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On the Street - the Preacher

I met a guy yesterday who claimed to be Jesus. I asked him how he knew that he was indeed Jesus. He said, "How do you know that I'm not?" I looked at him with a puzzled look on my face. He then said, "How do you know that you're not Him?"

I started to walk away, but I noticed the man speaking to other individuals, pointing in my direction. I could not hear what he was saying. Finally, he shouted, "It takes only one person to have faith!" I wasn't sure what this meant, and I really didn't want to ask him about it.

Spam turns 30, but it's still trying to give away a million dollars of Nigerian inheritance

Just for an instance, don't be a spam hater. You don't actually have to open anything in your inbox with "enlargement" in the title. Just play along for the simple fact of nostalgia.

Next stop: Johns Hopkins Spring Festival

It's a quick turnaround from the CityLit Festival, but I will be in attendance at the JHU Spring Festival, which takes place April 25-27 at the Hopkins Homewood Campus. The details are a bit sketchy as when I will be there, but I plan to hand out another box of "The Developers" to event visitors.

Visit the event's website to learn more about other vendors and a full schedule of happenings there.

Free book giveaway has begun!

Starting April 19, 2008, with the Baltimore CityLit Festival, I plan to give away a few books this spring and summer. I hope the next wave of "The Developers" readers gets as much enjoyment out of the book as the first wave did.

Anyway, if you received a free book and want to show your appreciation, check out the free book page "donations" options and/or email me your comments about the book!

Wait, people still use IE 3?

So the news out recently is that PayPal is going to block "unsafe browsers." I'm not talking about people here, but actually web browsers. How will PayPal know if something is unsafe? Good question, but one way they will tell, according to this article, is by determining the version of the actual browser.

From the Archive

Super Recognisers unite!

During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.

Now's the time to become a pirate

There are a plenty of new careers and opportunities these days, yet you rarely see anyone entering the piracy field. Some people have invented their own versions of a shipwrecked pirate - stealing stereos, hacking into computer files, playing baseball in Pittsburgh - but few take their chances on the high seas.

On the other hand, the Assocated Press said pirates killed more people in 1998 than the year before. The International Maritime Bureau reported Malaysian pirates, who killed 67 crewmen last year, are "getting increasingly violent."

Pirates? Violent?

A sampling of a few new reviews ...

Here you go:

- " ... a great writing style, and I always appreciate a dose of subtle cynicism in anything I read."

- "The book was a humorous take on the corporate world, the stress, the relocation, the robot-type of requirement to fit it."

- " ... had me laughing out loud."

There's more on the reviews page!

GAC: Is it wrong to download songs for free from the Internet?

The Good Advice Committee's first task was to determine whether or not it was appropriate to download songs for free from the Internet. Good arguments were made on both sides, but in the end, the committee voted no, 4-1.

NATE: NO

I find nothing wrong with downloading music off the internet. Most of the songs that are being downloaded are from artists who already have more money than they know what to do with. The last time I watched "Cribs" on MTV, it doesn't look like Jay-Z was losing out from everybody downloading his songs for free.

Spam turns 30, but it's still trying to give away a million dollars of Nigerian inheritance

Just for an instance, don't be a spam hater. You don't actually have to open anything in your inbox with "enlargement" in the title. Just play along for the simple fact of nostalgia.

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