skulk:
To lie or keep in hiding, as for some evil reason.  To move or go in a mean, stealthy manner.
ISSN: 1527-814X Tuesday May 1, 2001

WebSkulker Newsletter
Have you seen your mother, baby,
skulking in the shadows?

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WebSkulker's cat is in the kitty porn business


http://www.dancingpussies.com

WebSkulker apologizes for not publishing an issue since last December, but it isn't his fault.  As you loyal jr. skulkers know -- and new jr. skulkers can learn from our FAQ and Ms. Cat pages -- this newsletter is actually written by WebSkulker's cat.  She dictates the issues as WebSkulker types.   Ms. Cat got bored with the newsletter and decided to go into the porn business instead -- kitty porn.  She refused to dictate any more newsletters until WebSkulker helped her finish the disgusting site mentioned above that has 200 naked pussies dancing and singing for your pleasure.  Strangely this site is rated G.

Even after that site was finished, she was bored and wouldn't dictate newsletters.  Jr. Skulker Numike suggested showing her the Temple of the Sacred Cat at http://www.vcnet.com/valkat/temple.html, but that just boosted her ego and made her worse.

Others suggested threats and these finally did the trick.  WebSkulker had her go to
http://www.win.bright.net/~aztv/butcher/b_water.html
because he didn't see any reason why the same technique wouldn't work on cats (the other white meat).  (Click on that link, then either click on the "Video" button to see the whole thing as a movie, or keep clicking "Next Photo" until you have seen the whole thing.)

Then he threatened to buy her one of these new cat carriers:
http://www.webskulker.com/catcarrier.jpg
that Jr. Skulker Dan Dunkel told us about.  (DISCLAIMER: This is a joke picture floating around the 'net as an email attachment.  WebSkulker posted it on his web site so you jr. skulkers can see it, but has no other association with the picture or the fictional product.)

Finally he pointed out that she isn't a kitten any more, yet the Bonsai Kitten techniques might still work to turn her into a cube or Klein bottle:
http://www.chaos.org/other/bonsaikitten
You really must see this mirror site.  It's obviously satire, right?  Yet the original site for this material, http://www.bonsaikitten.com, was shut down and even investigated by the FBI in a big waste of our taxpayer money.

Ms. Cat still wouldn't dictate, but this final threat worked.  Jr. Skulker Chris thought the SoloTrek device at
http://www.solotrek.com
was worth mentioning as a device for personal human flight.  Now what do you suppose would happen if you take this strap-on device, powerful enough  to move a person through the air at 70 knots, and strap it onto a tiny little pussycat instead.  Say for example Ms. Cat?  She got the message.  You've got today's newsletter.

Skulking through past issues


http://www.godaddy.com

WebSkulker has mentioned registrar sites that will register a domain name for you at a much lower price than NetworkSolutions.   Jr. Skulker Batteryman believes that godaddy is the cheapest at $8.95 per year, or less.

-------

Our 6/20/2000 issue mentioned a page for people interested in computer programming with the source code for a minimal program written in 204 different computer languages.  The sample program in each language would merely write the words "Hello world" on the screen, but such samples are useful to give some feel for the languages.  Jr. Skulker Randy Solton told us about a similar page, except that this one has sample programs in 227 languages that display all the lines of the "99 Bottles of Beer" song:
http://internet.ls-la.net/mirrors/99bottles
Besides being a lot more interesting than "Hello world", the beer examples show many more elements of each language.

WebSkulker found another one that shows "quines" written in 53 programming languages:
http://www.nyx.net/~gthompso/quine.htm
A quine is "A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement."

-------

Our 9/16/99 issue mentioned a couple of sites that let you read your POP3 email while traveling from any web browser, be it at a friend's house or an Internet cafe.  Margo Gibson suggests http://www.mail2web.com for the same function.

Skulking with soap and water


http://www.airtalk.com/toon-1.html

Jr. Skulker Cary Roberts told us about this series of cartoons on how to detect leaks in pressurized telephone cables.  They are entertaining, and no matter how much you may think you are a phone phreak, you probably don't know anything about this specialty.

"Attention, cartoon buffs! If you haven't yet had the opportunity to meet what possibly could be the world's two greatest leak locating experts, you're in for a treat. This part of the AirTalk web site follows the adventures of Tip and Ring, leak detectives.  Follow their meteoric rise from 'old school' leak locating rookies to modern flow analysis superstars. Marvel at the breadth and depth of their air pressure genius. And feel free to ask yourself the inevitable: 'How could these two seemingly ordinary guys really be that cool?'"

This issue of WebSkulker could self-destruct


http://www.disappearing.com

Seriously, if WebSkulker wanted to, he could send out issues of the newsletter by email that would self-destruct and become unreadable after some number of days.  This is a weird concept because you would think that once you receive an email message and store it on your hard drive, that there is no way the sender could cause it to disappear.  And in a way you would be right because the message copied to the recipient's hard drive doesn't change at all, but the recipient will find that they can't read the message any more after so many days.

This magic takes an encryption scheme and a lot of complexity, but disappearing.com makes it trivial to use and gives the technology away for free for personal use.  You download and install their software and it becomes an add-in for Microsoft Outlook.  Sorry, no other email programs will work, not even Outlook Express.  After installing the software in Outlook, you will see a "Send Disappearing Email" button next to the normal "Send" button, and form fields for specifying whether attachments as well as the email text should disappear, and the number of days the message can be read.  When you press "Send Disappearing Email", the software contacts their server to get a serial number for the message and a unique encryption key.  The message is encrypted and send to the recipient in the form of this encrypted, unreadable, text.

If the recipient also uses Outlook and has the disappearing.com software installed, then the message will look to them just like any other message because the special software will recognize an encrypted message, contact the server to get the encryption key for this message serial number, and decrypt it automatically.  If the recipient uses a different email program that can read HTML messages, then the process is still pretty much automatic because a disappearing.com message is wrapped in HTML and script that will cause a connection to the disappearing.com server to get the key, etc.

So what makes the message disappear, or become unreadable, after so many days?  The server will refuse to give out the key after that, so it becomes impossible to decrypt the message.  They claim that they permanently destroy the key so that even they can't reconstruct the message after that date.

Skulking around the White House


http://www.adcritic.com/content/president-clinton-final-days.html

This video is almost as good as the one about the Internet Help Desk mentioned in our 12/28/00 issue, and we urge all of you jr. skulkers to click on the link and view it.  It really is former President Clinton acting in a comedy video made for the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier in 2000.  The adcritic site was very slow at serving up videos as we write this.  If you press Play and the video stops after several seconds, wait a while and press Play again.

Jr. Skulker The Vegan told us about this video.  He also heard that we were going to mention the BonsaiKitten site and other animal cruelty satires in this issue, and asked us to balance those out with a poem about animal rights.  Ms. Cat, who cringes whenever anyone uses the phrase "Cat, the other white meat", wants you to read it.

LEARNING TO BE A DUTIFUL CARNIVORE
By Jane Legge

Dogs and cats and goats and cows,
Ducks and chickens, sheeps and sows
Woven into tales for tots,
Pictured on their walls and pots.
Time for dinner! Come and eat
All your lovely juicy meat. 
One day ham from Percy Porker
(In the comics he's a corker):
Then the breast from Mrs. Cluck
Or the wing from Donald Duck.
Liver next from Clara Cow
(No, it doesn't hurt her now).
Yes, that leg's from Peter Rabbit
Chew it well; make that a habit.
Eat the creatures killed for sale,
But never pull the kitty's tail.
Eat the flesh from "filthy hogs"
But never be unkind to dogs.
Grow into double-think-
Kiss the hamster; skin the mink.
Never think of slaughter, dear,
That's why animals are here.
They only come on earth to die,
So eat your meat, and don't ask why.

This made WebSkulker laugh


Submitted by Jr. Skulker Marvelena Quesada

Cat Haiku

You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
And that will show you.

You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail! Behold,
Elevator butt.

I need a new toy.
Tail of a black dog keeps good time.
Pounce! Good dog! Good dog!

The rule for today.
Touch my tail, I shred your hand.
New rule tomorrow.

In deep sleep hear sound
Cat vomit hairball somewhere.
Will find in morning.

Grace personified
I leap into the window
I meant to do that.

Blur of motion, then-
Silence, me, a paper bag
What is so funny?

The mighty hunter
Returns with gifts of plump birds
Your foot just squashed one.

You're always typing
Well, let's see you ignore me
Sitting on your hands.

My small cardboard box
You cannot see me if I
Can just hide my head.

Terrible battle
I fought for hours. Come and see!
What's a term paper?

Kitty likes plastic
Confuses for litter box
Don't leave tarp around.

Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitoes
Fear vacuum cleaner

Want to trim my claws?
Don't even think about it!
My yelps wake the dead.

I want to be close
to you. Can I fit my head
inside your armpit?

Wanna go outside!
Oh, no! Help! I got outside!
Let me back inside!

Oh no! My Big One
has been trapped by newspaper.
Cat to the rescue.

Humans are so strange.
Mine lies still in bed, then screams!
My claws aren't that sharp...

Cats meow out of angst
"Thumbs! If only we had thumbs!
We could break so much."

Litter box not here
You moved it on me again
I'll crap in the sink

The Big Ones snore now
Every room is dark and cold
Time for "Cup Hockey"

We're almost equals
I purr to show I love you
Want to smell my butt?

 

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This newsletter is copyrighted 2001 by The WebSkulker.  You may use any material in this issue for any reason provided that you attribute it to the WebSkulker Newsletter and include the URL to our web site: http://www.webskulker.com .