Billy the Martian

If you get mail from nobody@cryptofortress.com, and you’re coming here to see what’s up, it isn’t from me. Cryptofortress.com is also the home for a Mixmaster-style anonymous remailer, and the anonymous mail is sent out from that address.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: this is where Bill admits that he talks too much.

Nope, that’s not it.

Jabber is the name of an Instant Messaging environment. It used to be the name of the underlying protocol, but they call that XMPP now. But don’t worry about that.

If you are an ICQ, AIM or MSN user, you should switch. All three of those networks try to lock you in. Imagine what email would be like if your AOL email address only worked to reach other AOL users. (It used to be that way, once, for AOL users. It was unpleasant!)

There are a bunch of Jabber clients for whatever computing platform you use, and there’s lots of servers available. If you like, you can use the server that I’m hosting: rebma.pro-ns.net. It’s set to allow signups from everyone.

If you do switch to Jabber, give me a shout. My JID (Jabber ID) is wmo@rebma.pro-ns.net

There’s some pictures up at my snapshot website of the wedding we went to on Saturday. I’d have to say it was one of the most fun weddings I’ve ever attended.

Congrats, Dave and Lisa.

I’ve been playing the game “Enter the Matrix”. When they were making this game, they made a big deal out of how it tied into the movie, and how they had lots of video footage from the big actors that only appeared in the game. I ignored that as just advertising. Boy, was I wrong. It’s fun, and there’s lots of little plot chunks that you can only learn here. None of them are crucial, but they seem pretty interesting if you’re a big fan of the movie — in that sense, it’s a lot like the Animatrix.

My daughters are selling girl scout cookies. Let me know if you need any.

(I used to buy 10 boxes of Thin Mints from every parent who came by my office. This would result in at least 40 boxes of thin mints every year. Ironically, I lost all interest in Thin Mints as soon as my kids were old enough to sell them.)

I just sent a mildly amusing email to the guys at Powerline.

Thought I’d share it here, too. Dave might be amused.

Hi Powerline fellas,

First off, keep up the good work. I read your blog daily and I’m a big fan.

Given your recent interactions with Nick Coleman, I thought you might be amused by the following anecdote.

Yesterday, while at my office, I got a phone solicitation from the Star and Tribune. It started off with that pause that we’ve all come to know and hate, where you know the person on the other end hasn’t heard you say hello, because the automated equipment they’re using to dial victims hasn’t got things synced up yet. Then this very folksy grandmotherly lady says, “Hello? Oh, my goodness. I thought I was dialing my old friends, the Newtons. They must have re-assigned that number recently!”

Now, here, I had to laugh. My workplace has had that phone number for nearly nine years. And I’m familiar with the organization that had the number before us — we get calls for them on occasion. They must have had the number for several years before us. All in all, a pretty weak story she’s spinning.

Next, she says, “Well, anyway, I’m calling from your local hometown newspaper…” Well, thanks to Caller-ID, I already know she’s calling from the Trib. What’s with the folksy approach, anyway? Do they consider us, their potential customers, a bunch of dumb hicks? And they’ve never heard of Caller-ID? I suppose it’s too much to expect some level of honesty from the telemarketing wing of the paper.

I couldn’t resist, at this point, so I broke in: “Tell you what.” She paused in her script. I said, “Fire Nick Coleman, and I’ll consider getting your newspaper again.”

She laughed right away — there was no pause for shock or surprise. Somehow, I think maybe she’s heard that one before!

I hung up while she was laughing — wish I hadn’t.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

-Bill