's entry, I found a fascinating encyclopedic list of IBM commercial products (some with links to detailed pages) here.
- In the same vein, Bitsavers has preserved an immense archive of technical documentation for obsolete computers of the 1980s and earlier, including a number of the legendary Xerox research workstations that never became commercial products, including the Alto, the Dolphin and the Dorado. Alas, Bitsavers doesn't have any photos of the hardware. For that, go to DigiBarn. Egad, talk about nostalgia...
humor,
spam,
hardware,
history