Honesty in Spam

Today's winning entry comes from a Mr. Jin Renqing:

Hello,

I wish to crave your indulgence in assisting me in receiving a large sum
of money on my behalf.
If You are Interested, kindly send your response to my personal email
:[deleted because I crave your indulgence even more than he does].

Thank you and i look forward to a good business relationship with you.

Sincerely,
Jin Renqing

What sort of bugs do spammers on Rails file?

See http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/10919. Maybe even contribute a fix. Courtesy sbaker.

Everything you wanted to know about stoner rock

http://orexisofdeath.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

The link is to a Russian blogger's page, but the content looks like it's been
lifted from a rock encyclopedia or two. Starts with Vancouver's own Mock Duck,
mentions the venerable Retinal Circus, and then it's a wild ride all over the place.

Book review: Wandering Home

I just read "Wandering Home" by Bill McKibben. A little book about a walk
he did from his current home at Middlebury to his old home in the eastern
Adirondacks. I find him the prototypical young folgie, but his descriptions
of the Adirondacks took me back to all those hikes I used to do there
when I lived in Ottawa. The contrast between Vermont and New York, separated
by a thin lake, are brought home clearly. The Adirondack natives drive
Ford pick-ups, not the SUVs and Subarus so common in Vermont.

We'd usually stop at a store for cheap dairy on the way home from those
hides, and invariably someone in the lineup would be paying for their
groceries with food stamps, something you rarely see in most parts of
the states frequented by visitors. The book's worth the two hours or
so it takes -- it certainly reminded me of the many charms of
those mountains.

Celebration of Bland Architecture

http://www.vancouverspecial.com/ makes for a perfect
starting point. These houses sprouted like weeds in the 60s and 70s in
Vancouver, and some say have the same aesthetic value.

Every North American region has its own kind of pedestrian residential
architecture. Where are the web sites devoted to the Levittowns, the
suburban townhouses of the mountain states, the strip malls of Southern
California? I found the Suburban Frontyards International Pool at http://flickr.com/groups/354832@N23/pool/,

but they seem to be trying to hard to post photos of interesting buildings.
I want the ordinary that we pass by every day without noticing.

Harlan Ellison on Getting Paid

http://www.thevancouverite.com/vancouver_film/harlan_ellison_on_paying_write/

"I don't take a piss without getting paid for it."

The site doesn't have comments, but I wonder how much Ellison got paid to do that rant.

Anyone remember Harlequin Ellis? The guy in the film looks nothing like the cool
dude from the comics.

Irony in Wikipedia, Example #308

They'll most likely fix this soon enough, so check it out now.
The page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_linkage_clustering on Single linkage clustering starts with this notice:

This article is uncategorized.
Please categorize this article to list it with similar articles. (December 2007)

I know, I know, it's a wiki. I can fix it, but this is too precious.

Good article on Zep, Guitar Hero & Gilligan

http://thetyee.ca/Music/2008/01/10/LedZeppelin/

Can you outsmart Ayumu the chimp?

Click here and find out.

UUID poll

Admit it, when you need to generate a GUID, do you create a dozen or
so, and select the most aesthetically pleasing?