Howard Dean in Seattle tomorrow

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Howard Dean will be at the Town Hall tomorrow afternoon.

WHAT: Town Hall Meeting hosted by Governor Howard Dean

WHEN: Saturday, January 31, 2004
3-4 p.m.
Doors will open at 2:15 p.m.
Guests are encouraged to show up early as seating is limited.

WHERE: Town Hall 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca Street) Seattle, WA 98101

Sometimes I really like living just across the street from Town Hall (and I do mean across the street — I’d bet that the picture on their website was taken from the roof of my building).

(via the LiveJournal Seattle community)

iTunes: “Tangram” by Groove Solution from the album Twisted Secrets Vol. 2 (1995, 6:20).

I love the British

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The way in which they can be utterly polite no matter the situation never fails to fascinate and amuse me. It’s an art that is all-too-infrequently practiced on this side of the pond.

Dear Mr Addison, I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more-than-prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.

…your frustration at our adding to the “endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat” has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer, I would cautiously suggest that their being from “pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers” might indicate that your decision to “file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies” is at best a little ill-advised.

…The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles” and “dancing whores”, whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system”.

(via …pickhits…)

iTunes: “City Girls” by Crack Machine from the album Crack Rockin’ Beats (1995, 2:51).

iSight issues

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Mike recently posted about some of the pros and cons to being the owner of an iSight — pros including the simple fact that the iSight is simply a damn good camera; cons including the Mac-only nature of iChat and the somewhat less-than-satisfactory mounting options that come stock out of the box.

Cross-platform video conferencing may be coming down the pike (we hope) with a future release of AIM on the Windows and Mac platforms, as Apple has a pre-existing partnership with AIM (iChat ties into the AIM network, allowing both iChat and AIM users to IM each other). Nobody seems to know for certain if or when this may happen, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed. As far as mounting options go, Mike pointed to the SightFlex, which looks perfect, and is getting added to my birthday wish list.

I’ve noticed some other cons to the iSight, chiefly being that as of late, it’s been notoriously instable, appearing and disappearing from my system more or less at random, and at times apparently interfering with the mounting of my iPod. Apparently I’m not the only person being bit by this bug, but on the bright side, there are a few possible solutions mentioned recently on MacFixIt, including simply remembering to turn the iSight off (twist the front of the camera to close its iris) when it’s not in use. I’ll give that a shot for a while, and see if it helps.

iTunes: “Chicken In A Biscuit” by Black Happy from the album Peghead (1993, 2:55).

Lord of the Rings dating tips

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Epic fantasy as a dating manual?

  • When you’re trying to catch the cute guy’s eye is the exact moment the dwarf will pick to approach you;
  • Eating raw fish is no longer a sign of a sophisticated date. (That said, you have to admit the Atkins plan is working for Gollum.)
  • If you’re the only girl among 100 guys you’ll still fall for the only one who has a girlfriend;
  • When overused, terms of endearment such as “precious” lose their meaning;
  • All couples fight, but battles shouldn’t last so long that one of you has to get up and stretch your legs or use the bathroom;
  • It doesn’t matter if you look like Liv Tyler; your pining and whining will still get on people’s nerves;
  • Don’t blame your friends just because they can see right through your creepy little partner;
  • If you can get along on a road trip, the relationship will probably last;
  • There will come a point when it seems like the relationship should be over. Don’t drag it out. Just end it there.

And finally, the mother of all dating wisdom:

  • Some people will go to any lengths to get a ring; others, having had one for awhile, will go to any lengths to chuck it into a volcano.

(via Rachel)

iTunes: “Moron” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album WWIII (2003, 5:05).

Where I’ve been…

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…in the world:

Where I've been in the world

United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany (twice), Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece

I was going to do a map of the states I’ve been to (that I can remember) also, but that portion of the World66 site seems to be down at the moment.

Update: The site’s back up. Here’s where I’ve been in the USA…

States I've visited

Alaska, California, Washington D.C., Florida, Indiana, Montana, Oklahoma (I don’t remember it, but I know about it from family stories), Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee (well, not yet, but I’ll be there in a couple weeks for my brother’s wedding), Washington

(map via My World66)

iTunes: “Calling Dr. Luv” by Electric Hellfire Club, The from the album Darkest Hour, The (1997, 4:14).

Blogger Code

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Last post for the night, then I’ve got to get to bed. I just wanted to toss up my blogger code:

B9 d+ t+ k+ s u f+ i o x+ e+ l c– (Decode my blogger code)

I did (kind of) cheat on one answer, though, I must admit. For the Technical Quotient (the ‘t+‘ mark), I had to choose between two possible answers:

  • I manage my blog with Greymatter, Movable Type, or other management system running on my own web host. [t+]
  • I use Blogger, BigBlogTool, or similar service to update ablogspot, Geocities, or other hosted site; or I use diaryland,livejournal, or another service with built-in updating and content management. [t-]

Technically, t- is the more correct answer, as Eclecticism is hosted and powered by TypePad, a hosted service with definite similarities to those listed. However, as TypePad is based on MovableType and I use heavily-modified templates that take advantage of many of the MT-specific tags; as I’ve used (and paid for) MovableType on earlier versions of this weblog; and as I currently have MovableType installed and running on a server here in my apartment hosting both my dad’s weblog and my friend Kirsten’s weblog (each on their own domain name), I figured I could get away with claiming the more technically-proficient t+ rating.

Other than that, it’s all entirely accurate.

(via Snowblink)

iTunes: “Zigular” by Poems for Laila from the album Another Poem for the 20th Century (1989, 3:30).

Weblog Review

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From a suggestion by Doc on the TypePad User Group, I’m submitting my site to The Weblog Review. I have no idea how long it will take them to get around to me, but in the meantime, I’ll just hope that they have nice things to say.

I like ego-stroking. ;)

Update: Nevermind. They’re not accepting site submissions unless you pay them. I don’t need ego-stroking that much.

iTunes: “Strawberry Fields Forever (Raspberry Ripple)” by Candyflip from the album Madstock…the Continuing Adventures of Bubblecar Fish (1990, 5:54).

Microsoft vs. the web

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One of the standards that has been part of web browsing for years is a method of including a username and password in a hypertext link, in order to facilitate being able to conveniently logging into a protected site. For instance, were my site password-protected, one could add username:password@ to the beginning of the web address, creating a link that looked like http://username:password@www.michaelhanscom.com/ in order to log in with a single click.

The downside to this is that because that information is optional and not always used, a web browser ignores any characters up to and including the ‘@’ symbol if they are included in a link, as they are not part of the address being requested. The target webserver will also ignore those characters if it is not configured to require login information to access its hosted web pages.

This has led to one of the more common forms of ‘link spoofing’ — I’ve seen it myself in hoax e-mails purporting to be from PayPal. The perpetrator will create a false page on a webserver they control that appears to be a page on PayPal’s site that asks for the victims credit card information. They will then create an e-mail also formatted to appear as if it came from PayPal, asking the victim to log in and verify their information. When they give a URL to click, it will look something like http://www.paypal.com@12.345.67.890/verify.html — which to many people, appears to go to PayPal’s site. However, because the browser is ignoring the ‘@’ and everything before it, the browser is actually pulling a page from the IP address 12.345.67.890 and not from PayPal, and any credit card information they enter into that page will go not to PayPal, but to some anonymous criminal taking advantage of people’s ignorance of how the web works to collect useable credit card numbers.

Making the matter worse, versions of Internet Explorer prior to 6.0 (Service Pack 1) on the PC had a bug where if a (false) web address was included in a link before the @ symbol, that address would display in the browser’s address field rather than the address of the site actually being visited. In other words, in the above example, the user would see http://www.paypal.com/ in their web browser address field rather than http://12.345.67.890/. This bug has been fixed in IE 6.0sp1, but far too many people have yet to upgrade.

Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that enough is enough, and are taking steps to combat this type of hoax. How are they doing this? Not by attempting to educate their customers in any way, releasing a patch for other versions of IE to fix the bug, or by adding a simple ‘This type of URL may be dangerous’ warning dialog when links formatted this way are clicked (something that I think would be fairly easy to add — just scan the link to see whether or not it follows the username:password format before the @ symbol; if it doesn’t, pop up an alert box). No, instead of any of those options, they’re breaking the long-standing standard.

To mitigate the issues that are discussed in the “Background information” section of this article, Microsoft plans to release a software update that removes support for handling URLs of this form in Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer. After you install this software update, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer do not open HTTP or HTTPS sites by using a URL that includes user information. By default, if user information is included in an HTTP or an HTTPS URL, a Web page with the following title appears: Invalid syntax error

Great idea, guys.

Update: According to CodePoetry, it appears that Microsoft may actually be following standards, and the use of usernames and passwords in URLs is officially discouraged. If that’s the case, then…well, that’s that. I guess it’s not such a bad thing after all (if a little inconvenient in some instances).

And here’s another goodie: there are a few other various ways that malicious people can craft, hide, and spoof URLs that take advantage of bugs in various versions of IE so that the URL displayed in IE’s address bar is not the URL of the site actually being visited. Microsoft has issued a tech note explaining that the most effective way to be sure that you are visiting the sites you really want to visit is to simply type the address into IE’s address bar manually.

So, to be absolutely sure that you are visiting the two Microsoft Support documents that I’ve linked above, please do not click on the links. Instead, move your cursor into IE’s address bar, click and select the displayed address, hit ‘Backspace’ to erase that, and type the following two URLs manually into the address bar:

  1. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;%5bLN%5d;834489
  2. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[ln];833786

No typos now!

There. Don’t you feel better, safer, and more secure now?

I know I do. But then, I haven’t used Internet Explorer in ages.

(via codepoetry and Mark Pilgrim)

iTunes: “Vinegar and Salt” by Hooverphonic from the album Magnificent Tree, The (2000, 3:20).

Pickled Dragon found

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Pickled Dragon

Everyone else is convinced it’s a hoax, but just for fun, I think I’ll enjoy playing with the idea that this pickled dragon could be real.

A pickled “dragon” that looks as if it might once have flown around Harry Potter’s Hogwarts has been found in a garage in Oxfordshire, England.

The baby dragon, in a sealed jar, was discovered with a metal tin containing paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s.

Allistair Mitchell, who was asked to investigate the dragon by a friend, David Hart, who discovered it in his garage, speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts at the end of the 19th century, when rivalry between the countries was intense.

Hoax, shmoax. I can believe in dragons if I want to!

Besides — living as close to Capitol Hill as I do, believing in fairies is easy enough. Why not dragons too? ;)

(via BoingBoing)

iTunes: “Another Samba” by Ugly Duckling from the album Journey to Anywhere (2002, 4:01).

The ‘Dean Scream’ – in context

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By now everyone has heard (or at least heard of) the ‘Dean Scream’ — Dean’s post-Iowa speech to his assembled fans which culminated in a soundbite played over and over (more than 700 times on television, apparently), not to mention being heavily sampled across the ‘net.

What wasn’t as heavily reported, though, was the atmosphere of the room itself — packed to the gills with rowdy Dean fans that were yelling and cheering as Dean promised them that he wasn’t finished, and that he’d continue to campaign and attempt to gain the Democratic nomination.

In an unusual media “mea culpa,” however, Diane Sawyer followed up on her interview with Howard and Judy Dean (which is excellent by the way, and worth watching — unfortunately, it’s gone to a pay-to-play link now) by taking a look at not just the footage that was broadcast all over the world with a direct-from-the-microphone audio feed, but at footage taken from within the crowd itself. Because this vantage point captures the energy and noise level of the room, all of a sudden Dean’s yell doesn’t seem nearly as ridiculous.

After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again — in fact played it to them — I noticed that on that tape he’s holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise. It isolates your voice, just like it does to Charlie Gibson and me when we have big crowds in the morning. The crowds are deafening to us standing there. But the viewer at home hears only our voice.

So, we collected some other tapes from Dean’s speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage.

[…]

Dean’s boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd.

And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn’t really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.

The article includes a link to a video clip of Diane’s segment looking back at the scream, which has both the originally aired clip and a clip from within the audience. It’s quite a difference.

I’m afraid it may be too little too late — Dean’s already taken a tumble in the polls, though I’m not about to write him off yet (politics has seen far stranger things than a possible Dean resurrection) — but still, kudos to Diane for coming back to this instead of just letting it lie as-is.

(via Mark Sundeen)

iTunes: “I See You (Extended)” by X Marks the Pedwalk from the album New Dark Noise: The Darkwave Dance Floor Killer No Filler (2002, 5:11).