Squirr-o-flage

Squirrels have been in the news again - and at least this time it's not about them attacking people:

Snaky smell helps squirrels stay safe
It is scary being a little, tasty squirrel, but some species of the rodents have come up with an intimidating camouflage: snake smells.

California ground squirrels and rock squirrels chew up rattlesnake skin and smear it on their fur to mask their scent, a team at the University of California Davis reported.

Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behaviour, watched ground squirrels and rock squirrels chewing up pieces of skin shed by snakes and then licking their fur.

The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially when the animals are asleep in their burrows, the researchers wrote in the journal Animal Behaviour.

-Reuters

Sign of the times

Sign seen at the Hamra Centre Library. The temptation to turn the "or" into an "on" was extremely great!

People turn up in the most interesting places..

Ever have one of those days when it seems like everyone else is leading a more interesting life than you? Especially when the people you know go on to do some amazing things, and turn up in interesting and cool places?

Blog Like A Pirate Day, Yarr!

Arrrr, me hearties!

Today be the 19th day of September, the day on which scurvy-ridden bilge-rats like me cast words like "mizzen" and "barnacles" into our everyday conversation.

Ye can either get on board - or prepare to be boarded!

Cap'n Squirrel

Because it's all about putting back into the community..

From the "Things Sun Should Have Given Me With This Product" department, I've just knocked up a simple kludge perl script that others using SSGD (that's Sun Secure Global Desktop) may find useful when checking configurations across multiple arrays.

It produces something like this:

+ Attributes for .../_ens/o=Tarantella System Objects:
 | Organization: "Tarantella System Objects"
 | cdm: alldrives:none:same
 | clipboard: 2
 | editprofile: 2
 | objectclass: organization,scottaauxorganization,top
 | serialport: 2
 | webtop: sco/tta/standard
 + Attributes for .../_ens/o=Tarantella System Objects/cn=Administration Guide:
   | Name: "Administration Guide"
   | icon: help.gif
   | newbrowser: 1
   | objectclass: scottahtmldocument,top
   | url: help/en-us/admintocs/TOC_FUNC_TYPE.html
   + Attributes for .../_ens/o=Tarantella System Objects/cn=Administrator:
     | Name: Administrator
     | bandwidth: 0


You can grab ens_walk over at Google Docs. Tell them the Squirrels sent you.

Mutant Squirrels? No Thanks!

So, squirrels have been in the news today:

Attack squirrel bites trooper, 3-year-old
Rodent targets three, remains on loose in Orlando

WKMG LOCAL 6 NEWS

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Florida Highway Patrol trooper, a 3-year-old and an Orlando school worker were injured after being attacked by a wild squirrel.

Officers said the trooper was issuing a ticket during a traffic stop near Oakridge Children's Academy on Oakridge Road in Orlando Wednesday when the squirrel ran up and attacked him.

The officer was bitten before he could toss the squirrel off him.

Animal control officers were called to the area but before they could find the squirrel, it attacked and repeatedly bit a 3-year-old on a school playground.

A worker tried to remove the squirrel from the child and was also injured. Both were treated at hospitals. The boy is recovering at Arnold Palmer Hospital. The trooper was given antibiotics and released.

The squirrel remains on the loose in the area.

I guess they should have installed one of these, seen over at Swankisigns:

It's enough to make me want to have kids..

Tim pointed me in the direction of this entry over at MS Influentials. It seems that BRIO are making a Network Admin Playset where every child (3 years and over, probably due to some kind of spam-related choking hazard) can while away their afternoons delivering email. In these politically correct times perhaps it's time to replace "Cowboys and Indians" with "Email Operators and Virus Infections".