The Lemming Meets Cleverbot

Cleverbot

"...PLEASE NOTE: Cleverbot learns from real people - things it says may seem inappropriate - use with discretion, and at YOUR OWN RISK...."

"...PARENTAL ADVICE: Visitors never talk to a human, however convincing it is - the AI knows many topics - use ONLY WITH OVERSIGHT...."

Cleverbot is an intriguing artificial intelligence that can converse with people. Here's how the Lemming's dialog with Cleverbot went:

"User: Okay, so what is Cleverbot, and what does it do?

"Cleverbot: I don't really know.

"User: Right. I suppose self-awareness is a bit much to ask at this stage.

"Cleverbot: So you don't know who aleister crowley is?

"User: I don't know aleister crowley, but I know who he is. That was a non sequitur.

"Cleverbot: So you are using me?

"User: In one sense of the word, yes.

"Cleverbot: So your christian?

"User: With a capital 'C,' yes.

"Cleverbot: Why a capital y?

"User: That's the conventional spelling. It has to do with proper names.

"Cleverbot: Really?

"User: Really.

"Cleverbot: Ookaayy.

"User: Goodbye.

"Cleverbot: Adios."

In the Lemming's opinion, it's going to be a long time before we see something like the robots and sentient computers of science fiction. HAL 9000 or C3PO, Cleverbot is not.

On the other hand, the Lemming has had conversations with real human beings that that made about as much sense. And that's another topic.

Slightly-related posts:

• "Driverless Cars: Keep an Eye on Nevada"
  (June 24, 2011)
• "Meet Fenway the Robot, Hospital Helper"
  (September 21, 2010)
• "HAL 9000, Skynet, and C3PO"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (January 26, 2010)
• "CAPTCHA Gotcha? You're not the Only One"
  (March 3, 2008)
• "Robot Tricks Humans Into Reading Captchas"
  (February 19, 2008)

Lemming Tracks: The Lemming is Back

Last night, a little before 11:00 p.m. here in central Minnesota, the Lemming wrapped up the first post of yesterday's posts: "Shifty Surface on Mars?." Then, since it belongs in the "Mars, Mostly" and "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence " and lists, the Lemming got to work adding a link to each.

Around midnight, the Lemming decided that enough was enough, washed dishes, and went to bed.

Blogger was working fine - unless the Lemming wanted to edit a post. Any post. It wasn't this household's Internet connection or related issues - other websites and online services were working fine, including some that are bucky now and again.

The Lemming's computer is okay, too: at least, resource-intensive software worked fine, and a malware scan came up clean.

All of which is to explain why you only saw one post yesterday.

And that one rather late in the day, even for the Lemming.

Maybe the Lemming shouldn't procrastinate so much.

Twitter Bug or XSS Attack: Seems to be Getting have Gotten Fixed

"Twitter under attack by 'mouseover bug' "
Yahoo! News (September 21, 2010)

"Twitter came under attack on Tuesday as hackers exploited a security flaw to wreak havoc on the microblogging service.

"Computer security firms said thousands of users, or more, were affected by the bug, which appears to send out or 're-tweet' messages simply by rolling over an infected link with the computer mouse.

"Those hit by the bug included Sarah Brown, the wife of the former British prime minister who has over one million followers on Twitter, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

" 'My Twitter went haywire - absolutely no clue why it sent that message or even what it is... paging the tech guys,' Gibbs wrote on @presssec.

"Twitter said it had identified the attack and was working on a solution...."

Here's what the Lemming read on the Twitter website.

"XSS attack identified and patched. 1 hour ago

"We've identified and are patching a XSS attack; as always, please message @safety if you have info regarding such an exploit.

"We expect the patch to be fully rolled out shortly and will update again when it is.

"Update (6:50 PDT, 13:50 UTC): The exploit is fully patched."

In the meantime, the Lemming will be careful about rolling over links in Tweets. Particularly blank ones.

Back to the Yahoo! article:

"...Cluley said the bug was allowing messages to pop-up and third-party websites to open in a Web browser including links to pornography sites.

"He said that in Sarah Brown's case her 'Twitter page has been messed with in an attempt to redirect visitors to a hardcore porn site based in Japan.'..."

The "bug" sounds more like malware to the Lemming, but - well, as I've explained before, I'm "apathetic" only in a certain sense of the term.

Cloud Computing: Still Now, Still Wow

"Microsoft Unveils 'Turnkey' Cloud Appliance"
InformationWeek (July 12, 2010)

"HP, Dell, and Fujitsu to offer versions of the system, while eBay signs on as first customer."

"Microsoft on Monday unveiled a preconfigured system designed to help businesses move to cloud computing quickly and efficiently without disrupting existing IT operations.

"The Windows Azure platform appliance consists of the Windows Azure cloud operating system, Microsoft SQL Azure, and, according to the company, "a Microsoft-specified configuration" of network, storage, and server hardware.

"Cloud computing is a new wave IT architecture under which enterprises tap applications and data from a central location that is often hosted by a third party. In addition to Microsoft, the market for technology to power cloud systems is attracting big investments from tech giants like IBM and Google, as well as hardware makers...."

Okay: Microsoft has a new service, and some companies with high name-recognition value like it. So far, so good.

But, "a new wave IT architecture?" Maybe, for IBM: but I've been reading about cloud computing for quite a long time. Then, there's that YouTube video, posted in May of 2008. (Not a typo: 2008)

"What is Cloud Computing"

joyent, YouTube (May 7, 2008)
video, 9:58

"At the Web 2.0 Expo, we asked Tim O'Reilly, Dan Farber, Matt Mullenweg, Jay Cross, Brian Solis, Kevin Marks, Steve Gillmor, Jeremy Tanner, Maggie Fox, Tom McGovern, Sam Lawrence, Stowe Boyd, David Tebbutt, Dave McClure, Chris Carfi, Vamshi Krishna and Rod Boothby the same question: 'What is Cloud Computing?'...."

Compared to the age of the Universe, two years isn't a very long time.

For information technology, two years is a long time. Particularly for "a new wave" of anything.

Oh, well: that InformationWeek article gives a bit of insight into what's happening at Microsoft.

I'm even more 'behind the curve' than IBM, in a way. My blogging is a sort of 'cloud computing' situation - but it'll be a long, long time before I rely on an Internet connection for critical tasks, or access to my data. The technology simply isn't reliable enough yet.

Sort-of-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Catching Up"
  (June 29, 2010)
• "Lemming Tracks: Twitter, Capacity, and AOL's Reality Check"
  (June 15, 2010)
• " 'Cloud Computing?' Sounds Familiar"
  (January 26, 2009)

Kids, Try This at Home: Man's Search for Aliens Got Him Fired

"Man Looks for Aliens, Loses Job"
DiscoveryNews (December 2, 2009)

"A basic human desire is to look for life beyond Planet Earth. We look at the stars wondering if a tentacled creature is gazing back at us and we ponder if life on Earth was spawned by alien bacteria hitching a ride on a meteorite.

"We also spend a large portion of our space exploration budget looking under rocks on Mars to see if any creepy crawly fossils can be found.

"However, the big question is: Are there any other intelligent forms of life out there? If there is, surely they must be communicating? If they are communicating, perhaps we can hear their signal?

"Cue the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the novel techniques being used to hunt for aliens. On its most basic level, SETI use radio antennae to eavesdrop on ET's chatter, but so far we haven't heard ET 'phone home' (or 'phone Earth' for that matter)...."

the SETI project has been a distributed computing program called SETI@home for quite a few years, to analyze data picked up by radio telescopes. One of my brothers-in-law ran the SETI@home screensaver for about seven years, and I've been dedicating some of my computer's resources to SETI@home for some time now. (It's part of Berkeley's BOINC program.)

This article caught my eye, both since I'm interested in the SETI@home program, and the possibility that there was a legal angle to its use I hadn't considered.

Turns out, the fellow who lost his job had racked up an impressive 575,000,000 or so "credits" by running the SETI@home program on his computers. That's impressive: I devote about half my system resources to the program, when I don't need the power for graphics or video work, and so far have just over 9,300 credits - if I'm reading the report right.

So, how did this chap manage to get 575,000,000 credits?

Simple: He loaded the software on Arizona's Higley Unified School District's computers.

All of them.

Stupid.

Really, really stupid.

He used to be the district's system administrator. When accountants tallied up the effect his escapade had on the district's power bills, plus wear and tear on the hardware, they figured that he'd cost the district somewhere between $1,200,000 and $1,600,000. That's a lot of zeroes.

The alternatively-prudent former system administrator wasn't, technically, fired. He was, according to the article, "asked to resign."

I can't blame the district for taking exception to their former computer system administrator's unauthorized use of the district's equipment. A million dollars may not seem like much, these days: but it's still a lot of money.

As for me, I'm keeping SETI@home on my own computer. I own the hardware, and pay for the power: and I don't mind the slight extra cost.

There's the (extremely remote) possibility that my computer will be the one to sort a coherent signal out of the welter of data. Maybe something like "you may already have won the Glinzfarble Sweepstakes!"

More likely, someone will find a use for the mass of analysis that SETI@home is creating.

And, in the meantime, it's a cool screensaver.

Related post:

• "SETI and More: Scientific Progress Goes 'BOINC' "
  (April 18, 2009)

---

Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"

TinyURL™ - A Really Good Idea

Welcome to TinyURL!™

"Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires....."

"...An example

"Turn this URL:

" http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?t
ype=3&campid=5336224516&toolid=10001&customid=tiny-
hp&ext=unicycle&satitle=unicycle

"into this tinyURL:

" http://tinyurl.com/unicycles

"Which one would you rather cut and paste into your browser? That's the power of TinyURL!..."

There are several services like this online - TinyURL is the one my son uses, and he's quite satisfied with its performance.

I like the fact that I can choose a 'human-readable' URL - provided that it hasn't been used already.

Handy, fast - and a really good idea for someone like me, who uses Twitter. That 140-character limit is great for getting practice writing concise prose. But add one of those 150-character URLs, and it gets pretty hairy (you've seen them: URLs that look like 'http:www.
gibberishisus.net/verbosity/obfuscation/stupefaction9573454/prolixity/hyperbole/pleonasticredundancy/expansivelyobtuse/wellnighimpossible249/' - and are not going to fit into a 'tweet.')

Looks like a handy service.

Arrr! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day

"Ahoy! 'Tis time to talk pirate, me hearties"
CNN (September 18, 2009)

"Easy tip number one, if you want to talk like a pirate: Add "me hearties" to the end of any sentence.

"The meaning is simple -- 'my friends, my mates' -- said John 'Ol' Chumbucket' Baur, before offering as way of example, 'Turn your head and cough, me hearties. Or, fill it up with regular, me hearties.'

"Saturday marks 'Talk Like a Pirate Day,' an observance that has been recognized on all seven continents and beyond. It inspires dress and behavior -- of the Long John Silver variety -- in seedy bars, staid workplaces and even the International Space Station. It has fueled fundraisers, been the topic for a New York Times crossword puzzle and mentioned on various game shows.

It was an idea born in 1995 on an Albany, Oregon, YMCA racquetball court. Baur, 54, and his friend Mark 'Cap'n Slappy' Summers, 46, began unleashing insults at one another, as pirates might...."

Me 'ats off to ol Chumbucket an Cap'n Slappy, for instigatin' this truly linguistic foray. "Talk Like a Pirate Day" has even inspired well-meaning landlubbers to emulate, if you will, the argot of the buccaneers. Even if they don't know how to spell "arr!"

Now, this CNN article: it's author - a bonny lass, no doubt - she points out that it wasn't until one Dave Barry, of the northerly port of Miami, caught wind of it and spread the news among all adventurous landlubbers. And, as it seems, quite a respectable number of the less-than-bold sort, as well.

Ah, it takes all sorts to make a world, they do say.

There's more to that article, about this day. It sports a picture of Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket, which is well and good - but would it have broken CNN's heart to show us what the fine lass who wrote the piece looks like?! Arr!

Related post:

• "Arrr! It Be Talk Like a Pirate Day Tomorrow"
  (September 18, 2008)

Lemming Tracks: Blogger's 10 Years Old - With New and Improved Features

Now, a post on a happier note. (See "Lemming Tracks: Son of New Feature - Reactions; or, Frustration Likes Company" (September 17, 2009))

Blogger is ten years old, and - as the blogging service puts it - "...we're celebrating by giving back to all of you who've made our community so special over the years." I followed a link that shows "posts with label 10th Birthday" and found these, among others:

• "Turn Your Blog into a Book with Blog2Print"
  Caroline Vanderlip, SharedBook CEO (September 15, 2009)
  • "To continue Blogger's 10th anniversary celebration, I’m delighted to announce that Blog2Print has now partnered with Blogger. Blog2Print lets you publish some or all of your posts and photos as a professionally-printed, full-color book...."
• "Widgetbox: Make a Widget From Your Blog"
  Will Price, CEO of Widgetbox (September 14, 2009)
  • "In honor of Blogger’s 10 birthday, all of us at Widgetbox are excited to announce a partnership with Blogger that allows you to quickly and easily turn your blog into a widget...."
• "It's a date!"
  Ross Peter Nelson, Software Engineer, Google Calendar (September 11, 2009)
  • "Do you have an event you'd like to invite your readers to? Thanks to Blogger Gadgets, this is now a piece of cake. Click the Customize link in the toolbar, and go to the Layout tab. There, you'll see the Add a Gadget link. The Event Gadget is currently one of the featured gadgets, or you can add it directly by clicking "add your own" and entering the..."
  • This one, I might use
• "You Might As Well Jump!"
  Sean McCullough, Software Engineer, Blogger (September 09, 2009)
  • "It's time to announce another Blogger Birthday feature! Many users have been asking for an easy way to implement "Read more" links on their blog's index page. In fact, for years bloggers have been implementing "Read more" jump breaks themselves by manually editing their HTML...."
  • By far not the worst idea I've seen. Eventually, I'll reconsider my policy on the 'snippet-plus-link' approach to blog home pages

There's more, like the relevantly-groovy-sounding post by SocialVibe's CEO, something for iPhone, something for the Navbar, something about music - you get the idea.

Some of these probably work better than the 'Reactions' option (wouldn't take much), and a number look downright promising.

It couldn't hurt to take a look, right?

Lemming Tracks: Son of New Feature - Reactions; or, Frustration Likes Company

Misery may love company. I'm not so sure about frustration, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one who can't get Blogger's "Reactions" widget to work. At all. (Blogger help search results, reactions)

About seven and a half weeks ago, I noticed the 'reactions' option for blog posts. It looked like a good idea for people who wanted to respond, but didn't have more to say beyond pre-packaged impressions like "cool, cute, funny, interesting, unusual" - which would be appearing at the bottom of this post, if the software worked.

Which it hasn't, to date.

Suggestions: 'Helpful' and Irrelevant

There were some suggestions. One of the more useful involved backing up the widgets, then clicking 'Revert widget templates to default' - sounds intriguing, except that I didn't see a comment that this was useful. Just "1 of 3 people found this answer helpful. Did you?" Without details on how and to what degree it was helpful, showing how to re-set a blog's widgets.

But I wasn't going to undo hours of work setting up widgets that were functional. Not to - maybe - fix a widget that seems to be rather effectively bollixed up.

Then there was the comment that told, quite clearly, how to edit the "Reactions" widget. Which wasn't the issue. Getting the thing to display was.

'Captain's Log: Final Entry'

The last entry in one thread, dated August 11, 2009: "will go over to "How To" and see if anyone has answered the question ." In my present frame of mind, it sounds like the note a rescue party reads, sometimes, attached to the wrecked plane's steering yoke: "Rations gone, out of water. Batteries dead. Will try walking to coast...."

Happily, all I'm losing as what might be a nifty feature for this blog. If it worked.

Related post:

• "Lemming Tracks: A New Feature - Reactions"
  (July 26, 2009)

Online Software for Interior Design and Decorating

seemydesign.com: "Interior Design and Decorating Online"

"Our goal is to help you explore design and decorating ideas online. Featuring interactive design tools such as SeeMyDesign™ Preview, SeeMyDesign™ Layout, and Planner as well as information about design styles, principles and elements, painting and color theory, room elements and design examples. We hope you enjoy your stay...."

Again, this is obviously a commercial website. They wouldn't mind one bit if you bought their product. I don't have a problem with that, though.

And, the service looks very cool.

For the 3D design demo software, you'd need to dedicate 20MB of your hard drive. Which I'm not about to do. I know: it's not all that much by today's standards, but I've got enough software to keep track of as it is.

The 2D layout software is something else: try that, and you'll find a pop up window with a familiar sort of click-and-drag floor plan creator. It works, and the controls are fairly intuitive. Also, fun to play with.

Bottom line? What's on this website is not going to put professional interior designers and architects out of business. But, for a do-it-yourselfer who wants to use cybernetic shortcuts in the planning stage: I think this might be a good resource.

Rhyme Writer

Write Rhymes

"As you write, hold the alt key and click on a word to find a rhyme for it...."

It works, and gives you a wide selection of words, arranged by number of syllables and then alphabetically.

This online software is fun, and might help you meet a deadline, but it doesn't guarantee that your work will be recognized as great poetry. For example, here's what I got, writing all but the last word of a couplet - and selecting one of many three-syllable words (one of which was, naturally, gorilla).

I wish I had some vanilla
but found nothing but a parrilla.

But - This is fun, and easy to use. Enjoy.

Dots: a Simple Game That May be Harder Than it Looks

Dots
Athey Educational, U.K.

"Connect the dots and try to make more boxes than the computer."

I lost my first game, 49-0.

"Dots" is, as far as I can tell, the same as a pencil-and-paper game my wife taught our kids. I asked her, just now, what it was called. She shrugged her shoulders and told me it was "a dot-to-dot game," but she didn't have a name for it.

Despite my first encounter's outcome, I think this Dots game is fun.

Online Color Wheel: Dial Your Own Color Scheme

Color Scheme Designer
colorschemedesigner.com
2002–2009 © Petr Stanicek • Version 3.0

Mostly, this website is fun.

You can use the interactive page to create a color scheme with one color, complimentary colors, a triad, a tetrad, analogous colors, or an "accented analogic" scheme. Sounds complicated, but all there is to it is dialing around a color wheel - with the option of making a few adjustments.

You can look at light and dark web page mockup of the scheme you make.

And, what makes this something more than a toy, it's possible to export information about the scheme you come up with.

This won't put professional artists and Web designers out of business: but it's fun, and potentially useful for someone who needs to design a color scheme.

Searching for 'Work From Home,' 'Free Games,' or 'Screensavers' ? You Might Find Trouble

"The Riskiest Search Terms On The Internet"
WebProNews (May 27, 2009)

"Some of the riskiest searches on the Internet currently have to do with finding items for free, or looking for work that can be done from home, according to a new report from McAfee.

"Search categories like these are used to lure unsuspecting consumers to their websites. Cybercriminals are often able to convince users to download files carrying, malicious software that can cause people to expose personal and financial information...."

I'm not going to stop searching online, but I'm also glad I use software that's supposed to help avoid these traps. AVG and Google work together, so that when I'm signed on at Google, there's a go/no-go mark by most search results. It's handy: although I'm sure it's not foolproof.

Some of the results given by McAfee didn't surprise me: "...the riskiest set of keyword variations was 'screensavers' with a maximum risk of 59.1 percent. Nearly six out of the top 10 search results for 'screensavers' contain malware. One of the single riskiest search terms in the world is 'lyrics,' with a maximum risk factor of one in two...."

I think this is a good article to read, for people who do searches with Google or other search sites. Being constantly scared isn't smart, but staying ignorant isn't all that bright a decision, either.

The article includes McAfee's top 12 dangerous terms, from "screensavers" to "Viagra."

One more thing: "...People looking to save money, and/or searching for means of additional income should be aware that clicking on results that contain the word 'free' have a 21.3 percent chance of infecting their PCs with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware."

Johari Windows: No Cleaning Needed

"Johari Window"
noogenesis.com/game_theory

"The Johari Window, named after the first names of its inventors, Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, is one of the most useful models describing the process of human interaction. A four paned 'window,' as illustrated above, divides personal awareness into four different types, as represented by its four quadrants: open, hidden, blind, and unknown. The lines dividing the four panes are like window shades, which can move as an interaction progresses...."

I learned about the Johari Window this evening, following up on a link provided by crpitt (Twitter), the first of these for-fun Johari pages:

• Self-Disclosure Quiz
  abacon.com
• Interactive Johari Window
  Kevan.org

'Learn something new every day' - pretty good mental-health advice, and fun to boot.

Watch a Pencil Draw an Eye

"Portraits - sparks by Lucy90"
Lucy90, RateMyDrawings.com (March 19, 2009)

"well i guess this is my favourite so far :) as usual i rele appreciate all ur ratings and comments guys, thank u :)"

It takes a minute or two, for an animated pencil to finish this picture. I enjoyed watching the process, and the result: if you draw in colors, you might pick up some ideas.

This eye post is on ratemydrawings.com, an online drawing community.

Tainted Peanuts in America: Recalled Products List Updated; Dead Rats

First, and important: Some, but not all, peanut products are tainted. Just (probably) the ones from Peanut Corporation of America.

The FDA updated its recall list earlier today:

"Peanut Butter and other Peanut Containing Products Recall List"
"Information current as of 12 PM February 14, 2009
2204 entries in list"

Repeating what I wrote the other day, "They're listed by category. What I do is use my browser's 'search' function to look for brands and products my family uses. Haven't found one yet. Good thing: since peanut butter is an affordable food for us."

---

'If You Liked Our Salmonella, You'll Love Our Rat Poop'

It looks like Mr. Parnell, the Peanut Corporation of America boss, forgot one of the cardinal rules of business: Don't poison the end user. I'd say "customers," but the Peanut Corporation sold to manufacturers of food, not directly to people who ate what came out of their factories.

Dead Rats, Rodent Poop, and Bird Feathers: All-Natural, But Not Appetizing

As much as I like organic food and all-natural products, I can't work up any enthusiasm for natural ingredients like rat excrement, bird feathers, and dead rats. Apparently, I'm not alone. A Peanut Corporation of America plant in Texas was closed, after inspectors found found that the ventilation system was recycling rats, poop, and bird feathers into PCA's food products.

All products from that plant are being recalled. Texas authorities aren't waiting to see if the stuff tests positive for salmonella. They've sent PCA's stuff to the labs, anyway: Results will probably be needed as evidence in the trials.

I know: Aside from a few lawsuits, there's no solid indication yet of legal action against Mr. Parnell, or his Peanut Corporation of America. But I'd say the odds are that there will be criminal charges. As I said before, Americans get cranky when their loved ones are killed with poison peanuts.

One more thing: It looks like Peanut Corporation of America is going out of business. No great surprise there.

---

More news:

"Peanut Corp. of America files for bankruptcy"
The Associated Press (February 13, 2009)

"ATLANTA (AP) — The peanut processing company at the heart of a national salmonella outbreak is going out of business. The Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Virginia Friday, the latest bad news for the company that has been accused of producing tainted peanut products that may have reached everyone from poor school children to disaster victims...."

I'm not all that surprised. It's sad, for the people who worked for Peanut Corporation of America. But, knowing Mr. Parnell's approach to quality control, and the typical American citizen's notorious touchiness about being poisoned, who in their right mind would buy anything from PCA?

"Dead rodents, excrement in peanut processor lead to recall"
U.S. News and World Report (February 12, 2009)

"(CNN) -- The Texas Department of State Health Services on Thursday ordered the recall of all products ever shipped from the Peanut Corporation of America's plant in Plainview, Texas, after discovering dead rodents, rodent excrement and bird feathers in the plant.

"The order, which applies to products shipped since the plant opened nearly four years ago, came a day after the discovery of filth in a crawl space above a production area during a health services inspection, Texas Health Department Press Officer Doug McBride told CNN in a telephone interview.

"The plant's ventilation system pulled debris 'from the infested crawl space into production areas of the plant resulting in the adulteration of exposed food products,' a health department news release said...."

Amazing. I suspect that there's going to be a trifle more interest in food and plant inspections after this. I just hope that America's leaders realize that it takes people on a payroll to get inspections done. And, that the idea is to get factories and food inspected: not just add another layer paper-pushers.

Earlier posts on this topic:

• "Salmonella in Peanut Products: the Recall List and Widget"
  (February 12, 2009)
• "Tainted Peanuts in America: Three of Nine Deaths are My State"
  (February 11, 2009)

Salmonella in Peanut Products: the Recall List and Widget

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a Peanut Product Recall Widget:



I picked it up on the FDA website, on a page called, appropriately enough, "Peanut Product Recall Widget."

("...Placement of the FDA's widget is to be used only as a marker to the FDA.gov site and a channel for FDA.gov content. The use of the widget does not indicate any form of endorsement or approval from FDA or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services....")

List of Recalled Peanut Products

The FDA updated its list of recalled peanut products yesterday (February 11, 2009). It's online at "Peanut Butter and other Peanut Containing Products Recall List." At that time, there were 2,013 recalled products.

They're listed by category. What I do is use my browser's 'search' function to look for brands and products my family uses. Haven't found one yet. Good thing: since peanut butter is an affordable food for us.

Earlier post on this topic:
"Tainted Peanuts in America: Three of Nine Deaths are My State"
(February 11, 2009)

Make Your Own Fonts with YourFonts - Free?!

"Turn Handwriting into a Font with YourFont"
Drawn! (February 2, 2009)

"YourFont is a free, web-based program that allows you to turn your handwriting into a font. Basically, all you have to do is:..."


(from Drawn!, used without permission)

Looks too good to be true: free? YourFonts' TOS is fairly short and straightforward.

My guess is that YourFonts is establishing a name for itself, by offering its services free - and that there'll be a non-free version around after word gets around. Or, it could be a way for YourFonts' parent company to keep its name in front of people. Or, maybe YourFonts is run by people who like to perform services for free.

More, at "
Turn Your Handwriting Into Fonts: YourFonts" (Cool Creation (February 3, 2009)), "PRODUCT WATCH" (Law Practice magazine, PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT SPECIAL ISSUE: BRANDING YOURSELF ONLINE (January/February 2009)), and about 97,700 other places online.

Finally, has anybody used YourFonts? If so, how did you like it.

The Periodic Table: Dynamic!

Dynamic Periodic Table

Click on an element and see what Wikipedia says about it.

Looks like fun, and the chart displays a moderately cool visual effect when it loads.