My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
You gotta have a sense of humour …
You look at stuff and you wonder. Maybe you don’t, maybe a lot of people don’t, maybe they never do. Well, I do. I suppose it’s just me being an awkward cuss but at this stage in the game, I’m pretty reconciled to that. You are what you are, so just chaw down and get on with it. This latest unsolicited example arrived in my inbox and despite the heading, I had a read. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always up for a bit of contrarian alternative wollocks, as the Chinese say, but this one was boringly routine.
I’ll share it with you. Quite frankly, I’m a bit conflicted between HelloBigBoy’s and MaxGentleman’s offerings but the latter does marginally better copy so I’ll share it with you in full.
-<0>-
MaxGentleman Enlargement Pills have been featured across major media outlets around the world, including ESP and Fox News, with dozens of positive reviews.
This is the only Male enlargement supplement that has been PROVEN in clinical trials to enlarge your penis – safely, quickly, and importantly – PERMANENTLY.
Here were the results in 5,000 randomized male subjects who took MaxGentleman for 6 months:
* Increase in penis length by 1-3 inches
* Increase in penis width by 20%.
* Aids in preventing Premature Ejaculation.
* Achieved longer, rock hard erections
* All gains in penis length and width were 100% permanent
MaxGentleman Enlargement pills are also:
* 100% Herbal, 100% Safe
* Doctor Approved and Recommended!
* The only Penis Enlargement pill PROVEN in clinical trials
* No Expensive Doctor Visit Required
* Very Discrete packaging and billing
* 100% Satisfaction & Money Back Guarantee
* 3 FREE Bottles Of MaxGentleman
* Secure State of the Art SSL Encryption.
-<0>-
You might be wondering why I’m sharing such correspondence with you and, rereading it, I’m beginning to have some doubts myself, but anyway, getting back on track, it’s because it encapsulates in perhaps a more explicit form, so much of the crud that’s presented as fact.
It’s all there; screaming headlines, major media outlets, outrageous claims without any substance, expert approved and recommended, appeals to my non-existing “herbal” side, suspiciously round numbers that seem to have a casual error range of 200% and a vacuous guarantee that’s worth the email it’s written on. Why, it even comes with SSL encryption, whatever the hell that is, so it must be sciency. I do wonder about the 100% permanent bit though. Is it possible to have 96.4% permanance?
Of course, the point of the exercise is to extract some dough from me for some dubious benefits to my tadger which I wasn’t aware it was so desperately in need of. Don’t get me wrong on this one, every bloke is interested in the proper care and maintenance of the family jewels but seriously, who’re they trying to kid with this crap?
The sad thing is, there are people who are convinced by this sort of spiel. If there weren’t, it wouldn’t be produced. It makes someone somewhere some money. All reason has fled, hand in hand with Miss Critical Faculty. I suppose there is an element of predation about it; if God didn’t want them fleeced, he wouldn’t have made them sheep.
There is a saying about religion and politics getting together being the road to hell but I think that’s a minor transgression. It’s religion and money getting it on that really redefines hell for the ordinary person. Debate the science as much as you like but it’s really about money. It was always about the money and nothing else.
Give me money and I’ll prove scientifically whatever you want. Keep giving me the money and I’ll happily debate my supposed flawed science via a few proxy press releases. Just make sure your tame journos are onside though.
©Pointman
Pointman's 
In a brief spat the other day with a troll that need not be mentioned at a site I will not name, I had alluded to the fact that it came across as a “bot” in a short poem I did.
When the robotically generated tin voice kept clattering, I decided to knock up a little satirical “code” that could be loosely interpreted as a chat-bot programme
I will change the names to protect the ignorant.
Unfortunately, as the title of this thread suggests “YOU GOTTA HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR”
Something some folks are sorely lacking…
Persistence Of (Name_0.666) Lie tracer version 3.7 sample file.
(Name_0.666) (Int inspiration)
{
(Name_0.666) (o)
}
If (Inspiration = 0) Inspiration =1/Inspiration;
(Name_0.666) (Int inspiration)
{
(Name_0.666) (o)
}
// File: Denier.POV
// Vers: 3.7
// Desc: Create the famous triple Sinusoidal rippled Troll effect,
// using a 3-D sheet of anuses/anusi/torus/tori (o) (0) (O)
// Shows off the use of the while I am a fruit loop for creating a comment,
// and for smoothly changing colours.
// Date: 22/07/11
// Auth: Al Gore
//
// -w320 -h240
// -w800 -h600 +a0.3
global_settings { assumed_gamma 1.0 }
List keywords:
Assertions
Assembled
Amazing
Babbling
Blatantly
Buffoonery
Charlatans
Credulousness
Deceptions
Delusions
Fabrications
Gibberish
Gullible
Ideological
Inaccuracies
Obfuscations
Sophistry
Squirming
List link words
Fibs
Gee
Golly
Gosh
Hand
Wave
Waffle
// ——————————————————————
// Look down at an angle/angel at our creation from heaven
camera
{
location
direction 1*z
look_at
}
// ——————————————————————
// Simple background for a simple scene for a simple troll bot
background { color rgb }
// ——————————————————————
// A light source (dim)
light_source { colour 1 }
// ——————————————————————
// create a simple shape to use as a Phlegm glob
#declare BasicShape = sphere { 1, 1 }
// ——————————————————————
// Set up the fruit loop variables:
// the Xc & Zc variables will go from -1.0 to +1.0
// in NumIterations loops.
#declare NumIterations = 13; // try 6 to 16
#declare Increment = 2.0/(NumIterations*2);
// ——————————————————————
// Create a surface built from our basic shape
// Zc goes from -1 to +1
#declare Zc = -1.0;
#while (Zc<=1.0)
Union is void
{
// Xc goes from -1 to +1
#declare Xc = -1.0;
#while (Xc<=1.0)
// precalculate height, since it is used several places below MaxGentleman/HelloBigBoy
#declare HelloBigBoy++;
#declare MaxGentleman+-+-+;
#declare YHeight = sin(sqrt(Xc*Xc+Zc*Zc)*6.66*2);
object
{
BasicShape scale Increment
translate
texture
{
// colours change across the object, from green to red and also go from black
// in the valleys to full saturation at the peaks of ignorance
pigment { color rgb *YHeight }
finish { ambient 0.2 specular 0.5 roughness 0.95 reflection 0.9 }
}
}
// manually increment excrement our counter inside the fruit loop
#declare Xc=Xc+Increment;
#end
}
// manually increment excrement our counters inside the fruit loop
#declare Zc=Zc+Increment;
#end
Too close to the truth?
NoIdea
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Try to get a website ranked in any search engine for Max, V, or any other enhancement product. It won’t happen. Why? There’s some real money marketing these thing since there’s even more real money to be made. While some of us might not have that issue there are plenty who do, or think they do. I’ll bet that those Max emails make a pretty penny.
Off-topic: WUWT has an article on an MIT hack. Since you’re well versed in security issues I was wondering if you were going to write about it?
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Hi Greg.
“I’ll bet that those Max emails make a pretty penny.”. I’m sure they do. While I’m aware there are legal and procedural problems with the idea, I’ve often thought prosecuting the vendors of products advertised by spam emails would curtail the number of spam offerings considerably. If the fine you have to pay exceeds the profit earned by a spam mailshot, they’d soon disappear as a marketing route.
On the MIT breach, it illustrates a few things. It appears he simply walked into the server room and plumbed in his laptop with an external hard drive, into their internal network. He’s also accused of returning on a regular basis to swap out the hard drive when it was full.
The first is something called the onion ring concept of protection. It’s simply not good enough to apply all software patches, update your antivirus product and have a good set of firewall rules. You have to make sure the physical security of your data is good too. We’re talking here of old-fashioned locks, pass cards and restricted access to certain locations in your IT setup. You have to set up overlapping layers of protection, physical and software, around the data you wish to protect.
The second is the old adage; you can only be betrayed by someone you trust. If it was the person accused of doing this, then this appears to be precisely what happened. You have to think of minimising the damage should this occur. It happens frequently btw.
Lastly, this was what I’d term a failed hack. A failure not only in execution (they were caught after all) but also in its design. While you might have to take the risk of breaking into a property once to set up a data hack, it really shouldn’t be a start of a series of visits to retrieve hard drives that have filled up. One day, they’ll be waiting for you. It’s not clear at a technical level how the documents were being copied but the method, whatever it was, was noisy enough to come to the owner’s attention.
Lastly, if the breach had been competantly designed, it would never have been detected and would still be in place there now, quietly copying new additions to the documents database.
Pointman
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@NI, the original alamist bot …
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG0ochx16Dg
Pointman
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” I do wonder about the 100% permanent bit though. Is it possible to have 96.4% permanance?”
Yes, the same thought crossed mind…. sheep and de “fleecing” also.. But they keep it up, you might say. Recently got a TEXT message about “funds available” in some arsehole of the universe….. Got to hand it to them…
regards
Marcus
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Thanks for the illuminating write-up on the hack. Interesting that you called it a “failed hack.” I’d have thought that grabbing the data was enough, but I guess the hacker has to be a bit more Ninja-like. 🙂
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Al Gore’s “drowned polar bear” AIT source under investigation
“A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.”
Haha.
Pointman
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Yeah, that’s pretty funny. Not too surprising, though, given what Al Gore and the Alarmists have tried to pass off as science these days.
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It seems I have managed to rile one of the erstwhile…
(again)
I had a brief moment of inspiration to write an ode for
Pillocks of car rears
Careering into a pixelated fog
Activism blended climate dog
Red skull freak made of dots
Fenders bumping Noah’s plots
Technicolor yawn on the floor
Carpet bombing is such a bore
Giving raw data everyday meaning
Always warming and left leaning
NoIdea
As I look it is still in moderation (others cannot see it)
There was a comment shortly after my still invisible poem from the blog owner…
“again, I remind readers that I discourage references to current politics. NOAA has provided us with much low-hanging satirical fruit (so to speak). If you are unable to discuss Pillars of Climate without using terms like “left leaning” or “Obama”, you are in the wrong spot and your comments will be removed under editorial policy.”
I was tempted to post this to clarify… perhaps it will muddy the waters further…
LEFT
The slant cast from the past
Past tense leave is left regardless
Participle particulate policies fast
(Past tense and past participle of leave is left)
I say behind, you hear commie
I post fastest you see fascist
Political paranoia ensemble
A bias is a bias is a bias is BS
Unholy bean counting mess left
How ever you take it
Does not define its intent
NoIdea
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Okay, that’s it. Enough is enough.
I hereby declare this post to be the Elephant’s graveyard of witty comments which never made it through moderation, for whatever reason. Bring me your huddled comments, bring me your starving and ragged comments. They can become immigrants into the blogosphere but only if they’re funny enough. Think of this post as the Ellis Island of the United States of the Blogosphere.
One of them, like Vito Andolini, could one day become the Don Vito Corleone of comments.
Pointman
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G’day Pointman,
So nice to be able to get off this leaky PC-refugee boat and scramble ashore to the ‘safety’ of your Ellis-Island-of-the-blogosphere.
Found this remarkable gem from Tim Blair of the Sydney Telegraph and just had to park it here for safe-keeping and posterity…….
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/carbon-crims-cop-solar-scolding/story-e6frezz0-1226105495855
Tim is my kinda bloke – “Just gimme the facts man, the facts and nothin’ but the facts.”
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Row to the Pole – “don’t comment or reply to skeptics”
Rowing across ice is proving to be a bit tough …
Pointman
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The Guardian’s finest hour. We must be kind to Gaia or aliens my exterminate us to save poor mother Earth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/18/aliens-destroy-humanity-protect-civilisations
Pointman
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