So I just received a rather strange spam email. It's a long incoherent email in which the author claims to have the key to immortality and has a fetish for the color white. Apparently if you shave and wax all your hair (even your eyelashes), and only come into contact with pure white things you'll reverse aging and live forever in a perpetual state of euphoria. Also you'll be able to time travel. SUMER KOLCAK = GOD OF INFINITY
My favorite line is "failure to comply with my orders in a serious manner will
mean you are responsible for all the misery that is going
on on this planet as well as on other planets."
Wow, so I'm like Satan then... Anyway, here's the full email, it's rather long...
Yeah... I'm still wearing black. And yes, for whatever reason, I did in fact read the entire thing.
BRITNEY IS MINE!!!
Dear Scientists,
You as a scientist bare the responsibility to save
humanity, the code to infinity as been cracked and i
am here to give you the data.
it is now your job to give up on jealousy and start
your mission of experimenting this science, i am unable
to give you the entire data right now because i do not
believe you can handle the truth. i want you all to get
on your feet and start the experiments, as you experiment
you will find the answers on your own, this will make you
a better scientist.
just remember, if you ignore this article, you should hold
yourself responsible for all the deaths and misery humanity
is going through right now.
every day, people are committing suicide, everyday evil
stuff is happening on earth, you will not deny the truth.
open up your eyes and accept it, i am the one that has cracked
the code, and give up that jealousy within you to become the
one, it is too late now, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE "ONE".
here is the data you need, any color that is not 100% white
is responsible for abusing humanity.
colors do not come from white, that is why they are not white.
they contain darkness inside them, and darkness just like a
black hole pulls imagination and life, making humanity mortal.
wear white clothes dye your hair to white and experiment it.
wear black clothes and experiment it. i want results now
i want them fast.
infact i want you to shave your head and eyebrows and wax
all the body hair on your body including private parts.
anything dark near your body including sun-tan will pull
jealousy from other scientists that do not want you to rise
into power and they will control your mind and imagination.
they will turn you into religious freaks so you can ignore
science so you can ignore truth, they do it so they can be
"the one" or "the two" in this case now that there can no
longer be "THE ONE".
so ignore everything and only pay attention to me, find me
on youtube find me at places, i will start a site soon.
just find me somehow, i will accept your jealousy too
i can handle it, because i am the most supreme being on
this planet.
using black and white you can create a time machine too.
every time you are wearing black you will notice you are angry
every time you are wearing white you will notice you are happy.
white stops aging, black or any color will speed up aging.
immortality is here, we are all gods, i am sick of suicides
i am sick of jealousy.
imagination of humanity is pulled and you read it when
you wear black colors.
another experiment you can do is, sleep in a completely
white bed, with a white pillow and etc, make sure to
wax legs and etc, you will have a beautiful dream.
you will see me in your dreams if you do it right.
otherwise, you are just another jealous failure in the making.
i've done time travel, i've done reversing aging,
look around you, look at people around you, ones that wear
white clothes will always look more vibrant and younger.
this is because they are able to slow down or even reverse
aging ( YES, THEY ARE TIME TRAVELING in many senses )
the reason why WILL SMITH wears BLACK and yet he is
successfull, the reason why TOM CRUISE wears black and yet
he is successful, is because they wear WHITE UNDERSHIRT
and WHITE UNDERPANTS.
so, get the facts right, when you judge people make sure
you know what they are wearing underneath those dark suits.
those black suits.
if you got questions on how to do time travel, ask me on
youtube, i will give you the data.
there is a reason why earth is going worse and worse
because scientists just wont accept the fact that code to
infinity has been cracked, they have been banning me from
science forums and everywhere, their jealousy has already
resulted in many deaths around the world.
they are just to ignorant to accept the truth and start
their mission to save humanity.
one way or another i am going to ensure we turn into
immortal beings soon, yes there will still be suicides
around the world everyday, we can't stop it, but we have
to move fast to stop it.
failure to comply with my orders in a serious manner will
mean you are responsible for all the misery that is going
on on this planet as well as on other planets.
now use this data, if i give you any more, you will hate me
later, i want only the best scientists to rise into power
and save this planet.
everyone else, go to hell, your jealousy is not going to
get you anywhere in life, you are the reason people are
committing suicide everyday. every hour, every minute.
Rise or Die like the rest.
If you fail to rise, i will push it. you will not escape me.
if you are not a scientist, copy & paste this to scientists
to have your own ass saved by them.
ever seen the movie " THE DAY EARTH STOOD STILL"
coming soon, to a planet near you.
tell those suicidal ass-holes to hang on a little bit more
if you can, go on suicide forums and tell them to stop it.
in a few months i will get this party started like no other
and we'll stop death, illnesses, aging, everything.
all the misery will be over. TRUE INFINITY IS COMING.
fuk this nonsense hell-ride.
If you are wondering what those 2012 "dooms day" rumors
are all about, duh, it is me taking over this planet, and jealousy
will die forever.
NEW WORLD ORDER BITCHES, weather you like it or not
it ain't gonna stop.
jealous scientists are terrified, they see me in their dreams
but decent people love me. time to kill some jealousy
let's do it. call me a TERRORIST MASTERMIND if you want to.
because that's who i am.
IF YOU ARE A BIG SCIENTIST, you will see CROWS
around your window everytime you are not coming to me.
they will try to wake you up with their loud noise.
i will not accept jealousy. WAKE UP AND COME TO THE ONE.
THAT WILL GIVE YOU THE DATA.
YOU WILL ALSO HAVE NIGHTMARES IN YOUR SLEEP
IF YOU DENY ME.
YOU DO NOT DENY ME.
if you are a forum owner and you delete or suspend me,
you are responsible for not letting me wake up scientists.
you are a mass murderer.
if you do not spread this data to others.. you are a mass
murderer.
truth stands as TRUTH.
have no fear, but remember, even your own parents will
be used against you as you try to execute this mission.
you will notice phone calls, parents trying to talk to
you, etc, because imagination of jealous scientists out there
is controlling them and using them to delay your mission
using them to control you so you can not become "THE TWO"
or "THE THREE"
spread the truth and watch the money roll in like butter.
it gets better and better. do not worry about money at all.
i'll give it to you, billions, whatever.
but they will try to leave you broke so you can't execute
if you got $10 left in your bank account, use it wisely
or just use the internet forums, cheap and free way to
spread the truth.
right now i am broke, i almost committed suicide many
times, they were controlling my imagination, but it's too
late now, the code is cracked.
do not have any fear, i am on your side 100%, if you
have some jealousy in you, ignore it to the best you
can, it's not real you, it's them trying to make you
feel jealous. it's the dark colors around you sucking
up your imagination so you can start feeling jealous
and start feeling hateful.
put a white paper on them and your imagination will
SKYROCKET.
i call the shots, have no fear at all. get rid of
anything that is not 100% white. do not deny
yourself sunlight, just try not getting sun-burned is all.
sun-light will ensure you stay healthy and sharp
as you execute this mission.
get naked get some sunlight, when going outside
be careful, do not make eye contact with jealous losers
do not wear anything black.
wear a white hat on top of your shaved head.
do not give a fuk about anyone's voice, do not listen
to them, do not get excited, do not give into temptation
you have a true love out there somewhere that wants you.
you will find the right one if you just follow my orders.
I CALL THE SHOTS, FIND ME, ASK ME WHAT IS GOING ON.
i'll turn you into "THE TWO" or "THE THREE" have no fear.
stay away from cheap stores, only go to luxury places
even if there is no parking left.
be careful even with luxury places, those rich dudes
are jealous as well. try not saying "hi" to anyone
try not breahing the same air people are breathing.
get a nice air purifier for your room.
take a nice showever once in a while
make sure your room's walls are white, if they are not
white, either paint it or stick some white papers on it.
YOU DO WHAT I SAY, FIND ME FOR MORE DATA.
even if you are BROKE, find me. i will spark you.
if you do it right, you will never go broke, you'll
just keep getting more and more money from places.
do not smell the money too much, everything contains
imagination from sickness and jealousy.
do these things and i promise you will find your true
love.
do not be one of those people that get married just
so they can be seen as "hey look i am not a perver.t"
give up on marriage until you know the right one
through this code i will give you.
maybe the one you want is already married and screwed
with, do not worry, time travel is possible it can be
fixed and modified until you are satisfied 100%.
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE. GIVE UP ON FEARS, I WANT ZERO
FEARS. UNDERSTAND?
jealousy is controlling everything through anything that
is not 100% white, including clothes, items in the house.
hair on your body, and even your eye lashes.
IF YOU FEEL DEPRESSED, GET NAKED IN YOUR ROOM GET
SOME SUNLIGHT, WALK NAKED IN YOUR ROOM, YOU WILL BE
INJECTED WITH IMAGINATION AND DATA YOU NEED TO EXECUTE
YOUR MISSION.
OBEY NO-ONE, COMPLY WITH NOTHING, CHALLENGE EVERYTHING.
SICK THOUGHTS WILL POP UP IN YOUR MIND, IGNORE THEM.
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS.
YOU ARE A GOD IN THE MAKING.
THOSE RANDOM SICK THOUGHTS COME FROM THEM, THE JEALOUS
LOSERS. THEY TRY TO STOP YOU.
IF YOU CAN NOT HANDLE THE SICKNESS INSIDE YOUR MIND
GO ON YOUTUBE LISTEN TO SOME SICK MUSIC, BY EMINEM OR
SOMETHING, ANYTHING IS FINE.
IF YOU ARE EXTREMELY STRESSED, JACK OFF TO PORN
DO NOT LET THEM TURN YOU INTO RETARDS.
YOU WILL JERK OFF, I WANT THAT PRESSURE TO GO AWAY
SO YOU CAN WORK AND SPREAD THE TRUTH.
THE TRUTH IS AS SIMPLE AS "WHITE STOPS AND REVERES
AGING AND MAKES US IMMORTAL" I WILL EXPAND ON IT
LATER.
NEVER GIVE UP ON WHITE, STRESS SHOWS UP BECAUSE YOU
DO NOT HAVE WHITE AROUND YOU. WITH EHOUGH WHITE
IN YOUR ROOM AND ENOUGH SUNLIGHT OR ANY LIGHT..
YOU CAN STOP THAT STRESS. THAT BUILDS UP AND TRIES
TO TURN YOU AGAINST ME. SO YOU CAN FAIL.
on youtube listen to songs such as..
DIG UP HER BONES by MISFITS
and SERIAL KILLER by SLASH'S SNAKESPIT
these will eliminate the stress. CALL YOURSELF A
"TERRORIST MASTERMIND"
you become the TERRORIST MASTERMIND that KILLS
IGNORANCE and SICKNESS that exists on this planet.
i am looking for those that do not fear calling themselves
TERRORIST MASTERMINDS.
whatever you do, do not go over the top, i do not
want to see you in prison, USE LOGIC to escape the loopholes
that exists on this planet. do not let yourself fall into
hospitals or prisons.
STAY SHARP, STAY LOGICAL, STAY SUPREME, GIVE THEM NOTHING
GIVE THEM NO REASON TO PUT YOU IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL
GIVE THEM NO REASON TO PUT YOU INTO A PRISON.
GIVE THEM NOTHING. IF POLICE SHOWS UP, SAY
"OFFICER I AM JUST A CRAZY GUY THAT'S ALL"
ESCAPE EVERYTHING, DO NOT DRIVE FAST, YOUR CAR'S
INTERRIOR IS BLACK SO THEY WILL USE IT TO CONTROL YOUR
MIND. BE CAREFUL, DRIVE SAFELY.
WHEN YOU SHAVE, SHAVE SLOWLY, I DO NOT WANT ANY CUTS
ANY BRUISES, PREPARE FIRST. CALCULATE EVERYTHING.
WHEN YOU WALK, WALK NICELY, DO NOT TRIP AND FALL OVER
ON A KNIFE OR A ROCK.
I WANT YOU 100%. CLEAN AND BEAUTIFUL. ONE MISTAKE
AND YOUR FINGER BREAKS, AND YOU CANT TYPE ON THE INTERNET
FOR A WHOLE YEAR.
I WANT THOSE FINGERS HEALTHY AND QUICK AT THE SAME TIME.
SPEED IS GOOD BUT SAFETY FIRST. BUT IF YOU DO BREAK A LEG
OR A FINGER, IT'S COOL. YOU DID IT FOR A REASON, HAVE NO
FEAR, YOU'LL BE ALRIGHT, YOU WILL GET YOUR REWARD LIKE NO OTHER.
BUT IT IS MY WISH TO SEE YOU IN 100% SAFE FORM.
100% SHARP, 100% GODLY, 100% SLICK ENOUGH TO AVOID PRISON
AND PAPER CUTS.
IF YOU CUT YOUR FINGER PUT A TAPE ON IT AND MOVE ON.
BUT IT MEANS YOU FAILED A LITTLE BIT, SO KEEP IT IN MIND
SO YOU CAN BE BETTER NEXT TIME AROUND.
THAT'S HOW I BECAME SUPREME ANYWAY. THAT'S HOW I WOKE UP
ANYWAY. AS LONG AS YOU UNDERSTAND WHY YOU GOT A PAPER CUT
AND HOW IT HAPPENED, THE NEXT CUT WILL BE A LOT LESS PAINFUL.
TRUST ME, IT'S NOT A MISTAKE BY YOU, IT'S THEIRY JEALOUSY
AND HATE THAT SHOWS UP IN DARK COLORS AROUND YOU, TO BRING YOU
DOWN.
LISTEN TO THE SONG ON YOUTUBE "YOU KNOW MY NAME" by CHRIS
CORNEL, do not think of yourself as RACIST just because you
feel like BLACK is a bad color, BLACK PEOPLE TOO WANT YOU TO
GIVE THEM THE ANSWER SO THEY TOO CAN BECOME IMMORTAL BEINGS.
IF SOMEONE CALLS YOU A "WHITE TRASH" IGNORE THAT, THEY ARE
BEING CONTROLLED BY SCIENTISTS THAT DO NOT WANT YOU TO RISE
INTO POWER.
BLACK PEOPLE WILL THANK YOU SOMEDAY FOR YOUR HARD WORK TO
GIVE THEM THE IMMORTALITY DATA. DO NOT FEEL RACIST ONE BIT
AS YOU EXECUTE THIS TASK.
FEAR NOTHING BUT BE SLICK, DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET HURT.
I WANT YOU SAFE, YOU ARE MINE.
EAT MEAT TO KEEP YOURSELF SAFE, BEST SAFEST BURGERS
ARE AT IN-N-OUT. DRINK SOME COFFEE TOO IF YOU WANT.
ENJOY IT, IT WONT AGE YOU AS LONG AS I AM IN CHARGE.
SHOW ME SOME REAL EVIL SKILLS BABE.
LET'S FUK THIS PLANET UP FOREVER.
DO NOT EVEN TRY TO FIND ME TO BE HONEST
FIND ME INSIDE YOUR DREAMS, I DO NOT GOT TIME FOR
YOUR SORRY ASS. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN NOW.
YOU GOT THE SECRET, USE IT TO BECOME WEALTHY.
go watch EMINEM ON YOUTUBE.
THE NAME OF THE SONG IS "CRIMINAL".
"USE IT TO GET MYSELF WEALTHY" * WINK WINK *.
READY FOR SOME REAL ENTERTAINMENT?
ALSO WATCH "INSIDE THE FIRE" BY DISTURBED...
WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS GF, HAPPENED TO YOU TOO.
YOU ARE JUST TO BLIND TO SEE IT. SO LET'S KILL SOME JEALOUSY
LET'S FIX INFINITY.
IT'S NOT JUST EARTH, OTHER PLANETS ARE WAITING TOO
PEOPLE ARE COMMITTING SUICIDE EVERY DAY ON OTHER
PLANETS TOO, LET'S MOVE IT.
OH BY THE WAY, DEAD PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO
LIFE AS WELL, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
WATCH ME DANCE.
S.U.M.E.R. K.O.L.C.A.K.
( now you know my name, there is only
one person by this name in the whole world, i am not a
clone like you failures. & i do not hide in the shadows
like you mass murderers. )
MY YOUTUBE IS: youtube . com / summertimedancings
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
«Rambling Nonsense Email»
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
«Gmail Sorting Technique»
I have a specific system that I use to manage my email. You may have a different system, and I'd like to hear about it in the comments. I use my Gmail account for all my email. Even the mail sent to my official website contact address gets forwarded to Gmail and is treated the same way. No new mail! Want to read updates from your favorite sites? Try Google Reader
I don't really throw much away other than spam. I love the archive feature of Gmail. On many occasions I've searched back in the archive for something. However, I usually only archive an email when I feel I'm done with it. Another feature I love about Gmail are the labels. It makes it so much easier to categorize and color-code emails. I have tons of automated filters (some quite complicated) that sort most of my incoming email into their appropriate labels.
So what I see in my inbox are emails that have already been sorted automatically thanks to my filters (one less thing I have to do manually). From there, I read any new bold-face emails. Some don't require much action after reading them and can be archived.
Others however, I want to reply to. I may not think up a reply right away or may not have the time to. So those ones I leave in my inbox until I decide to take action on them. I'll also leave blog comment notification emails in my inbox until I've decided if I am going to respond to the comment. Basically anything that I leave in my inbox I have plans to take action on. After I've taken that action, I archive it.
If I'm too indecisive about an email and it sits in my inbox for a long time, I'll star it with the special purple question mark superstar, then archive it. I can always find it again easily by looking in my starred emails if I decide to do anything with it at some point.
My official website contact address gets special treatment in that it gets its own inbox using the new multiple inbox feature. I have a filter that assigns a label to all mail sent to or from that address. I then have my multiple inbox set to show only mail with that label and is in my inbox. I use the search term [in:inbox AND label:label name] (without the brackets).
Anyway, this system works quite well for me. I rarely have much buildup and am often able to reach inbox=0. FYI: the empty inbox message in Gmail is:
I bet that a lot of Gmail users never get to see that message!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
«Subscribed By Email?»
For those of you who are subscribed to my blog by email, I have just recently subscribed to my own blog via email. What does this mean to you? It means that I'll finally be able to see what you see. So I'll be able to tweak how it looks if something is wrong. It only took me over a year since I added the option before I bothered to even test it. Hi there.
There's a few people that have subscribed via email, but have not clicked the confirmation link in the email that is sent to them. I'm going to be sending out messages to these people to see if they still want to be subscribed.
The emails will read:
Where [DATE] is the date that they tried to subscribe, and [EMAIL ADDRESS] is the one found in my About Section. I didn't include the address here in this blog post because I don't want spambots to pick up the address (I have scripts in place to prevent that on my About page).
On [DATE] you (or someone else) signed up your email address to receive daily email updates from Master Marf ( http://www.mastermarf.com ).
I've just been checking my subscriber records and I've noticed that you did not complete the subscription process.
Your email address was added to the subscriber list, but for some reason you did not confirm your subscription when I sent a follow up email asking you to do so. Unfortunately, the Feedburner system I use requires this confirmation, so I've not been able to send updates.
Do you still want to get daily updates on my posts over at Master Marf?
If not, no problem. I am not into pressuring anyone into subscribing, I just wanted to make sure. Either ignore this email, or reply to it telling me you don't want to be subscribed, and I'll remove your email from the list.
If you do wish to receive the updates, I suggest you do one of 3 things:
1. Find the confirmation email that was sent to you on [DATE] and click the link confirming your subscription.
2. If you can't find it (and I understand how these things get lost or deleted) simply resubscribe via email by Clicking Here.
3. If you use a Feed Reader, I suggest you subscribe to my Web Feed instead.
Both the Web Feed and the Email Subscription links can also be found in the top of my sidebar on my site (just under the search bar). Once you've added your email and then confirmed it with the confirmation email that will come minutes afterwards you'll be set to go. You're free to unsubscribe at any point.
The subject line of the confirmation email should be something like this:
Activate your Email Subscription to: Master Marf's Blog
You may want to add [EMAIL ADDRESS] to your address book so your spam filters don't mistake the confirmation email or the daily updates as spam.
Thanks for your interest in Master Marf.
Cody Durkin
And no, this is not going to be an automated email, or an email that is sent out in bulk to many people. I hate it when people send the same email to tons of people. I'm going to be sending them out individually to specific people one at a time (there's really not that many to send anyway).
Personally though, I'd subscribe to the Web Feed if at all possible.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
«Mythbusters, Landslides, and Gmail, Oh My!»
The Mythbusters were in town between January 31st and February 5th. I knew that they were going to be in town, but I didn't know exactly when until they were already gone. So I didn't have a chance to meet Adam and Jamie. They were working in the shop up at the high school. I heard they did an assembly for the students after someone slipped them a note under the door. They didn't let too much information out about what they were doing, but it has something to do with a pykrete boat made of newspapers. I think the episode is due to air in April.
In other local news, yesterday morning there was a major landslide here around 8 AM. It happened around 5 miles North. Just North of Walmart for those of you who know the area. It blocked the main road with house-sized rocks, and undercut a house above it. They're still clearing it. Yesterday afternoon they managed to clear enough of one lane to allow people to pass every half hour.
And on a less interesting note, I spent some time yesterday reorganizing my Gmail.
I usually keep a pretty tidy inbox, and even all my archived mail have labels attached to them. However, I went through and tried to clean a little out of my dreaded catch-all "Other" label. When I can't decide what else to label an email as, I slap on the "Other" label. I also redid a few of my filters, added a few new ones... The main bulk of my email sorts itself into the correct labels thanks to the filters.
The email address in my About Section ends up in my gmail account, and goes through the same sorting process too. In fact, I've set up its own inbox using the new multiple inbox feature in Gmail Labs.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
«Embedded Comment Form»
Now instead of having to click "Post a Comment" and going through that page, you can type your comment right into the white box at the bottom of a post (it will be under any existing comments).
I've been meaning to do this for a while. I would have did it sooner, but last time I tried this I got some weird blogger error when I tried to update my template.
So yeah, try it out.
Also, there's a spiffy new email address you can contact me by. You can find it in the About section, under Contact. I'm not putting it directly in this post because spam bots can pick it up. I have a special anti-spam bot script I wrote and installed in the About page. If you've been to the page before, you may have to clear your browser's cache in order to update it. Hint: It's no longer an "@gmail.com" address.
EDIT: I had a report that the new comment box doesn't work with mobile devices. Probably has something to do with the inline frame it uses. I can't do it any other way, so until I find a work-around I'm rolling back to the old commenting method. Inline frames aren't supported in XHTML 1.0 strict anyway. Sorry about that!
2ND EDIT: It's back with a link to the old comment page. That way in the event the embedded one doesn't work you can fallback to the old one.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
«Chain-Letter Emails»
Ok, we all know (I hope) that noting bad will happen if you don't forward these to everyone in your address book. We also know (again, I hope) that nothing good will happen to you, either. That is to say these chain-letter emails have absolutely no power or influence over your luck, health, love life, finances or otherwise. So why send them? Is it that they are mildly amusing to you? Or is it that you received this annoying piece of crap and had to inflict it upon others?
Putting aside the fact they are annoying for a moment, there is a tangible downside to these. It's called spam. You see, each person these are sent to gets their email address tacked on to the message. Somewhere down the line this will get sent to someone that runs a spambot. They will extract the email addresses from the To:, Fw:, Cc:, and From: fields (and any list that spilled into the body of the message) and enter those into his little spambot and share (or sell) the list with all his spambot friends. Next thing you know, everyone the chain-letter email has ever been sent to is getting a lot more spam in their inbox.
The same thing happens to any email that keeps getting forwarded and sent around like those cute little joke emails. Oh, you know the type. They usually are filled to the brim with lame jokes and animated gif images.
So please, do everyone a favor and stop forwarding such things. But if you absolutely must send an email to multiple people, please use the bcc: field instead of the Cc: field. At least that way you won't send everyone the entire list of emails.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
«Safeway Wind Power, Not in This Town»
Yesterday I was out taking a few pictures, and I happened to notice this sign on a Safeway fuel station.
The island that Ketchikan, Alaska is on has its own separate power grid, powered by hydroelectric with diesel as backup. There are no wind turbines in the system, so it's impossible for their claim to be true that the station is powered 100% by wind power.
Just to raise a stink and see what they do, I emailed their Ethics Hotline, informing them of their misleading and false advertisement. I even included these pictures of the station and sign, to show them I have proof. The pictures were taken on July 15th, we'll see when or if the sign is taken down...
See the rest of “Safeway Wind Power, Not in This Town”»
Thursday, June 26, 2008
«I Think I Found My Spider»
With no help from that spider website I emailed, I think I've found my spider.
Pholcus phalangioides, a good picture of it can also be found on the Wikipedia article for the Pholcidae family. The common name for it: daddy-long-legs spider. I've also confirmed by comparing images from other sites, once I knew what to look for. It's not that I don't trust Wikipedia, it's just that they're not always completely accurate.
Here's the comparison, with my spider picture on the left, and the Wikipedia picture on the right.
Note the similarities. Same marking on the head behind the eyes, same body shape and color, same long legs with little hairs on them. Even the web that was described matches what I've seen. In the Wikipedia picture, the spider is eating a fly and you can't see its fangs. However, I did see pictures of these spiders on other sites that showed the fangs.
They are harmless to humans. They are known to eat other spiders (this would explain why I've seen one eating a wolf spider before), even poisonous ones like the black widow and redback spider. They are sometimes considered beneficial because they kill and eat the dangerous spiders. They will invade the webs of other spiders and eat the inhabitants.
That's right, it's the actual daddy-long-legs spider; not the harvestmen or crane fly that are inappropriately called a daddy-long-legs spider by some. Neither the harvestmen or the crane fly are even spiders. The harvestmen is an opiliones, having only one body section and 8 legs. The crane fly is an insect, having 3 body sections and 6 legs.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
«Spiders»
I keep seeing these spiders at my mom's place, and I finally decided to look into what they are, and if I should be worried. I sent an email off to Spider Identification.org, so I'll see what they have to say.
I sent in the full-sized version of this image along with this email:
So we'll see if I get a reply.Subject: Please ID this spider
Name: Cody Durkin
Location: Ketchikan, Alaska, United States
Website/Blog: http://mastermarf.blogspot.com/
Email: To stop spambots, you must have javascript enabled to view the email address.
Picture: Attached as spider.jpg
I have seen quite a few of these at my mom's place, but no-where else in town that I can remember. It's a rather old apartment building. With the legs spread out, their leg-span is about the size of a silver dollar. Although as you can see in the picture, their bodies are quite small. The only poisonous spider we're suppose to have here is the brown recluse. This spider does not have the violin shape marking, so it's not one of those.
With nearly a million people passing through this town each year through our tourism industry, any spider could find its way here. We have cruise ships in town during the summer every day, sometimes 5 or 6 at a time. The ships are in Mexico or Australia / New Zealand in the winter. Most of the ships were constructed in Europe, and registered in Bermuda or the Bahamas. So these spiders could have hitched a ride from about anywhere. Because they are in the house, they could easily survive the winters.
They make irregular shaped webs, usually in corners. The webs are not very dense; there are not many strands of silk in the webs.
The picture was taken at about 1:00 AM in the bathroom on June 17, 2008. I kill them with a folded tissue paper every time I see them. I've seen these here ever since my mom moved in the building 3 years ago. Anyway, I'd like to know what type of spider this is, and if it's dangerous. Thanks.
EDIT: The spider has been identified.
See the rest of “Spiders”»
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
«Marf's Shared Stuff»
I'd like to point out a new widget in the sidebar: Marf's Shared Stuff. It will only show on the blog's homepage, not in individual item (aka blog entry) pages. This is deliberate.
I have it only show on the homepage because otherwise the sidebar is too long for many of the individual item pages. I've seen too many blogs with cluttered sidebars that seem to go on forever. They cause you to scroll down for a mile just for the sidebar's content; the post body itself is short. I don't want this to be one of those blogs.
You may also notice the widget has its own webfeed. (What is a webfeed? Click here for an explanation.) It is a separate feed from the blog's; so if you want to subscribe to it, you'll have to do so separately. I also have email subscriptions available. Again, separate from the blog's email subscription option.
I make no claims or promises of daily updating for the widget. If I see a random thing of interest on the Internet I'll share it if I think about it. I'll try to keep adult content to a minimum, so it should all be Safe For Work material.
In case you're interested, it's powered by Google Reader. It's a new feature they just announced. I think it's a pretty neat idea.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
«Trying a Few New Things»
I've implemented a truncation for posts on the main page of the blog. You'll notice it as a link that says »See the rest of "POST TITLE"». All the great blogs have truncation, like Gizmodo, Engadget, and Lifehacker. It's so I can have long posts, but not have them clutter up my main page and make it really long.
If you'd like to do this on your Blogger blog (if you have one), the Blogger help pages has a nice section on how to do this: How can I create expandable post summaries?
I've put up a new poll, the other one about the layout was getting so old no-one even knew what the old layout looked like. The new poll is about the new post truncation and can be found in the sidebar. The results of the previous poll question: "What do you think of the new layout?" were It's great! 8, No opinion 1, and Old one was better 0.Do you like the post truncation?
I'd like to have a FAQ section, but first I need some questions first. So go ahead and send me an email (to stop spambots, you must have javascript enabled to view the email address.) or something with some questions. They can be about me, my site, or the town I live in (Ketchikan Alaska). Or something completely random.
That email address I have listed in the paragraph above is also something new I'm trying. It's written in with javascript, so the spambots can't scan the page and get my email. I've had this system in my About section when I first put it up, but it's a little more complicated to do in a blog post. I had to re-write my script so it can be used for multiple instances on the same page.
Here's an impressive thing I saw on YouTube, an elephant painting a picture of an elephant. I don't care how the elephant was taught to do that, it's impressive.
Elephant Paints Self Portrait
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
«April Fools Day»
I've launched the long-awaited Games section today, have a look at it. I told you it would be up by this week...
Sometimes I hate being in the Alaska time zone. By the time a day starts for me, it's already pretty much over for half of the world. Let's take a look at what Google has done this time...
Google's gDay
Google's gDay with MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation), from the Australian Google center. You can now search a day into the future. The FAQ on the page is worth a look also. No doubt this is a play on time zones similar to what I said above. I, being in Alaska, can search for pages in Australia and their dates will, in fact, be a day into the future...Project Virgle
Project Virgle, a joint venture between the Virgin Group and Google to colonize Mars. They're accepting applications to be a pioneer. You can apply online and answer a questionnaire (I failed it, somehow). They have a pretty detailed plan of locations to build colonies, and what spaceships to use to get there. They even have the layout of the first colony. I especially like this page. I do in fact take a certain pleasure in crushing the hopes and dreams of a fantasy world.Gmail Custom Time
You can now select when to make it appear that you've sent the email. Emailing a late report to a professor? Set the "sent" time back to before the due date and tell your professor to re-check their email; you're sure you sent it on time...YouTube Rickroll
YouTube rickrolled their featured videos list. Click on any video in the list and it brings you to this video...Rick Astley-Never Gonna Give You Up
[Embedding has been disabled for the video, click the link above to go directly to YouTube and view the video] See the rest of “April Fools Day”»
Thursday, February 21, 2008
«One Month»
As of today, my blog is one month old. I haven't missed a day yet.
Through a Google search that brought up an email address, I've recently managed to make contact with an old friend that moved away years ago. That's been the highlight of my week (or month, whatever). Been sending emails back and forth, updating each other on our current status in life. Kinda makes me realize how little I've accomplished compared to what I should have by now, but whatever... I'm not going to go into that now.
Thanks to the Escape Hatch blog, I'm now hooked on the Cyanide & Happiness comics. Just another random web comic that I've subscribed to in Google Reader. I'm getting quite a collection of random comics, websites, and blogs.
Monday, February 4, 2008
«Option to Subscribe Via eMail»
I've added the option to subscribe to my blog via email. If you subscribe, you'll receive an email no more than once a day containing any new posts I've made. I haven't tested it, so I'm not sure exactly what the email will look like. In my opinion, the "Subscribe in a Reader" option is the best way to subscribe.
I think Yahoo has an on-line web feed reader, Google has Google Reader, there are many others online. There are also programs you can install on your computer. I use Google Reader. I'm subscribed to 41 different websites, and all I have to do is check my reader to see if any of those sites have been updated. There's no way I would check most of those sites without a web feed.
About every blog has a feed built in, and many regular websites do as well. Just look for a link that says something like Subscribe, RSS, or XML. Or the universal symbol for a web feed, the image included in this post. Of course, they will be much smaller than the one in this post. In most browsers, if a page has a web feed, you'll see either the orange symbol or "RSS" near the address bar.
EDIT: Look in my sidebar (directly under the search bar) to find the link to subscribe to my blog via email.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
«Someone Actually Visits Realm of Marf!»
Speaking of Realm of Marf and the Alien Adoption Agency (see yesterday's post), apparently someone who visits Realm of Marf at their school joined A3 because of me. I didn't even know that many people visited my site. I mean sure, I have Google Analytics set up and I can see it's visited daily. But I figured those were just automatic systems scanning for an email address to spam. I have noticed an increase in spam since I made that site, although the Gmail spam filters are really good at catching it.
I've been thinking about making a Half Life 2: Deathmatch map similar to dm_ccelerator_v4, hosted at http://singe.telefragged.com/hl2/maps/ (scroll down a bit). Possibly what I would do
is have 4 different bases, and a cloverleaf intersection in the center. That's if I ever get around to doing it. I have a Portal map that's nearing completion, but I got burned out on mapping and haven't returned to it yet. Unfortunately, that seems to happen to a lot of things with me.
Eh, If I think of anything else today I'll make another post. Until then, here's a random picture.
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