now picnic

So, I really enjoy reading my spam. Here's a bit of one that came through today:

"Had Emeril chosen to pursue a career in computer security, we're sure that he would agree."

I realize that a lot of spam messages are just cobbling together bits of the web that they come across, but I thought that particular sentence seemed so bizarre, yet I couldn't figure out where it had been broken in half -- if the two halves came from two places, it still wouldn't make much sense. So, I googled it and found the site it came from: Secure Coding: Principles & Practices.

Here's the whole quote:

That being said, dealing with the problem at the application level should probably involve some sort of input validation mechanism. Any parameter that can be passed to the script by way of a URL must always be subject to intense scrutiny. 'Cause I don't know where you come from, but where I come from, user input don't comepre-screened! (That's an Emeril joke. It's funny, trust us.) Simply placing blind faith in a URL parameter, especially when the user is able to specify a path to an executable binary, is typically not a great idea in our opinion. Had Emeril chosen to pursue a career in computer security, we're sure that he would agree.

So technical, and yet so Food Network at the same time. Weird.

In other news, I sent a piece of my thesis to my advisor, had lovely coffee with HH, and a very enjoyable Thursday evening (as always) at D's.

Other news you may enjoy:

Scorpions on a plane!

Warmest year on record! (AKA "Where is the snow, already?!")