My friend Mat sent me a link to a very interesting Radar Magazine article recently. Bill Geerhart started a letter writing campaign, posing as a 10 year old boy. Not too far fetched so far.

He started writing to people that you may recognize the names of,  Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker, Charles Manson, and The Unibomber.

He also wrote others, like Dick Cheney, Clarence Thomas, Larry Flynt, and Alan Greenspan, to name a few.

Billy asks most of the serial murderers if he should drop out of school, he asks Larry Flynt if there is a kids version of Hustler, and he asks Alan Greenspan the best way to save up for a speedboat. The article has the replies that he received as well.

Check it out.

The Manson reply is just crazy. I knew the guy was a wacko before, but his letters are just crazy.

Posted in Humor, Distractions No Comments »

One of the really neat things about the Internet is how much data is available right at your fingertips. Zip Skinny takes some of this data, and shows you some demographic information for your neck of the woods.

You enter your zip code (hence the name), and shows you some basic information about your zip code, compared to your state average and the national average.

The basics include Education Level, Marital Status, Income levels, and Occupation, all represented with a graph like the one pictured here.

The statistics are compared with zip codes close by, and clicking on them drills down even farther.

The data is based on Census data, and of course may be a little out of date. You can also see some of the top zip codes for various population attributes, such as population density, median age youngest or oldest.

It’s really neat to see how your zip code stacks up compared to the national average, as well as some of your other neighbors. You should check Zip Skinny out.

Posted in WebServices, Web Tools, WebSites, Distractions No Comments »

I was pretty impressed when I checked my email, and found this email scam from Kuwait. Unlike some of the other scams that I have received, instead of helping some corrupt official embezzle money out of the country, the premise here is that I will help give $25 Million away to charity. I mean, who doesn’t want to give someone else’s money away to charity?

Of course, to compensate me for my time time and effort, I would get to keep a measly 20% of the $25 million. Hardly seems worth the effort.

Seriously, from my understanding, Kuwait isn’t a poor country, but this reminds me of something I was thinking recently. With the internet everywhere, and the $100 laptop Project, not to mention other initiatives to put technology in the hands of under developed countries, will we start seeing many more of these types of email scams? I’ll be curious to see what happens.

Without further ado, here is the email:

************

Warning, the following is a scam email, reply to addresses have been removed to protect the gullible. If you receive an email like this, don’t reply to it.

************

Greetings,

My name is Mrs. Aisha Qadir, widow to late Mr. Ahmed Qadir, former owner of Petroleum and Gas Company, here in Kuwait, I am 68years old, Suffering from long time cancer of the breast, From all indications my condition is really Deteriorating, and it’s quite obvious that I won’t live more than 3 months according to my doctors, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage, I don’t want your pity, but i need your trust.

My late husband died early last year from heart attack, and during theperiod of our marriage we Couldn’t produce any child, my late husband was very wealthy, and after his death, I inherited all his business and wealth, The doctor has advised me that I will not live for more than 3 months, so I have now decided to spread all my wealth, to contribute mainly to the development of charity in Africa, America, Asia and Europe, am sorry if you are embarrassed by my mail, i found your e-mail address in the web directory, and i have decided to contact you, but if for any reason you find this mail offensive, you can ignore it and please accept my apology.

Before my late husband died he was a major oil tycoon, in Kuwait anddeposited the sum of 25million dollars (Twenty Five million dollars) in a company in Europe some years ago, thats all i have left now, I need you to collect this funds and distribute it yourself to charity, so that when i die my soul can rest in peace, the funds will be entirely in hands and management, i hope God gives you the wisdom to touch very many lives, that is my main concern.

20% of this money will be for your time and effort, while 80% goes to charity.

God bless you.

Mrs. Aisha Qadir.

Posted in Scams, Distractions 4 Comments »

I spend about an hour a day driving back and forth to work, and I’ve been using my iPod to keep the drive interesting. Not too long ago I ran across PodioBooks, which offers free Books in podcast format.

Although you do have to create an account, I don’t think I have received even one e-mail from them since I signed up.

You can browse through their large selection of free books, and once you have decided on what you want to listen to, a RSS feed is created which allows you to subscribe using your favorite feed reader.

New installments are delivered at the schedule you define, and that’s about all there is to it. The site is easy to use, and the podcasts are delivered in a timely manner.

The first podcast novel I listened to was EarthCore, and I liked it so much that I have downloaded pretty much everything by Scott Sigler.

I definitely recommend this site.

Posted in Podcasts, AudioBooks, Distractions 6 Comments »

I posted yesterday about Bust a Name, and as I mentioned, I hadn’t heard of Bust a Name when I decided on my domain name. So, I have a little confession to make.

Truth is, I used the Web 2.0 Domain Name Generator. I was hesitant to to admit this, because I don’t want anyone to think that I am a Web 2.0 kind of guy. I mean really, Web 2.0 was sooo last week.

Truth be told, I noticed that they mixed up words and numbers, and I started thinking about the port numbers. So technically, the generator didn’t give me my domain name, it just started me down the path.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Posted in Blogging, Web Tools, Domain Names, WebSites, Distractions No Comments »