Sam's place

Here's another anti-spam solution that completely misses the point. Things like this will do more harm to the internet in general than they will to spammers. 'Attack' tools are also easily mis-targetted.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Screensaver tackles spam websites

Well, I did finally get my sunroof replaced earlier this week. I just wanted to give the nice folks who did the repair a little plug.

The service was excellent, and the repair was completed two hours early.

Auto Glass Repair and Replacement from Speedy Glass

I'm not sure exactly how much it cost since ICBC was paying everything but the $300 deductible, but if you want quality work done, and want it handled professionally, I'd recommend these guys.

Let the MARID implementation wars begin!

Yahoo deploys DomainKeys, hopes for the best

I forgot to mention, I'm still awake. 30hrs awake isn't really that long for me, but it has been a while since I've really pushed at staying awake.

I find it harder to do now that I drive regularly. Something about a comfortable seat and the drone of the road, as well as the high speeds and safety of others makes me want to get at least 4 hours of sleep before throwing myself into a hurtling death missle. 30 hours awake only feels bad when I drive, and since I plan to continue to drive, I plan to sleep.

It'd be interesting to try to find a long weekend and some suitably geeky or bored friends to try to push past my personal best. And no, I'm not telling unless you do.

Y'Know, this isn't a surprise to anyone who has been following this technology. The idea isn't to eliminate spam via authentication. The idea is to ensure that only email that is legitimately associated with a source makes it's way onto networks that wish to enforce this distinction.

From there, spammer 'sources' (which are now legitimately associated with their spam) can be blocked or ignored with minimal fuss. Basically, SPF and all of it's ilk are designed solely to allow the re-introduction of domain blocking. Really this is the only type of blocking some of the *ahem* weaker email clients out there can perform.

Anyways, the article is here. Nothing new if you're following the issue. The article does introduce some non-spam related security issues which should serve put a good fright into anyone reading. That seems a bit sensationalistic to me. Ah well.

E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say - BizReport

I've been up since midnight. Oh the joys of working graveyards -- your days off are lonely evenings surfing for po.... doing nothing.

I took my car in to ICBC this morning for an insurance estimate on my sunroof and CD Changer. It looks like I'm only on the hook for my $300 deductible, and they are covering the changer even though I don't have any receipts for it (surprising!). I'm pretty happy with that, though of course, not having to spend another $300 on my car this month would be better. Ah well!

Other than that, another of the jobs I applied for last month wants to hire me. So I might be working up on a ski-hill this winter. Excellent!

I still have to take my car to a glass place for measurement and such, then I need to knock out for 3 hours of sleep before I head into work early to get my hair cut. Then it's another shift at work moving boxes. Woo.

Welcome to Spam University

Wow, it's been a while! Sorry. My roommate is obviously upset that I havn't been posting.

Lots of new things in my life. Nothing earth shattering, but it has been a fairly interesting month. I have a new job, my old work wants to re-hire me, I replaced the clutch in my car, had my car broken into, went to some fun parties, and am considering immigrating to Australia. I may also have been given a few acre's of undeveloped property in the Kootenays.

My new job is "swamping" at a warehouse at night. Basically, when stuff comes off a truck, it is on pallets. My job is to read the paperwork for those pallets and make sure the product isn't stacked too high to be stored in the warehouse. If it is, I move the product onto new pallets. I also get to separate products that have been combined onto a single pallet so they can be put away seperately. It's not very challenging, mentally, but is surprisingly fun and I am getting in shape faster than I would have guessed.

As for my car, I'd been having clutch problems but hadn't put together enough money to deal with them. So the clutch did finally give out on the side of the highway. That wasn't too surprising, though it was inconvenient. I signed up with BCAA and got my car towed to a pullout at the nearest exit so I could spend a few days deciding what to do with it. This is where someone apparently broke my sunroof and stole my CD changer. The clutch replacement cost $1400, which didn't make me happy, and I still have to deal with getting a new sunroof.

For parties, I went to a great halloween party last Saturday. My roommate and her best friend went as a pregnant trailer-trash couple. I went as a carpenter (with a tool-belt full of candy). There were many pretty ladies there, though the one I was interested in hasn't returned my phone-call. Oh well!

As for Australia, I have been planning on going there to live with (or at least near) my Dad for a while. I'm not sure of the exact timeline for this, but I will be applying to the University of Ballarat (where my Dad does research and lectures) as a foreign student. If that doesn't work out, I will figure something else out.

Anyways, not much else to report right now. I am planning on changing the format of this blog a little bit. I had previously been limiting my posts to technical-ish and anti-spam stuff. But I'd like to share more stuff about myself. So, watch out!

Sam