Domain names are becoming cheap. Really cheap. They should try selling them from the impulse-buy racks at grocery stores.

In order to illustrate how impulsive a domain registration can now be, let me tell a story. It’s short.

I registered radbox.org yesterday. (The end.)

That said, I have no idea what will happen to it. If any of you have an idea for what radbox.org could be, please let me know. Also, if you’d like to be you@radbox.org (look deep inside yourself; you know you want to), just leave me a comment and I’ll get you set up with a forwarding address. As it stands, adrian at that domain joins the ranks of addresses that will effectively reach me.

Apple today released Security Update 2005-003 for Mac OS X 10.3.8. Among the usual set of patches to obscure vulnerabilities, the update includes a patch to Safari:

Support for Unicode characters within domain names (International Domain Name support) can allow maliciously registered domain names to visually appear as legitimate sites. Safari has been modified so that it consults a user-customizable list of scripts that are allowed to be displayed natively. Characters based on scripts that are not in the allowed list are displayed in their Punycode equivalent. The default list of allowed scripts does not include Roman look-alike scripts.

So, Safari is safe from the IDN exploit originally publicized by the Shmoo Group, just under a month after Firefox fixed the same problem by disabling Internationalized Domain Name support entirely.

Firefox’s solution, while most prompt, is problematic. Legitimate international domains like tūdaliņ.lv display as Punycode nonsense like (in this case) xn--tdali-d8a8w.lv. Safari, on the other hand, can display Latvian characters like ū and ņ (and, for that matter, most Unicode characters) in URLs as they ought to be in the appropriate places in its UI. It does, however, disable the display of URLs containing the homograph glyphs used to disguise one domain as another. The famed pаypal.com domain displays as xn--pypal-4ve.com.

Before I bestow any precious metal upon Apple, however, I should mention that I can’t for the life of me find the “user-customizable list” of blocked homographs. Mayhaps it’s a hidden preference.

Regardless, congratulations to the Safari people for fixing a really scary problem without abandoning progress and standardization. Let’s see if Mozilla follows suit.

This is a recipe in progress. As I test new variations, I will update this entry. It was originally stolen from an oil-stained yellow 3x5” card with the help of a tiny camera.

These muffins are delicious as they are, but I have a few ideas I’d like to try with them. First, they might benefit from a little vanilla next time. On the other hand, about what in this world can that not be said? Also, these might be easily veganized by replacing the eggs with a bit more banana. My worry is that the muffins’ exceptional texture is due, at least in part, to the egg yolks. We shall see.

(Update, May 2, 2005.) One night, friends of mine made the muffins at my house, but didn’t find eggs (this was because there were none). At my suggestion, they used a little baking powder in their place. They came out tasty and vegan, but left a good portion of themselves stuck to the paper. The next afternoon, I found myself needing muffins again for the Bainbridge Blogger Bash, and this time I had tofu. I modified the recipe in three ways: I the tofu in place of the eggs, I left out the nuts (I was on deadline), and for the first time, I used maple syrup instead of honey. I strongly recommend this. The muffins came out smooth and delicious and seemed decidedly unvegan. In order to coerce the wet mixture into something less tofu- and banana-lumpy, I briefly ran it through my blender. Hence, very little mixing was actually required. I have updated the recipe below to reflect these modifications.

• approx. 1 c. maple syrup (or honey)
• 1/4 c. oil
• 1 small mashed banana and:
  enough fruit juice to equal 1 c.
• approx. 1 c. tofu
• 2 1/4 c. flour
• 1 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 c. chopped walnuts

Combine honey, oil, juice, and banana until well mixed. Add tofu and blend (manually or in blender) tofu is mostly homogenous. Stir in walnuts.

In a separate container, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add wet ingredients, but do not overmix.

Bake about 20 minutes at 350°F or until golden-brown and knife comes out clean.