Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

[I'm handing this off to the 'at' daemon, so here's hoping I haven't screwed up the HTML somewhere... I've I have, I'll fix it after I wake up.]

• Porn Fonts -- need I actually need to say more? (Okay, I'll say this much: a few are readable fonts with recognizeable letters, and the rest are more just Dingbats-like collections of small graphics -- or as one wag referred to them, "dongbats".)
  


• The 'Wrathful Dispersion' controversy, by q_pheevr
  


• Anyone's cell phone records available for a fee: "Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts. Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official. Suspicious spouses can see if their husband or wife is calling a certain someone a bit too often. And employers can check whether a worker is regularly calling a psychologist -- or a competing company."
  


• The Idiotarod, a race across NYC on the 28th of this month: "The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Our Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City." They say they swiped the idea from folks in San Fransisco. The cost to enter is "Dignity. Plus, there is a $5 per person entry fee." (by way of That Mailing List)
  


• The History of BASIC and a companion piece, the History of the C language family (again from That Mailing List). Be prepared for Major Snarkitude.
  


• The Advertising Slogan Generator, a silly little CGI script, which I spotted on a mailing list under the heading "Sloganize your name" ... and the output of which I expect to start seeing pop up on folks journals any minute now ... Though I found the slogan it came up with for me unsettling: "You'll Never Put A Better Bit Of Glenn On Your Knife." [Come to think of it, the next name I put in also produced a result that conjured ... interesting images: "I Can't Believe I Ate The Whole The Homespun Ceilidh Band."] Oooh, on the same site they've got Sheep Poetry, very much like a pair of ideas I had a long time ago and never got around to implementing! (I was tempted to spraypaint words on the sides of a herd of cattle some night, and enjoy the self-rearranging "refrigerator magnet poetry" they would produce the next day when they woke up ... I decided that programming virtual cows in a screensaver or something would be less likely to lead to my arrest -- or being gored or trampled -- but I never got around to that either.) It needs more words, and the sheep need to move, but it's a start...
  


• I haven't sat down to try to read this yet (I plan to, but I think I'd do better with a copy of Larousse de Poche in my lap than constantly flipping over to Babelfish when I try to get through it with my rusty French), but "Tintin en Irak" (a new Tintin story usng recycled Tintin art and new words) looks like it might be interesting. [Though goodness knows there are plenty of authentic Tintin tales -- already translated even -- that I haven't read yet, which I'd like to get my hands on some day. And some stories I read parts of in magazines where they were serialized and never found the ends of.]
  


• The Episcopal Diocese of Washington reacts to NBC's television series, The Book of Daniel, in The Blog of Daniel. I've only skimmed so far, but it looks a lot more interesting (not to mention more positive) than the howls of outrage from the religious far-right fundamentalists, (who started talking about how wrong the show before anyone had even seen it). For folks unaware of why the Episcopal reaction would be especially relevant: the title character is an Episcopal priest. I've got a bunch of thoughts of my own about the first three episodes, to write up ... well I hope to get around to that sometime this week.
  


• The Nation has published its Dictionary of Republicanisms, including such entries as: "compassionate conservatism (n): Poignant concern for the very wealthy" and "simplify (v): To cut the taxes of Republican donors"
  


• realinterrobang has some observations regarding how gendered occupational stereotypes are perpetuated (and to a meaningful extent, enforced), as well as a followup survey asking for other folks' (gut-level / socially-conditioned) impressions of which jobs have default genders attached (free-response, not an LJ-poll).