In something that reminds me of the movie Catch Me If You Can, I came across this website that generates Fake ID’s. Over the last week, the site has improved already, so there might be more features on the way. At the end of last week, it would give you:

Every so often you come across something really cool on the internet. Today, that cool thing was a little program that generates ASCII art.

It’s interesting how much Harry Potter — the fictional wizard boy that every kid has read about and made J.K. Rowling an instant millionaire — has become so much of our culture. This is well illustrated by a quote from the latest book my sister, also a Harry Potter fan, picked up. This book, also well known, is Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”.

I’ve read this before, but I would have to say this passage of scripture is among my favourites.

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

— Isaiah 54:10, 17

Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.

— Albert Einstein

With new technology, comes new concerns. In the case of electronic mail, it is that of spam. At least when we get junk mail at home, we can quickly sort through it and drop it into the recycle bin. The fact that you have to pay someone to print and deliver the flyers does serve to deter companies from filling up everyone’s mailbox with non-addressed mail. Spam, on the other hand, can be sent for almost free. I guess they must make some sales out of it, or you would think that they would have given up on the tactics long ago. But where do they get email addresses to spam? Unlike delivering flyers, where you can just walk down the street, you have to actually know someone’s email address.

The time-old adage is that “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Most of what we see day-to-day would confirm that. On paper, you use a ruler, sometimes called a “straight edge,” to connect two dots. In a field, it’s easy to apply the same principle and cut straight across. But then why do the network maps for the airlines always have those funny looking arcs? What happened to those straight lines?

Ever wonder what your public IP Address is? Well, check it out at www.myipaddress.com.

The Weather Network claims that 80% of the population checks the weather forecast, so they ask why not put the forecast on your site. Best of all it’s free! They have several options for shapes and sizes, but basically, you put a little bit of code in your page, and voila. To hook up, go to

Exams are now done…boy does that feel good. I walked out knowing I should have studied more, but I knew that walking in. Now I wait to see what my marks are. I’m sure they’ll be fine - I’m not worried about failing a class - but I had wanted to improve my GPA from where it was last semester. I think my resolve held out till earlier this week, when I started flipping through the Internet to discover all of Google’s many projects (here, be sure to check out Google Labs).

I have a couple of exams tomorrow, but I find myself drawn here instead. I guess I already knew I spent too much time on the Internet. I really haven’t been on that long today, but I’ve still found some interesting things, including:

• Airlines taking the polar route to Asia
• Addictions drain the Canadian economy of $40B/year
• JoneSoft’s File Splitter
• a potential “miracle pill” that started with figuring out how pot works