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08/13/05

  02:28:03 am, by Nimble   , 560 words  
Categories: Thoughts, Ethics, Internet

Phishers - II

They (though it may be a different "they") are at it again (as if they'd ever stop, of course), on another one of my accounts.

This one uses more nasty, urgent language. You can dress it this attempt to con people into going against their better judgement up by calling it Social Engineering, but I think that's far too... euphemistic.

Once again, it's absolutely amazing that the eBay account I don't have has been cancelled! Oh god, maybe they'll also take away the time machine ... that I don't have...

Here is a screen capture of this particular scam.

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  02:23:30 am, by Nimble   , 317 words  
Categories: Thoughts, Science

Vat Meat

It's starting to happen. Serious research into creating meat from cells has already begun. I just noticed one of the headlines recently, but this has been going on for a while. One reason being, if you're going to remain in space for a long time, taking along, feeding and killing animals has its drawbacks.

Experiments of this sort started back in 2001.

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08/11/05

  02:25:18 am, by Nimble   , 553 words  
Categories: Thoughts, Ethics, Internet

Phishers

I get a number of phishing e-mails dropped in my e-mail box. What's that? This is nastier than spam. These are criminals in every sense of the word, imitating an emergency or account update from an institution that you might belong to, such as eBay, Paypal or CapitalOne Bank, asking you to log in to "confirm your account details". Spammers live in a gray area, just annoying you for the most part. Phishers can destroy your life, if you let them.

Some of them are looking to use your name and password for criminal acts, like selling things through your account and never delivering, sullying your good name at no cost to themselves. Many more are looking for banking details, like your account number, credit card number, bank card and PIN combination, and so forth.

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08/10/05

  02:31:33 am, by Nimble   , 2303 words  
Categories: Thoughts, People, Science

On The Hubris Of Tooth Doctors

Okay, it's a rant, I admit. Despite many a dentist I've met that's nice, there are some I've met and some observations I've made that have, over the years, painted a picture of arrogance and mythology amongst dentists and orthodontists that I find irksome. I'll pepper this with a few anecdotes - I'm sure you may have your own.

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  12:00:11 am, by Nimble   , 306 words  
Categories: Reviews, Tradesmen

Tradesmen: Peak Painting

Link: http://www.peakpainting.ca/contact.htm

I have nothing but good to say about these guys. Mike Evans is a young guy, enthusiastic and professional. I'm not sure he needs my word of recommendation, because he and his band of painters are quite busy here in Calgary, but heartily recommend him I shall, regardless.

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08/07/05

  09:38:00 pm, by Nimble   , 1731 words  
Categories: Reviews, Attractions, Gardening

Fruit Festival

Link: http://dnagardens.com/sunday_august_7th.htm

We just got back from the Alberta Prairie Fruit Festival up by Elnora, at one of our favourite garden haunts, D'n'A Gardens. This was a friendly little festival, with some surprisingly entertaining and informative speakers.

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07/19/05

  02:47:23 am, by Nimble   , 1452 words  
Categories: Journal

Zuerich - The Cursed City

Arguably, and inexplicably, the worst destination of the lot. It had a good side, but as you will be able to tell through my tale, behind this fair city lies a strange, brooding chaos... the mirror image of "having all one's ducks in a row"...

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07/15/05

  11:02:33 am, by Nimble   , 789 words  
Categories: Journal

München - Part II

Two tours of foot-pounding duty have we accomplished so far. Two days ago, we went on the Dachau tour. Our tour guide was excellent, if a little far to the side of making sure we fully-imagined every conceivable horror as we went along (I wish I knew where he was from; sounded sort of Irish and said "gyawrds" for "guards"). He did a great job of filling in all the details as we went along. It still leaves unanswered in a larger context - how could this happen in a civilized society? The little pieces we heard from Günther in Salzburg piqued our interest. The Dachau tour was simply... mind-blowing.

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07/12/05

  11:35:01 am, by Nimble   , 836 words  
Categories: Journal

Salzburg

Our next destination after Veneza was Salzburg, city founded on a fortune made from mining salt (there is no corresponding Pfefferburg for any pepper mines that I can tell), a destination recommended by Dena´s parents for its "Salzerlebnis" (salt experience) at the salt mines, and a good interim spot on our slow circle into Zürich, Switzerland.

It was quite a bit more interesting than we had accounted for.

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  02:37:14 am, by Nimble   , 395 words  
Categories: Journal

München - Part I?

Okay, perhaps this is a little premature, seeing as we just got here, but I´m in an Internet cafe with a 24-hour time window, so I´ll tell you about München so far :)

This is such a familiar style of city. Bigger and busier than home, but surprisingly homey-feeling. Big department stores, transit running every which way... yet there are some good old European pieces around.

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  12:15:02 am, by Nimble   , 1168 words  
Categories: Journal

Veneza

After Geneva, our travel plans were somewhat open; I had asked for an extra week in the middle, and they gave it to us. I had in mind some sort of lazy ellipse around Europe, either around to the north (through France, maybe Holland... though that was a bit of a stretch), or around south through Italy. Italy sounded the most appealing - I´d never been there, I know a few words of Italian, and Armando, my best man, has family that hails from there.

There were so many choices of destination... every major Italian city has so much history in it... Bologna, Trieste, Milano... but Dena hit upon the idea of going to Venice, or Veneza in the local tongue. We only had a few pictures in our minds and the escapades of Sylvester the Cat around the canals to go on, but it sounded pretty exciting.

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07/08/05

  10:07:44 pm, by Nimble   , 792 words  
Categories: Journal

Geneva and Lyon

The first part of our trip is going extremely well so far. Garnier paid for 7 nights of accomodations and the flights to and from Switzerland, so we took four nights in Geneva to get our feet, and spent the time planning the spare unpaid-for week in the middle. (Thank you for allowing us the time, Lara!)

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07/02/05

  04:18:55 am, by Nimble   , 65 words  
Categories: Distractions

Mouse Races

I was changing the mice cages just yesterday, and thought I'd try the movie feature of the Fuji Finepix 440 (a tiny camera; great for travel).

I had just put the female mice in a new terrarium, and had moved over their wheel. This sole piece of furnishing was just irresistable, apparently...

...well, a movie is worth many words and pixels... :)

See the mice in action...

06/15/05

  11:17:43 pm, by Nimble   , 549 words  
Categories: Announcements [A]

Colloquial Hindi : Tej K. Bhatia

Link: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415110874/thecerealkill-20

I have always found books on the Indian/Pakistani language to be close to insufferable. They always take the training wheels off too fast, leaving you spinning in mid-air wondering in Chapter 4 what all these words are supposed to be. In short, they seldom feel like they were written for English speakers actually learning Hindi. I have six or so books (mostly on Hindi, but one on Panjabi and another on Bengali), and they're all like that.

This was the book that finally got me past whatever mental block it was preventing me from getting past the beginnings of these books. As a matter of fact, I managed to get all the way to the end of the book, which is something I can claim for maybe one or two language books.

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06/06/05

  09:36:14 pm, by Nimble   , 522 words  
Categories: Reviews, Gardening

Fragrant Perennial Nursery & Nature's Studio Raku Pottery

Link: http://www.boomtowntrail.com/treasurehunting/display_merch.php?cat_id=4

We were going back out to D'n'A Gardens for to get Dena some more Martagon Lilies. However, despite our best efforts on the road, we made it in time, technically speaking, before closing time, but at a mere eight minutes before closing - I surmise they'd packed up early on a slow day.

So, we went into town in Elnora and ate at the small café, and asked where the Raku Pottery and perennials place was (we had looked for it last time we were up in the area, but couldn't see it). After a good chat with Louise (and her husband?), and finding out that they knew Dena's great aunt and uncle (you can always count on that everyone-knows-everyone phenomenon in a small town), we made our way over to the pottery and perennial place, a mere block and a half away.

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