What is the result of feeding this expression to a Bash shell?

cat<<<dog||dog<<<cat

I don’t know what they were trying to sell, since my mailer didn’t load the images from their web site, and their HTML message had no actual text (which didn’t help it get past my spam filters…), but the subject line conjured a very peculiar mental picture:

Extreme hoe's makeup

As I learn more about powers and combat styles in Champions Online, I find that many of the choices I made early on are sub-optimal. You can retcon your powers for a price, and the price isn’t outrageous at early levels, but since I’m still learning, I want to stick with my choices as long as possible, and try to make them work.

Case in point, The Cybernetic Librarian has mostly Sorcery powers, with two early slots spent on healing and shielding to avoid the damage that she was taking at low levels. Her major single-target ranged attack takes a lot of time to charge up, likewise her ranged AoE damage/stun. But she still gets into trouble when a large group of henchmen are spread out and plinking away, so I picked up a power that summons three zombies who freely attack anyone attacking you (March of the Dead).

Turns out the single-target attack (Eldritch Blast) has long range, and when fully charged can take out a henchman in one shot, from beyond his aggro range. The AoE stun (Condemn) is also slow to charge, and only affects things very close to the target, but if you attack from outside aggro range, everything moves towards you to attack, and they tend to bunch up enough to allow stunning several. And the zombies? They get summoned at her current location, and if she’s flying over a group of villains high enough to avoid aggro, they drop to the ground as soon as they appear.

They take some falling damage, but they don’t start fighting until something attacks her, so the villains ignore them. So the new strategy for outdoor fights is to fly right over a group, airdrop the zombies, one-shot a henchman, then move into range and gather them up for a stun. The 28 seconds that the zombies last provides plenty of damage and distraction.

Reading the emerging story about the T-Mobile/Sidekick data loss, I was surprised to discover that this guy isn’t working there. In fact, he’s not even on the West Coast any more, which makes me feel better about all my data.

I have some friends at what used to be Danger, and I know they’ve been working frantically at damage control, but I can only see blood on the walls in this one. Some people screwed up bigtime, years ago, both procedurally and technically, and if the original culprits are gone, their replacements will get axed for not spotting, and removing, the vulnerabilities.

Microsoft can afford the financial hit it’s going to take from this, but the PR hit is devastating. Any product line that says “trust us with your data” is in big trouble.

[why, yes, I did just update and verify my offsite backups; why do you ask?]

Sloppiest. Blow job. Ever.

Vista’s generally a nice OS, but the fact that a folder contains JPEGs does not mean that the “details” folder view should include only those data fields that are valid for photographs. Seriously, wtf? “Date taken”, “Tags”, “Rating”, with a tiny little column for file name, and by default no mention of file creation/modification time? And no obvious way to view it as “folder containing files”?

You’re still having this problem?

I search for Revo sunglasses, to replace the pair that just snapped in half while I was wearing them. I find the closest model available with free shipping, and what do I find as the “active discussions in related forums”?

You folks make a living doing keyword matching, and this is what you throw up on my screen? Are you suggesting that sunglasses lead to cross-dressing, like some sort of optically polished gateway drug? Should my mother be concerned?

Have you thought about moderating, or better yet eliminating these forums? The signal-to-noise ratio makes Youtube commenters look like modern sages.

It’s been a while since you delivered an honest-to-gosh pinup, and this is the first time you’ve ever delivered a truly first-rate picture of Rosie. I’d link to it directly, but you use Flash to prevent usability, so I’ll have to just copy it.

NSFW, of course, given that she’s wearing about three grams worth of bikini bottoms.

[Update: two days in a row? Did you just hire a new senior editor?]

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