BillSaysThis

Destroying your PC

Are you seeing a bunch of Undeliverable Mail notices from sme Mailer Daemon in your inbox lately? I am and the strange thing is that the supposed sending address is some odd combination of alphanumerics (for instance, 4rertttrrr) at my domain. Combinations that I don’t use, for mail sent to addresses that I’ve never heard of. Makes about as much sense as the idiotic Visa commercial running now that stars Derek Jeter and George Steinbrenner. As if a guy making around $18 million a year from his Yankees salary alone needs to justify spending a few dollars on going out to high priced restaurants. Anyway, the emails, well I’d think virus or worm but I’ve got the latest Norton A-V running at all times, including the weekly system scan and all the available patches from MS. Volume isn’t high enough to think that a spammer is forging mail headers and using my domain. So just very strange.

Update: Of course, as soon as I pushed the Publish button on this entry a virus-infected email arrived. Caught by NAV but still…

Blogger is apparently being hit with a Denial of Service attack, and has been for the last 24 hours or more. Which is why I had the trouble posting yesterday and into today. Some asswipe probably doesn’t like the fact that Pyra sold out to Google, or has some other beef with Google and the Blogger servers are the ones must vulnerable, or something, but whoever’s doing it is an asshat and sucks. Way to fight the 3vi1, d00d!

Reality: Defying Forecast, Job Losses Mount for a 22nd Month

White House: Jobs Report Leads Bush to Defend Reliance on Tax Cuts

(Sorry, this is just getting too out of hand.)

Lately there has been much commentary on the ‘death of email’ and such as people realize that spam and anti-virus filters are probably going to be less and less effective as time passes. Having read this, I have some questions for these commentators suggesting RSS as an alternative. Maybe John Robb, formerly an industry analyst and Navy jet pilot, can pose some answers since it was his post that inspired this.

I’m a bit confused by recent comments on using RSS in place of email. What I’m picturing as intended is an RSS feed that I publish to instead of sending email. But I don’t send all my emails to everyone, so that means publishing a separate feed for each individual and crossposting to the appropriate feeds when there’s more than one recipient for a given message. I suppose I could use a single blog with multiple categories, one category per recipient but a) this is an implementation detail, b) categories wouldn’t be very secure since one would would almost certainly use a mnemonic naming system, and c) Blogger doesn’t support categories.

Anyway, this means that all my recipients would need to subscribe to the appropriate feed; perhaps I could send them an email with a link to get started? Also, each new person with whom I want to correspond would require much more initial effort than is currently required. Would the system use Trackback to maintain a conversational thread?

John? (or perhaps PhilR wants to comment?)

[Note: I’ve had Blogger issues for hours, or this would have been posted much earlier.*grumble grumble*]

When people are still small children, they of course look up to their parents (and to a lesser degree other adults) as fonts of wisdom who know everything and are never wrong. Then they become teenagers and the exact opposite is true. Still, I’ve come to accept after 40+ years, that my Dad does know an awful lot about many subjects and he sent in this answer to my question about sources of real country names:

“The names for some of the countries are left over from ancient times. The name Helvetica comes from the Latin for the tribers that lived in those mountains (Helvetii), Romaniya is an attempt by that country to connect with its Roman provincial history. Croatia is an attempt by others to pronounce Hrvatska, which is what they call themselves. Others are similar to these examples.”

Thanks, Dad!

Anil points to an interesting map of Europe made by Geoff Cohen that labels the countries with the name used by its citizens. Switzerland, for instance, is Helvetica, Ireland is Eire, and Hungary is Magyarorszag. The same kind of thing is true with many other nations as well so the question I have, and to be honest this is something I wondered about previously, is why do we use these other made up names? Eire to Ireland is fairly simple I suppose, and Magyarorszag to Hungary comes from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (probably somehow related to an early ruling family name, this is the reason behind the derivation of the English name for China, which is called Zhong Guo internally) but how does one get from Helvetica to Switzerland? Cohen says that these names are leftovers from the British Colonial era but no one feels strongly enough to change things. Cool map though.

My first round of auctions finished up yesterday and I have to say that I’m satisfied with the results. 12 out of 18 items sold for a total of $222 less fees but plus shipping; hopefully I pegged the shipping charges at the right level to include the fees, whch I’m told is extremely standard. Of the six items that didn’t sell, I got email about one from someone who said she was concerned about my zero rating but that if I relisted (after exchanging emails) she would bid–I did and she already has.

Dealing with all the end of auction/payment-related emails and prepping the items for shipment has been a tizzy. Yes, tizzy is the proper word. Already, most of the people who won have paid me through PayPal though one winner is from Canada and will mail me an International Money Order, so I’ve got everything paid for packed and ready for the Post Office.

I had second copies of three of the DVDs that sold, so I posted those as new auctions last night and while I was at Wal*Mart this morning I picked up some new cheap ones plus some colorful sleeveless basketball tops that were on clearance for $3 each and those will go up later today. As will some very cool dolls that Vivian has donated to the cause. Cher, Britney, Elvis, two of the three 2nd gen Charlie’s Angels and more.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Every week during football season, plus a couple before and after to start things off and wrap them up, the Mercury News publishes a column by Norman Chad. Said column is considered humorous by the editors of numerous newspapers which also print this man’s output. But Norman Chad was barely funny four years ago and then his three jokes expired.

As an alternative, Wayne Frazer, a small town journalist and bigtime SportsFilter contributor, is going to publish his version of a funny football picks column every week on SpoFi and if you want to actually laugh, I suggest you spend your five minutes on his work and skip Chad. I give you one sample: in discussing the 49ers-Bears game on Sunday, Wayne comes up with the single best nickname ever given to a sports team, calling them “Your New Home For Crying On The Sidelines.”

I can create anxiety out of thin air

Don’t look at the little pebbles scattered

Across the patio in between the shed and

The house, just look into my eyes.

Speak out loud the emotion, the action

You see lurking, sitting within and tell me

How the pebbles make the day different

From yesterday and yesterday’s pebbles.

Where does the brown of the shed end?

Follow the color up the side and over the

Beam to where wood seamlessly merges

To the gravel and tar roofline.

Then you can see the pebbles scattered

On the roof as well; no matter how many

Fall to the ground from wind or after storms

There are still more pebbles on the roof.

So you can see as well then where my racing

Heartbeat and pounding just from the

Sight of these small grey pebbles,

Always getting under my feet.

The NY Times has an interesting ‘state of the debate’ article today, wrapping up the current thinking in the search for a Theory of Everything via String Theory. No mention of the branes though–where are the branes?!?!?! [via the g man]

There were about 200 new emails in my mail client when I checked first thing this morning, so that’s good. Although 120 were spam, which was less good. I have never and will never buy anything or visit any website which brings itself to my attention through spam, so these people are wasting their own time and resources keeping me in the loop. Oh well, another one came in as I was writing this. Still, my point is that you can send email again to my normal address.

Layout I need to end up at:		What I have now:

Ideas?

The use of silence is a very effective dramatic tool. Silence also makes a writer’s life much easier, allowing (forcing) the audience to bring imagination to a scene where the writer has not, or cannot, find words to convey meaning. Actors may embellish with an arched eyebrow, an upturned hand softly lowered, yet the writer hasn’t put a word to page.

You can stand over me, arms crossed, hair styled neat

Express your idea of how a man acts and chooses

Say that you’re sorry some decision has been taken

That will be life-changing for me and not in a good way.

I’ve met you before, over and over, heard your dismissals

Seen you act like an Alpha bull clearing a

Weakling challenger from the heard and thinking the female

Titters were approbation for your aggression.

Dreary, I get so dreary listening over and over to

Words that claim such authority by their delivery yet

Lack the depth and determination which would

Confer your position with true leadership.

Black clouds sit overhead while people gather

Around and listen to the wisdom flowing from

Your corner office while I sit out in the hallway waiting

For the punishment you’ve planned for me.

You guys are right, you know what must be–

Able to walk and talk through the grey haired

Interest that used to be open to us all but

Now has been thrown out. Like me.

There is strength and power in the world, even

These days where perception has smothered

Reality with artifice, so you can unfold your arms,

Lower your voice and sit down with the heard.

Got an odd email to one of my Hotmail accounts just now. The sender (The Adobe Store, store@adobe.com) claimed “We received your request for password assistance.” But, first, I don’t have an account at the Adobe Store and second, obviously it follows that I didn’t look to change my password there. Instead of clicking on any of the email’s links, I typed in the one which I was informed would let me modify my account but when I hit Enter, I got this response:

“We’re sorry! Service is unavailable because of technical difficulties. We are working to correct the problem and appreciate your patience.”

I know, you’re thinking the same as me. Someone’s hijacked a DNS server and taken over some part of Adobe’s online store, then sent spam to lots of people in hopes that some would be naive or stupid enough to click through and fill in whatever form is provided to ‘confirm’ the account changes. Or more precisely, provide these criminals with personal data that will then be used to deprive said naive or stupid individuals of cash.

But not me, and I hope not you. What I do hope is that these criminals are caught and prosecuted, and suffer serious injury during a lengthy stretch in prison.

Stephen Frears has directed quite a few terrific movies (High Fidelity, one of my ATFs, The Grifters, The Van, and more) but one of his abiding interests has been the immigrant culture in London and he pursues that interest again in Dirty Pretty Things, a story about three people who come to London from very different homelands but face much the same pressures.

Audrey Tautou, who made a huge impact in Amelie, features here as a Turkish immigrant waiting for her status to be determined by the authorities; in the meantime, she’s not permitted to work or take in a tenant to share the cost of an apartment but to have the money for food and rent she of course must do both. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a Nigerian in the country illegally, a trained surgeon running away from political trouble at home, unable to sleep and working two jobs, subletting the couch from Tautou’s Senay. They both work for Senor Juan, the third immigrant, at a hotel where unpleasant things take place.

Frears and writer Steve Knight create a mileau where essentially no ethnically English people exist even though the whole film takes place in London and every person struggles to find and keep their place. I’ve little doubt that they’ve reflected a true picture of life in these neighborhoods but perhaps the dramatic exaggeration is the overwhelming pace of the drudgery and pressure. The acting, the often claustrophobic settings, the bland and dark imagery all combine to give Dirty Pretty Things a strikingly creeping effect, quite suited to the material.

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