101 Ways to save the internet

Link over to Wired and see Paul Boutin's suggestions for 101 Ways to Save the Internet

1 Unleash vigilante justice on spammers One activist has proposed filters that launch distributed denial-of-service attacks back at spammers. Great. Just make sure we have the right addresses first.

6 Triple our cable modem speed First step: Just turn off the Golf Channel and UPN.

7 Demand truth in advertising for software updates C'mon, AOL 9.0 is really AOL 8.0 with the version number increased 1.0.

8 Declare spammers are terrorists And put Ashcroft, Ridge, and Rumsfeld on their tails.

15 Stop the US Patent Office before they patent the hyperlink Oops, too late.

Many thanks

Let me publicly express my gratitude to Richard over at Edifying Spectacle for some much needed directions on my robots.txt file and for pointing me to DiveIntoMark's excellent link on how to stop spambots, spybots, and unwanted robots from stealing ridiculous amounts of bandwidth.

robots.txt has been modified, and I'm investigating and studying the .htaccess mods that Mark suggests.

UPDATE: I'd also like to thank Mizzouguy for his sharing of his .htaccess files and offers for detailed explanations.

Thanks guys!

Comment Spammer update

An update on my comment spammer, the latest round:

After reporting each abuse attempt on my blog to the comment spammer's ISP, I received the following email this morning from optusnet.com.au's support department:

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for your email.

Can you please confirm your GMT offset, so we are able to trace the source of this incident?

Kind Regards,
OptusNet Abuse Team
abuse@optusnet.com.au
http://www.optusnet.com.au
Telephone: 1300 301 325
Fax: 1800 501 491

So, maybe, just maybe, we'll have one less comment spammer to worry about for a while.

referral spamming and blogger.com's refusal to help

Sent the following note to blogger.com's admins a couple of days ago complaining about the amount of "referral spamming" that's being done by one site hosted there. I'll not mention the name here in order to deprive them the satisfaction of having their site show up (but it has something to do with a particular hotel chain heir).

on hundreds of occasions during the past month, I have been referral spammed by [insert-name-here].blogspot.com. This is blatant abuse intended to only increase their search engine ratings. daypop has already banned the site due to their referral spamming. I have denied all requests from [insert-name-here].blogspot.com (resolves to [insert IP here]) to my blog.

My blog (clack.jethrotech.com) does not show up on
[insert-name-here].blogspot.com so the referral traffic is bogus. I have
been having a conversation with other bloggers the past couple of days
that have faced the same issue from [insert-name-here].blogspot.com.

Here's an entry from my apache log file:
Host: [insert-ip-here] Url: /blogs/Clack/ Http Code : 200
Date: Dec 28 15:44:50 Http Version: HTTP/1.0" Size in Bytes: 52375
Referer: http://[insert-name-here].blogspot.com/ Agent: Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)

Help stop this form of spam.

and, not surprisingly, I received the following reply this morning (which, by the way, addresses absolutely nothing in my original email to blogger support):

Hello,

Thank you for your note. Blogger is a provider of content creation tools,
not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we
don't make any claims about the content of these pages. In cases where a
contact email address is listed on the page, we recommend working directly
with the author to have this information removed or changed.

-Blogger Support

Spongebob Squarepants movie trailer

Link from Kottke.org Remaindered links

Spongebob Squarepants Movie coming Thanksgiving 2004

World's Most abusive spammer to continue despite CANSPAM

Tip of the hat to Geek News Central for the link:

from International Herald Tribune:

Alan Ralsky, is according to experts in the field, one of the most prolific senders of junk e-mail in the world. But, due to computer problems, he claims he's not sent a single message in the past few weeks.

By his own admission, he once produced more than 70 million messages a day, from domains registered with fake names - all so that the recipients could not ever trace the mail back to him.

It seems he'd originally hoped the CANSPAM legislation would legitimize his business, but he's recently come to the conclusion that the law was more one-sided than he originally thought.

"The law was not written for a commercial e-mailer," he said. "I don't think what they are doing is fair." He suggested that the law is largely a plot by the big companies that connect homes and businesses to the Internet to keep all the profit from online marketing for themselves.

Even before the new law was passed and the prosecutors stepped up their actions, Ralsky said the business was getting harder. It was taking more mail to get the same response. (His target is to earn $500 in profit for every 1 million emails sent. His commission is often 40 percent of the price of each product sold.) And the cost of his carefully arranged international network is going up, even more so now.

For all the obstacles, though, Ralsky said that he does not intend to stop sending bulk email in some form.

FedEx buys Kinko's

from Fool.com:

Today, the company announced that it is shelling out $2.4 billion in cash to buy privately held business services provider Kinko's. The deal is set to close in the first quarter of 2004.

...

While the Kinko's acquisition might be a good idea, it's not original. In 2001, UPS bought Mail Boxes Etc. for about $185 million, a franchise that currently has 4,000 locations. With the possibility that UPS is indeed winning the market-share battle, one might wonder what took FedEx so long to tap into this market. However, by capitalizing on Kinko's well-known brand and non-franchise stores, the deal could deliver some excitement to FedEx shareholders.

build your own superhero

Underground Online

Feb 24

Feb. 24, 2004 is the date! The third season of two of my all time favorite shows hits the DVD shelves on Feb. 24....Oz (from HBO) and Queer As Folk (from Showtime). Yay! Now, if they'll just hurry up with the second season of Six Feet Under, I'll be even happier!

I hate being sick

Woke up yesterday morning with a sore throat. Since I had raked pine straw Saturday, and I didn't have a fever yesterday, I chalked it up to overexertion and just being tired. But, by last night, the fever and chills had started, and the throat wasn't getting any better. I drank TheraFlu until my taste buds hurt, took Nyquil until I was woozy, and went to bed about 8pm last night. The one thing I hate about NyQuil, is that while it relaxes you, it causes me to sleep fitfully. I tossed and turned waking up about every 5 minutes until about midnight.

This morning, more fever, more chills, more scratchy throat, but add to that some really disgusting and foul stuff coming from my nose. I decided pretty quick that today would not be a work day for me, and have remained in bed sleeping off and on all day. More theraflu, more disgusting Cherry flavored NyQuil.

I still have a slight fever, and my nose is still oozing, but my scratchy throat seems to be better.

I hate to be sick! I think it's my upbringing. I grew up on a farm in rural Alabama, and wasn't "allowed" to sleep late. There was always too much work to be done. Even now, on weekends when I have nothing to do (rarely), I can't sleep late. I have to get out of bed, even if I do nothing but lay on the sofa all day and watch TV.

Anyway, I hate to be sick.

the same comment spammer

once again, the same comment spammer attempts to strike, and I strike back:

Having previously reported this person to you and having received no response from the abuse department, I will continue to report this abuser of my personal property until a resoluation is reached.

There were four more attempts at posting blatant advertising on my blog (see below). All IPs resolve back to optusnet.com.au.

Please help stop this form of internet abuse by disciplining this customer.

Jeff

2003.12.24 17:32:42 203.164.92.74 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}
2003.12.25 03:13:51 203.164.92.74 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}
2003.12.25 03:13:56 203.164.92.74 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}
2003.12.26 18:41:16 203.164.91.247 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

Testicle Theater

link from Amorous Propensities: Sex is funny

The man, who calls himself “Sackie Gleason,” runs a website called testicletheater.com, where he puts his testes to the test by dressing them up in costumes and making them act out scenes from “Macbeth, Enter The Dragon” and “Thelma And Louise.”

link to original story: Ballsy Man Testing Acting Boundaries

link to website: Testicle Theater

Happy Holidays

To all of you reading this now, I'd like to wish all of you and your families, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, partners, significant others, etc a very Happy Holidays. May all your wishes come true, and may all of you have a healthy, prosperous, and happy 2004!

Jeff

no toilet seats for Christmas!

LONGMONT, Colo. - Gary and Karri Clark haven't forgotten their second Christmas together. He knew she wanted bathroom accessories, so he wrapped up a couple of gifts and waited.

The toilet seat and towel rack didn't go over too well.

"Here I thought I was doing good," he recalled with a laugh. "It was something she can always use, day after day. It's the gift that keeps on giving."

Karri Clark admits she wanted a new toilet seat a decade ago because there was a crack in the old one. She just didn't think she'd get one gift wrapped.

"I could not believe it," she said. "What man gives you a toilet seat for Christmas?"

read the rest of the story on Yahoo!

Bluetooth GPS receiver

This is cool as sh*t! I bought a new GPS receiver this weekend to go along with my new ipaq 5555. Pharos makes it and its cool factor is unbelievable!

It has a rechargable battery and is bluetooth enabled. simply turn it on, set it on the dash, establish a bluetooth connection to my ipaq, and off I go. I've had a GPS receiver for a while, but it was corded and had to be plugged into the cigarette lighter and into the IPAQ.

This'll be great on those motorcycle rides through the country next year!

Comment spammers, take note

I will report comment spam attempts to your ISP. I am committed, as are others to having your accounts shut down and watching your so-called "business" trickle into nothingness as you continue to abuse other people's private properties (namely, my email boxes and my blog).

There were two more attempts to post a comment on Clack yesterday spamvertising v1@gra (bringing the total to three by the same person). I sent the following email to the comment spammer's ISP this morning:

all times are GMT: 2003.12.21 08:14:37 203.164.91.94 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

2003.12.23 02:56:49 203.164.92.12 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

2003.12.23 06:31:35 203.164.91.247 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

all three IP addresses point back to your network:
Name: parax23-a094.dialup.optusnet.com.au
Address: 203.164.91.94

Name: parax23-b012.dialup.optusnet.com.au
Address: 203.164.92.12

Name: parax23-a247.dialup.optusnet.com.au
Address: 203.164.91.247

while MT-blacklist is denying the comment spammer their attempt to post on my blog's comments, I am commited to reporting this blatant attempted abuse of my personal property.

Please deal with this abuser appropriately and give me the courtesy of a reply the problem has been dealt with.

Thank you
Jeff

Comment Spammer *DENIED*

well, it seems that mt-blacklist is doing its job. Clack got it's first comment spam attempt yesterday (my little baby is growing up...sniff). Here's the entry from the access log:

2003.12.21 08:14:37 203.164.91.94 MT-Blacklist comment denial on Clack: (levitra|lolita|phentermine|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|valtex|xenical|adipex|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

notice the word "denial".....(in my best evil laugh)....ha ha ha ha ha...

there will be no spamvertising on this blog!

HipShot

Retro games making a comeback

I found this article from Yahoo! interesting. Why you ask? Simple. I've had a "craving" for several weeks now to play Super Mario Brothers on a classic Nintendo Entertainment System. Not the N64, or the Gamecube; but the old, gray console, with controllers you can actually understand.

I've had such a craving, that, late last week, I bought one off ebay. It's on it's way, along with 6 controllers, two light-zapper guns, and thirty games.....I can't wait!

Conspiracy? or no?

Over on Metafilter, there's a post that's bound to raise some eyebrows. mediaddict points out that there's a potential incoherency in the whole Sadam capture.

The fruit on the date palm behind the soldier is yellow. Date fruit grows from March-August (see 'Iraq' in table 23) and is harvested in early fall. Dates are yellow (ie. just ripened) in August, not December.

There's lots of back and forth in the comments; notably about a particular subspecies of data called "hilali" that ripens later in the year, and whether or not the Kurds had captured him months ago and left him drugged in the spiderhole for us to find.

Conpsiracy? You be the judge

The gift of giving

found on Bob's yer uncle:

Dear All,

I don't normally make a habit of forwarding charity e-mails, but this
seemed to be a particularly good cause. I know it touched me personally. Particularly at this time of year.

Mute Tourettes Syndrome has long been in the shadow of its more famous sister-disease, 'Tourettes Syndrome', and although much rarer, is even more tragic in its consequences.

While a child suffering from Tourettes has difficulty in containing its anger and frustration, a child with Mute Tourettes suffers the opposite fate, and is unable to express their true feelings.

There is, however, an answer. A great deal has been achieved by the Mute Tourettes Foundation using new art therapy techniques. However, their work can only continue with your help. Just £1.37p will keep a child supplied with crayons for a whole day. £5 will provide them with enough paper for a week.

Please give what you can to help this deserving cause.

(see attached)

Fold a motorcycle

OK, even thogh I couldn't get the link to work, I'm posting this for my future reference....this looks pretty slick! Basically, it's downloadable, printable templates that you cut out, fold, and glue to make a motorcycle.

Link to foldable motorcycles

Link via Boing Boing

open source firm releases patch for IE spoofing flaw

Well, the dynamics of this are bound to get interesting.....seems that a Vaunatian company called Openwares.org has released a patch and the source code for the latest security flaw in Windows Internet Explorer.

By exploiting the flaw, a hacker can make a redirect url appear to be some other site in the address bar. The exploit is simple, and I'm amazed that nobody has found it before....

Tests for the exploit are on Openwares.org's page.

NOTE! I do NOT condone this patch or take responsibility for you and your computer if you install it. This post is presented for informational purposes only!

There is some discussion on openwares.org's forums about the patch being more easily exploited than the hole it fixes.

There's also some commentsthat the patch itself sends manipulated URLs back to a script at openwares.org.

The source code is available....download and judge for yourself, or, read this on slashdot.

Link via Boing Boing

woohoo! new toy today!

well, I did it. I broke down and bought a replacement for my aging and failing IPAQ 36xx series I bought right after I moved to Atlanta three years ago.

You're looking at (well, not really) the proud, new owner of a horribly expensive HP Ipaq 5555 Pocket PC!

Bluetooth, WiFi (802.11b), biometric fingerprint reader, 128MB of RAM, 400 MHz processor! Happy Christmas to me!

Now, I've just got to order a cable adapter (HP changed the interface between the old one and the new one) and I can use all my old sync cables and GPS receiver. Although, chances are, I'm going to buy a new Bluetooth GPS receiver soon.

For sale on ebay

Scott found this on ebay and sent me the link. It's reposted here in it's completeness so it doesn't go away after the sale...think maybe this guy's a little bitter? (although, frankly, after reading my post from last night about stupid vs ignorant people, maybe I am too)

Ebay link

bike-pusher writes:

YOU are bidding on the rolling chassis for a Honda CB500T, 1978 vintage.

The CB500T was possibly one of the nastiest Honda twins ever made, coupling excruciating vibration, lousy handling and a horrendous engine in an unholy union of incompetent engineering. So the chassis isn’t worth talking about.

Viewers will see this, but because there are so many people on Ebay who appear devoid of functioning eyes and brain, I shall point it out, in words of one syllable. This is for the benefit of those mental defectives who’ve just found out how to turn the doorknob the right way to escape from their remedial classes:

THIS BIKE DOES NOT GO. IT DOES NOT RUN.

The lack of engine is a clue. Ditto the lack of any fuel tank, a seat, exhausts, ignition system and anything else usually associated with an internal combustion engine and forward motion. Even freewheeling it will be fraught with excitement, because it hasn’t got a front brake either. See? Nor handlebars, so steering it will be an adventure. A frame, forks, pair of wheels, and a few odds and sods, and what you see in the pic (try http://www.chateau.murray.dsl.pipex.com/CB500Twreck.jpg if you want) is your lot.

Now, I’ve got a bit tired of the decerebrated turnips that bid on Ebay, as perusal of the old C90 that I sold (item no. 2442354423) will show. Possession of a powerful computer is no substitute for a working brain. Only the other week I was sitting beside an American female in a business centre in a Chilean hotel, as she tried to connect to her Yahoo messager that normally pops up on her screen at home. Needless to say, it didn’t there. I suggested she try her Yahoo email, and she asked how to find that. So I told her to go to yahoo.com and watched as she added an extra w to the www, no dot and an extra c in com.

And then she called the hotel girl over and complained to her she’d forgotten her Yahoo password, and could she help? The girls's face was a picture. I have no idea what: "You complete imbecile!" is in Spanish, but I can mime it now. At this point I left them to it. And these people have Ebay accounts…… terrifying, isn’t it? So anyone I consider particularly bereft of clue will have their bids cancelled.

Then there are the people who screw up in their bidding, by bidding £111 instead of £11. A tip: if you suffer from Parkinson’s Disease, don’t bid on Ebay. And instead of retracting the bid, they send me damn stupid long-winded, illiterate and nonsensical emails (the sort of thing that, on paper, would be written in purple crayon with LoTs oF rAndoM CApITaL LeTters). Same applies.

Then there are the people who bid just to see what happens. They've no intention of buying: they just bid to see the numbers change and their name on the screen. These are the sort of people who'd bang lumps of plutonium together because they've heard it makes a pretty spark. Ebay's infested with the sods.

So what is this heap good for? Beats the hell out of me. For the last two years it has been used as a ground anchor for my trailer. That’s right, I’ve kept it because it’s just a large heavy lump of pig iron that prevents something rather more valuable[1] being stolen. You may find a better use for it, but I never have.

I’m installing a proper ground anchor for the trailer and was going to throw this heap away, but it occurred to me that if some lunatic was prepared to pay £41 for the C90 mentioned above, then I might (a) get some cash and (b) save myself the trouble of carting it down to the dump. There are mental defectives on Ebay who will pay for anything. Finding someone prepared to pay for that C90 was like finding someone willing to hand over cash in exchange for mud. So someone might want to buy this derelict example of Japanese industrial archaeology.

Starting price is 99p. Buyer collects by the end of December 2003. I can deliver, but I'll charge 50p/mile, each way, so you don't have to be Stephen Hawking to work out that if you live 25 miles away it'll cost £25, but as ever, this ad has to cater to the lowest forms of intelligent life in the Great Ebay Universe, so there: I've spelled it out. Oh, and for the real thickos, look at the "location" tag. I'm in south-west London. Nowhere near, for example, Glasgow.

What’s intriguing is that the main frame tube has been welded up, just aft of the engine top mount, and painted with red lead. This implies either that it cracked through vibration, or that someone thought of chopping the frame and changed his mind, or that somebody wanted to try the angle grinder and welding torch he got for Christmas. But the wheel hubs are OK. The back wheel is the same as for the CB550, and they have a reputation for cracking their hubs. This one’s fine, if you have a CB550 with a cracked hub. There are some primitive electrical components still on it, but don’t ask me if they work because even Edison would consider it too much hassle. Amazingly, I have a valid registration document for it.

Zero feedback bidders I’d prefer to email me with their contact details, or run the risk of Planet Earth’s Neutronic Bid Zapper cancelling their bids. The feckwits who ask all sort of dim questions will be treated harshly. WYSIWYG. Planet Earth's Alien Feedback Division will deal ruthlessly with any NPBs. Beep.

[1] Like a child's plastic tricycle.

(Dateline 4 hours after auction start). Christ, so it begins. No, the SuperSoaker isn't included. Nor the plastic bowl, spare wheel for my trailer or indeed the wall behind the wreck, which is in fact the side of my house.

Decerebrated Turnip merchandise! Click the link below

http://www.cafeshops.com/bikepusher

On 15-Dec-03 at 17:17:58 GMT, seller added the following information:

And, blinking as their dulled reflexes try to cope with the light, and their rudimentary nervous systems try to make sense of the complexities of an on-line auction, out they come.... the first bidder is in the US of A.

On 16-Dec-03 at 09:46:39 GMT, seller added the following information:

Look, people, I've had emails from people saying they're bidding, and intend to honour the bids for the laughs they've had, but have no intention of actually taking possession of this valuable collector's piece. Fine, thanks, and I'll raise the glass of beer your bid pays for to your health, but if I just wanted the cash I'd put up an auction saying "Send me money now!" and rely on the mental bottom-feeders of Ebay to go: "Coo, I think I'll bid on that...". In other words, I really do want somebody to pay me and take this thing away. Optimistic and under the terms of this auction, unenforceable, but there must be someone out there who actually wants it.

On 16-Dec-03 at 10:21:36 GMT, seller added the following information:

Guess what? One of our cats has just pissed on it. Honest. Buyer to bring rubber gloves. Oh, and if you find this fair and honest attack on Ebay's more intellectually challenged members amusing, and you really want to show your appreciation, you can click on the cafeshops link above and buy a crappy mug or Tshirt. Better than bidding a fiver and leaving me still in possession of this thing.

On 16-Dec-03 at 18:50:21 GMT, seller added the following information:

Ooooh, wasn't welt2 a clever little bunny, bidding when he's in Australia? If you'd emailed me to say you were serious, welt2, I might have left the bid up, but with zero feedback you've just proved yourself to be one of the turnips. And there your bids go, vapourised... Zappp!

On 16-Dec-03 at 20:41:29 GMT, seller added the following information:

And they come crawling out of the woodwork. You block his bids and you get an email: "Well aren't you a miserable pr*ck." Nope, I'm not, I'm a good-natured soul (see, I even edited your obscenity), but if anyone's a pr*ck it's a zero feedback-rated ebayer in Australia who's only bidding to waste my time. Now, does anyone else want to see their name in lights?

On 17-Dec-03 at 07:13:17 GMT, seller added the following information:

Oh Good God. Ebayers, meet g4-gertje. g4-gertje, meet the sharp end of my keyboard. g4-gertje wants to know if I'll just sell the indicator brackets for some project bike he has. g4-gertje is in Belgium and thus separated from me by a few hundred miles, the English Channel and, I suspect, several dozen IQ points. Does this auction say: "will flog off minute components bit by bit"? NO! It's a damned auction. Buy the whole thing or nothing at all. I mean, the winning bidder (who I notice has a feedback of 1 and is teetering on the edge of Bid Cancel Canyon, might want them as well. Unlikely, but can you imagine actually winning this pile of crap and finding that the one component you want from it has been sold?

On 17-Dec-03 at 19:03:50 GMT, seller added the following information:

My, aren't there some clever little mammals on Ebay? Quite apart from the hundreds of would-be comedians who are asking "How much for the SuperSoaker?", thereby proving that, yes, they have the visual acuity of, and can read web pages about as well as, a one-eyed rhinoceros peering through the wrong end of a telescope, there are the timewasting bidders. All sellers get plagued by these, and meowmix3001 has now just been pushed over the edge of Bid Cancel Canyon. Fortunately he (this type is invariably male) landed on his head, so no vital organs were damaged. What's the joke, meowmix3001? Does being 4000 miles away make it OK to waste people's time? How many other Ebay items have you bid on, with no intention of buying? I bet the other bidders are now crapping themselves - you may think you're safe, several bids down the ladder, but if I cancel more bids your own will be dragged into the light. And trust me, I will insist on payment or the alternative of very negative feedback and an NPB filing......

Uranus is gassy

According to astronomers, Uranus is gassy.

Don't they proofread or read aloud these headlines before they print them? Or, maybe they do?! :-)

Link via SoBlo

This should go over good in my home state of Alabama

again, link via Boing Boing:

CUDDLE (Cousins United to Defeat Discriminating Laws through Education) is

... a privately funded organization dedicated to dispelling social prejudices and discriminating laws based on common myths about cousin marriages.

C.U.D.D.L.E. promotes tolerance, understanding and respect through education, advocacy, and conflict resolution.

No more tossing that jug out the window in Washington

seems the highway workers in Washington are tired of picking up bags of crap (literally) and jugs and bottles of urine from the sides of the roads. Washington state took out a full page newpaper ad to "combat the problem."

link via Boing Boing

spam breakdown

Just for fun, I thought I'd break down the 1345 (as of 10:08 pm EDT5EST 12/16/2003) spams that I've accumulated since 11/25/2003 (three weeks)

846 of the 882 caught by SpamAssassin (a couple of my email boxes don’t filter through SpamAssassin yet) were sent using an open proxy/relay to hide the spammer's identity
446 of them contain the word free
209 of them contain viagra in some shape or another
105 of them contain the word prescription
81 of them contain the word Microsoft
71 of them contain the word drug
45 of them contain the word meds
44 of them make direct reference to my male sexual organ
33 of them contain the word generic (as in “generic viagra”, or in Spammer’s vocabulary: “G3ner1c V.1.@.G.R.A”
32 of them contain the word levitra
27 of them contain the word casino
23 of them contain the word mortgage
22 of them have a subject line of hi
22 of them contain the word channel (as in cable devices)
14 of them contain the word paris (as in the hotel heir's sex tape)
3 of them have "fagott" in the subject line (notice the misspelling)

Showing the irony and nonsensical nature of it all, at least 31 of them are hawking spam control software. talk about putting yourself out of a job!

and, one of my favorites, showing just how f*cking stupid one of the spammers is:
5 of them contain in the subject line "%RND_UC_CHAR[2-8]" with those five email being received over a week and a half period from 12/01/2003 until 12/10/2003

If you’re not smart enough to make your spam software work, I seriously doubt you’re smart enough to
1) run a pharmacy
2) design and build illegal devices to attach to my cable
3) create a “banned government CD”

I’m working on more detailed, automated breakdown software that I’ll roll into place (hopefully) on 01/01/2004. Stay tuned!

The differences between stupid and ignorant

Well, from the beginning of Clack, I've vowed not to talk about work. And, I'm really not going to talk about work in this entry except to say that it's the driving force behind this entry.

I've said for a long time that there are "stupid people" and there are "ignorant people." I deal with both types on almost a daily basis. And, yes, there is a difference.

Stupid people, as I define them, are people that know nothing, think they know everything, and refuse to learn 1) that they're wrong on occasion, or 2) anything new.

Ignorant people, again, as I define them, are people that know little, think they know everything, but (and this is the big difference) will actually listen and learn when they're either corrected, or an attempt is made to teach them something new or correct.

Ignorant people I can deal with. Yes, they're a pain in the @$$ sometimes, but they can be taught; can be molded into the person they think they already are. Yes, it can be a slow process, but at least they make forward progress.

Stupid people, on the other hand, I don't deal with particularly well. Stupid people can be, to use an old Southern phrase, like trying to load a stubborn mule into a trailer. No amount of cajoling, manipulating, correcting, yelling, screaming, or threatening will convince a stupid person they're wrong. It just ain't gonna happen. Stupid people are the ones that cause a project that should have taken six months to complete to still be going strong with very little headway toward completion a year and a half later. Stupid people are the ones that run to the suits to complain about something they know nothing about. Stupid people are the ones that allow "scope creep" from product management to continue to happen for a project that's been delayed for a year.

The good news is that on a rare occasion, a stupid person can make the transition to an ignorant person. Of course, the inverse of that is also true and happens to a far greater number of people than I thought possible.

That said, I feel the need to point out that not all the people I work or interact with on a daily basis fall into either of those categories. A lot of the people I work with are highly intelligent, well motivated, and just as frustrated by it all as I am.

A lot of the people I work with are not as experienced as I am (or would like to think I am) and frequently look to me for help with their problems, explanations of something they don't understand, or just general "what the hell is he talking about" kind of things. These people I have patience with. I was there once, and in some instances, am still there. I didn't understand the politics and far-reaching ramifications of decisions made. I didn't know all the little nuances of this programming language, or that shell script. These people I understand. The stupid people? Hell, I'll never understand them.

Sorry for the rant, but it's been bothering me all day (and, after all, this is my blog) :-)

new release of w.bloggar

Version 3.03.1065 of the wonderful blogging tool w.bloggar is out. This version fixes several bugs, updates the conversion table of special characters, and several other things.

The full changelog can be found here

Idaho sends strong message to Rev. Phelps

link via Bill and Kent's Place on the Web

Idaho sent a clear, all-inclusive message Sunday to gay-bashing demonstrators from a Kansas church

Go home and leave us alone.

Catholics, Protestants, Jews, evangelical Christians, gays, toughs, peace advocates, and passers-by in cars quietly countered a protest in Boise by a handful of relatives of Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Nine Westboro church members picketed churches Sunday and marched along Capitol Avenue to spread his message that God hates homosexuals.

Everywhere they went, they were met by crowds of Idahoans who, despite their often-conflicting views all shared a disgust for Phelps' self-described message of hate. Even those who share Phelps' view that homosexuality is a sin viewed him as an outside agitator meddling in Idaho affairs.

"I think I speak for all of Idaho — he's not welcome here," said state Sen. Gerry Sweet, R-Meridian, who has proposed erecting a Ten Commandments monument in the Capitol.

Read the rest of the story at The Idaho Statesman

Eyesore of the Month photos and commentary

via boing boing

Architectural critic James Howard Kunstler has a section on his website called "Eyesore of the Month," which includes a monthly photo of a hideous architectural blunder along with scathing commentary. Like me, he seems to think the 1920s represented a high water mark in esthetics.

I think my favorites are this one and this one. The latter I've seen many times in my travels around, to, and through Nashville.

Where do ice cream cones come from?

Uhhh...I don't understand....Why!? Merciful Heavens!

found on Metafilter:

sheep pushing

From the comments of the post:

It is a dutch advertisement for Clearasil, the anti-zit cream, and the hook is supposedly a combination of word-play and a belief that rubbing against sheep's somethings heals zits.

And, don't forget these:
Clown & Horse
Elephant

The horniest guy in the world

Chris Prillo thinks he's found the horniest guy in the world. And, yes, this is work safe

Ho!

I don't play a lot of computer games. I did in my younger days (early to mid 90s), but now, I just don't care for all the running around, shoot this, kill that, blow that up, etc. It just all seems so mindless and a waste of time.

But, digging through my closet in the office the other day, I came across what is probably the greatest game ever made. It's simple to play, doesn't require huge amounts of hand-eye coordination, and gameplay isn't dependent on how fast you can move your mouse. It is, quite simply, a resource allocation game.

What's the game, you ask? Spaceward Ho! of course. I got addicted to this game back in the early 90's. One of my best friends, Kent Hawk, and I used to stay late at the company we worked for, and play it networked on a couple of Mac Classics until the wee hours of the morning.

When Ho! 2.0 came out, you could also get a Windoze version. I was in heaven! I lost countless hours of my life playing this game and listening to it say Yaaaah! when sending a ship to another planet.

Finding that software the other day brought back all the fun that I had playing this game. I installed version 2.0 (which was written for Windoze 3.0 or higher) on my installation of Windoze XP Pro. It installed, even created the program group icons, and started up. Oh, excitement! I made my moves, then clicked the "End Turn" button. CRASH! General Protection Fault. Hmmm, not too surprised considering this is XP, after all.

Visiting Delta Tao's web site, I found out that now, version 4.0 is out for windoze. Paid them another $24.95 for V 4.0, downloaded it, installed it, and listened to the computer player (Timmer) curse me over and over as I systematically annihilated him from the galaxy! Oh, the fun of a truly classic computer game.

The dissection of spamware

The following link to an article appearing in SecurityFocus is an incredibly detailed account of one administrator discovering a machine being used as a spam spewer. David Barroso Berrueta details in intricate detail how the spewage was discovered, and his analysis of how it works. Incredibly interesting read for you techies out there: The Rise of the Spammers

via Boing Boing

Turning off your SSID in a Wireless LAN is actually bad for security and performance

link via Boing Boing

link directly to article: 129k PDF

The SSID is present in the following 802.11 management messages: BEACONs PROBE Requests PROBE Responses ASSOCIATION Requests REASSOCIATION Requests

This presence in management messages, or frames, is an oft-overlooked detail of the IEEE 802.11 specification that is critical to debunking the myth of SSID hiding. Management messages are always sent in the clear, even when link encryption (WEP or WPA) is used, so the SSID is visible to anyone who can intercept these frames

...

SciFi's Battlestar Galactica

OK, I finally got around to watching the first episode of the new SciFi Channel's Battlestar Galactica mini-series last night. I'll have to say that I enjoyed it.

No, it wasn't completely true to the original series. Yes, I could have done without the concept of sexually active Cylons, and I completely thought the idea of Number Six (the female humanoid Cylon with an insatiable sex drive) wearing a shiny black latex bra and panty set when she seduced Doctor Gaius Baltar was over the top.

I like the story line, I loved the special effects....here's my favorite example:
In the opening sequence, we witness the destruction of the Armistice station. A wide shot shows the station blowing up and debris flying through space. A piece of the debris flies toward the camera and actually hits the camera. Instead of the piece passing through the camera as in so many scenes like this, the camera is knocked from it's stationary position, and our view of the exploding station begins to tumble as the station moves out of frame.

One of my least favorite changes, or "reinventions" as SciFi called it, was the fact that Starbuckis now a woman. It just doesn't seem right to me. Yeah, she's insubordinate. Yeah, she smoke cigars. Yeah, she's a "man-izer." But, somehow, it just doesn't fit.

I love the Laura Roslin character, though. She starts the series as the Education Secretary, 43rd in the line of succession to be President of the Colonies. After receiving notification that the entire Cabinet (including President and Vice President) have been killed, she sends her Identification Code back to the home base to signal she's still alive. A few minutes later, she's sworn in as President. She's tough, decisive, organized, and doesn't take any crap; but, she's still human and shows compassion and fear.

There's some pretty funky camera work in here, too. Typical long shots that pause for a split second, then hyper-speed zooms in closer. It's disconcerting to me, at least, especially when done over and over and over.

All in all, though, I enjoyed the first episode of the reinvention. It was gritty, dark, and not sterilized for our protection. I give it a "thumbs-up."

"Pooing" in public and the stigma attached

... When I was a kid, no-one really explained to me about pooing. Consequently I grew up thinking it was something only I did. Some weird form of punishment from God for my share of original sin. So I'd hoard my poos for days. It's called constipation, and I was a religious victim of it. It took me into my 20s before I could actually get my pooing straight. And it was too late for one particular loo, which felt, along with me, the wrath of God.

...

So I developed a good strategy. Poo on the early shift. If you were on the early shift, you were the only reporter in, between 7am and 8am. Excellent clear run on the defecation front. I guess this must have been my first early shift in a while, as I clearly had an urgent need to do a fair amount of business. I crept into the loo and managed a whole Rosary while expelling the monster. Not that I looked at it, oh no, one didn't look at one's poo. One gave thanks to God it had gone, flushed in a businesslike manner and left promptly.

So far so good, except this time, after flushing and washing my hands, I noticed water seeping under the door of the cubicle I'd been in. Shit! Literally. I went back in and found that the sinful waste product I'd given up to God, was having a bit of trouble finding it's way back to heaven. It was so enormous due to my zealous hoarding that it had blocked the loo. And the loo had backed up. And it was now 7.30am and that stupid cow R who was always sucking up to news desk by getting in early was due any second, and she always went straight to the loo to wash her hands. She was odd like that.

visit Eurotrash to read the rest. The comments on the entry are well worth the read, too!

U.S. Rep. Janklow Resigns after being convicted of manslaughter

Yahoo! has the story:

FLANDREAU, S.D. (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Bill Janklow resigned from Congress on Monday following his conviction for manslaughter, stemming from an automobile accident in which he killed a motorcycle rider in a collision, his office said.

here's the car Janklow was driving when he blew through the stop sign at 70 miles per hour and hit Randy Scott

and this story:

FLANDREAU, S.D. - Rep. Bill Janklow, a dominating figure in South Dakota politics for nearly 30 years, was convicted of manslaughter Monday for speeding through a stop sign at a rural intersection and colliding with a motorcyclist. Janklow quickly announced that he will resign from Congress.

Earlier Monday, a jury in the congressman's boyhood hometown convicted Janklow of second-degree manslaughter, reckless driving, running a stop sign and speeding for the Aug. 16 crash that killed Randy Scott, 55, a farmer from Hardwick, Minn. Prosecutors said Janklow was traveling more than 70 mph in a white Cadillac when he crashed with Scott's Harley-Davidson.

"The state of South Dakota brought charges against a man we believed to be responsible for Randy's death," the victim's mother, Marcella Scott, said in a statement. "We are satisfied that the correct verdict was reached."

Janklow, 64, appeared stunned as the verdict was read. He walked steadily out of the courtroom, got in a vehicle driven by his son and left the courthouse. He refused to respond to questions shouted by a horde of reporters.

"The defendant's driving is like a deadly game of Russian roulette," Ellyson said in closing arguments. "On August 16, Randy Scott took the bullet."

"He couldn't say, 'I was driving so fast I couldn't stop.' Or he couldn't say, 'I always ignore these rural stop signs.' That would be admitting to manslaughter. He knows the trouble he's in," Ellyson said.

Janklow has long been an unapologetic speeder, as witnessed during a 1999 speech to the Legislature.

"Bill Janklow speeds when he drives — shouldn't, but he does," Janklow said then. "When he gets the ticket he pays it, but if someone told me I was going to jail for two days for speeding, my driving habits would change."

In one notorious instance, two reporters were riding with Janklow when he made a 99-mph mad dash, through heavy smoke, down a mountain highway in the Black Hills to escape a raging forest fire in 2002. Janklow had tried to go faster, but the computer in his sport utility vehicle kept the engine from going past 99 mph.

Janklow received 12 speeding tickets from 1990 to October 1994. He was elected to a third term as governor a month later and never received another ticket in the state.

Motorcycle ride yesterday

Scott and went for a short ride yesterday (12/07/2003) just to get the bikes out. It's been cold in ATL for the past couple of weekends, and even yesterday at 3pm, the temperature was hovering around 50 degrees.

Just a short ride this time, but a new "circle." Since both of us are contemplating a new (bigger) bike in the spring, my thinking was that if we're gonna get bigger bikes, we better get used to riding in traffic :-) Up to this point, we've stayed off any major roads. So, yesterday, leaving my house, we headed up Valley Brook to E. Ponce, then road into downtown Decatur. Took a right on Church street, followed it back to Scott Blvd, then back to the house. All told, about 7 miles.

I bought this bitchin' new leather jacket a couple of weeks ago at Horsetown in Marrietta. Zip out liner, vented, the whole nine yards. Cheap, considering the quality and thickness of the leather at $230.00. The downside is, it's HEAVY! I mean, REALLY heavy!

Anyway, here's a map of the route from yesterday:

What happens when you have...

1) nothing to do
2) a sharp knife
3) a large lime
4) a patient cat
5) too much tequila
and
6) it's football season?

Ewan McGregor's "waggly" bits

WARNING

Pornblography has a story about Ewan McGregor's full frontal nudity scene in his upcoming movie Young Adam. Seems that his Mr. Happy is inappropriate for the American Morality, so it's being cut (no pun intended) from the movie.

You can see him in all his glory here, though

UPDATE:

since the link above seems to be broken, here's some more places you can see Ewan's waggler....
fleshbot
hunkvideo.com

Woman has history of getting trampled in stores

In this entry I heap shame on Wal-Mart for only offering to put a DVD on hold for the lady that was trampled during the rush to get into the store on Black Friday.

Now, I'm gonna have to eat my words. As Zack points out in the comments to that entry, the woman crying foul has a history of getting trampled and filing complaints against stores.

See this story at CNN.

A woman who was reported trampled by Wal-Mart shoppers during a holiday sale on DVD players has filed numerous injury claims against stores since 1987, including nine against the world's largest retailer.

Patricia VanLester, a 41-year-old former Wal-Mart employee, has received thousands of dollars in injury and workers' compensation settlements from Wal-Mart, records show.

Paramedics reported finding VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player November 28 amid of frenzy of shoppers during an early bird holiday sale. She was airlifted to a hospital, where she spent two days.

...

VanLester collected more than $1,800 in workers' compensation claims for slip-and-fall incidents at a Publix supermarket and another Wal-Mart in 1995 and 1996.

In another claim, she said she slipped on a puddle of hand lotion in 1991 while shopping at an Orange City Walgreen's pharmacy, causing "permanent injury, disability, disfigurement (and) mental anguish." The case was thrown out.

Find the bunnies!

Found over at Metafilter:

Playboy cover gallery. Who was on the cover the month you were born?

Here's mine

Supreme Court says no to nativity scene in Washington

The Supreme Court ruled there cannot be a nativity scene in Washington, DC this Christmas.

This isn't for any religious or constitutional reason, they simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the nation's capitol.

However, there was no problem finding enough asses to fill the stable

Why do men and women's shirts button on different sides?

OK, goes to show you how much I pay attention....I didn't even know they did!

Ask Yahoo!

Battlestar Galactica update

Battlestar Galactica 2003 has a LOT of info about the new mini-series, including cast and crew, and tons of pictures from the show.

If you read my post from last night about SciFi calling this a "reinvention" of a classic series, you won't be shocked when I tell you that some of the new Cylons are Humanoid and female

Oh yeah, Starbuck is now a woman. According to this article at Wired.com

"Starbuck was a womanizing, cigar-smoking guy," explains SciFi.com general manager Craig Engler. "Now, she's a man-izing, cigar-smoking bundle of trouble."

Battlestar Galactica

The SciFi Channel's "reinvention" of the classic Battlestar Galactica series. Seems the SciFi Channel's version will be a mini-series, and will premiere next Monday, December 8.

Our goal is nothing less than the reinvention of the science-fiction television series.

We believe you can explore adult themes with adult characters and still tell a ripping good yarn.

We believe that to portray human beings as flawed creations does not weaken them, it strengthens them.

We believe that bringing realism to science fiction is neither contradictory nor a fool's errand.

We believe that science fiction provides an opportunity to explore our own society, to provoke debate and to challenge our perceptions of ourselves and our fellow Man.

We believe science fiction can still be relevant.

We believe all these things and more.

If you agree with us, then this is the show for you. If not, then thanks for coming, but the popcorn is in a different aisle.

Stick around — it's going to be a helluva ride.

Ronald D. Moore
Executive Producer / Screenwriter

Hmmm, think maybe I'll set my ReplayTV to record that.

Linux system update caused me some headaches

Well, since reading yesterday about the new kernel exploit that was found, even though I'm behind a firewall, restrict all incoming connections to a non-standard ssh port, and require all access to any of the machines at home to be tunneled through an ssh connection (that requires the correct ssh key to be installed, and that you know the password to that key), and the exploit is a local-only (ie, you must be logged into the unix machine to compromise it) I thought it was my civic duty to upgrade my two linux servers (one running SuSe 7.3, the other running SuSe 8.0).

The 7.3 box hadn't been updated in 522 days! :-)

The upgrades went smoothly, and I noticed nothing broken (until today). I run Feed on Feeds as a server side RSS feed aggregator. When I logged on to catch up on all the feeds that I read on a daily basis, stuff was all over the place. regardless of the feed I clicked on to read the updated items, I saw ALL feeds that had been aggregated up to that point.

After going through the usual contortions (dropping the tables, clearing the magpie cache, dropping the mysql database, etc), I remembered that during the install of feedonfeeds, I had updated the PHP version installed. Seems the update reinstalled the old (patched) version of PHP, and of course, that didn't work (or I wouldn't have updated it to begin with).

A couple of ln -s commands, and restarting apache, and everything was working again (albeit, without all my historical aggregated feeds). Fortunately, before I dropped the database in mysql, I used the "subscription list as opml" link on the panel in feed on feeds to save my subscription list.

Sidenote: I've never been able to get feedonfeeds to subscribe me to the slashdot feed. It looks like it's working, then just stops. I figured that as long as I was working on it, I'd upgrade the magpierss libs while I as at it. Feedonfeeds ships with magpierss-0.5, and the latest is magpierss-0.5.2. Simple upgrade...copy the magpie files, update init.php in feedonfeeds to "require" the new magpie files. And now, yippee, the subscription to slashdot is working like a champ!

Scott's trip to the doctor

Scott has a problem with