taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Greetings from sunny Dublin, Ireland! (really!)

I’m now back in taint.org’s native timezone, although precariously set up and experiencing occasional interruptions. If you’re waiting for a mail from me, it may take a little more time.

I did have time to be interviewed last week by Karlin Lillington for this Guardian story:

To make sure customs agents could read his cat’s chip to match him to his Pet Passport on return to Europe, Mason bought his own scanner at a cost of some £200. “I didn’t want to risk the cat being impounded for six months’ quarantine at Heathrow,” he sighs.

It’s true.

Happy to be back — I think. Looking forward to my first pints, in over a year, of creamy Guinness in its native habitat. I also have a couple of half-written weblog entries I wrote on the plane, too…

Tags: bubba, cat, dublin, guardian, guinness, home, meta, rfid, travel

Toys: Argh, I’ve been infected by the Breedster STD!

Apparently, though, there’s a way around it through reincarnation, or — rumour has it — through touching Asriel, the bug with the power to heal.

In the meantime, paranoia reigns, and this time of crisis has brought out the worst in some bugs:

• The Blue-Green state
• The CEs

It’s an interesting piece of emergent net-art, if you ask me, but the STD is pissing me off. (it’s itchy!)

Literature: Ulysses:

The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

– Mkgnao!

– O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.

– Milk for the pussens, he said.

– Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

– Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

– Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

mrkrgnao.com is available ;)

Tags: afraid, argh, breedster, cat, leg, mrkrgnao, prr, std, table, tail, toys

My cat has turned into a murderer. For the last week, he’s been going out and bagging 1-2 wild animals per day; mostly rabbits, but some voles and a finch too.

It’s really wrecking my head. I don’t have the nuts to kill a half-dead rabbit in cold blood, so I wind up leaving them in the bushes to die; and I’m sure that’s exactly what happens to most of ‘em. The other day I had to fish out a dead baby rabbit, put it in a plastic bag, and dump it in the bin.

Maybe I should leave them out for the hawks. There’s a pretty big peregrine and red-tailed hawk population around here.

Alternatively, maybe some cat transformation sets would help… at least around the house: ‘The cat which became a hood figure is likely to have a broom at any moment, and is likely to begin cleaning.’

Bonus: via jwz:

Tags: baby, blood, cat, day, finch, fish, head, murderer, rabbit, week

Who knew relocating with a cat could be so tricky? Well, actually, I did. He hates travel. I’m considering just putting him in a crate and handing him off to a courier to do it.

Paul Graham’s Spam Conference seems to be doing great; they’ve moved to a bigger room, and are expecting 480 (!!) attendees.

I still can’t make it due to all this movage, but thankfully there’s a few SpamAssassin folks going, so we’ll still be able to snarf some good tricks with any luck.

In other news, the public mass-check submission run for SpamAssassin 2.50 is about to start; with the new with-bayes and with-net-tests dimensions in the matrix, it’s going to be the biggest run yet. Should be fun.

Tags: cat, conference, courier, crate, movage, room, run, spam, spamassassin, travel