Ramblings and webcomics from LeEMS
Over a year ago, now, something was killing things in our back yard. Two Muscovy ducks, a turtle, and a blue jay were left to spread their putrefying gasses over the garden. In an effort to catch the killer, we got a trail camera and mounted ’round the pillar of an old, broken, bird bath. As far as we know, the killer has not returned. We have had no more back yard deaths, and we have never caught whateveritis on camera. We know there are foxes in the area, and our back yard is not secured from wandering dogs… In the meantime, I get very much enjoyment seeing what the camera does manage to photograph. Night shots are informative, but not necessarily clear photography. Here are some birds.
My imagination fails me; I have no idea if this is genius or diabolical. I have not tried it myself. Thoughts?
I collect little things all year, clipping from websites in my Evernote, saving or favoriting posts in my rss feedreader. These are things I don’t want to forget, but I do, until when things seem to slow down at the end of the year, I clean out all my files. I ‘liked’ the Boing Boing post “Library of Congress releases 11,700 freely usable photos of “roadside America,” taken by John Margolies” back in September, because I love the type of old road-side attractions that used to make up the bulk of Florida’s tourist activities back in the day. Of course, Florida doesn’t have a monopoly on these and John Margolies photograph collection at the Library of Congress beautifully captures a whole country’s worth of strange and lovely (gallery).
I do not usually read the newspaper anymore; nor do I watch mainstream news programming. I have a vague feeling that one of the original reasons for me turning away from traditional news media was the constant focus on lurid sensationalism, fear mongering, and general bad news. Yet, I have been spending plenty of time in the Chronicling America project. Do news papers now-a-days have articles on holiday customs around the world? Do they have suggestions for your next Halloween party, and serialized stories about plucky youngsters in a fairyland adventure? ‘Cause that might get me back to reading newspapers.
Anyway, La Befana is the Christmas witch of Italy (wikipedia). This article from the Midland Journal is just one variation of her legend. Like an old fashioned Santa Claus, she doles out presents and punishment as appropriate.
This video does a lovely job of warning people who are the recipients of spoofing: a scam phone call that uses another phone number as a mask for caller ID. What’s not really explained is what happens when it’s your number that is being used as that caller ID mask. You’d think nothing, right? Scammers would, effectively, be impersonating you by using your phone number without you ever knowing. The call isn’t actually coming from your phone or your account. There is no outgoing call record to verify, so you would have no proof anything is ever happening, right?
The reality is that a good amount of people are inclined to call back when they miss a call on their cell phones, which has resulted in a parade of annoyed and frustrated people who don’t believe me when I tell them I did not call them. Though I suppose being frustrated with me is better than having taken that call in the first place. If you’ve ever received a call like this, don’t give away any of your information!
The only option I have found for people whose numbers are being used for this scam is to change numbers or live with it. If you find out any solution, let me know.