Tiger repellant

This is rich:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/25/passport_fraud_detections/

The interview process for obtaining passports has not turned up a single case of suspected fraud, even though estimates prior to that were that thousands of applications were fraudulent.

Their conclusion? The interview process is so good that it's scared away every single fradulent applicant.


Remember the joke about the salesman selling tiger repellant?
"There's not a tiger within 100 miles of here!"
"See how well it works!"

Clearly, the interview process is terrorist repellant.

Or, more likely, [edit] they're descended from bugblatter beasts. If you can't see terrorists, then they don't exist.

Neat

One of the epic-distance bicycle tourists I've been following, Victor, who you can follow at http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/bikearth, was interviewed on the Bikescape podcast.

Very good interview, mainly because he stayed with the interviewer for several days and they got a good rapport going. He's got the attitude. "How long will it take?" "As long as it does." "What route are you taking?" "I'm going to keep heading vaguely east until I get back to where I started." As he says, careful planning of a multiyear trip is setting yourself up for disappointment. You have to adapt to the situation.

He's stealth camping so all he needs is food and water. He's living on < $10 a day in the US, less in Mexico, probably more in the EU due to the dollar when he gets there, probably much less in Asia when he gets there. He has tons of time and plenty of cash and no obligations. And best of all, he's posting daily and taking tons of photos so the rest of us can live vicariously through his blog.

Lots of good MP3s, free

South-by-Southwest festival in Austin.

3.1 GB of MP3s, legal and free, in a torrent from the 2007 festival:
http://2007.sxsw.com/toolbox/

3.4 GB from the 2008 festival:
http://www.mininova.org/tor/1193114

I listened to probably the first 50 or so today at work, it's good stuff.

Round numbers

13000 miles today. Took a long time due to 6 weeks off the bike.