Well, I fully expected to have nothing at all today. It's a good thing I managed to find a few links from the laptop so you'll have something to look at besides my griping. The back's feeling better, but if I hadn't had a 500 count bottle of ibuprofen on hand, it could have gotten ugly. This is the same muscle group I injured a few years back by slipping on the ice on the front steps of our house and wrenching my back by catching myself with the handrail. Then I reinjured it last September. Being a computer-nerd who can't spend hours in front of the computer is no fun. I haven't been getting paying work done, and one of my major recreations has been taken from me, too. Instead, for the past couple days I've been mostly horizontal, and that's meant a lot of TV watching. My brain feels pretty mushy now, and I'm basically just a grumpy gus. Let's hope tomorrow brings a brighter mood. If not, I probably won't bother posting an update.
- The Lie Behind the Lie Detector A free PDF e-book on polygraph (lie detector) testing. Covers the scientific status of polygraphy, polygraph policy (in the U.S.), how the "test" actually works (exposing the charlatanry behind it), and explains in detail how to beat the polygraph (you don't have to go to spy school or somehow believe your own lies). See AntiPolygraph.org for additional documentation on lie detector testing. I have no idea whether the site has real information or just crackpot stuff, but someone suggested the link, and I figured what the heck.
- I was watching Chicago: City of the Century the other night, and now I apparently have another reason to not shop at the former Dayton's.
After the Haymarket trials, there was a move to grant clemency to the convicted conspirators. Lawyers pointed out that the bomber had never been identified, and even a few leading businessmen favored a pardon in an effort to improve relations with labor. [Marshall] Field, the richest man in the city, refused to consider clemency, and once his position was known, not many businessmen wished to publicly disagree with him.
It was obvious none of these men had thrown the bomb, and yet Field, who could have spared them by asking for clemency, let them hang. That's the name that Dayton's thought would be more a better draw for people in Minneapolis. - Craig Hughes' cool head helps in battle against spam. But now SpamAssassin is a NetAss property, and that worries me. Well, I guess it's not so bad. Deersoft, the company they formed to sell commercial uses of SpamAssassin has been acquired by the people who tried to kill PGP, but the software's still open source.
- Why Snood Gets No Respect explores Snood. It's good game design, with relatively simple programming. It's the kind of game I like.