If I Were a US Voter

Skev realises he’s part of the moron vote.

I just visited a web site called presidentmatch.com that asks you a series of policy questions, then presents you with a list of US Presidential candidates ranked in their order of compatibility with your opinions. The results were almost exactly opposite who I would actually vote for – so I suspect the quiz is flawed (or I’m woefully misinformed on some candidates’ policies). Here are my results:
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Fake Microsoft

Skevos discovers a new low in computer viruses.

Phew. There’s nothing like a fresh WindowsXP installation to make you realise how many people out there must have virus-riddled PCs – after all, my new installation of XP can’t be to blame, can it? I’ve been getting all the usual spam lately – Nigerian opportunities to lose all my money, pills to make me hallucinate that my breasts are larger, the chance to buy fake degrees to ruin my career prospects, etc etc. But I’ve started getting a lot more of those disguised emails that attempt to trick me into running their attachments. The days of simple emails that state “open the attachment for a fireworks animation!” are gone. These days they are disguised as all manner of innocent or important-sounding things, and I’ve learned to ignore them all. Yet the latest virus email to quietly slither into my inbox is almost a work of genius in its presentation.
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It Pays to be Paranoid

I’ve been getting a lot more dodgy emails sent from infected PCs lately (and I’m not the only one). So when all these emails containing dodgy attachments started appearing in my Mozilla email reader, my virus checker helpfully popped up and presented me with various ways of dealing with them. Like an idiot, I clicked “Wipe files”. The moment I clicked it I remembered that Mozilla stores all the emails for each folder as a single file. Which meant that my virus checker had just erased all of the emails in my inbox. All 1,627 of them.

Bugger.

But, thanks to my almost DAILY backups of about 8 Gigs worth of my data, I was able to restore them and only lose a handful of emails. So despite the raised eyebrows of those that think me nutty for backing up so often, it pays to be paranoid…

If you’re reading this and you sent me an email within 24 hours of this post, I may have lost it. On the other hand, if you’re one of the twenty people who are still waiting for a reply from me after sending me an email over three months ago… Um…. I have no excuse.

Dead in 46 Years

I’m going to die in 46.4 years, according to this quiz, since it estimates I will only live to 81.4 years of age. I wonder if it takes into consideration the likely advances in medicine over the next forty years? Surely not.

Maybe I should lower my caloric intake in order to live longer. Hmmm, 46.4 years to go. Pshuh, I’ve got plenty of time to finish that sprinkler system I’ve been promising to build for Kareena. Plenty of time. No rush.

Me Insightful Linguist

Is Skevos as bright as he thinks he is?

Me Think…
I found a link to an IQ test here. Sure, I bet it’s way too short to be a reliable test of anyone’s IQ, but I couldn’t resist, so I filled it in. The results:

IQ131.jpg

See? SEE? I’m not just bright, I’m an insightful linguist! Whatever the heck THAT means!

And for anyone that notices that this IQ test seems to be part of a dating website – no, I didn’t notice that till after I had done the test. Honest honey, I wasn’t looking for a date, I swear! THWACK! Ow!

NOTICE
I made this light-hearted post a while ago, and somehow it became the top-ranked Google result for searches on the term “insightful linguist” (it’s not anymore). Many people posted comments to this article, which is great (it’s calmed down a bit now). I’d just like to point out that I am in no way affiliated with the IQ test, I’m just someone that did the test and wrote a small post about it on my blog. Also, I don’t think “insightful linguist” is a term with any scientific meaning, nor do I believe that online IQ tests are very reliable – so don’t take it very seriously, ok?

Phunny Phetish

I’ve been online for a while, so I’ve seen a lot of what the net has to offer. I’ve come to accept that somewhere on the net there is a website for every interest, obsession, or fetish. But just when you think you’ve seen everything, along comes this specialised fetish site. Wow. There really is something for everyone online.

Which is not to say that I find the images there unnattractive, it’s just that, I mean… of all the technology devices to be turned on by, why this one? Maybe I don’t get it because I use these devices myself almost every day…

Anything but Boring

Wow. Every day this guy produces an image from his 3D software, and he puts it up on his web site, which he oddly calls Boring 3D. Images range from apparently random flights of fancy to the on going “story” (if story is the right word) of box and naked mining guy, along with other great images. Simple but great composition and colours.

Check out his archive. Scroll to the bottom and look at them in chronological order as you scroll up. Is he really doing this every day? Amazing.

MavArt v7 is Live

Well, this, the seventh version of the MavArt web page is finally up and running. There’s no gallery yet, but most of my old articles are now transferred over, and the rest can be added as I go. So I’m calling it done. Thanks to those that gave me feedback – it still amazes me how strangers stumble across my site and say nice things to me about my articles. Maybe I should write some new articles.

I took a look at the first version of the MavArt page the other day, dated 28 August 1996 (yes, I backup just about everything!), and man, was it lame! Hard to believe how much the internet has grown (and commercialised) since those days. Now that my vanity page is based on the moveabletype system, I have officially run out of reasons for not updating it more often. Time will tell…

Getting There

Apologies if Google brought you here looking for one of my articles and you couldn’t find it. Google is still sending people to the old pages, some of which I have left up for now, soon they will direct you here. All the articles are converted over now, and can be found in the menu on the side of the screen.

I do know that 95% of my visitors come here via Google, so sorry for the inconvenience but it had to be done. Google will correct itself in a few weeks.

Not all the templates are converted over to the MavArt look either, they will be soon. Thanks!