virtual kidnapping

I just received a phone call. Here's a transcript, translated into English:

"Dad?"

"Who is this?" [I don't have any children, so I assumed it was just another wrong number. I get lots of those.]

"Dad? [crying] Two men kidnapped me. [crying] Dad?"

Realizing that it was a scam, I hung up.

Fake calls like these are common in Mexico, although I'd never received one until today. My wife's uncle received one a few months ago; unfortunately he was taken in.

Quite chilling, even though nothing happened—to me. I hope the people with the adjacent phone numbers weren't duped.

That history meme

I've run that command line showing my most frequently used commands a few times. Maybe I've held off from posting because the results would be embarrassing. I also noticed that its results differ wildly, because only when you close a shell is its history saved.

One command remains constant, though:

mw@quill:~> history | awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head -n 1
297 ls

Update: Benjaman Weber reminds me that you can make your history be saved more often by setting

PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a'

.

Packaging Day ][

I've neglected to mention it here until now, but here it is: the second openSUSE Packaging Day is today. Tomorrow too, because it's really a pair of packaging days, not just one.

So if you're interested in having your favorite program available for openSUSE, please do join in!

flashblock

Why I waited so long to install flashblock I may never know. But I'm glad I finally did.

Making a hash of it

The Economist recently ran an article titled Making a hash of it. Neither the article nor the actual story is news, of course. What surprised and impressed me was the relative depth of the coverage of the subject, which is very rare in the mainstream media.

It's true that The Economist oversimplified what hashing functions do and understated how difficult it is to find collisions. Still, for people who don't program, writing a program to find a one-in-one-thousand collision is no more or less baffling than finding a one-in-one-hojillion collision. So, even if such simplifications make more technically astute readers cringe, the simplifications were necessary for the majority of its readership.

For those for whom simplified discussion of hash collisions is too esoteric, I offer you instead this link to a story about the rights of poop-eating worms.

No El Guapo for me when I'm in Massachusetts in a few weeks

I just found out that El Pelón, my favorite taquería (outside of Mexico, anyway), burnt down. I used to eat there a lot, when I worked in the Ximian office in the Fenway.

(There's more info on some livejournal community page, but they ruined it by adding a lolcat image. I won't link to it. Lolcats are not funny.)

Oh well. I be extra sure, now, to not miss another of my old haunts in Boston, Pino's.

packaging day is today

Packaging Day has started. Be there or else!