Random Babblings

Obfuscated Emails

Obfuscated emails are rally starting to piss me off. If you don’t know what I mean, I’m talking about things like:
‘callmestupid at moron dot com’
or what set me off today:
‘moc.diputs ta drater.ami’
The simple fact is, they are outdated. Do I like spam, no, but I do something about it. If you revive a lot of spam and you don’t have your ISPs filters on (or something on your computer), shame on you. If your ISP doesn’t have filters, bitch. If bitching doesn’t do any good, move or become your own. If you already are your own, learn how to fix this problem. Stastical filters reduce the amount of spam you see to minute percentages. Greylisting makes it so your server doesn’t even revive 90% of the spam that tries to get there.
My server used to get 40-50 spam a day, but for the most part I didn’t see it because of the statistical filter. Not happy to be receiving all that spam in the first place I implemented the greylisting and am only receiving about 10 spam a day, that I’m still not seeing thanks to my statistical filter.
Enough ranting, on to something fun.

Roborally

I mentioned Roborally yesterday, but didn’t go to much into it. You can read in more detail in the link. But RR is essentially a robot race in a widget factory. You get to program your robot, through pits, conveyors and lasers to hit the flags and win the race. Sounds simple on the surface, but when you combine random program cards on a board that you can arrange in near endless ways, it becomes a lot of fun.
I’ve wanted this one for a while, but $100 prices on ebay shied me away. They finally reprinted it this weekend, so I snagged a copy. This will enjoy many a playing any my house. I’ll post more later.

It’s bad when you measure your days by how much they don’t suck.

I thought today was going better than yesterday. Things were quiet at work. We’re having a pot luck, one of the Admin Assists brought in BBQ for everyone, and everyone else got to bring sides.

My Bed was finally arriving. Though I did have some trouble on that from the start. Original delivery was supposed to be “Before 1″, so I call in the morning to get a better time estimate. Oh you’re not scheduled for delivery till after 1. OK, shit happens, get on with life. 11:30 rolls around and the bed is there, color me confused. But of course there’s still a problem. Delivery drivers were complete putzes, and despite what we were told that the bed would be set up… just laying in pieces on my bedroom floor.

So starts the phone calls, Cardinal Bitching about the delivery guys, and finding out what thier instructions were. RTB to bitch that the bed wasn’t setup. Why can’t life go easier.

So drama over, the bed is now setup. Thankfully I do have my sheets. BTW think carefully about buying a Split King, finding XLong Twin sheet separates is near to impossible. Add to it we were looking for flannel in early summer….. (Thank you JCPenny Online, though that’s a hassle of a different story)

I joked last night that I was just going to come home and go to bed… it’s looking like a better option all the time…….

So the wife wakes me up to the news of the bombings in London. We have a couple of friends out that way, which is is why she notified me. Gary is of, was home in Scotland instead of in London working, as has been his norm lately. Chris, James, how you two doing??

It’s an interesting effect that things like this have on you. This definatley wasn’t the strike like 9-11, but it still moves you in some way. Few random links of interest:

Wikipedia Article
Google Maps focused on the area
BBC map With blast locations

I’d like to find a version of that map with the markers… Might be my excuse to get an API key for GM and just do it myself.

The Wikipedia article was quite through by 09:30 EDT… amazing how fast people can bring this stuff together.

Any point to all this… Not likely, just a poor mans excuse for a blog. I might keep on with this, I might not.

Life is to hectic, and weekends should not be on a schedule. So nex weekend I’m not doing anything with anyone… except my wife
Not a bad weekend, just busy. I bought two things that made me happy this weekend though, Robo Rally, and Harry Potter 6. Played a few games of RR and as I type this I’m about 1/3 of the way through HP. Though I do have to wonder what a ‘fug’ is….
Diets suck btw, and this weekend is proof why the one I’m following says not to really pay attention to the daily numbers, just pay attention to the trend. The dailys fluctuated like a yo-yo, but at least the trend is still working it’s way down.
Tip: pay attention to what input is selected on your TV. The whole time I was watching Pulp fiction, I was thinking god this looks shitty. Turns out that it was because it was going through the reciver on a composite input instead of directly to the TV on Componet inputs…. sigh.

Figured I’d bring over another one of these that I posted a while back.

Original Location

Well like everyone else on this day, I am contemplating 09-11. Unlike most I’m not dwelling on the past, I’m thinking of the future.

People forget, they forget names, faces, events, facts, images. In 10 years when something has replaced the World Trade Center how log will it be before people remember what was there before. Sure there will be a memorial, but that will be what is in the past. How many people will go to see it. The buildings themselves were monuments to begin with. I’ve lived on the east coast all of my life, I’ve lived in NY and PA. I’ve driven from VA to MA, right through NYC and never stopped to see the buildings. How many hundreds of thousands will have been born that never saw the buildings except when they were blowing up on TV footage.

The worst thing that people forget is meaning. Many suspect that 09-11 will be turned into a national holiday. Many things happen on holidays, sales happen on holidays. How many years before we have a 09-11 sale? Sure, to you and me today, that seems tasteless. How could anyone forget the tragedy of lost lives? Yet every last Monday in May we celebrate the ‘Memorial‘ of lost lives in wars with Sale upon SALE!!!!. So how would this be any different.

Today is not the day to dwell on the past, it is time to look towards the future