I Found It... Finally.

Last year, I had ordered the older Michael W. Smith Christmas cd to compliment the newer Christmastime I already had purchased. I played it only once because I procrastinated and did not get it ordered until after Christmas. Today I went to pull it out, and the jewel case was… empty. That's not good. After digging through numerous other Christmas CD's, I finally located it, but I was worried for a bit. I don't even have it ripped onto my computer yet, I can't lose it yet!

That was about the biggest excitement of the day, otherwise I've been taking a day off to recuperate from the last few weeks. I slept in, read the Post-Dispatch, a bit of Voltaire's Candide and checked on the articles over at OfB. If only life was always this peaceful!

asisaid challenge: Question Set #3

1.) Here is a tough one, but one that fits into the puzzle of this blog… somehow. Who wrote it? [15 pts]

Suppose then that we are in doubt as to what someone who gives vent to an utterance is asserting, or suppose that, more radically, we are sceptical as to whether he is really asserting anything at all, one way of trying to understand (or perhaps to expose) his utterance is to attempt to find what he would regard as counting against, or as being incompatible with, its truth. For if the utterance is indeed an assertion, it will necessarily be equivalent to a denial of the negation of the assertion. And anything which would count against the assertion, or which would induce the speaker to withdraw it and to admit that it had been mistaken, must be part of (or the whole of) the meaning of the negation of that assertion. And to know the meaning of the negation of an assertion, is as near as makes no matter, to know the meaning of that assertion. And if there is nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts either: and so it is not really an assertion. When the Sceptic in the parable asked the Believer, “Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?” he was suggesting that the Believer's earlier statement had been so eroded by qualification that it was no longer an assertion at all.

DISCLAIMER: I do not agree with the above statement, at least in its original context and the point it tries to make.

2.) How was the term UNIX originally spelled and what did it serve as an acronym for? [5 pts.]

3.) Where did this quote come from (Hint: it is only a few years old)? The final quote had more than one person involved in “preparing it” for public consumption — if you can name more than one, you'll get 5 extra points, if you can name all three of the best answers, I'll give you 10 extra points. [20 pts.]

Speaking to the atmosphere No one's here and I fall into myself
[…]
Servatis a pereculum.
Servatis a maleficum

Remember, no web search engines (other than for searching only this site, using site:asisaid.com in the query), but you can use other web resources, if you wish to really seek out this answer (as Jason is trying to do with Question #1.2).

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).

---

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.