Legalism is just the first sin all over again

I don’t have much time, so I just want to say one thing in response to the legalistic second message I heard at Promise Keepers last night.
The Fruits of the Spirit and God’s law are diagnostic tools. They are means to an end. Neither one is an end unto itself. Neither is achievable all by yourself. A guilt trip accomplishes nothing; trying to do them on your own accomplishes nothing but showing you how futile the task is.

I was sitting next to Pastor as we got this message, and he fumed through the whole thing. And at one point, one of us said, “We love this stuff, because it tells us exactly what we should do.” And the other of us said, “This is the first sin all over again. This is trying to be God.”

So listen. If you don’t like the direction your life is headed, if you look at your life and you don’t see what Scripture says your life is supposed to be, don’t make yourself a to-do list. Make this your to-do list: Tell God what you see. Tell Him you don’t like it. Trust me, He doesn’t either. Ask God to forgive you, ask Him to invade your life–yes, again–and humble yourself and ask Him to show you the way you should go. Let Him set your path straight.

The good deeds we do on our own are nothing but filthy rags. The only things we can do that are worthwhile are what God Himself enables us to do. Face it: You and I both need a designated hitter. But God’s willing to be that. Let Him.

Trust me. The fruits will come. Obedience will come. And they’ll be a whole lot better than anything you can do on your own.

The pressure’s off.

I gotta get going.

The best week of my life revisited

Well, I got word this week that my first video of significant length landed on the desk of the founder of Adventures in Missions. And he liked it.
It made its St. Louis debut the Sunday before last. I think it did its job. The subject was my church’s June mission trip to Belle Glade, and a number of the people who were there cried.

“God, send us some signs or something,” prayed the 15-year-old son of Christian author Tim Wesemann, about 30 seconds into the video.

Sign? You got it. A kid named Matthew set off an alarm in room 229 in the church where we spent our first night. So, for what seemed like an eternity, the PA system bellowed, “2-2-9.” And it beeped a lot too.

The minute he prayed and asked for forgiveness, it stopped. Things like that happened a lot that week.

That afternoon, someone looked up Matthew 22:9.

That became our theme. Which reminds me: We need to make t-shirts.

About halfway through, the words, “Wednesday, June 19, 2002: A night to remember” flashed up, simple white letters on a black screen. One of the girls turned back to me. “You got that on tape!?” I nodded. I shot at least three hours of tape that night. She reached back and squeezed my hand.

Let me tell you something about Wednesday night. I don’t know everything that was going through everyone’s minds that night, but by Wednesday, most of our kids (28 in all, I think) had been to the gates of hell and back. They were seeing the desperate situation the people in Belle Glade were living in, and although we’re middle-class white guys and gals from south suburban St. Louis, we live in luxury compared to any of them. We live in nice houses, drive nice cars, and get to eat pretty much anything we want, whenever we want. We don’t have to worry about any of our basic needs.

In Belle Glade, “affordable housing” often means four concrete walls, a concrete floor and roof, some kind of bed, and a 110-volt outlet to plug a hotplate into. A sink is a luxury. A lot of “discount” stores selling low-quality food abound. The food is affordable but not worth the prices they’re forced to pay for it. Blaxploitation at its finest. It’s pretty sickening.

And on Tuesday, there was an incident. One of the kids from our downtown VBS, an eight-year-old, got into a fight with a 13-year-old. The eight-year-old was everyone’s favorite. His was probably the saddest story we’d heard down there. But there was something else about him too. I had limited contact with him (I worked the other VBS) but I can attest to it. He drove me nuts most of the time. But I liked him.

Well, the angel they’d seen that morning flashed his other side. At one point, he had a big rock that he was ready to throw at the 13-year-old–a big-enough rock that if he beaned him with it with enough velocity, it’d do some permanent damage. And the fire in his eyes suggested he was more than willing–if not able–to do just that.

Being an adult, I’ve seen people who have such polar extremes. Not everyone in their early teens has yet–and let’s face it, Oakville, Missouri is pretty sheltered. Seeing two people willing to fight, perhaps to the death, over something that warranted at most a minor scuffle represented a major loss of innocence, especially for the girls.

And the adults from the neighborhood wanted to just let the two kids fight it out and call the police when it ended. One of our adults intervened, broke up the fight, and seperated the two, and a group of people talked to each of them. We didn’t have any more problems of that sort with those two for the rest of the week.

On Wednesday, a couple of teenagers hopped onto the roof where we were holding our other VBS. They threw off a soccer ball and football that had been thrown up there. One of them also picked up a five-pound iron weight, attached to a belt–a crude gang weapon–that was up there. A number of kids were playing in front of the building. He pitched the weight off the top of the roof. He probably wasn’t thinking. And he probably didn’t care, to be honest. The weight came down off the 12-foot roof (he’d probably pitched it up a bit higher, so it may have fallen 18, even 20 feet) and hit a little girl on the head. It bounced off, like a rubber ball. She wasn’t hurt at all. She was scared because she didn’t know what happened, and because our kids were terrified–you know how kids are, they get scared when adults think there’s supposed to be something terribly wrong–but completely unharmed.

Those were just the major events of Tuesday and Wednesday. Enough other things happened both days to fill a book each.

End long digression. Wednesday night was a crescendo. Georgia-based worship leader Joey Nicholson was singing songs and leading us in worship, and his song selections seemed especially poignant that night. Emotions were running high and our kids were exhausted. Our kids were crying, hugging each other, encouraging each other… The total opposite of the all-too-common cold and impersonal church service. At some point, one of the boys in my subgroup–Matthew, he of 2-2-9 and a source of a lot of gray hair for me, prior to that day–walked up to the stage and knelt down to pray. And he stayed there. The rest of the kids stayed pretty much where they were, singing, crying, hugging, consoling, for about two songs. He was still up there alone, praying and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to budge. Our pastor tried to inconspicuously walk up there. Well, that didn’t exactly work. He walked up, put his hand on his shoulder, and knelt down next to him, talking to him and praying with him. The next thing I knew, all 28 of our kids were up there with them. By the time I knew what was going on, I was one of about five adults still standing. We didn’t waste much time joining them. I ran my handheld camera as I walked up and knelt down, but then I turned it off. What was going on up there was between each of us and God. I wasn’t going to invade that.

We were up there for about an hour, praying for each other.

It was a Lutheran altar call, I guess. No decisions for Christ there–Lutherans believe that’s pointless, because it’s God who empowers us to come to Him–but there were plenty of people talking to God about what their present life looked like and asking God what He wanted them to be doing with it, instead of what they were currently doing with it.

With all due respect to Promise Keepers, 10 PK rallies can’t match the intensity of those few hours that night for the 43-or-so people who were there. Yeah, it was that significant.

That was the self-indulgent memories portion. My gift to those who went, pure and simple. The remaining 19 minutes were about the various ministries we participated in while in Belle Glade. I’ll make no bones about it–it was a propaganda piece. The group that organized our trip had been talking about pulling out of Belle Glade, making our trip the last one there. After seeing so many lives transformed, I wanted to convince them not to do that.

They’ve told us their plans to pull out are history. Mission #1 accomplished.

There were 38 of us who went on the trip, but according to LCMS records, our congregation has 1380 members. Obviously it’s not realistic to send 1,380 people, but a congregation our size can send more than 38. I wanted to make the people who didn’t go jealous, so they’d want to go next year.

Time will tell if that works. Right now it looks like it will.

And I had a fourth objective too. There are lots of churches in Belle Glade. Most of the churches we came in contact with weren’t doing much outreach. I don’t know why that is, and I’m not going to speculate. But here’s what happened: 38 white guys and gals from St. Louis came in for a week. They didn’t have a clue what they were doing. But every ministry we touched caught fire. By the end of the week, every time a group of us walked down the street, someone stopped them. “Where are you from?” And when we’d answer, “St. Louis,” the people would say, “We’ve heard about you.” Then they’d tell us what we’d been doing. Then they’d thank us.

So the question in my mind was, if 38 St. Louisans can come down and spend a week and lots of great things happen, what can the churches that are down there do the other 51 weeks out of the year?

To my knowledge, the video’s been shown at two different churches, one in Belle Glade and one in Wellington, an affluent community a half hour away.

I hope they’re insanely jealous too.

Not that any of that was going through my mind as I watched. No. I was noticing how the audio needed to be normalized, and how a few of the shots desperately needed either to have been shot on a tripod or a healthy dose of post-production image stabilization, and how awful the lighting was and how nice it would have been to be able to do some post-production color correction.

Powerful? Sure. Worthy of winning a Telly? No way.

But the media director at church just told me to win a Telly. She didn’t tell me when. So there’s always next year.

But if we go back next year and I make a video about it and we win a Telly, I’ll betcha the Telly still isn’t the highlight of my year.

This is so ridiculous I can’t parody it

OK, Steve provoked me into coming back. He sent me something enraging. Irresponsible. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.
I know three specimens of South St. Louis White Trash who’ll be waiting in line to buy their copies at some midnight sale. They live in a large, fenced estate, locked and posted. There are signs saying they have alarms, although that’s not true. They do have guns though. Lots of no-trespassing signs too. And if you value your life, you’ll take them seriously.

They hoard guns and cars. They only venture out to buy groceries, and for the occasional trip through a restaurant drive-thru. They trust nobody. The outside world is a conspiracy. Everybody’s against them. They don’t trust each other either, for that matter, but they mistrust each other less than the rest of the world, so they mostly put up with each other.

Their idea of balanced news reporting is Rush Limbaugh. They un-balance him with harder-right-leaning people like G. Gordon Liddy. The government is a vast conspiracy. I think they might have tried to tell me once that the X-Files is actually a documentary. They did tell me the national park system is now owned and operated by the United Nations, in order to promote and fund one world government.

Yeah, I think Steve found a book these guys will like. It’s leftist, so it’ll balance out some of the right-wing stuff, but it’s wrought with conspiracy. And conspiracy theories can get so far out there that rightist conspiracy can flip around and touch leftist conspiracy. And vice-versa.

You see, according to this thing, Sept. 11 never happened. Nope. You’ve been duped by the government and the media both. Those supposed hijackers aboard those four planes? They’ve been spotted in the months since. (I wonder if they were hanging out with Elvis? Or maybe Kurt Cobain. Cobain’s alive, you know. Wait. No, wait. Cobain was murdered. I’m having trouble keeping my conspiracies straight.) The Pentagon was struck by a U.S. missiles, not an airliner. The planes that hit the WTC towers were operated by remote control. It was all a plot by a right-leaning government to find an excuse to increase military spending.

Now, never mind the mising airplane and the people inside. The author of this–umm, do I really have to call it a book? After all, I wrote a book, and I’d really rather not have anything in common with this guy. I mean, it’s bad enough that we’re both carbon-based and breathe oxygen. And if I find out we have the same blood type or something, I’ll really be mad. OK, OK, the author of this garbage which happens to be sold in stores that sell books says he can’t account for the missing plane. He hasn’t had the recources to investigate his theory.

I’ll bet he didn’t even bother to ask Billy Joel his opinion, which seems to be the defining attribute of a journalist these days. OK, just a CNN journalist. Not that I care what Billy Joel thinks about current events. Now, Aimee Mann, on the other hand…

Where was I?

Oh yeah. And they say America is the land of opportunity. Here’s this flunky with a wild theory. He can’t prove a word of it. Hasn’t even started to research it. But somehow, he gets a book advance so he can write out all of these wild allegations. And then the publisher actually goes through with wasting all that ink and paper and glue? Then it sells 200,000 copies? And then, adding insult to injury, someone thinks enough to take the garbage, translates it into English from its original French, and releases it in the States?

I’m thinkin’ France is the land of opportunity, baby! Time for me to go get one of those $995 lessons-on-tape sets, change my last name to Croissant, go find a publisher and spew onto some paper! Ooh la-la! Just wait until they hear Dwight Eisenhower met with space aliens in 1954!

Only problem is, when you do this kind of thing, as Ms. Mann would say, I know there’s a word for it. So now I know what I can call this, since I’m loathe to call it a book.

Libel.

And I’m no fan of litigation, but I hope the parties wronged band together and sue French author Thierry Meyssan for every dime he’s made off his piece of libel.

I’m not ready to come back yet, but here’s someone who is

Give me another day or two to get over my shellshock. Aleve makes me feel like I just drank three pints of Guinness. I’m sure my boss will be thrilled to hear that.
In the meantime, if you want something to read, go check out this. Debby is a member of my church. I can’t remember right now if we met two or three years ago. She’s fighting the battle of her life right now, so when a mutual friend came to me and asked me to set up a Web site for her, I jumped at the opportunity.

And before the Kaycee Nicole references come up, let me say this: I know Debby. She lives less than five miles from me. Her younger daughter, Wendy, works the same place I buy my groceries. Her older daughter, Heather, went to Mizzou with me, though I don’t know if our paths ever crossed. Her teacher’s assistant is in my Bible study group. I’ve worked on her computer a few times. I still remember how Wendy laughed when Debby came in, saw their computer open, looked at the dust inside it in horror, left the room, and came back with a dustrag. I’ve played with her dog, I’ve ridden in her car, I’ve seen the classroom where she teaches. Just as certain as I’m a real, living, breathing human being, so is Debby.

Pretentious Pontifications: The needs of the fast-paced life

Since it would appear that David will be out of commission for a day or two, I have forcibly forecefully volunteered to fill in for him. And I must say, I read yesterdays tete-a-tete with great interest, and upon reading and reflecting upon it with a fine cognac and a cigar, I must come to one conclusion.
You are all, to use one of David’s favorite phrases of yesterday, IDIOTs.

Everybody knows that real men fly supersonic.

I will grant that I rather enjoyed David’s discussion of Station-wagon Utility Vehicles. Indeed, the typical SUV does look like an engineer took the body of a station wagon, put it on a truck frame, and put big tires on it. Very clever. Very observant. Obviously he must not have thought of it himself.

But before I extol the virtues of air travel, I must point something out to the SUV-defenders here. By the time you buy your status-symbol SUV and pay for the insurance and the fuel for them, you could have had yourself a Mercedes. And the Mercedes would be worth more by the time you finish paying for it. But the really big plus is that rather than looking like someone trying to act wealthy, a Mercedes actually makes you look wealthy.

Some of you touched upon the hatred that often gets directed towards SUV owners. Yes, a certain segment of the middle class is learning about conspicuous consumption, and I applaud them. The upside to conspicuous consumption is that it gets you noticed. The downside to conspicuous consumption is that some people, such as my brother, have yet to learn how to appreciate it.

That is another advantage to a Mercedes. Since people see fewer of them, there is less hatred directed at them. The true upper crust learn how to conspicuously consume without drawing as much hatred as everyone else. I, of course, am a master at this, as I have so aptly demonstrated on these pages in the past. I am also quite humble.

Since some people are not born wealthy, they must learn how to create wealth. Buying a Mercedes instead of a four-wheel-drive station wagon is a good start. If you continue to spend your money wisely, by the time you finish paying for that Mercedes, you might be ready to graduate to a Rolls.

Now, of course, it is time for me to talk about flying. Some of us lead very hectic lives, and driving entry-level vehicles like David insists on doing is just impossible. On a typical day, I get up at the early hour of 10 a.m. You will find me unlike that sloth Raunche, who sleeps until 10:30. I have breakfast in bed, and then, while one of my servants bathes me, I usually take the time to smoke a cigar and read a newspaper or magazine. Usually there is no time to drive–most people worth keeping appointments with live too far away to make a 12:00 appointment by car. That is why a Tu-144 comes in most handy. Now, some people say that using an airliner designed to carry 170 people is wasteful for one person. What they forget is that when I travel, I do not travel alone. Besides my pilot and co-pilot, I also have a stewardess, a hairdresser, and a chef, just in case I decide I need a mid-morning snack. I find that when I travel with such a large group of people, a plane designed to carry 170 commoners gives me just enough space to myself.

Unfortunately, most people worth keeping a noon appointment with do not live anywhere near an airport. But some of them do not yet have a landing strip, or their landing strip is inadequate for a supersonic passenger liner. For that reason, I am usually in the habit of clearing an Interstate. Most Interstates make excellent runways for a plane such as the Tu-144. Some people complain about the inconvenience, but what about my convenience? Is that not important? We have had a few incidents where a vehicle or two was damaged, but the drivers of those vehicles should know to get out of the way. I like flying, and my tax dollars pay for those Interstates too. Besides, flying is so much safer than driving. More people should do it. Some people complain about the fuel involved, but really, what is more valuable? That fuel, or your time? I can always find more jet fuel. If I found more time somehow, my busy schedule would quickly expand to fill it.

And I can never have too much safety. If my safety puts other people at risk, they just need to make more money so they can keep up with me. Or they need to learn how to spend the money they do have. A helicopter costs much less to buy and operate than my Tu-144, and although it only has a fraction of its speed and its quarters is very tight, it does have the advantage of being able to land just about anywhere. I am no danger and no inconvenience to someone in a helicopter. More of the middle class should give helicopters serious thought.

For those who can afford it, I highly recommend the Tu-144. Unfortunately, there are very few of them left, and I have the last one that was still airworthy. With some refurbishment, however, there are a small number of them that could be made airworthy again, and they could save countless other people lots of time. Do not worry yourself with the noise or the pollution. People get used to it. Trust me. I know from experience.

The Tu-144 is conspicuous consumption at its finest. It is so uncommon, people cannot help but notice. And marvel.

Mail: Data recovery 101


From: EP
Subject: dead hard drive
Dave,

I would really like to learn something about getting data from drives that clunk or have a burned board. Your link to 200 ways does not work.

Could you be of any help to me?

Ezra

As far as drives that clunk, unless the system recognizes it enough that you can run SpinRite on it, I don’t know how to do it. A clunk can be indicative of a lot of different things, from a crashed head (very difficult–you’ll need a cleanroom to get anything) to a simple bad sector (very easy–sometimes even something as lame as ScanDisk can save you sometimes; SpinRite almost always will).

Drives that have a burned board are easier. If you can track down an identical drive, you can swap the board and usually get the data back. I’ve done that a couple of times. The hard part is tracking down an identical drive.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help.

Dave

Our inflated egos show on our streets

I hate SUVs. I hate irresponsible drivers. I hate Telegraph Road. I hate them I hate them I hate them.
There. It’s out of my system. I feel a whole lot better now.

Wait. I’m not supposed to hate drivers. OK, fine. I hate it when people drive irresponsibly. Put the newspaper away and save it for when you get there. (Not that it’s worth reading anyway, if it’s the St. Louis Post-Disgrace.) If you drop your cell phone, kick it away so it won’t get wedged under one of your pedals, then pull over to pick it up. OK?

And whatever you do, don’t ever, EVER, EVER (why don’t all browsers support the blink tag? This is perfectly appropriate use of it) stop for no reason whatsoever. OK?

There are people behind you, and you’re encased in a two-ton deadly weapon. Don’t you ever, ever forget that.

Here’s what happened to me today.

It was 2:45 pm. I was on my way to church. Special service. I was scheduled to ush. What’s ushing? Whatever ushers do. It was the intersection of I-255 and Telegraph Rd. The bad news is, when you pass that intersection, your IQ temporarily drops to whatever the square root of your IQ is. The worse news is, so does everyone else’s.

Well, some IDIOT went through the stoplight and immediately slammed on its brakes (yeah, I know the proper is “his or her,” but when you’re that stupid, you relinquish the right to human pronouns) for no good reason. The woman in the SUV ahead of me slammed on her brakes. I slammed on my brakes. I skidded into her. My license plate slammed into her trailer hitch. A woman in an SUV behind me slammed on her brakes and slammed into me. She put a tear in my rear bumper and put a dent in my trunk. I didn’t notice the damage on the scene–only later. She tore her front bumper up pretty good–I think she hit me pretty hard.

The IDIOT zoomed off unscathed, and probably blissfully unaware.

We were all in a huge hurry–which probably square-rooted all of our IQs yet again–and we didn’t want any trouble. None of us was hurt, our vehicles were all capable of driving and just sustained cosmetic damage, and none of us needed our insurance rates to go up, and certainly none of us needed a ticket. We didn’t even bother to exchange phone numbers.

The lady who slammed into me was going the same place I was, it turned out. Good thing I kept my cool, eh?

But I’m really sick of how people drive these days. Everyone thinks they’re so blasted important. They drive around yakking on the phone. They slam on their brakes because they think they’re about to miss a turn. Well, if you miss a turn on account of your own stupidity, who are you to inconvenience the two dozen people behind you? Turn off at the next road and loop back. Yeah, it costs you five minutes. But who are you to take time from two dozen other people?

In my case, I’m going to have to take off work to take my car into the shop, its going to cost me a few hundred bucks to replace a bumper, and I’m going to have to get a rental. But at least that IDIOT wasn’t inconvenienced at all. And that’s all that matters. In the IDIOT‘s mind. And when you’re King of the Universe, that’s fine. You can think that way.

Incidentally, detouring when I mess up is my standard practice. It’s called courtesy. It used to be called common courtesy, but it’s pretty rare these days. Probably because people notice discourtesy, but it’s often impossible to see courtesy, so courtesy isn’t appreciated. But I’d rather be unnoticed than get noticed because I inconvenienced someone.

But stopping suddenly isn’t the only thing IDIOTs do. They cut you off and then they slow down. They run red lights because it’s much more important for them to get where they’re going than it is for you to get where you’re going. That’s my really big pet peeve. I stick my car’s nose into the intersection with my horn blaring when they do that. Usually they smile and wave. The nerve of them.

Once I even saw an IDIOT in a left-turn lane wait through a light, then cut across two lanes of traffic going straight and make a right turn! No one ever taught that IDIOT that three lefts make a right.

But rather than shaming people into obeying the law, or enforcing red lights with cameras, instead we buy ever bigger and bigger cars and Station-wagon Utility Vehicles. It’s a big arms race. Guys like me lose out. I’m 5’9″. A Dodge Neon has more headroom than I need. A Station-wagon Utility Vehicle is completely impractical for me. I can’t afford the sticker price, and I can’t afford to keep gas in it. Neither can most of the people who buy them, but I guess that’s what credit cards are for.

If the only people who bought Station-wagon Utility Vehicles were the people who really needed them, it wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is, every other person has one. So we make our roads unsafe by killing everyone’s visibility and ensuring that accidents are more serious by driving cars with twice as much mass as we need, and we make our world unsafe by unnecessarily funneling billions of dollars to the Middle East, so Mohammedan millionaires can turn around and fund terrorists who blow up Israelis and Americans.

So I guess it isn’t just the intersection of I-255 and Telegraph that square-roots our intelligence, huh? Maybe it’s the water. Nah, I’ll blame television.

If we’d all just come down off our pedestals and realize our proper place in life, we’d all be a whole lot better off. We’d be a lot safer, and I’ll bet you anything we’d all get just as much done.

But the way we act right now? No wonder the rest of the world hates us. We deserve it.

Promising ways to fight spam

Increase your breast size in weeks!
Yeah, obviously I’m real interested in that kind of e-mail. I’m sure you are too. Even if you happen not to be male.

I read an article on Slashdot on Friday about an interesting approach to spam. Essentially, it uses artificial intelligence. You get two delete buttons: One that says, “Delete this spam!” and one that says, “Delete this, but it’s not spam.” Based on your answers, it figures out what’s spam and what isn’t. For example, nobody I correspond with regularly has ever talked to me about breast size. Male or female. Strange how none of the women I correspond with ever bring that up, isn’t it? Come to think of it, that’s almost as strange as how none of the men I correspond with do.

The problem with spam is that people tend to define it a little bit differently. It’s kind of like trying to define pornography. To some people, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is pornography. To others, the swimsuit issues of 20 years ago aren’t, but recent ones are.

Fortunately, it’s easier to analyze text than photographs.

Words like “toner” and “breast” and “sex” and “sexy” appear in spam a lot. Words like “bring” are a lot less likely, but very likely to appear in personal correspondence. So, based on the number of highly likely words and highly unlikely words that appear in a given piece of mail, it determines whether a piece of mail is spam.

I like this because it could conveivably have some applications beyond spam. I hate spam, but I hate mail forwards nearly as much. I believe there are precisely 33 of those cutesy mail forwards and send-backs out there, and I’ve seen them all several times, but people continue to insist on sending them to me. Usually with the preface, “I know you hate these and I usually don’t send you stuff like this, but…” Never mind the likelihood that since literally thousands of people have my e-mail address, someone’s already sent it to me.

Some people love those kinds of things, so filtering them for those people wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate (unless you’re that person’s boss and you want them to stop wasting time). But if I could filter them, I’d have a whole lot more time.

The researcher quoted on Slashdot claims only 5 of 1,000 pieces of spam get through, with zero false positives. Very nice.

So I can’t wait for a mail client to become available that uses Bayes classification (the technology used here). You’re probably asking where you can see this in action. I wish I knew.

Meanwhile, though, someone mentioned Cloudmark, a free service which appears to use checksums to identify spam, maintaining a large distributed P2P database of checksums. They claim 75% accuracy.

It was closer to 50% for me when I tried it on my work e-mail, but I reported each piece of missed spam, so that might help it in the future. The more people who use it, the better it’ll get. Individual Bayes classification is better, since it’s based on what I don’t want to read, which might vary slightly from what the masses don’t want to read, but it’s better than nothing. It saves me some time and lowers my blood pressure.

If you have the misfortune of using Outlook for e-mail, give Cloudmark a look. For once, Outlook will do something good for you. Being free, I don’t expect it to be around forever, but we might as well use it while we’ve got it.

A prank no more

I knocked on the door of a house in Soulard, a neighborhood in south St. Louis. A tough, biker-looking guy answered the door. “Tom’s not here,” he said.
“Oh, we know,” I said. “That’s why we’re here. We’d like to turn Tom’s computer into a multimedia tribute to M.C. Hammer.”

“Ah,” he roared, opening the door wider to let us in. “Go on upstairs. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

So the three of us charged upstairs, and fired up Gatermann’s computer. First, we changed the Windows startup screen. In bright letters on an annoyingly brighter background, we wrote the word, “Proper.” In reference to M.C. Hammer’s Pepsi commercial, if you don’t remember. (I didn’t. One of my co-perpetrators did.)

And then we took an M.C. Hammer CD, belonging to my other co-perpetrator, and made MP3s out of it. Gatermann only had 3 or 4 uses left on the trial version of whatever MP3 ripping software he was using at the time, so he appreciated us using them up for him. I know because he told us that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We visited www.mchammer.com (now a joint selling cellular phones, which I don’t get–who would go to that address looking for a cell phone?), which was, at the time, still dedicated to the one-time pop star of the same name, and we downloaded every picture from the site. And we downloaded all the sounds we could find too. So we set sounds to system events, we gave him some nice wallpaper, we set his Netscape homepage to www.mchammer.com, we put a couple of tunes in his startup group, and we put Netscape in his startup group as well. Then we left, because he was going to be getting off work within the next 15 minutes and we definitely didn’t want to be there when he turned his computer on.

Later…

The phone rang. One of the other guys picked it up. Silence. Well, except for some breathing. And even the breathing sounded angry. Finally, the voice on the other end broke the harsh silence.

“Alright, which of you [deleted] am I gonna [deleted] kill first?”

Wanna take a guess who that was? Besides someone who didn’t appreciate our attempt at art, I mean.

Not that his opinion is too important. I appreciated it, and still recognize that as one of my finest moments.

But unfortunately, it would be a lot harder to pull that prank on someone today, since www.mchammer.com has apparently fallen victim to a domain squatter.

There’s always Alien Sex Fiend, but somehow that doesn’t quite have the same effect.