Ever since my blog picked up traffic, I found an increasing number of spammers on it. In mostly manual labor they post comments to existing entries, either just to vandalize or to promote external websites.

Some try to be clevery cloaked, mostly with phrases like this:

Very good blog entry! Thx!

and then having the promoted link under the signature. Difficult to spot. Really.

But for me it means that I have to scan my blog on a regular basis.

Finally, the wait is over. Here another set for your despairment.

Category Business

Category Technology

Analysing the [b]log files, I realise that there is considerable demand for despairment, especially from the U.S. Not sure what this should tell me.

I have a fair bit of posters in the queue, but many of them do not make it past the censor (my wife, yes). So I'm holding back. As always. ;-)

Anyway, for all the collectors out there, here a small palette for your January screensaving. I might come back with a February sample. When my wife is not looking.

Category Business

Category Politics

Warning from the General Perl Surgeon:

Googling for Perl Apache handlers can be harmful to your mental health. Really.

Yesterday I came across the following code fragment within an Apache handler:

Aren't the brackets formatted so nicely?

1753 was a rather unremarkable year. No important person was born, no important person died. But I was born 1753. On the January, 1st to be exact.

It was a Monday, probably raining, and I remember it as if it was yesterday. Or so I should, according to my Internet Service Provider's information about me:

So if you meet me some time, I'd ask for more respect for my age.

Should your career come to a grinding halt and you find yourself on a university committee, let alone one discussing departmental hardware requests, then there is only one escape hatch: Poetry.

Yes, poetry. Such as the following (almost Haiku)

Being on a committee, tough decisions you will see.
Churning cash on M$-Fee, why not dream with USB?

One of my loyal readers (or should I say my only loyal reader?) has sent me a link (loyal readers do that) to

http://www.safenow.org/

That is a parody - so it claims - of the U.S. governmental site

http://www.ready.gov

which - so it claims - informs the U.S. public (and hence the world) about the dangers caused by the post-Bushian world order.

Let me point out: This is all very wrong.

• First, Safenow.org completely misinterprets most of the symbols. So for example,

When Alan Turing devised his Turing test it was more of an academic question, whether or how machines can become indistinguishable from humans.

The reverse Turing test is now used in all sorts of websites to allow humans to distinguish themselves from machines.

The human (that would be me or you) is presented with a simple task which to understand it needs a human. Tasks such as reading fuzzy numbers or characters blended over a busy background (captcha).

Such as this:

Sure, sure, we all know that the Internet is full of ... uhm not so overly useful things. We are on the same page here then.

Still, the Internet has its gems. Apart from my all-time favourite http://www.supersluttymomsover100.com/ (don't bother to follow that, of course I made it up. You should know me by now)...

... ok, so apart of that I just adore

http://www.despair.com/

and its slick, clearcut design and message. Look at the recently added video section and replay your last working days in your office in your head.