Get a Missile Up Ya

While I am no way a fan of John Howard, it’s a shame that we’re not getting a little more balance and/or research from our newspapers as they report on the current long range missile issue. So far, I have seen no obvious mention of the fact that Indonesia and many other of our neighbouring nations are in the process of purchasing the formidable Sukhoi Su-27/30 Flanker air superiority fighter. These aircraft already represent considerable danger to our F-18’s and F-111’s, especially when armed with the latest long range missiles on the market.

Combine the all too real threat of the Su-27/30 with doubts over the already delayed F-35’s capability and it is clear that if Australia wants to continue its current military arrangement, something must be found to maintain balance. A long range missile that allows accurate strikes on ground-based targets from beyond the range of the Su-27/30 is a possible solution.

Of course, the whole need for military posturing and escalations is left as a separate exercise.

USA’s CAN-SPAM law a failure

Yahoo’s TechWeb are reporting that compliance with the new CAN-SPAM law has dropped from 3% in April to 0.54% according to MX Logic. The law required that SPAM have verifiable return addresses and valid opt-out capabilities. Indications are that either spammers are no longer complying or that the number of spammers has increased so that the percentage of complying mails is dropping.

The researchers are indicating that the main failure is that the law is not being enforced, which is unfair for multiple reasons, not least of which are:

1) There’s not much chance of getting already overworked law enforcement groups to try to track down spammers, especially when the spam is often bounced from overseas servers.

2) When the law came in, it effectively killed off some state-level laws that were starting to become effective at prosecuting spammers.

3) If you can get through all the confusing text, it appears that at no point does the law actually prevent spamming (many see this as proof that the Direct Marketing Association pulled a lot of influence to ensure that their members could spam).

When you consider that MX Logic found over 84% of all email being sent outside corporate networks is spam, it is clear that the “you CAN still SPAM” law has been good for spammers (business as usual without the risk of prosecution) and also good for the companies that supply email security and spam filtering. As to the rest of us, we’re drowning in it…

The Perils of English Pronunciation

I’ve been helping my son Nykolai with his spelling home work. It’s rather comical, if a little sad, to watch him come to grips with the perils of pronouncing the English language. You really have to wonder how English can become the defacto language of business and technology around the world…. The subject motivated me … Continue reading “The Perils of English Pronunciation”

I’ve been helping my son Nykolai with his spelling home work. It’s rather comical, if a little sad, to watch him come to grips with the perils of pronouncing the English language. You really have to wonder how English can become the defacto language of business and technology around the world….

The subject motivated me enough to create a new “g-rant” entry about it. It’s lurking along with a few other entries over in the Soap Box area :)

Bloody English Language

It’s hard to believe that English is becoming the “language of choice” for the business/technical world. It’s hard enough to learn as a first language, let alone as a second, third or even fourth language.

I’ve been helping my son Nykolai with his spelling home work. Each week the kids are given a list of words to learn and are tested on a Friday. Much fun and we work at it when driving in the car or at the end of the day for his homework.

At the worldly-wise age of six and a half (gotta have the half – that’s important you know :) he has discovered the joys of words that are spelt similarly but pronounced differently. He’s also discovering that some words are spelt differently but pronounced the same.

The classic today was that food and wood are different by one letter but the “oo” is either long (fewd) or short (wud) with no way of knowing except through experience. Hah! Wait until he gets to comb and tomb :)

Then, of course, he’s already meeting there, their and they’re – all pronounced the same bloody way. Hah again! I’m waiting for the moment I can run this line at him:

“As I sat with you under the yew a ewe strolled by.”

Officially, it’s about sitting with someone under a tree and watching a sheep but if you’re not up with your trees and animals, the mind boggles! :)

My second language is Spanish and I’ve really got to hand it to a language where you pronounce it how it’s written. No silly “i before e except after c” or plain old “you just have to know how it sounds” situations. Once you get the hang of the vowel sounds and accent marks, you’re away. Sure, it has irregular verbs (shudder) but don’t most languages?

Anyhow, I’m off to see if I can’t relearn my French and German (they got kicked out due to disuse when I learned Spanish – whoops :) and learn some more Thai. I figure the languages to watch though are Mandarin and Hindi, just by population numbers alone. Add in the fact that China/Asia and India (technically, also part of Asia :) are likely to be the “new barbarians” that take over after the fall of New-Rome (aka the USA), well, ni hao ma? :)

For now, here’s a few other pages with rather amusing comments on the perils of pronouncing the English language :)

Cheap Thoughts on English

Poems on the perils of English pronunciation

Yet another poem on the pronunciation perils

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Excitement is building – the BBC is going to play a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series based on the remaining books from the “trilogy.” They’re getting the old cast together again. There’s also a movie being made and the trailer has just been released. Not showing much – just text and stars. A … Continue reading “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

Excitement is building – the BBC is going to play a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series based on the remaining books from the “trilogy.” They’re getting the old cast together again.

There’s also a movie being made and the trailer has just been released. Not showing much – just text and stars. A number of us are rather nervous that it’s going to be stuffed up (much as we’re wondering just how bad the Thunderbirds movie will be :)

Meanwhile, I’m listening to the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series. It can be found out there on the ‘net in MP3 format and downloaded. Seriously funny stuff :)

Reduced SPAM from Australia

Some of you may have seen an Australian IT article reporting that Australia’s anti-spam laws appear to be having an impact. Spam from Australia has decreased significantly. This is confirmed by Spam Haus.

While it does appear that the laws have driven some Australian based spammers away, I am wondering if there isn’t another variable that’s also impacting things. Back in May/June, BigPond blocked access to TCP/IP port 25 across its network. Unless your computer was talking to one of the BigPond mail servers, you kept getting errors when trying to send emails (business accounts could request that access not be blocked so they could use their own mail servers, etc). This change certainly impacted those staff at my office who were using their personal BigPond accounts when travelling – no more sending mail via our server when out on the road. Ooops…

According to an article in The Register, it is estimated that about 80% of all spam is sent from “zombies”, aka machines that have been infected by the latest viruses/worms, all of which open “back doors” that turn the machines into willing spambots. Given this, I really think that BigPond’s actions may have also contributed to the drop, not just the new law, after all, BigPond were always getting into trouble with the rest of the ‘net because they were seen as a major source of spam from Australia (ranging from not turning them off when found through to actively working with some spammers). They’re also a favourite ISP for many people who are likely targets for “zombification” – eg: home users on broadband connections without firewalls, latest service packs, virus scanners, etc.

To me, this all says that while the new law may be helping, it’s not the sole reason that spam from Australia has dropped off so dramatically. Food for thought.

Back at Abode

After the session at Shamiana a bunch of us went back to the Abode club where I wound up doing the “Last DJ Standing” set once again. Lots of fun although thanks to a combination of tired and beer, I was fading fast at the end and have dim memories of shutting down, walking home … Continue reading “Back at Abode”

After the session at Shamiana a bunch of us went back to the Abode club where I wound up doing the “Last DJ Standing” set once again. Lots of fun although thanks to a combination of tired and beer, I was fading fast at the end and have dim memories of shutting down, walking home and collapsing in a chair near the heater :)

Spinning at Shamiana

On Friday night I was playing at the Platinum Exclusive dinner party in Shamiana, a very stylish restaurant in the city. I wound up on the decks from about 9pm to 1am, playing from background dinner/cocktail sounds through to club beats and cruisy, groovy sounds as the night picked up. I handed over to Miss … Continue reading “Spinning at Shamiana”

On Friday night I was playing at the Platinum Exclusive dinner party in Shamiana, a very stylish restaurant in the city. I wound up on the decks from about 9pm to 1am, playing from background dinner/cocktail sounds through to club beats and cruisy, groovy sounds as the night picked up. I handed over to Miss Rene at 1am, thinking that she would be spinning until 3am, but the night wound up finishing not long after 2am. Whoops. Major embarrassment and apologies to Miss Rene – if I’d known, I would have cleared the decks way earlier.

Preparing a new module

I’ve been working on a new module for the kids – there’s a whole new series of plots and machinations for them to figure out, all the while continuing in the shadow of their previous module. Did they really save the world, or have they just brought it some time? So much to document – … Continue reading “Preparing a new module”

I’ve been working on a new module for the kids – there’s a whole new series of plots and machinations for them to figure out, all the while continuing in the shadow of their previous module. Did they really save the world, or have they just brought it some time?

So much to document – over two years of role playing needs to be written down, sorted out and edited. Then there’s all the supporting documentation. This one’s going to be a lot of fun to do – just hope I have time to do it :)

Mail Systems Stabilised

After a bit of to’ing and fro’ing with Zone Edit, plus the development of a script that triggers the “Send queued mail now” command for each of our domains, things seem to have settled down. It took a few weeks after we started using the Zone Edit backup mail servers before the entries showed up … Continue reading “Mail Systems Stabilised”

After a bit of to’ing and fro’ing with Zone Edit, plus the development of a script that triggers the “Send queued mail now” command for each of our domains, things seem to have settled down.

It took a few weeks after we started using the Zone Edit backup mail servers before the entries showed up in the Account Details page. During that time, we seemed to be having all sorts of problems with mails being blocked and/or disappearing. Since then, all seems fine. I’ve not been able to get an answer from Zone Edit as to whether the delay was due to their accounts system or whether it might have caused some of the problems we experienced.

There is still the issue of some mail occasionally taking a long time to get from a Zone Edit secondary to our primary mail server. Scott at APC has noted that they’ve had mails take a day. Our worst case was three days. To help avoid this, I’ve written a script that fires off every hour and triggers a “send queued mail” process on their web based mangement console.

So far, things seem to be stabilising and it looks like we’re going to be able to continue using Zone Edit as our secondary DNS and mail service. Still early days yet, but we’ll watch and see.