Today a customer mentioned in an email that his Conversant site's template was displaying a box at the top of the page, and that he believed it was caused by a macro.

However, it turned out that the editor he used to edit the template had inserted ASCII character 03. I have no idea why. On the Mac, if a font doesn't have any way to draw a certain character, it will often be displayed as a small rectangle. ASCII character 03 is one such character. (Other fonts will not display the character at all.)

I wasn't sure what 03 was, so I went looking (in Google, of course) for an ASCII table. (That was less work than walking over to my bookshelves!)

It's a little-used code for "end of text". Blah.

The funny part is where I found this information: www.asciitable.com.

It's a one-page web site with... well, you know what it has.

On the other hand, it has advertising. How does a site like that generate enough traffic to warrant ads?!?

Yesterday, Corinne sent me a link to ColorGenics. The basic idea behind colorgenics is that your choice of colors (those you feel most in harmony with) indicate your mood, your nature, and your personality.

You're presented with a bunch of colors, and pick them one at a time until there aren't any left (it removes the colors as you pick them).

I have to admit that most of Corinne's profile was perfect. Not just probable, but perfect.

That didn't convince me of anything except that the illusion is very well done. Sorry guys.

Here's my profile:

You are a very emotional and sensitive individual. Your life and love of life is dominated by your emotions ... you have great feeling towards your fellow man and you are always full of enthusiasm .. but be careful ... you tend to let your heart rule your head ... and this being so.. you could be easily hurt ... as perhaps you may have indeed been hurt in the past ...

You want what you want ... and you need all that you want .. and as they say in the movies .. you are the sort of individual that "By hook or by crook" you will, by fair means or foul, endeavour to get what you are looking for ...

You are very demanding ... and insisting on total involvement ..but you do not reciprocate with the same depth of feeling. However, it could well be that maybe an unprecedented surprise is awaiting you in the near future ... for just as one, whilst paddling in the sea, could flounder into a whirlpool, so you may be drawn into a loving situation that has high emotional demands and you could well respond with a depth emotion that you never even dreamed that you possessed...

Recent disappointment has led you to become truly introverted. You are becoming suspicious of everybody and consequently you now feel that you are unable to trust anybody..Unfortunately it would appear that you are curbing your natural enthusiasm and imaginative nature ... perhaps this is because you are fearful that you may become over enthused and find that you could possibly be carried away by wishful thinking... You are keeping your distance to see whether attitudes towards you are sincere - but this watchfulness could easily develop into suspicion and distrust.

You wish to safeguard yourself against criticism or conflict and to embed yourself in a protected situation. You are a difficult person to relate to and very difficult to please.

Some of it's accurate, some of it isn't. I'd say it's a little better than your average newspaper horoscope -- but probably only because it's so much longer.

I have to admit that it's accuracy with Corinne bothers me a little. With only 40,320 possible color combinations (8 colors) I'll just assume she got lucky and that there are probably other combinations which would be just as appropriate.

Greg noticed the same thing I did, but a year later.

Congress needs to stop clapping.

I listened to the State of the Union Address and was yelling at the Radio to try to get Congress to JUST SHUT UP!!! They didn't listen to me this time any better than they did last time.

Listening to Bush's triteness is hard enough without Congress interrupting with all of their white noise.

Earlier I said:

> It's a little-used code for "end of text". Blah.

Brian Andresen pointed out that \x03 is not "little used". I should have said, "little known".