PSA: watch for microtransactions

someone's up to something bad, and they're starting out with microtransactions to test credit cards.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081202-odd-microtransactions-may-point-to-credit-card-breach.html

let's be careful out there.

does keanu say "klaatu barada whoah"?

the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is coming out soon. i have heard rumors that it's made some changes from the original. which made me curious about the origins of the original. i found the story upon which "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was based ("Farewell to the Master", by Harry Bates) on the web and just read it the other day.

it's different from the movie

also, while hanging out with i_leonardo and the duck last nite, finding lots of ways to *not* do awesome etching and a few ways that worked, i discovered that the duck was unfamiliar with united nuclear. so, in the interests of sharing the awesome, i wanted to point out United Nuclear as your source on the web for aerogel, terrifyingly strong magnets (no, seriously, these are fucked up dangerous strong), trinitite, and radioactive ore.

and for less terrifyingly strong magnets, and other cheap weird stuff, including pretty good prices on borosilicate lab glass, check out american science and surplus.

oh, and speaking of literary inspirations for movies

here's a link to an online version of The Short Timers, which was the source material for the movie Full Metal Jacket

edited to add: yow! adam baldwin played animal mother in FMJ.

weekend.

both one of my brothers and my stepmother were feeling under the weather, so no visit to the cape for me yesterday. loafed around and did household counter-entropy activities. swung by the poultry control center in the evening to play with dangerous chemicals and heat sources with i_leonardo and the duck, which was fun. came home and at midnight started to beat my head against firewall software upgrade until i decided that i wasn't going to be able to make sufficient progress and the proper solution was to nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure. i'll have to find a different maint window and flatten the machine and reimage it. HOW FUN IS THAT, BAYBEE.

today, i failed to get up early. or to actually make it out of the house. at all.

most of the day has alternated between slothful snuggling with clauclauclaudia, reading a book (i finished "the short timers"), relocating and folding a whole lot of laundry, catching up on paperworks around the house, and feeling warm and toasty in lounging clothing plus my comfy bathrobe and slippers.

i want to become more social and make it out of my hermity hermitness, but there's something to be said for quiet pleasant comfy sloth with my girlfriend.