Clarification

Here are some clarifications concerning my re-implementation of DUL blocking.

Will I still be able to send mail to ServerForest addresses?
Yes. Just to be clear, when I re-enable the dynamic users list (DUL), it will not block users from e-mailing me or anyone else on ServerForest, even if they have a dynamic address, so long as you send your messages through a normal SMTP server, such as the one from your ISP, web host, etc. The only people who will have problems are people who run their own SMTP server on their own computer that is connected to the Internet dynamically. If you don't know what that means, I can virtually assure you that you aren't doing it and this won't impact you at all.

Who runs an SMTP server from a dynamic address?
Almost all SMTP traffic coming from dynamic addresses is SMTP traffic caused by worms and similar malicious programs. Typically, this means they are either sending copies of themselves or working as zombies to send spam. Because it is likely that virtually no legitimate traffic will be sent this way, many hosts block DUL SMTP servers traffic, quite likely, yours already does (unless you are using my services, and then yours will shortly).

Checkout Those Stats!

I've blocked over 40,000 spam messages since the beginning of the week, as you can see here. I'm thinking about re-enabling the DUL (dynamic users list) to block servers on dynamic IPs from sending e-mail to ServerForest — after looking into it, I know of exactly one person legitimately doing so in thousands of messages I looked through. This won't block users with dynamic IP's on their desktops, only those trying to send through a server on a dynamic IP (which in 99.9% of the cases means the PC has been hijacked). I also think I will remove some of the non-effective lists (no sense wasting resources querying servers that never block anything), and move some of the more-effective ones up in the order of the effectiveness… thereby reducing the amount of queries my server must make.

Odds and Ends

First, an update on the Challenge scoreboard:

• Christopher: 20
• Flip: 15
• Eduardo: 10
• Jason: 5
• Ed: 5

The second question concerning the quote from a piece of fiction is still up for the taking. Checkout my latest comment on that post to get a very revealing hint for those who have been reading what I've said the last few weeks closely (don't forget all posts are archived!)… and, yes, you may use Google to search my site only (i.e. put site:asisaid.com in the Google query box in front of your query — you'll end up searching asisaid and Plain Package, but I don't think you are going to get any clues on this question from Ed's blog… sorry to disappoint).

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New stuff on OfB:

• linuxfor.biz: Eduardo takes on Slackware removable drive configuration and scanner usage in the Stealth Desktop Part IV.
• macfor.biz: Chris Olson takes another stab at Microsoft in his latest op-ed piece, Microsoft: Plodding Behind Into Eternity.

Did anyone notice I'm into lists today? I list for lists, I guess.

Decompression

Two good things happened today:

1. I took my last final today: Brit Lit I. This means that once I wind myself down a bit, I'm back to only doing business-related work for awhile. At any rate, the final had two parts, six quote identification questions (of which you had to write an essay on three) and a comprehensive “matching” section that looked like something I did back in third grade. The essay/identification part turned out to be easy, but the matching was a bear — it doesn't matter what it looks like, it matters what you have to match. There were 23 or 24 items to match to 20 other items (the extra 3 or 4 weren't used), of those, I'm almost certain I got 10 right, I felt “alright” about 15. This part is supposedly something everyone does, and I quote, “terrible” on, is graded on a curve, and is only worth 5% of the total grade for the course, so I'm hoping it won't be too much of a problem.

   If I get a 90 on the essay section (which I think is realistic based on the previous two tests), I should only need a low-middle B on the paper (25% of the grade) to get an A on the course. If I get the same grade on the essays as the last two times, I'll only need a middle-C on the paper to do the same. This paper wasn't my favorite topic of the bunch I wrote, but it had the best result based on the given material, I thought, so I have cautious but high hopes for it.

2. Remember the issue I couldn't talk about that had me down back in October? Well, I think the situation has been remedied completely and even improved beyond where it was before the October issue. I'm thrilled about that. Now I just wait to see how all the pieces fit together. I still cannot talk about the specifics, but hopefully I will be able to eventually.

How was your day?

Hint Added; New Question

For those of you who were wondering about question #2, I have a hint for you. I posted it in the comments.

And now a new question: What was the theological system that Thomas Jefferson adhered to and what is its most closely related organization today? [10 pts.]

No Googling again. And Flip, I promise to think of some less Ameri-centric ones.

Intelligent Design Prevails Again

Well, he may not be Christian (yet), but a famous atheist has succumbed to the evidence that there is a God, perhaps in a fashion not all that alien from C.S. Lewis's slow conversion. Anthony Flew, whose most famous statements had to do with the fact that asserting the existence and/or love of God was meaningless since “nothing could disprove it” to the believer, now believes in a deist-like God. That science can convince an avowed atheist (for 66 years, since he was 15, no less!) of the existence of God should worry people in the “Bright” movement.

It just shows that we as Christians should not fear things like science. On the contrary, we ought to spend our time appreciating how all ways of looking at God's creation can give pointers to the Creator. “Seek truth knowing that there can be no conflict between God and truth.”

asisaid challenge: Question Set #1

See the last post to understand the “asisaid challenge.” Here's two questions; the first is worth 5 points, the second is worth 10.

1.) What type of armor was Sec. Rumsfeld questioned about today. Specifically, it was asked by Spc. Thomas Wilson. [5 pt.]

2.) Where does this quote originate from (hint: it is fiction) — author and work?

On page 22 of Liddell Hart's History of World War I you will read that an attack against the Serre-Montauban line by thirteen British divisions (supported by 1,400 artillery pieces), planned for the 24th of July, 1916, had to be postponed until the morning of the 29th. The torrential rains, Captain Liddell Hart comments, caused this delay, an insignificant one, to be sure.

Remember, no Googling!

Contest!

I was thinking about asisaid points, and I decided it is high time that I made them useful. Therefore, the first person to earn 350 asisaid points will get:

• A 1 year purchase of the domain name of their choice (under the .com/.net/.org/.us/.biz/.info or a few other top level domains). Yourname.com is nice to have if you don't have it already. ($5.95 value)
• 3 months of ServerForest.com web hosting's Maple plan — a $60 value. Here's what you get:
  • 500 MB disk space
  • 24000 MB transfer per month
  • 80 e-mail addresses
  • 30 extra (sub)domains
  • 6 MySQL databases
  • 15 FTP accounts
  • Urchin Professional Statistics
  • Protected by my new Spam Blacklists configuration
  After three months you can keep the account, downgrade to a smaller account or cancel it. This is your choice. Your dealing with me, not AOL, so have no fear about getting stuck.
  

Now if you're saying, “I already have a hosting account,” that's OK, you can take the domain and skip the hosting (or vise versa). If neither item is of any interest, well, maybe I'll think of something else too.

Here's how it will work: I'll post questions that offer asisaid points a bit more frequently than I have in the past. If you are the first person to answer the question correctly, you'll earn your way toward the prize. This is on the honor system — I trust that my readers will not use Google or any other similar service to get the answer. I reserve the right to disqualify a participant who I have deemed to be failing to honor this request.

The small print.
Void where prohibited. No cash value, no purchase necessary. To enter, you must be a regular visitor to asisaid, as judged by Tim — this means regular commenting and not simply coming over to this site to try to get points. You know if you're regular or not. Most anyone who has commented on this site prior to this announcement is a regular. Offer expires June 1, 2005, when someone has earned the set 350 points or when Tim deems it necessary to stop. If either of the services offered become unavailable a substitution may be made or the offer may be revoked. Personal contact information will be required by the domain registrar for the WHOIS record, therefore participants in the contest must be 18 years of age or older.

Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell

Here's another one to enjoy. I think it makes an interesting point… science overlooks one of the most important aspects of any given thing: its meaning. In doing so, so much is lost. We are creatures of meaning. Explaining how something works is only part of the equation, yet modern thinking often forgets this.

Science, that simple saint, cannot be bothered Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things are
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.

She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot care
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.

Why should she? Her religion is to tell
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or hell

Staring at darkness. In her holy cell
There is no darkness ever: the pure candle
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.

Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!—knows the world she sees
Is all the world there is! Her faith is perfect!

And still he offers the sea shell …

What surf
Of what far sea upon what unknown ground
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?

—Archibald MacLeish

MacLeish: The Lost Poet

It seems deeply troubling — to say the least — that a poet like Archibald MacLeish is fading into the shadows of history. While 50 years ago he was nearing equality with Robert Frost, almost no one talks about MacLeish today. The “Ars Poetica” (see the present asisaid quote above) poet was so much more and yet few of his interesting works are readily available. Tonight, for example, I went on Google hoping to find two poems from Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City, a witty critique of the excesses of capitalism and the failings of socialism put together… how often can you find both of those together? Searching on the web, you won't even find MacLeish's combination: at least as far as I can tell, it is not any place that Google has indexed.

I need to stop by Amazon and order the complete (or at least, near complete) collection of MacLeish's poems — it is only twelve bucks. But it is a shame that ordering such a collection is the only way people today can see some of these marvelous poems, political and otherwise.

In honor this is excellent “lost” poet, I encourage you to enjoy these two poems, his most famous:

• Ars Poetica
• You, Andrew Marvell (it helps on this one if you've read Marvell's To His Coy Mistress recently). Note the emphasis on time's “winged chariot” in Marvell's poem, then note exactly what the traveller in MacLeish's poem is doing. Masterful!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy. I'll see if I can locate some of my more obscure favorites online and post link(s) to them.