What is the name of the debating trick that starts with making wide sweeping statements about the community of your opponent, like in:

Our 61st Febember blog post on Chocolate Cookies has generated significant attention. It is gratifying to see culinary experts like Cookie Monster respond. Not so gratifying is that Cookie Monster's response reveals that even experts in pastry can fail to understand the dietary implications of the recipes they work with daily. This has been a longstanding problem in the culinary community.

You probably thought this was about an open source license. (These are probably not even Gnus, but I know more about GPL than about African animals.).

I am a big fan of the Sopranos. However, Dutch television fails to broadcast the show on prime time so it never made it really popular in the NL. That leaves me nothing but SOBT (Stealing over BitTorrent) or waiting for the DVD series to come and pay 60 Euro.

Anyway, I am watching series 6 and the first episode started with a long scene, with a William S. Burroughs track accompagnying the images, that introduced in what state of life the family and their friends are. The William S. Burroughs track I didn't know but it sounded remarkably like the work he did with the "The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy" (Michael Franti's old band). A plesant goosebump experience.

I try to understand why I like the Sopranos so much, one of the reasons is that the show is pure commedy. For instance, I couldn't stop laughing when one therapist, Eliot, was talking to the other, Melfi, and said, without a trace of cynicism: "This Omerta concept comes from a pre-therapeutic culture".

I fail to understand why the broadcast of the last episode made the Dutch news. They had to first explain that the Sopranos is a popular series in the US and then broadcasted the plot spoiler! 

Remember the stapler... That and those damned TPS reports lead to the fire that destroyed Initech.

It seems that Samir Nagheenanajar and Michael Bolton might have inspired the developer of the Corporate Ipsum Dashboard widget.

What would life be without TPS reports filled with paragraphs of texts, see below, that can only be found on those callendars with pictures with big black frames and 'Big Words' in big white fonts. Now... there is an idea for a Dashboard Widget. If only  Despair wouldn't have had a "parody generator" of their own. 

Uniquely streamline 2.0 information via pandemic alignments. Distinctively transition client-focused services after superior niches. Monotonectally seize web-enabled web-readiness for market-driven "outside the box" thinking.

Intrinsicly engineer go forward infrastructures whereas cross functional total linkage. Dramatically conceptualize maintainable initiatives vis-a-vis user-centric e-markets. Uniquely underwhelm distributed networks via cooperative experiences.

Enthusiastically drive sticky functionalities after timely results. Professionally architect future-proof methodologies before functionalized action items. Monotonectally productivate standardized metrics without holistic benefits.

Authoritatively iterate team driven e-tailers for multidisciplinary "outside the box" thinking. Distinctively enhance effective vortals and premier interfaces. Assertively incentivize enabled services for resource-leveling web services.

Dynamically syndicate highly efficient imperatives rather than next-generation intellectual capital. Collaboratively maximize open-source methodologies rather than highly efficient supply chains. Appropriately empower stand-alone manufactured products before cross-platform vortals.

The secret-wg's contribution to the Scotch BOF:

There is this mess that is almost a soap
About addresses, routing, called ROAP
Heat your box, if you dare
or your wire, I don't care
Drink a Scotch and there will always be hope

 (for the universal deployment .... &c &c) 

 See www.secret-wg.org/Secret-Archive/ for more geeky limericks.

I have this thing with Sesame's street "Bert". I am also a fan of Scorsese's classics such as "Taxi Driver" and "Casino". 

Today I received a link from a dear friend with a pointer to The Trailor for Martin Scorsese's Sesame Street 

June 1 edit: The appartment has been sold.

I have not been blogging much. I have been having problems with my server and the interface to the blogging software Only recently I found time to look into those. Besides, I am to busy to write coherent and thoughtful blog entries. What I am busy with?

Well for one, we bought a house. The main reason is that we grew out of our appartment; so now that is for sale. So, if you happen to stumble on this page and you are looking for a nice appartment (90 sq m) at 20 minutes distance from Schiphol airport and 20 minutes distance from Amsterdam center, then contact my real estate agent.

See www.nijenrodeweg.info for details.

(This is the kind of posting I probably should have written in Dutch)

 (20-feb-2007 edited to add pictures)

Inspired by a comment made at the IETF dnsop meeting:

It is less efficient to swing a big clue-bat than to shoot a round of clue bullets.

At 82 years Maria called him into her arms. I am sure they will make love today.

On April 1 Bruce Schneier announced a contest that should get some attention. He will try to hook you up with a movie producer but I wonder if participation will also enter you on the DHS "no-fly" list.

For a while now, I have been writing about our penchant for "movie-plot threats": terrorist fears based on very specific attack scenarios. Terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists exploding baby carriages in subways, terrorists filling school buses with explosives -- these are all movie-plot threats. They're good for scaring people, but it's just silly to build national security policy around them.

But if we're going to worry about unlikely attacks, why can't they be exciting and innovative ones? If Americans are going to be scared, shouldn't they be scared of things that are really scary? "Blowing up the Super Bowl" is a movie plot to be sure, but it's not a very good movie. Let's kick this up a notch.

It is in this spirit I announce the (possibly First) Movie-Plot Threat Contest. Entrants are invited to submit the most unlikely, yet still plausible, terrorist attack scenarios they can come up with.

Your goal: cause terror. Make the American people notice. Inflict lasting damage on the U.S. economy. Change the political landscape, or the culture. The more grandiose the goal, the better.

Assume an attacker profile on the order of 9/11: 20 to 30 unskilled people, and about $500,000 with which to buy skills, equipment, etc.

Post your movie plots here on this blog.

Judging will be by me, swayed by popular acclaim in the blog comments section. The prize will be an autographed copy of Beyond Fear. And if I can swing it, a phone call with a real live movie producer.

Entries close at the end of the month -- April 30 -- so Crypto-Gram readers can also play.

This is not an April Fool's joke, although it's in the spirit of the season. The purpose of this contest is absurd humor, but I hope it also makes a point. Terrorism is a real threat, but we're not any safer through security measures that require us to correctly guess what the terrorists are going to do next.

Good luck.