Recurring and recursive deja vu. A sensation so surreal it can only be described as maddening. I have one that manifests itself approximately once a year. I believe it was initiated by a dream of some sort, and from then on was triggered by certain thoughts, feelings, circumstances, and every time it comes as a strong feeling of deja vu, not just of the thought, but of having had the deja vu. Deja vu of deja vu of deja vu, ad infinitum.

Even now, moments after having experienced it am unable to adequately describe, or explain it, except that I'm yet unsure whether it happened, I witnessed it, or it has yet to occur.

--Leif

The concept of lanesplitting, or where (typically) a motorcycle rides between cars in slowed traffic seems to be almost universally reacted to with horror in the United States, or at least this is my experience, by both bikers, and non-bikers (not to be referred to as 'cagers' which I reserve to refer to gogo dancers as).

However, it should be noted that, according to my reliable internet resources, both Japan and Europe permit lanesplitting, both of which have far more commuting and daily riding of motorcycles (it seems more popular with weekend riding or touring in the United States, and this is supported by demographic breakdowns between the regions). So it stands to reason that they should know better, does it not? It's certainly true that lanesplitting will reduce traffic congestion, and should also reduce merging into or rear-ending centric accidents involving motorcycles, but people seems immediately abhorred by the concept.

Perhaps it is because they fear a disgruntled driver will swing their door open as the bike passes, throwing the poor biker into the air. To that I'd say, they lose their door, and using that as an argument is sort of like saying you won't drive the speed limit because someone going 100 mph will rear-end you.

The abhorrence may be in part to the idea of doing it illegally, since motorists will not expect it. In addition to it requiring more attention to other vehicle's actions, although this is true in any heavy traffic. Perhaps too it might irk drivers who do not like the idea of someone 'getting ahead of them.'

Whatever the cause, I find the reaction slightly bemusing. With traffic becoming worse and worse, more lane-splitting motorcycles should only help, not hurt, the average driver. Hopefully they would be skilled enough to do it safely of course.

And that concludes a derivation completely unlike any before it.

--Leif

Yeah, it looks ok, but really, it's 5 years old. Add to that I haven't updated the content in... almost 2 years? That's pathetic.

So what has happened to the personal webpage/blog? It's been taken over by corporate entities like google, who offer far easier to use solutions, yet with no real sense of individuality.

You go to a web page and it's the same as the last one. We've entered an age of the internet where we've become homogeneous to the point of absurdity! Content management systems with flashy built in themes, pre-made websites, facebook profiles, it's all the same! You like photos? Welcome to Flickr! Whatever happened to webrings!? (yes, I know those sucked)

At least have both, right? We'll see how it all goes, but I have a sneaking suspicion (and I'm usually right about this stuff) that in 50 years we'll all be living in vicarious android bodies, like that one movie they made that nobody watched (hey, I didn't see it).

--Leif

I'd just like to say a Happy (NA) Birthday to the ill-fated Dreamcast, which launched 10 years ago today, on 9/9/1999.

In contrast, nothing interesting happened today.

--Leif

If you're still using Windows XP, like every intelligent non-masochistic computer lover without the desire to run release candidates is, please save a life and go and do this:

http://www.coderetard.com/2008/12/10/how-to-disable-automatic-restart-after-windows-update/

--Leif

I received a scam email this morning. It's amusing and disturbing at the same time, since I hoped I could keep my email free from messages of the spam variety, and this falls in as one of the least gray types of unsolicited email. It's amusing because it just tries so hard to be good, and yet fails in such fundamental ways as a convincing con.

Let's start with what was good: No obvious misspellings right up front, it starts with a header containing the date, batch, ref number, and “CONGRATULATIONS !” It continues, explaining how I've won the National Lottery Programme (sic), yada yada yada, splitting the winnings with other winners, etc etc etc. They've taken care to use all British spellings of words, as that is the origin of this real and legitimate lottery, and they haven't jumped out front wanting money to be wired to them. However, as it always is with these lottery scams, it begs the question of just how exactly you got entered, well, it explains that it was a sponsored promotion! I quote: “This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the commmunities where they have operational base.”

Reasonable, right? Let's just assume one would be so excited about winning the lottery that one would not notice the general flimsiness to the story, after all, it does lend it self to activating people's own desire to believe that it's real. Now the next part is when it gets too clever for its own good, as it actually states how much I'm supposed to have won, and follows it up with an invitation to buy tickets for the “New year high stakes.” This is the first red flag for anyone suspicious, as it can be immediately confirmed that the real National Lottery never announces how much you've won in an email, but let's just say you're not suspicious, and are now really excited! Well, you should at least pause at how even after the prize is split, that you've won 1,000,000.00 GPB! From a promotional lottery no less.

The next part is the real nail in the coffin. They give instructions on how to claim the prize, promptly offering an email address with a domain of consultant.com! Now you'd have to be biting to make it this far and still unsceptical, but almost anyone should realize that a real lottery would give you an email that at least contains the name of the lottery in their domain! In other words @national-lottery.co.uk. Perhaps not? Now they offer a phone number -- which really makes me wonder why they bothered giving the red-flag email address – with a country code for the UK, very believable if not for the email address. Alas, if any still yet had faith, the final instructions should disillusion, when they aptly instructed me to keep my wonderful windfall “confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you.” That really should tell you, but if that wasn't enough, they offer up a deadline!

So, they don't wish you to tell anyone that you've won, even ending the message with “ANY BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF WINNERS WILL RESULT TO AUTOMATIC DISQUALIFICATION,” and I have to do this within three weeks, which is really quite generous a time frame. Too soon and people might get suspicious, too long and it gives them too much time to realize that it's complete bullocks!

So what damns it as a scam? Besides the tell-tale manipulations, silly mail.com email address, and minor grammatical errors and odd whitespacing that could be written off as machine error? The very crux of its premise! If you wish to take someone in, you've got to do away with all these stupid tricks, which can be easily found to be bad simply by going to the lottery's own website. No, you must sell it completely, don't just promise the funds, deliver them! In fact, as a favor to any scammer out there, I'm willing to take receipt of up to GBP1,000,000.00 (ONE MILLION BRITISH POUNDS STERLING) in cash. Unfortunately I can't guarantee this offer for long, so you'll need to act by February 4th, 2009.

Again, to aid you in pulling off a successful email scam, I'm willing to receive up to GBP1,000,000.00 in cash.CONGRATULATIONS !

In the end, there's pretty much one rule of thumb to follow with these kinds of scams: You can't win if you don't play. So, as added advice, don't play, it makes detecting these things so much easier.

--Leif

Well, this last week has, in at least one virtual branch, sucked. First Pushing Daisies is cancelled, which is not really a surprise, since it’s an excellent Bryan Fuller show, and all excellent Bryan Fuller shows get cancelled. It did fare better than Wonderfalls (see hauntingly similar post from 2004, with more cursing, no doubt), being granted 22 full episodes by ABC, but still shy of Dead Like Me.

Second, Heroes kills Elle (about as surely as Heroes kills anyone I guess, which isn’t very), which is more evidence of their blinding stupidity when it comes to writing. Ironically enough, the end of Daisies means that Fuller will return to Heroes, and is hopefully able to pull that show out of the pit of convolution that it has slid into since he left after the first season.

On the plus side, the semester is almost over, and for three weeks I can forget about the world of Oz and come back to Kansas. That’s an, uh, inside joke.

--Leif

Don't you hate it when things just up and break? Yeah, the whole site was FUBAR, but it's working now at least, minus a Firefox 3 glitch or two. Hell, I haven't even tested it in Chrome yet, which I think is just plain boring by the way, if anyone cares. Maybe it would be more intriguing if I didn't already have a browser I was comfortable with, or was perhaps stuck with a tiny resolutioned screen such that I wouldn't want a title bar. Maybe for a Netbook, eh Google?

Now what was I saying? Oh yes, PHP5 and how it $&@# my website up, thanks to a feature which should be on, and directory references it used to understand, but now doesn't. Pfffft, my car needs less maintenance. Alright, that's a complete hyperbole, just don't get me started about that monstrosity of a time sink. Maybe in another post. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

--Leif

Yep, good to know. This site's apparently been down for a couple of weeks, thanks to my server's upgrade to php5, and some change in settings which left every single page a blank. Shows how much I check it. Not that I haven't been busy, but still. Oh well, off to a fresh start.

--Leif

Time for another update? Well, there's nothing to update. Why do I keep this hole of laziness open then? Why not, I say. I mean, come on, there're millions of websites out there, at least this one is relatively fast loading, and it's not on blogspot or myspace, which gives it the illusion at least of being something half-way interesting.

Besides, I might start using it more, right? Psuedo-Anonymity is a powerful tool after all. If any of this garbage makes sense to you, then please let me know. (Not really, that's just an expresion).

--Leif