I have a Twitter account but I haven’t ever done anything with it, finding it of rather limited utility since anybody I care to keep apprised of my mundane mood swings can always just check my IM status, and what random stranger out there in the cloud would even care?

Sifting through the dross of yesterday’s mail, though, I was notified that “BSPF is now following you on Twitter!” I’d managed to pick up a follower? Why? Who was this, I wondered, some friend or colleague? Surely it was somebody who knew me, I reasoned, because there was nothing of interest in my Twitter feed that might catch the eye of strangers. Nonetheless, the organizers of a Pittsburgh puppet show found my single-entry Twitter feed, which has not been updated for three months, interesting enough to tell the rest of the planet about.

I guess some people are easily amused.

Today I was tasked with poking around various SMTP servers to see how they reacted to DSN requests (don’t ask why, because I can’t tell you, and the absurdity of the whole backstory is driving me nuts right now anyway).

Anyway, I noticed that alone of the free mail providers I fiddled with, only Microsoft threw out some warning text upon establishing the connection. I didn’t pay any initial attention to it, but when I did finally read it out of boredom while waiting for a command to be processed, I noticed it said:

cubelodyte$ telnet mx1.hotmail.com 25
Trying 65.54.244.8...
Connected to mx1.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 bay0-mc1-f21.bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail to Microsoft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at http://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment located in California and other states. Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:42:23 -0700

So quake in fear, spammers! If you send your crap through Hotmail they’ll.. um… do, uh, something in California, and maybe elsewhere. You have been warned.

You may have already heard about Kate Beaton and her hilarious webcomics, but if you haven’t, you should visit her sites right now and read everything she has published.

There are already some good comics out there, but anyone who can take such widely disparate and generally non-humorous figures and events like Tadeusz Kosciuszko, George Orwell, and the Battle of Culloden, then turn around and give the same treatment (with a tasteful dose of poignancy) to her own family has my rapt attention, if not slavelike devotion.

Not yet convinced she’s clickworthy? O ye, of little faith! Here are a few samples:

Still not convinced? Philistine.

Having just finished watching the stunningly-orchestrated opening ceremonies of the Beijing games, I don’t envy the poor son of a bitch in charge of planning London’s ceremonies in 2012. If I were him I’d be eating my gun right about now. The Chinese have just set the bar to new heights. Good show, China.

Ich habe gerade Untergang zugeschaut. Jesus Gott, was ein furchtbare Geschicte. Ich habe schon seit viele Jahre die Geschicte gekannt, die Spieler (Junge, Fegelein, Braun, usw.) auch gekannt durch Bücher. Aber der Film hatte das Schreknis ein anderes, persönliches Leben gegeben.

Die Filmszene der Goebbels-Familie war, ohne Umstände, die schlimmste. Die Kampfszenen wären nichts im Gegensatz. Ich hätte keine Idee, daß Magda Goebbels eine fanatische Nationalsozialist Anhängerin war. Jedenfalls es war ganz schwer zu schauen, die Morde der Kinder. Dieser Film war Saving Private Ryan in umgekehrter Form. Statt Sieg und tragische Ehre, Ruinen und Tod. Ein guter, bemerkenswerter Film.