Entries in Life

This is a great presentation: Stages of a Perl Programmer. Includes this quote: “Face it, already: Unix got a lot of things right.“.

Did I ever tell you that I love Free Software? I do. I love the fact that, in a meeting today about spam and the prevention of it, there was talk of appliances. The NT admins pointed out that these appliances use the same software we are using, but just put it inside a locked box and give you an Web-based interface. But, since the software is freely available, we already use it. And we’ve already adapted it to our needs in ways that the appliance couldn’t be used. But, that’s just part of the story. Did I ever tell you that I love Emacs? I do. I love the way I can run the same operating enviornment on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. I love the way I can adapt Emacs to my every need. For example, at work I have to sort through mail and look for spam or phrases within spam that can be blocked. I wrote up a nifty bit of ELisp so that whenever I hit a spam, it grabs the most easily blockable parts (URLs, email addresses) and helps me find other pieces. It has made my job that much easier. And, since Emacs is free software, it has grown and evolved with the input and contributions of all its users. Emacs is about 20 years old, but it is one of the most powerful enviornments that you can use for day-to-day computing. I use it to read email, edit code, take notes, prepare documentation … I’m using it right now to type this entry. Better, with Emacs and Free Software in general, if I run into a problem with the software I can fix it. Sure, I’ll send email to the author, but sometimes he’s busy. I can fix it. That’s what I’ve done with the RSS reader in Emacs. I’ve run into problems with the XML parsing code with RSS, but I was able to fix it. And, get this, since Emacs is free software, I was able to contribute my code back, safe in the knowledge that other’s wouldn’t have the same problem. But it’s not just Emacs. Its a whole slew of software. I use Mail::Audit::List for sorting my mailing lists into separate folders. Today, I found a bug in it, fixed it, and submitted the patch. This power, the ability to fix your own problems, or, lacking the skill to fix them, appeal to the community of fellow user for a fix, is awesome. Proprietary software doesn’t give you that power. At the most, you can appeal to your fellow users for a work-around. Rarely will you find a fix. You’re gonna have to wait for the vendor to come out with a band-aid. And then, there is a chance that they won’t understand the problem (and so won’t give a complete fix) or they’ll fail to fix the problem at all. Does Free Software have its problems? Sure. But you can fix them.

• Oral Rehydration Therapy, from Danny O’Brien. 1 Liter of Clean Water, One level teaspoon of salt, Eight level teaspoons of sugar is the wonder cure for diarrhea. Good thing to keep in mind.

• Emacs Wiki is a wonderful resource. Found today: EmacsBusinessCard; a 50mb Linux distribution that includes Emacs and X. I’m burning one on my business-card CDROMs.

• I’m busy re-writing nnrss in Gnus to store the entire <item> element. Right now, it just grabs a few bits of information and stores them in a list. But this limits things a lot.

At the end of this article on Christian Rock, there is an extended quote from G.K. Chesterson that makes me want to read his Orthodoxy:

As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of today) free also to believe in them.

Hey! I didn’t know that the term “Bling Bling” was from a New Orleans Rapper! And now it may going in the OED. Cool.

More than once, I’ve gotten requests to hack into webmail accounts. (Why do I get these requests? Guess.) I now know why such simple sniffers like this exist. Someone throws together a simple sniffer in an afternoon and rakes in the money.

The sad part is that most of the people who want an email account cracked suspect that they are involved with someone who is cheating on them. So, they want their boyfriend’s email cracked so they can find out what is going on. Or they want their best friend’s email hacked so they can verify that he stole their woman. Or something.

What a twisted world.

  Throwing hardware at a problem isn't the solution - the system should  behave in a sane manner when down.  

Note that the responder says that he sees this problem all the time with Exim/LDAP combinations like I use on this server. I’ve not had a real problem with Exim screwing up because of LDAP dying. LDAP is up most of the time. I do wish there was a way to have Exim queue the mail (or even freeze it) if the LDAP server goes kaput. But that isn’t where I have the most problems.

No, the most problems come from the mail filter that I use. It craps out on large messages. And I can’t blame anyone but myself since I wrote it.

AccordionGuy mentions that some in Georgia are considering reviving their traditional “Whites-only” Prom. Meanwhile, back here in Louisiana, this is the first year that the school in St. James parish won’t have a segregated Prom. The school in the next parish over plans to continue theirs. (The link to the story about St. James segregated prom might disappear, so I have a local copy handy.)

In 1952, a Roundup grocery store closed their doors because of a death in the family and was never opened until a few months ago. Treasures galore! This reminds me of Rich Weirdos and it is appropriate that BoingBoing pointed both of them out.