Ch'marr

Rant: Sandisk's "U3 Smart". Worst thing since Clippy.

2008-04-16T16:33:51Z

Actually, i think it's worse than Clippy. You can turn clippy off.

I got these reasonably priced Sandisk USB flash drives from Costco. I'd been mostly using it on my Mac, and hadn't really noticed anything terribly amiss until I plugged it into a Windows box, and then all this made sense:

Sasndisk put this special software onto the drive to give you these "features" like encryption and portable software for windows boxes. How it works is that there's a uneraseable "partition" on the drive that runs software when you insert into a windows box. It's not really a partition: you can't erase it using normal software. It's actually a separate subdevice. Of course, there's an "autorun.inf" to have windows run stuff. You can't actually use the drive under windows for about 30 seconds, and there's a ton of popups and "useful" information while that happens.

On a Mac, it comes up as a drive, plus a CDROM, and you have to unmount BOTH of them or the OS bitches.

To return the drive to a normal drive, you have to run a windows program. So, Mac and Linux users are out of luck. At least on Linux you're not bugged by a CDROM device popping up too (don't know why, there).

Anyway, take the warning: Sandisk's U3 = World of Irritation.

The most well known and least popular diet.

2008-04-15T06:21:24Z

I'm making this post on advice of my guidance councellor (otherwise known as "friend more grounded in reality than I am")

I've been on the "Eat less and exercise diet" for about 3 weeks now, eating NO junk food, avoiding starch and cutting down on other carbohydrates, plus actually maintaining going to the gym and spending 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Results: lost 9 pounds* and so far burning 450 kcal on the elliptical.

Woo! Celebrate!

*A combination of aviation and spending 8 years in the US has all but killed my fanaticism in the metric system :)

New Job!

2007-11-27T04:56:14Z

Since a few friends have been asking, I thought I'd share, here, what's been happening with my live over the past couple of months.

I'm now working for Truviso, a small database startup in Foster City, CA. This came about because in early October, I got fired from my previous job. Yep, fired.

I'd been working there for over seven years, and since the start of the year I've been struggling with maintaining focus and performance at work. Between then and "the end", I've had periods where I thought I got a handle on my attitude towards work, and at other times I've done sweet FA. What I did create towards the end is positions within the company that I'd like to work on, such as sustaining engineering, network analysis or even database work, but for one reason or another those kinds of positions were not offered to me and, in the end, they decided to let me go.

And, really, it's something I should have done for myself a year ago, or so. Mostly I was sticking around to see if I could get my green-card sorted out, which had already been taking WAY too long. But the company made the decision for me.

But, I'm glad they did. After a very busy month of sending out job applications (mostly through LinkedIn), doing phone interviews and on-site interviews, I have a lead QA position within Truviso, and after about 2 weeks at work, I'm really, REALLY enjoying it. Most definitely a good fit for both of us.

So, while 2007 mostly sucked, the ending is turning out alright. Bring on 2008! :)

Meme ahoy!

2007-04-27T05:58:35Z

Okay, I don't usually take internet quizzes, but this one was very nicely presented, and has this cool "do you agree with me" feature. So... what the hey:

Thanks to rightwrong

An extension to a traditional puzzle.

2007-04-14T01:35:31Z

When I was a kid, I was a real smartass. Yes, okay, perhaps I haven't changed much :)

Anyway... one of my math teachers in high school gave us this puzzle:

"Assume the Earth is a nice, smooth globe. If you were to walk one kilometer South, then one kilometer West, then one kilometer North, and you finished where you started, where are you now?"

You can imagine miles instead of kilometers if you really like; it doesn't matter.

The answer, of course is "the North Pole". Sometimes the puzzle ask "what colour are the bears?" instead, to which the answer is "white" :)

Me, being my smartassy self, thought about it for a bit, and posed a counter-question:

"Okay, name one other location on the Earth where that is also true."

Can you? There's no trick to this; there really is at least one other location :) See if you can figure it out before clicking through, in case someone posts the answer as a reply.

You're stuck with me another 3 years, at least.

2007-04-09T19:10:40Z

I got my H1B extension approved. This means I can continue working in the US until 2010. Yay! The company is still working on a greencard for me, which is, like "any day now", but this takes a lot of stress off, and does mean I can go back home and visit the family in Australia in June (and come back ;) ).

A lunchtime story.

2007-04-06T21:49:54Z

Wow, it's been almost one year since I used this thing...

Here's an interesting lunchtime story I want to share!

Took my car to the Speedee Oil Change near work during lunchbreak. I asked for the oil change, and also to check and top-off the brake fluid since the brake light was intermittently coming on. They said "okay" to the oil change (of course), but said they don't do top-offs, but will check the fluid as part of an over-all break inspection.

Well, okay, this is all part of the usual "up sell" you get from anywhere, and I've long since given up getting annoyed over that. I said "okay, go ahead and do that."

About 90 minutes and Quiznos later, they called my name and said "Chris? Oil change and tyre rotation, right?"

"Nope. It was a brake check."

"Oh... well then, you just got a free tyre rotation... and we'll top off that brake fluid for you... and we'll give you a $5 discount... and you can have a free brake check next time you're in."

So! Not only did I get what I originally asked for, I got a free tyre rotation, free fluid top-off, free brake check (next time), and a $5 off :) Woo!

Boing!

2006-04-07T10:34:46Z

Oh man, I am so drunk!

Actually, I'm not anywhere near as drunk as I was half-an hour ago... the drunkedness suddently washed off as I was dozing.... I was like "whee! whee! whee! Whoa... where did that sensation go." Now, I just have a mild headache from dehydration, which I'm attacking with some Staminade, which I must again thank wolphin for brining for me, and also remember to convince this mob to stock.

So... what's this all about, and how did it go?

So... I'm doing this Community Police Academy thing. One of today's presentation was on DUI. Last week they asked a couple of volunteers to get drink on the police department's ticket. Of course, I volunteered :) Here's some quick notes on how it went:

- We were asked what kind of alcohol we wanted. I asked for Irish Whiskey, considering I've recently been introduced to it and I thought it was a quick way to get drunk. They appreciated my choice in terms of quickness! :) What I ended up with was Bushmills, which is concered a "blah" Irish, but I didn't mind too much. Especially after drinking half of the 750ml bottle!

- I thought I was doing just fine... but the drunkedness suddently lept upon me, and I was like Whoa!. I took notes on a lot of the effects, and I'll try and transcribe them later.

- I DID manage to walk around the classroom several times. One as part of the demonstration... the other as part of 'the break' so I could have one of my chocolate cookies that I bought along.

- I threw up a little on my notes... this is when they escored me to the bathroom, where I spent a good half-our just calming down :) I've been offered a spare folder.

- When I came back out again, the fire department was there, in their role as paramedics, giving me a glucose test... I passed that okay :)

- I'd arranged for a friend from work to give me a ride home. The volunteers at the session called the friend for me, who seemed quite bemused. I'm sure I'm going to get royally teased at work today.

I kinda wish someone had taken a picture ... not of the vomit, but my effots to stand up :)

Conclusion: being drink... THAT drunk... is not fun. But, I'm appreciative of the experience :)

Update: Okay, re-reading this in the morning I've found a bunch of spelling errors... I'll leave them all in for posterity :) (Jareth: this makes SEVEN smileys now :) No, wait... EIGHT)

We don't need no steekin' cheetahs!

2006-03-31T08:09:03Z

Sometime late in 2005 I had my iPod stolen. Very annoying. What made it doubly annoying was that the burglars smashed my car window to get to the iPod. So, not only am I short an iPod (one that did firewire, to boot), but I had to fork over $150 to have the window replaced. Bleah.

One thing good did come out of it. For one, the responding officer was an absolute honey. Oh my :) Unfortunately, that didn't lead to anything saucy. However, in the course of the conversation, while she was doing all the forensic stuff on my car and us talking abotu what our favourite TV cop shows were, she suggested I look into the municipalitie's Community Police Acadamy. This is precisely where I was this evening.

The 'academy' is really just a series of informational presentations, many of them 'hands on' about the city's police department. Ie, a chance for members of the community (anyone that lives or works in the city) to find out what kinds of things the police do, what their job is like, what they put up with, what tools they have at their disposal, and so on.

Tonight was the second session. We had a talk from one of the lieutenants of the FOD - the Field Operations Department - about their day to day procedures, we got to poke around inside various police vehicles. Then a talk from the School Resources Officers, about their DARE program. Unfortuantely, the speaker wasn't that engaging, but still engaging enough.

Back to the vechicles for a moment. The city had the usual allotment of patrol cars, swat vechicle, command vechicle, but there was this really cool oddity. Wells Fargo had donated a armoured vechicle, which the police has dressed up in their livery and lights. They use it to 'crash' into dangerous situations. For example, as the 'lead vechicle' in an assult on an armed person. I should have taken a picture... I'll see if I can get one next week.

Or.. perhaps not... I'll be too busy getting drunk :) Yes... the police are going to get me drunk, on their ticket, as an example of DUI effects. They asked me what kind of alcohol, and I said "Irish Whiskey"... which they were pleased about, since past volunteers have asked for beer, and that often doesn't get people drunk enough. Whee! This should be fun :)

From USPS, with love.

2006-03-28T02:16:57Z

I received a letter today. It was totally mangled and somewhat grass-stained. Lord only knows what it went through :)

But, when that happens, it arrives in a plastic bag with a nicely crafted apology printed on it.

WE CARE

Dear Postal Customer:

We sincerely regret the damage to your mail during handling by the Postal Service. We hope this incident did not inconvenience you. We realize that your mail is important to you and that you have every right to expect it to be delivered in good condition.

Although every effort is made to prevent damage to the mail, occasionally this will occur becuase of the great volume handled and the rapid processing methods which must be employed to assure the most expeditious distribution possible.

We hope you understand. We assure you that we are constantly striving to improve our processing methods in order that even a rare occurance may be eliminated.

Please accept our apologies.

Sincerely.

Your Postmaster

Aww... how sweet :) Apology accepted.

Update: carefulcareful writes in to say a similar thing happened to her a few years ago. Awesome... I want a high-speed money shredder too! :)

Bye bye ICQ

2006-03-21T11:47:33Z

Well, I've been an ICQ user, on and off, for about 8 years... perhaps longer, I'm not sure. I've got a 7 digit ICQ number. (Yes, I have a few friends with 6 digit numbers, but that's not the point of this piece).

Spam over ICQ has been an occasional problem, but it's easy enough to just 'ignore' the user, and that's that. However, in the past week i've been getting an increasing number of "Authorize Me" requests from spammers, and setting "ignore" on those users doesn't help; the requests keep coming through. I even said "accept" once thinking that I really didn't care if they knew I was on-line, I'd just block the spam anyway, but... that doesn't help at all.

I no longer run ICQ because of this. Apparently, lots of others are having this problem as well; the boards are filled with complaints about spam. And, very recently, their boards, and their trouble-ticket system, is broken. You can't post, nor submit any new tickets. Totally borked.

And not a peep from the ICQ staff. One might be tempted to think that they're just "giving up", letting ICQ rot, and hoping people move over to AIM. (ICQ got bought by AOL some time ago).

I think a moment of silence for ICQ, once a really great (if totally insecure and badly coded) messaging service, is appropriate.

...
...
...

My theory of why spam continues.

2006-03-20T18:45:32Z

So, unless you have one of those awesome spam filters, and perhaps even then, you get tons of spam in your inbox, selling things from ED drugs, to weight-loss drugs, to software, money and stock scams. Excluding those last two for the moment, we've all wondered "Who buys this stuff?" We'll, we're all told that very very few do, but for those that do respond to the ads, enough money changes hands to make it worthwhile.

Well, really? Don't you think that anyone that would be suckered into buying would already have bought by now?

Here's a totally off-the-wall guess of what's really happening.

Firstly, while we all see thousands of sites advertising drugs, there's really just a handful of sites that actually SELL the drugs. All the rest are 'affiliates'. What the site does is advertise for 'webmasters' to become an affiliate for the drug store, which entails either offering for the 'webmaster' to drive traffic to the store with a cut of successful sales in return, or perhaps offering to set up a 'shopfront' themselves, with the real store doing all the work.

I put 'webmasters' in quotes, because these companies know full well that they'll get orders of magnitudes more spammers doing the advertising than real webmasters. Sure, they all have 'do not spam' in their terms of service, but all this does is allows them to wash their hands of the spammers if they get caught, and also gives them an excuse to not 'pay out' if the spammer DOES get reported. To say they 'don't support spammers' is just a laugh.

Anyway... back on track... someone who's a bit short of money, and a bit short of ethics, decides to see how much money they could make being an affiliate. They sign up at the store to get their ID, then they pop onto one of several spammer boards to see who could distribute their spam. (or, just take up one of the spammers own spammed offers). Not wanting to be fleeced, the affiliate asks the spammer how effective this really is. After all, the affiliate himself has NEVER bought anything that was advertised with spam.

The spammer's pitch might go like this: "Sure, the return rate is really low. But... I'm offering to send spam to 200,000,000 addresses, so even if your hit rate is just 0.001%, that's still 2000 customers, and if you get $10 from each, that's $20,000. Not convinced? Okay, I'll send some spam to a few thousand addresses, and you tell me how many hits you get."

The customer, seeing this as a free way to try out the spammers words, takes the spammers deal. Spammer sends out the spam, but also sends it to two of his OWN addresses. Using the information there, he goes to the website and buys some product. The affiliate sees that out of the few thousand mails being sent, he got two hits! He's convinced, and signs up with the spammers service to send out 200,000,000 million addresses and pays up.

The spammer sends out the 200,000,000 million addresses. But then he ALSO reports some of the spam he received to the drug web site, who shuts down the affiliate's account. The drug company doesn't care, since they've already getting any of the business that the spam sent out might have generated. The affiliate, cut off fro the account, never finds out how successful the campaign actually was.

So... the drug web site got their money. The spammer got his money. The affiliate was fleeced out. And we all have to put up with the spam... all for nothing.

Shopping in downtown Crooklyn

2006-02-20T00:28:30Z

Random update, because this story is too funny to be left untold.

I decided that my current pocket digital camera, a Pentax Optio S, is getting a little long in the tooth (and, besides, I can't find it), so I decide that I really want that Optio S6 that Costco had. So, I got one today. $300 plus tax, but includes the belt pouch and a memory card. I decided to see what kind of deals were to be had on-line.

A quick Google search for pentax optio 6s returned me this link to digital saver. it's not the site I normally go to for price comparisons, but this was just an academic exercise.

The first 5 shops displayed all had prices around the $240 mark. For a few seconds, I was thinking "Oh man, even with the pouch and memory card, that's a big difference." But then I remembered that those really shady camera places in Brooklyn, NY, post these insanely cheap prices, but their gear is grey market, missing bunches of stuff, and they're really nasty to deal with. So... I do some research.

First entry: Preferred Photo. Yep, in Brooklyn.

Second entry: Prestige Camera. Brooklyn again.

Third entry: Broadway Photo. Now, their contact page didn't list their B&M address, but I decided to
dig deeper, and I checked the Better Business Bureau for information on the company, and found lots of interesting stuff.

Not only are they in Brooklyn (no surprise), and not only have they got a nice collection of complaints - not all resolved - against them (again, no surprise), but check out the list of Additional Business Names:

A&M Photo World
Digital Liquidators LLC
Preferred Photo
Prestige Camera
Regal Camera

And compare that against the first five entries on the Digital Saver website:

Preferred Photo
Prestige Camera
Broadway Photo
A&M Photo World
Digiral Liquidators

The first five companies listed on Digital Savers are all the same damn company. No wonder they all have a roughly $240 price tag. The next entry, if you click on Show all 11 stores, is Ritz Camera which sells the camera for a more believable $300.

So, here's some interesting things we can extrapolate from this:

Digital Saver may very well be a front for Broadway Photo, who just happen to list a few other retailers to give it the appearance of being a legitimate comparison site.
Broadway Photo may have intentionally set up exactly 5 companies, knowing that 5 entires is what it takes to 'hide' the other retailers.
By listing numerous sites with the same, low low price, it gives that price the air of legitimacy. After all, if you saw 10 retailers with a $300 price, and one retailer with a $240 price, you'd have second-thoughts about going with that retailer, wouldn't you? Well, with five retailers with a $240 price, then it seems more sensible. And doubly so if you never see the more expensive prices in the reduced view.
The prices between all five aren't exactly the same, so the buyer doesn't suspect that they're in collusion, or different 'fronts' for the same company.

What scum.

Review: Transporter 2

2005-09-10T06:34:31Z

Was over at a friend's place a few days ago, who's a bit of a movie buff. Actually, a "spend lots of money on DVDs buff" would be more accurate :) The latest addition was "Transporter" and I was offered to stay and watch it. Wasn't a particually deep movie, but it was enjoyable, and the characters were very likable. So... good value.

Transporter 2 came out recently, and a bunch of us went to see it. To put it succinctly, it was bad. Really bad. So bad that it's got me off my butt to create a journal entry about it, just so I can share how really bad it was on the hope that it will make it less bad.

But first, the good bits:

The fight scenes were okay, and interesting. Two of the likable characters from the first movie returned. Had some nice car chases. Umm... well, that was pretty short.

But the bad... oh my. No, it wasn't the acting (which was decent), nor the light plot (it was as light as the first), but the screen play was atrocious, in terms of realism. Yes, almost all movies have 'stupidities', and you have to suspend a little belief. Other Luc Besson movies, for example Fifth Element, you needed to do this, but... it was kinda fun and they didn't do THAT bad of a job of the realism. Even trasnporter (one) was very believable. Transporter 2 was HORRIBLE... the un-realism just kept on coming and coming and coming. All, ostebsibly, for the purposes of advancing the plot... but they could have done a MUCH better job:

So, as a cathartic exercise, I'm going to try and list as many of the stupidities as I can. These aren't really spoilers... because there's nothing I could do to make the movie any more horrible than it is:

- Frank (the main actor, and the 'driver' in both movies), drives a kid he's supposed to be looking after to a doctor. The doctor's parking lot is a near-empty underground garage. What doctor in his right mind would have such a horrible car-park. (Okay, this one is lame, but it gets better).

- The bad guys kill off the doctor and the receptionist and pose as them. The kid knows something's amiss. A GOOD bodyguard would INSTANTLY call the whole thing off (And this guy is supposed to have all sorts of military-trained extra senses) and get the hell out of there, but no. However, all sorts of other 'hints', many totally blatant, fail to tip off the main character that something's wrong. Eg: getting names confused, getting the reason that the doctor is sick confused, the 'doctor' saying "Trust me, I'm a doctor.". It's only a pool of blood pooling under a door that tips off Frank.

- Most of the driving is pretty cool - after all, that's what the movie is about - but some of it is totally silly. Frank drives around a carpark, and to escape a chase, he drives through the safety wall (without damaging the car much), leaps across the gap (quite high up) to the next-door parking lot, and magically manages to land in between floors, rather than INTO a floor.

- More car stupidity: Driver dislodges a bomb under his car by launching himself up a ramp, spinning it, and using a dangling crane hook to knock off the bomb. Car lands perfectly.

- Most fight scenes are cool, but there are too many where the bad guy, or good guy, don't shoot fast enough, or from far away enough, before they get into melee with fists and feet.

- A bunch of bad guys run out of ammo, all at the same time, preventing anyone from using a gun during a multi-person combat.

- A wooden door is sufficient to stop high-velocity automatic arms fire.

- A CAR DOOR is sufficient to stop assult rifle fire. Actually, no, the car door gets perforated, but apparently the upholstery is enough, because people inside the shot up car survive. Remember, don't skimp on the good upholstery when you buy your new car... you never know when you'll need it! (No, it isn't the driver's car, which might have given the opportunity to say 'carbon fibre upholstery').

- Cops, pointing their guns at a armed target, can't release a single shot before the target reloads, turns, aims and fires, killing 2 cops.

- The bad guy decides to inject himself with all the remaining antidote of a virus he's just released, rather than destroying it, as if that will help 'store' it.

- Cars on a road don't make ANY attempt to slow down or avoid a man wandering over a road (who had just lept out of a building trying to rescue thrown vials of antidote).

- Frank makes NO attempt to contact authorities to warn them that a particular important person is infected with a virus - one who is just about to go to a conference and help kill a bunch of important people by inadvertently spreading the virus.

- A car chases after a business jet on take-off. THe jet maintains a nice steady pace, rather than accelerating at the 0.8 G we've all experienced. (Okay, this is fairly common for movies, but annoying nevertheless)

- The pilot, with copilot already out of his seat and incapacitated, decides it's a GOOD idea to get out of his seat to assist in a ruckus in the cabin.

- The jet careening out of control (the pilot was shot) hits the water and DOESNT disappear into tiny little pieces. In fact, the occupants - Frank and the uber bad guy - dont even get launched forward at all. It's as if the plane was gently slowed down, then PLACED into the water.

okay... that's about all I could come up with while I'm still awake tonight. I'm sure I'll think of a bunch more later :)

Summary: Don't see this movie. Sure, maybe get it on DVD, or wait till it hits the networks... it does have SOME redeeming value. But... we must not reward this kind of crappy screenwriting. Someone needs to slap Luc Besson upside the head. Even if he didn't write much of this (it was co-written, and we all know what that means), Luc needs to be reminded to NOt let his characters, or name, be attached to such crap.

On vacation!

2005-08-13T16:03:23Z

Well, I'm going on vacation for a few days. A flying trip + flight training down to Austin, TX for 4 days. So... no updates until I get back.

Not much work done today.

2005-08-12T06:48:47Z

Just a few things tonight:

* Handled two new applications
* Responded to a report on a upload that slipped my attention. Sonic fanart. Zappage. (Thanks to all those that send in reports!)
* Ate too much candied ginger... way too much.... mmm... if I barf, it will be delicious!
* Starting to set up a replacement server for home. Actually, just a replacement OS. I need this for VCL so I can run test code on a non-live system. What I'm running is so old it wont run the VCL code. Setting up the server is easy. Getting all the settings for networks, firewalls, domains, mail, mailing lists, and so on is hard. I'm thinking I might drop the new OS in place and fix things as I go along. My home server's not that critical.... well... except for mail.

VCL Turns 10 in November. Are there older art sites out there?

2005-08-08T06:47:18Z

Firstly, I'm telling the world that the VCL turns 10 on Thanksgiving this year. Yay! I'm sure we'll do something or another. At the very least, I'll have a commemorative button to give away :)

10 years ago, Brian Antoine turned on his FTP server to publish a bunch of furry art that he'd collected over the years. Since then we've grown a bit, and added some new features (certainly not as many as people would like), but goddammit we've been stable (both the site, and the administration). Even the Sweden Shutdown didn't affect us that badly. Hooray!

We're certainly the longest-running furry-art archive/gallery there is. The closest contender, Avatar, would have beaten us if they were still around (no, re-starting it now doesn't count ;) ). Elfwood was founded in May 1996, and Yerf (nee Squeaky Clean Furry Archive) was later that year.

But... it makes me wonder... are we the longest-running art archive/gallery of any kind? That would be a little much to hope for, but the oldest non-furry gallery I can think of is Epilogue which was created in December 1998.

Know of any other contenders?

Update: The fan-art section of lionking.org has me beat by at least 6 months :)

Open Letter to Arcturus regarding artfu.net

2005-07-31T00:41:47Z

This is an open letter to Arcturus n, the owner/administrator of the upcoming artwork community site artfu.net

Given that I have a lot of work on my plate already, I usually do not involve myself with events on other artwork sites. Certainly, I wish every site well, even if it 'competes' in any way with the VCL. After all, every attractive feature on other sites is a good incentive to analyze and implement features on the VCL, and every site is certainly welcome to analyze and implement features from the VCL in return. All this is a boon to artists and visitors who get more features, and more options.

However, recent events surrounding the administrative split on FurAffinity has caused me concern. Not for the collection of art sites itself, since such splits have happened before and things will eventually settle out, but for how the "furry community" is regarded by other, 'nearby' communities.

As has been discussed on your forum, the selection of the name "artfu.net" has conflicted with another on-line artwork community artfu.com. While not specifically catering to the furry community, it serves much the same purpose in a related community, and has made it clear they intend to grow into many of the same features that your own site intends to supply, too. In addition, your site purports to want to serve many artistic communities, and not just the furry community.

Put simply, "artfu.com" were here first. It is a small, but active site, and you are stomping on their name, making us all look bad.

On your forum, it was pointed out that If the artfu.com people did not want a name-collision to occur, they should have snapped up all the variations on "artfu", lest 'some bastard' snap up the name. However, this does not mean that you have to be the bastard that does so.

Inkninja's (the administrator of artfu.com) reasoning for not registering all the combinations, allowing non-related sites to use a name, was admirable, if a little naive. This does not diminish the behaviour of the person that takes advantage of that.

So, I implore that you reconsider your decision to refuse Inkninja's request to discontinue using artfu.net. If you do not, you will always have this shame above your head, the confusion and resentment will always be there, and I think this is not something you want hindering the growth of your site.

And, by this public letter, I hope to show that at least one member of the furry community thinks your insistence on using "artfu.net" is both disrespectful, and wrong.

-- Ch'marr, aka Chris Cogdon. Lead administrator / owner of VCL.

UPDATE: Arcturus has graciously offered to choose a different name for the site.

2nd Update: ArtPlz!. Much better.

yet another idea for spam-handling.

2005-04-26T22:02:24Z

No, this isn't some mighty comeback to using my journal again, so you can go back to sleep now :) but, I wanted to write down somewhere a little idea I had to reduce the amount of incoming spam, in a public place, so it can't be patented later on by someone else. Of course, I don't guarantee that this isn't ALREADY patented.

This idea should fit into the existing SMTP protocol as an extension, just fine.

Goals:

- Reduce spam and viruses by requiring the SMTP client do a little extra work.
- Reduce the need for sending 'bounce messages' which are likely to be undeliverable, or misdirected, because of spam and viruses.

Summary:

Server receives message from client. Instead of accepting or rejecting the message there, it says 'come back later to check'. Server can then do whatever checking it wants to. When the client contacts it again, server responds with its real answer. The server, if it wants to deliver the message, has the option of delivering or holding the message until the client re-contacts the server for the check.

Details:

Both the server and client are modified to handle a new addition to the SMTP protocol. The SMTP protocol has a way of reporting and accepting additional facilities, so the below would be compatible with existing SMTP servers.

Client contacts the server to deliver a message, discovers that the SMTP server has the addition, and activates it. The server could be configured to FORCE the new facility, rejecting any incoming message where the client does not activate the new feature.

Client sends the message in the normal way, except the server responds with 'message received, come back in N minutes to retrieve real delivery results'. N can be any number, but should be high enough to cover any processing the server needs to do. it also issues an ID for the message, that the client should store in its local database. The ID code should be made up of a unique part, and a random part to act as a 'password' of sorts. Eg:

213 5d3a6ff0-12345678 12 Received, come back in 12 minutes to check.

Client either delivers more messages the same way, or goes away.

Server then processes the message however it would like, such as a spam or virus scan, or just holding onto the message for the fun of it. Server stores whatever 'result' it would want to issue to the client when (if?) it comes back. Server MAY deliver the message on if it is configured to do so.

Client comes back after N minutes. Client activates feature, then asks if the message was delivered, giving the ID code returned by the server. Eg:

DELV 5d3a6ff0-12345678

Server issues final result code, which are any of the normal SMTP result codes. Accepting, rejecting, or any of the other options.

Server, if it still hasn't decided on the result, can reissue the 'come back later' code.

Server, if the client NEVER comes back, would purge the result, (and message, if it's still holding onto it) from the database. Perhaps 4 days would be enough.

Client would hold onto the message until it is sure the server has delivered it. If the server rejects, client can issue a bounce of its own. If the server claims it never saw the message, client can re-send.

Advantages:

Some spam/virus checking takes so long that it's not feasible to keep the client waiting for the result. However, if the message is to be rejected, this involves sending a bounce message, just in case the sender was legitimate. Most spam/virus senders are NOT legitimate, and the message will either generate a bounce of its own, or go to the wrong person. This method allows the use of normal SMTP result codes, allows greater flexibility in what processing is done, and puts the onus on the client to come back later for the real result.

This effectively emulates 'greylisting', if the server is configured to hold a 'successful' message until the client comes back later.

Disadvantages:

This puts more requirements on the server to hold onto result codes for 4 days, and possibly even whole messages for 4 days. However, it is NOT necessary to hold onto messages that are going to be 'rejected'; since the client should ALSO be holding onto the message in case of that possibility, the client can issue a bounce containing the full message, if so configured.

This puts more requirements onto the client, but no more than greylisting would.

VCL-specific Journal.

2005-02-09T17:25:24Z

If you're interested in finding out what I'm doing 'behind the scenes' for the VCL, I've created a new journal/community for it, rather than cluttering up this one: vcl_admin_diary

Apple's next iLife member?

2005-01-10T06:26:28Z

Another discussion me and my Apple-savvy friends had some time ago, when GarageBand was added to the iLife troupe, was what the next member of the package would be. The Consensus was that it would need to be something that allowed the user to be creative, in much the same way the current five iLife members are, to varying degrees.

To put my stake in the ground, I'm writing my predictions here. (Remember, you heard it here first!)

One possibility is a flash-creator of some sort. iLife always has ways to organise and manipulate still images, moving images, music, but there's nothing interactive. A flash-creator would be able to create dynamic, interactive content without requiring the user to learn a whole bunch of programming. Of course, its very hard to create something flexible, but allow the user to create something 'workable' in a short period of time, so perhaps some 'pre-programmed templates' such as series of 'basic games' that can be built on to create unique ones, or interactive menus, and so on.

Since flash requires graphics to be useful, a large set of stock icons (buttons, arrows, and so on), or a simple vector-graphics editor built in. A collection of stock 'sounds' would be good, and there's already ways to get music into the system (such as iTunes or GarageBand).

Another possibility is a broad (but simple, since iLife is about simplicity) set of HTML and Web-Page publishing tools. Several of the iLife programs can generate HTML that can be uploaded to a web site, but they're very inflexible. There's no Apple tool that can create reasonable-looking web pages... not yet, and web pages are a big part of getting content created by the rest of the iLife troupe 'out there' and seen (or heard).

So, that's that. My chips are down. Let's come back in a year and see how I did.

Consumers and Creators

2005-01-09T22:21:01Z

Here's a little thought exercise that's been running through my head for a month or so. Might as well see what happens if I put it into my (little used) journal here

A few months ago I spotted this ad appearing in the normal advertising rotation on the various Yahoo sites. At first blush, its just a typical lame ad for Yahoo/SBC DSL services. But I think it typifies a ongoing, and growing, problem with todays 'war' between content providers, and their attitude towards consumers, and also goes some way to explain why there's such a growing 'piracy' culture today. (And I'll throw in a Apple vs Microsoft comparison, to spice things up)

Firstly, take another look at the Yahoo ad. In it, a hip preppy-type with a indelible smirk on her face proudly proclaims that she "watched a monkey swimming on her internet today" and then, again with that indelible smirk, challenges us to beat her marvelous feat of consumerism. Now, I know I'm reading too much into this, but to me, it appears that these people - Yahoo, the advertising company, or perhaps the entire content-producing industry - feel that the height of anyone's daily achievement should consist of 'watching something cool'.

It appears that consumerism is being very heavily promoted instead of, for want of a better word, creationism. You may say "Well, duh! the big companies don't make any money if we just create our own stuff", and I totally agree. To the big companies, we should all be sitting down in front of our TVs, satellite receivers, video game consoles, and web browsers and just sucking up all the content they choose to throw at us. Of course, sucking up the advertising, and the need to buy more products, or subscriptions to yet more content, along the way.

Good little consumers! Aren't they adorable!

But... all this consumerism is starting to bite the big companies in the ass big-time. The more we consume, the less we create. And, the less we create, the less appreciation we give to the time and effort it takes to create content (be it a movie, tv show, music or artwork). And, the less we appreciate it, the less we respect the artists. And here's the rub: the less we respect the artists, the more likely it is that people will pirate content.

My argument is that the very attitude of the content providers, that we should be consuming content rather than creating it, is breeding a generation of people that do not respect nor appreciate the effort it takes to make that content. Couple that with the ease and repeatability of digital distribution, and you have today's pirate-rich environment. Nice going there, guys!

And that Apple vs Microsoft thing I promised?

Well, examine Microsoft's latest application they're pushing, the Windows Media Center, all you ever need to watch someone else's content in a myriad of different ways. Compare to Apple's leading application: iLife, all you ever need to create your own content. Apple are, and arguably always have, pushed the concept of people being creative with the tools Apple provide, and programs like iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand (all part of the iLife 'suite') allow exactly that. (iTunes and iPhoto are more organising content already created, in my book), and I think that's exactly the kind of focus all the big companies should be pushing.

If we were encouraged more to create our own content, we'd have more respect for others that create content for us.

Thanks to everyone!

2005-01-09T02:50:00Z

[This is a second take on this post. The first was way too dramatic, and got friends unnecessarily agitated.]

To those that have been posting livejournal comments supporting me, "Thank you". Even if you were only posting for the fun of it, I certainly appreciate the side effects. It's a pity that all these fun comments are being deleted, though. I'm not posting comments myself, as I do not want to be seen to be contributing to the problem in any way, shape or form. I'm just watching quietly... recording... planning... but I did want you to know the comments are appreciated.

If you don't know what I'm talking about: It's nothing to worry about, just someone deciding to 'take revenge' for being kicked off the VCL. Nothing that can't be handled.

Going home!

2004-07-28T01:55:07Z

On Tuesday, my visa-stamped password was returned to me. Hooray! The next problem was then to try and get back home. All the possibilities for using frequent flyer points were gone; I really should have taken the available seats when I enquired about it last Friday, but... there was no guarantee I would have been able to take the Wednesday-morning flight. So... time to shell out for the 'bend over and rape me' priced airfares... thank's to my company for chipping in part of that to get me back earlier :)

Still... kudos to the US Consulate in Melbourne. Friendly, courteous, and they did everything exactly when they said they would, or as fast as I could reasonably expect: the initial forms were processed and sent back the day they received them (two day turn around), and my passport arrived on the very day they said it would.

Australia was great... but it'll be great to get back 'home' again :)

My VCL Pick of the Day

2004-07-26T07:54:07Z

ex_14.jpg by Monsieur-Le-Eh

Monsieur Le Eh's gone through some stylistic changes, and this one is pretty neat... Sketchy lines and a digital watercolour style colouring has come out very nicely. The character here is interesting... have a look at the way her fur bells out over her wrists and ankles, giving that over-cliched 'baggy pants' look without the pants or sleeves.

The rest of Monsieur's work is worth a look, but it's not particularly safe for work. Lots of zaftig characters! :)