Welcome to the first in a series of illustrations depicting the correct behavior for various life situations. I am right and you are most likely wrong. This is how to do it. Don't be a jerk... follow my advice.

Lesson #1 - Driving: How to Merge During Highway Travel

Situation: You are driving down a highway and notice a sign indicating that two lanes will be merging into one. You are in the lane that will end. You can't yet see the location where your lane ends. You will probably attempt to immediately get into the other lane (the Early Merge) which will cause an enormous backup in the other lane and create a dangerous situation in your lane as you suddenly apply your brakes even though the road in front of you is wide open.

My partner and I worked all day to fix open queries throughout all of our code with cfqueryparam tags. We restored the DB and after only a short while they were able to infiltrate it again. So we double checked the site and added of code that intercepts injection attacks and restored the DB again.

This time it took longer, but they eventually hit us again! Finally, after nearly 24 hours of messing with code I think we are holding them off... but they are continually hammering pages on the site attempting the injection.

Their constant page requests from random IPs is killing our site response time. Is there any way to stop all the mal-traffic? I friggin hate jerks that do this crap and I wish there was a way to just punch them directly in the face.

The general idea is that they are trying to insert a string of code that serves a javascript file on our site from some remote site. It's horrible because it immediately prompts a visitor to our site to download a nasty ActiveX control.

My main other site is getting hammered by an unrelenting SQL injection attack. I now completely realize the importance of locking down your queries.

I can only hope that BlogCFC is immune. :)

Here is a full description of this particular attack... which is apparently hitting a bunch of sites. Info provided via a simple Google search.

Muhahahahahaha! Here I am tweaking the world's power supply! Tweak, tweak!

And the original:

Just sent this email to Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com as a potential episode idea.

Hi Brian,

A friend of mine sent me a link to something called Lunar Federation, Inc., a company that provides one with the amazing opportunity of buying land on Mars! Wow! As I read through their FAQ, I began to see how this could potentially make an interesting Skeptoid episode.

Essentially this company is claiming a legal foundation for selling real estate on other planets and planetoids. Obviously this is nothing new, but these guys in particular caught my eye... mostly because of their FAQ. Their reasons for claiming a legal basis are a hoot. You'll love this quote:

"Skepticism is a tool that should always be used when questioning most things but when you are selling a ground breaking idea and you're doing it on a legal basis, with the best of intentions, skepticism can become a real problem."

Too funny. They also claim that once they sell "1 billion" acres on Mars, they will have enough money to launch a mission with "10 lucky colonists". Wow... what a claim!

http://lunarfederation.com/faq.htm

Anyway... thanks so much for the wonderful podcast. I play it out loud for other people whenever the chance arises (meaning... when they are captive in my car).

Cheers, Steven Wood

Just brilliant stuff from Salon.com

Here's the wonderful image of the Virgin Mary in all her glory. By the way, did I ever write about the fact that Catholicism is clearly a polytheistic religion? But that's a whole 'nother story.

Pareidolia strikes again!

If you don't fully understand the term "pareidolia", here is your chance to trump your friends and family. Click the link, increase your knowledge, and no longer be afraid of the spooky shadows in your bedroom.

Opportunities for pareidolia moments abound. Heck, I can show you 5 or 6 "demonic" faces in the stone tiles of my shower. That doesn't mean my shower tiles are having secret thoughts of stealing my soul... if there was such a thing to steal... which there isn't.

Wow, PZ Myers is a hero of mine. I mean, the guy is just so awesome. If you are ignorant of the entire Cracker Conundrum, you owe it to yourself to read up on it. I think I posted a summary a while back.

PZ's latest post is too awesome to miss.

Just a little while ago I overhead some teenagers in the hall talking to each other. They were talking about time zones.

Teen Girl: "China is like half way around the world, right?"

Teen Boy: "No, it's farther than that. More like three quarters of the way around the world."

Oh boy.

I've heard this quote before, and I've always thought it was a great one:

Stephen F. Robert (apparently speaking to a Catholic)

That makes more sense than I know what to do with. And now I rememeber where I read it. Richard Dawkins in "The God Delusion" highlights the very same idea.

Everyone is either a complete atheist or a near atheist. If you don't believe in Vishnu, Thor, Aphrodite, Ra, or Allah, you need to ask yourself why. And then you need to apply the exact same criteria to your own god of choice. Is there any difference?

True atheists simply believe in 1 less god than you.