I suppose I'm writing to procrastinate finishing my current software project, specifically the transitory period from the last chunk of new code being added and the first chunk of testing. Testing your own software of any reasonable size has always struck me as comparable to washing a pan full of silverware or assembling an office chair, a soulless task that one is nevertheless forced to undertake in order to sit down comfortably and eat like a human. This project defies unit testing without completely denying it, dangling the possibility of efficient and consistent error-checking in my face with the sure knowledge implementing such a system would in this circumstance be far more trouble than it's worth. AJAX may be pretty but it's also the third greatest atrocity the world has ever seen.

Lately I've been on a reading binge. Rather, I've fit it in amongst my other binges/benders. I'm pushing through a number of different sci-fi and fantasy series that I read long ago, just buying whole trilogies+ at a block where I can so that I can maybe find out where things wind up. More often "wind down" is the more appropriate term, given the propensity of authors in this genre to write a series till they can't. It's been interesting to reread some books for style and with a new perspective.

If I may make one request of now and future authors, tucked safely away in this journal entry where no one will ever see it: if you must proselytize, can you try a light touch rather than a cram down the throat?

I've just made it through all of the Ender books, Ender's Game -> Ender in Exile. I'd finished the first four quite a while ago, then as part of the aforementioned binge decided to go the next five. I don't know what happened to the author in the intervening timeframe, but he LOVES the word "babies". So much so that not only does the plot revolve at one point around finding stolen babies (fertilized embryos, specifically, but as we all know and agree life begins at conception), but the topic of "making babies" comes up frequently and in verbally jarring fashion:

"We really don't want to have to start all over, making babies."

"I want you to help them make babies that don't have any of the father's gifts or problems."

"Lie down with one of our young men, or one of our old ones if you want, and make babies."

"...and what would happen to her plans for making []'s babies then?"

These are all in the same book! Don't get me wrong, I'm not against reading different perspectives, but in the age of the cheap thesaurus this just felt inelegantly done. If you had told me halfway through Lord of the Rings that it was an allegorical protest of industrialized farming, I never would have believed you.

At any rate, it's good to be back reading fiction. I've been hoping for a while now that the e-ink readers would come down to Earth so I could roll through Project Gutenberg, but until then used paperbacks will do.

OK, I've been out of the loop for a year or three, so what's the criteria to get this box?

[ ] Disable Advertising
As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising.

I have to admit that it really made me laugh when I saw it, though I suppose not pouring shit into the comment area could be taken as a positive contribution in a relative sense.

The site feels a little strange with this new interface, but I do like that they didn't incorporate the "dumb it down" portion of Web 2.0 even if 500 different functions can get a bit unwieldy. Given how poorly the art of conversation is faring on the Internet these forum sites could do with a bit of a test before you're permitted to add your two cents; captchas are all well and good, a literacy test would be better, and requiring people to write every comment in assembly language would be just plain silly -- or the next billion dollar Web business. I still don't get this whole Internet thing.

If you've got about an hour to kill on YouTube comedy, give this a try. It's split into seven parts and the longer I watched it the funnier I thought it was.

For a brief moment I was actually worried that things were about to change for the better. But it hasn't even been a week and already the circular firing squad's up and the Republican 2008 campaign material is being primed.

Would you be so kind to the electorate as to at least attempt to not fall apart?

I think this has to be one of the best awful electioneering stories I've read about lately -- not only because of the degree of its offensiveness, but also because of the multiple ways in which it manages to offend. Though if you happen to know a worse story offhand (I don't care about party/country/election cycle) I'd love to read it.

Does anybody compile a nonpartisan list of political dirty tricks?

Wikipedia functions as it has for years, earns writeup in Reuters.

A man with his head stuck in a wall.

Just stumbled across this unfortunate bunch of people. What's important for them to keep in mind -- between the five calls a day from a fake phone number attempting to get their credit card information or trying to help their elderly parents recover from the same scam -- is that when they turn on their television or their radio they can be assured no prurient or otherwise entertaining content will sneak through.

Time to get hammered. Oh, but drive safely.

Set up a transparent proxy to block the things? Squid+Squirm+Virilator, and a tiny bit of coding, to recognize every WMF file as a virus by its header till things blow over?

Edit Privoxy to permit binary regex matching?

Hook the appropriate parts of kiServiceTable, per the recent DRM flap, and simply prevent any file with a WMF header from being opened? Just the ones that look funny or all of them to take no chances?

Use the apparently preferred method of replacing the callback for the Windows Executive Object for file access, and have that block WMF reads?

EDIT: As just seen on Bugtraq -- Update Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall with two IDS rules. If it provides full coverage network-wise for the computer this is actually a pretty nice option for individual client systems; the software is downloadable and usable for 30-days, after which it removes some features and becomes free for personal use or (for a limited time) is available for $14.95. It's also in my kit for the occasional friends/family/friends of family visits when I gotta clean a computer up and leave something behind to try to stop it from happening again.

Five days ago I was forced to reauthenticate software I paid for, entered a CD-KEY into, and authenticated over a year ago because the addition of a virtual device exceeded the number of changes I was permitted to make to my computer.

So as far as computers go, this has certainly been a week to reflect on how fortunate it is that my primary platform is the second, better operating system on this computer: one that is broken neither by accident nor by design. And here's to hoping I didn't just curse my luck by saying that.