What the hell is going on here?

Update: More people are noticing this emergent phenomenon. 


Quite a few more people.


But nobody knows for sure what's going on yet.

---

A string of Javascript beginning

input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"

... started showing up in blog entries in HTML the other day - on one machine, the Vista laptop.

The phenomenon has been noticed and is spreading.

This little snippet of code is not in and of itself malware, but it calls another program, and I'm betting that one does something naughty.

Anybody have a clue what flavor of ghost is in my machine? The Macs are all unaffected.

Antivirus and spyware scans (Avast antivirus; Windows Defender and Spybot Search and Destroy) of the affected machine report negative.

The prepubescent Shaolin monks of Apex, NC

Had a wonderful Indian dinner earlier this week at a newish Indian restaurant called Tamarind in Apex, North Carolina - easily the equal of meals I've had at some of the better Indian restaurants in New York City.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to talk about weirdness.

As a resident of NYC for these last 12 years, I've seen some wonderfully bizarre things. I still cherish the memory of the day I saw a local performance artist peddling down West 4th Street on an elevated tricycle, towing a full-sized concert harp behind her on an attached trailer.

As a connoisseur of weirdness, I have to say: that was prime.

But as I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant in Apex, I saw something equally wonderful.

A large area of the parking lot was roped off, and there were dozens of small children in karategis, shouting, grunting, and whacking at each other with bō staffs. The sensei was instructing and encouraging them, and I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that at one point, he urged his young charges, "Go with God!"

Any way you parse it, this is great stuff.