Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Baxil" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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06:06 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/32112278/240226) [Link] |
WARNING: Google has broken Javascript spam munging
Cruising through my mailbox just now, I happened to glance at a piece of spam before deleting it, and did a double-take:
![[Headers for spam to the address kawaii@tomorrowlands.org]](http://www.tomorrowlands.org/images/kawaii_spam.png)
The reason I was startled is that the kawaii address (for feedback from my "Chibi Jesus" page) is one that I exempted from spam filtering about a year back. I chose an unused address at my domain, did not use it for any purpose or attach it to any outbound mail, and published it nowhere except for a single web page, where it was protected from spam filtering by the Javascript munging recommended by Project Honey Pot.
Here, as of a month ago when it wasn't being spammed, was the only reference (WARNING: HIDEOUS MIDI MUSIC) to that address on the Web:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
// thx to http://www.blazonry.com/javascript/js_hiding.php
var rhs = "tomorrowlands";
var tld = "org";
var lhs = "kawaii";
function print_mail_to_link()
{
document.write("<a href=\"mailto");
document.write(":" + lhs + "@" + rhs + "." + tld + "\">");
document.write(lhs + "@" + rhs + "." + tld + "<\/a>");
}
<b><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">print_mail_to_link()</script></b>
<noscript>
<i>(An e-mail link here has been hidden in Javascript. If you have Javascript turned off, please use the contact form linked at the bottom of the page.)</i>
</noscript>
Should be pretty freakin' bulletproof, right? After all, as Project Honey Pot noted with no apparent sense of irony, "It should be noted that both of these techniques are likely to remain sound for some time to come. Harvesters that interpret the Javascript on every page they encounter would face a substantial risk of getting stuck in infinite loops or crashing due to malformed Javascript. ... This is likely beyond the current computing power of a legitimate company like Google."
The problem is that, if a legitimate company like Google does apply the computing power to it, the spammers don't have to expend the effort: they merely have to crawl the Google results.
And, alarmingly, this seems to be what has started to happen.
At first I thought that the address had been either guessed or else reposted somewhere, and I ran a Google search for kawaii@tomorrowlands.org in order to explore this. The only result to pop up was my own page, and the text summary of the page read:
The source code of the Google results page shows the address bare: "<em>kawaii@tomorrowlands.org</em>"
The source code of the Google-cached page is identical to mine (i.e. no raw address; the Javascript is preserved); the cache was taken May 12, 2009. It appears that the caching itself doesn't break the munging. There must be something about the excerpting process that does the trick.
At first I couldn't believe my eyes. Was this coincidence? I went through my recently deleted e-mail and rechecked all of the spam headers.
I have a similar whitelisted-and-munged address I use only for WikkaWiki announcements, that has only been posted on my own wiki, protected similarly. It has also started receiving spam, and investigation turned up the same results. At this point the evidence is pretty damning.
The first spam I still have for kawaii was on June 8; it's likely that Google's behavior change dates from before then, and the spammers are only now beginning to take advantage of this new potential. The spam started slowly and is now up to several messages per day -- word is probably spreading amongst the bad guys.
So.
Webmasters: Time to re-spamproof your site. A damn useful tool has just dropped out of the toolbox.
PLEASE NOTE: I have disabled the e-mail address referred to by this post. To contact me regarding this post, please write to [the first three letters of this journal name] [the dash symbol, '-'] [mail] [at-sign] tomorrowlands [dot.] org, or leave a comment below.
UPDATE: Two pieces of additional information I'd like to pull out from comments:
1. Even though the sample search I provided was for the compromised e-mail address, the spammer does NOT need to previously know your e-mail address in order to Google it. They just have to search for things shaped like e-mail addresses and skim the cream of the results. [*]
2. There is anecdotal evidence that pages which pull their decode function from a separate .js file have not been broken. (Yet.)
UPDATE 2: Welcome to /. readers! More discussion in the Slashdot thread.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Music: Jim's Big Ego, "WTFMFWTFAYT?"
Tags: geekery, my brain now hurts, privacy, technology
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10:23 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/51121343/240226) [Link] |
Gaming stories from hell
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) paka passes on a meme for the weekend: "What's the worst [role-playing] game you've been in?"
I've only been in a tiny handful of actively bad games. If the group is good, problems can be worked around and resolved before the next session -- and I've been lucky to fall in with some damn good groups.
But when I was working at the newspaper with a huge number of non-geeks, I lived in the middle of nowhere and my roommates had no interest in tabletop gaming ... out of desperation, I accepted an invitation to an irregular game that one of my coworkers played in. I showed up at the spotless and largely empty house (I know, I should have run screaming right then and there), sat down, rolled up an AD&D character (IIRC, 3rd Edition), and started to get a sinking feeling when I realized that our gamemaster was using a monster manual as the entirety of his adventure notes.
For no explicable reason (not even "you all meet in a tavern"), everyone gathered at the dungeon, which was an abandoned mine, and we gave marching order and wandered in. A sample interaction, recorded as faithfully as memory will allow:
"Alright," the GM asks, "the corridor you're walking down splits into two. Do you go left or right?"
"Uhh ... I dunno, are there more footprints going down one of the passages?"
"No, not really."
"Are the walls different? Is there any light down either of them? Is there anything at the intersection?"
"Nope."
(The players all look at each other; finally someone speaks up)
"Um, we'll go right."
"Okay," the GM says. "You continue down the passageway. It starts sloping slightly downward. As you continue walking, water rises around your feet. You look down the tunnel and realize it goes totally into the water." (Naturally, none of the characters has any sort of water-breathing gear.)
"... Um, okay, we back up and go left."
"Alright. You walk for a while, and then the passageway splits into two again. Do you go left or right?"
Finally, after four or five Y-junctions, we reach the first sign that these tunnels have a purpose: a slightly wider room with a couple of exits, and (gasp) a coatrack with some of the miners' coats!!!11!
My face lights up. Finally, after enduring the tedium of a "Detective"-quality pathfinding game, something in the environment to interact with! Maybe we can find out where all the miners have gone or why we're here. It makes no sense to put your coatrack several miles into the mountain, but never mind that: finally we can start gaming. "Alright," I say, grabbing my d20 and double-checking my thief's skill load one more time, "I'm going to examine the coats, first checking the pockets. My search roll is --"
"What's your AC?"
"... Huh?"
"Does a 17 hit you?"
"Uh," I say, thrown, "yes?"
"Alright, the cloaker hits, take 11 damage. Everyone roll initiative."
I try to say "..." but what comes out is one of those vanish-marks that looks like an asterisk with the guts removed.
The party mops up the monster with minor hit point loss.
"Good job," the GM says, and consults the rewards table in the Dungeon Master's Guide. "Everyone gets 300 experience points. Which exit do you take from the room?"
At that point, I think my brain cast Cause Serious Wounds on itself in order to inhibit memory formation. The only other thing I remember is walking from one of the mine tunnels into a gigantic and inexplicable natural cavern, where we fought off a shrieker (the living stalactite monster) and a bunch of stirges (bloodsucking flying things). At some point there was a token trap, which of course got immediately set off by someone other than, y'know, me, the thief, because I wasn't first in the marching order.
The coworker who invited me to game noticed the trauma on my face the next day and wisely never spoke of the experience again.
It took several years for my dice to forgive me.
Current Location: ~/couch
Current Mood:  good
Current Music: Everclear, "Here We Go Again"
Tags: my brain now hurts, roleplaying
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12:36 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/3864626/240226) [Link] |
YAMAP: conflicted
Need one last moment of pure soaring hope? Newspaper front pages. Elsewhere on LJ: Keep hope, but brace for impact.
CA voters: Basically final results for all 12 measures. As you've already read from thirty-seven other people, Prop 8 won (though the equally noxious 4 failed). Elsewhere on LJ: Words of comfort for LGBTs.
Local moment of heartbreak: Brown (D) currently losing CA-04 to McClintock (R) by 451 votes, 50.07%-49.93%. We'll know more when recounts and provisionals are tallied ...
As a reward for making it through Yet Another Morning-After Post, here, have the song running through my head (and describing my mood) all morning.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  bipolar
Current Music: Steely Dan, "Do It Again"
Tags: my brain now hurts, politics
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07:02 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/8403565/240226) [Link] |
Okay, I'll bite.
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9924/donotpostbf3.jpg: A sign reading
DO NOT POST PICTURES OF THIS SIGN ON THE INTERNET
986F 64B9 3005 E03E FC42 A41E BD57 3179
Google doesn't seem to turn up anything relevant, but here's a Reddit thread speculating on its meaning (and whether it's Photoshopped; weak consensus there is yes).
Among the more interesting tidbits pointed out there:
- The hexadecimal code is 128 bits, which (among other things) is the right size for an MD5 hash.
- The user who posted the link to Reddit, "agent_langley" (Langley, VA being the home of the CIA), has posted only that single link so far (and two possibly unrelated comments to other threads).
- Converting it to eight Unicode characters gets three
Japanese glyphs Han unified ideographs [See comments -B] followed by several other random characters from non-Asian languages.
- Converting to ASCII gets basically gibberish.
- It's not the AACS HD-DVD decryption key, which began with 09F9.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's some viral campaign that hasn't quite hit the denouement stage yet, but it's still an interesting brainteaser.
Edited to add: Well, that was quick. Apparently solved (less than an hour later!) in comments.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  curious
Current Music: "Knight of Fire," Xenogears OST
Tags: my brain now hurts, riddles
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12:39 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62128449/240226) [Link] |
i can has lj bug?
Am I the only one who is seeing this picture:
http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/3864626/240226
... as an icon of the Mystery Machine?
If I view the icon directly (such as by clicking on the link above), it comes up properly as the shadow-me-looking-over-the-ocean icon it's supposed to be, but every time it loads onto a page, it looks like this:
It's not a caching problem, because I've reloaded affected pages (and the affected icon) numerous times.
Edited to add: Via LJ support, where I submitted a ticket:
LiveJournal developers are aware that some users have been reporting problems with incorrect userpics displaying. If you are having any problems with the userpics displaying incorrectly, please clear your browser's cache. If this does not resolve the problem, please open a support request containing links to all the affected userpics. Please be assured that your userpics have not physically been replaced, nor does it mean that anyone has accessed your account.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  weirded out
Current Music: Xenogears OST, "June Mermaid"
Tags: my brain now hurts
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03:27 pm
[Link] |
This is too important not to repeat
Remember that $700 billion bailout bill with absolutely no oversight that the President just assured us it was critical to pass ASAP?
Have you wondered where they came up with the $700 billion figure?
The more Congress examines the Bush administration's bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown.
"The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable," says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee's top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he's concerned about its cost and whether it will even work.
In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.
"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." [1]
Let me repeat that in case your optic nerves fail to process bold print:
"We just wanted to choose a really large number."
If anything even close to the original bailout plan passes, it is time for either departure or riot.
--
Edited to add: Tim of Balloon Juice hits it out of the park: "Across the country, satire writers sadly capped their pens and bookmarked monster.com." Read the whole thing; it's a devastating roundup of the various "conservative" imperial contenders trying to out-stupid each other in public today.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  shrill
Current Music: Bad Religion, "Let Them Eat War"
Tags: infohazard, my brain now hurts, politics
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06:24 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/9758787/240226) [Link] |
Daily Random Thoughts
(via LoudTwitter)
Tags: 140 characters, my brain now hurts
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05:08 pm
[Link] |
chutzpah, n.
Received on the job yesterday (highlighting mine):
( Cut for image width (600px) )
I can think of three circumstances that might explain this:
- FCC and/or market regulations actually require this level of honesty. Cool!
- The sender has spent $33,000 to openly mock the people he wants to lure into his scam. And it'll work anyway, resulting in a net transfer of wealth from stupid to smart. Cool!*
- The sender still has a conscience and can be saved. Cool!
So, no matter how you look at it, this junk fax is filled with win.
--
* I'm a populist at heart. But let's be realistic: We'll never eliminate inequality in the world. And if there's got to be inequality, why not embed it in an actual meritocracy for once?
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  sick
Current Music: "Secret of Mana Dragon Song OC Remix", Harmony
Tags: my brain now hurts, work
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04:12 pm
[Link] |
Quick notes from an overworked dragon
Your daily dose of WTF:
Go to Google. Type in the phrase: I am on the Internet. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky."
(SFW as of this writing.)
--
Your dragon sighting of the day (via waywind): "Fire Baby Dragon."
--
I hope my readers who live in Super Tuesday states are taking a few minutes out of their day today to vote. There are some inspiring candidates out there.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Music: *typity typity typity*
Tags: draconity, my brain now hurts, search results
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02:37 am
[Link] |
Great moments in legalese (part 2,037 of a continuing series)
The Terms of Use at ElfYourself.com include the following mind-boggling phrase, retyped* verbatim (emphasis mine):
"GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting a photograph or any other materials or information to the Web site ... you hereby grant to Company ... the unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual and royalty-free right and license to use, host, cache, copy, distribute, display, perform, publish, broadcast, transmit, modify, reformat, translate, or otherwise exploit in any manner whatsoever your Submission throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in any manner or venue whatsoever, ... by means of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter devised."
I know that nobody ever reads the legalese, and companies sneak all sorts of ridiculous clauses in there, but that's got to be a new one. (Never mind the chilling declaration of their right to to exploit you. No, I mean: universe.)
Is OfficeMax developing some sort of offworld broadcast technology we don't know about?
--
EDITED TO ADD: The wording above is NOT available on their Terms of Use page. To see the Terms I quoted from, wait for the site to load, click on "Start the Elfamorphosis," and click on "Upload Photo". Here's a screenshot containing the 'throughout the universe' phrase.
--
* Hooray for not being able to select text out of Flash movies! You guys better appreciate what I went through to retype that. I had to endure about FIVE SOLID MINUTES of using a crappy grab bar to scroll through a tiny box -- gnawing shapeless and ravenous amidst the muffled, maddening beat and the thin, monotonous whine of those accursed jingle bells.**
** Shit. I think I just lost six Sanity points. If I go missing tonight, look for me at Arkham Sanitarium.
Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Mood:  impressed
Current Music: jingle jingle *jingle* *jingle* *JINGLE* *JINGLE* ...
Tags: my brain now hurts
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07:05 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/62507899/240226) [Link] |
NUTPOD
I've got an acronym to add to the tech support lexicon. I know we already have such gleaming gems as PICNIC*, but I think this one (which came to me in a moment of high school cynicism) is a worthy contender:
Never Underestimate The Power Of Dumb.
I've had a few calls this month that have put that piece of wisdom into sharp relief. But the grand prize winner would definitely have to be Kapital 9 Lady.
K-9 Lady (who I should refer to by that term's proper definition, i.e., "bitch") blew through our office in 48 hours, coming and going like a winter storm and leaving just as much ice in her wake. By the time she called to cancel (and we practically threw her money back at her before she could change her mind), she had managed to personally alienate everyone in the office.
Including me. This is a feat.
As much as I've complained here about customers, I don't take it personally. Even if someone is a giant black hole of obliviousness, they don't mean to make my day worse, and I don't wish them any ill. (I just come here to blow off steam in ways that won't harm anyone, and maybe will give my friends a laugh or a good story for later.) But K9? With her, everything was our fault, and she let us know about this not only with passive-aggressive complaints, but also at great length -- generally longer than it would have taken to fix the problem in the first place.
Then, of course, NUTPOD.
At this point I'm just going to start copying from the support ticket, because if I get into the specific complaints beforehand I'll have to start repeating myself.
ATTACHMENT: voicemail that is several seconds of silence and a hang-up click
12/04 Rob:
K9 did not leave a message, but we knew what the problem was anyway [because we have l33t tech-ninja kung fu, and server logs. -b]. After Tad spent an hour on the phone with her, during which she spent some obscene number of minutes complaining about having to type in her password, she managed to type it in with the caps lock on!
Ugh.
Rather than go back through the ordeal of helping the user find the 'any' key, just changed their password in our system to match.
12/4 TR - Other painful moments from 51 minutes and 29 seconds [yes, I measured. -b] of epic fail:
- "Is that a capital 9, or a lowercase 9?"
- (... and then, when we were typing in her password a second time, she asks it *AGAIN*. Yes, AGAIN. The first time is a momentary lapse of reason that can happen to anyone. The second time is no longer funny.)
- [Needless to say, this is where the K-9 designation came from. -b]
- About three minutes worth of complaints about the untypableness of her password [which we create at random for security reasons. -b], followed by less than two minutes of actually typing it
- Click "continue" in Mac Mail's Add Account wizard and roll 2d4:
- 2: Complain about untypableness of password
- 3-4: Say that nothing has changed, even though it's gone to a new screen
- 5: Say that nothing has changed, because it hasn't gone to a new screen yet
- 6: Randomly jump to some piece of information the window requests her to type in, and state that the computer is now telling her that information
- 7-8: Randomly jump to some piece of information the window requests her to type in and ask whether she should put something transparently wrong there
- 9**: Read the title of the window out loud so that the t/s guy knows what the hell we're looking at now
- After clicking "Create" in the add account wizard to FINALLY save her new e-mail settings:
"Okay, now it's asking me for my phone number, user name and password, and there's the word connect in a circle."
I finally determine that at some point it's leapt back to the Network preferences pane where it was asking her earlier to dial in.
T: "Okay, close the window."
"I don't see close."
T: "Huh?"
"I see Apply, Revert, Connect ..."
T: "Well, just click on the red dot in the upper left."
"There's no red dot."
T: "Whuh --"
"Oh, no wait, there it is."
T: "Okay, click on it."
"Nothing happened."
T: "What do you mean nothing happened? You clicked on the red dot in the upper left?"
"Yeah, the one right next to External Modem."
T: *headdesk* "Okay, that's not the right one. Look up in the upper left."
"That IS the one in the upper left!"
T: "Further up." (fruitless efforts to describe window title bar)
"Look, I'm up in the upper left one, all the other red dots are below it."
[I finally give up and break one of the unwritten tech support rules: no meta-descriptions. -b]
T: "Look up about an inch. What do you see there?"
"Show All and two arrows."
T: "And directly above that, are there a few circles?"
"Yes."
T: "The one on the left should be red."
"Yes."
T: "Click on that one."
This is scary but true: The actual conversation was worse, that's just all I can remember from it.
Meanwhile, we have a customer in the office patiently waiting for my help, I'm trying to set aside some phone time to get ahold of Sonic for a DSL setup issue, and I'm not even scheduled to be in here on the first place. It takes a lot to get on my On Notice board. She's done it.
12/5 11a TR - She called back in this morning. K9 is now refusing to talk to me. (*quiet happy dance*) But that means she demanded to escalate the call and I had to hand it off to jp. I'm sorry, jp.
He said afterward (~20 minutes) that it wasn't -too- bad, but I was listening in. I know different. The phrase "I'm trying to help you out, but you need to have some patience" was used, as well as him flat-out telling her (a Mac user) that computers are complex things. Plus the requisite inability to find the menu bar in the upper left.
My call went something like this:
"The Internet isn't working. I know you guys say it is, but I know it's not. I talked with someone yesterday, and -- was that you? Is there someone else I can talk to? Transfer me to your boss."
JP chatted with her a little while, assured her I'm technically competent and that the Internet connection was in fact working, and played Good Cop. The actual problem was something inside Mac Mail. Which came up, incidentally, with a red '2' in a circle: our test messages have reached her. Apparently there was no actual connection problem; it was just asking for her password for her old e-mail account. Yes, even though this computer is only a few weeks old, she has ALREADY burned through one ISP before us. And she was about to leave us, too, except jp pointed out that if she switched again she'd just have to go through all of this setup -- again -- from scratch.
After some basic explanations about how computers work she seems to be squared away. I bloody well hope so, at this point.
12/5 12a TR - I should have known it was too good to last. She calls in AGAIN. With the EXACT SAME issue she was just talking to jp about. JP is on the other line, and thus unavailable. But suddenly, miraculously, now that she has no recourse but to complain louder, K9 will gladly complain at me instead.
She used to have Infostations ("Oops! I wasn't going to mention their name") for Internet service. She alternated between complaints that:
1) She can't get e-mail to her new address except for the stuff we've sent her.
--- Could this be because she hasn't told anyone the new address yet? But she wants US to test it out by having US send e-mail to her new address from some return address that's not at our ISP.
--- She tried sending herself a test message and never got it. OK, fair. This is a legitimate complaint and I'd be happy to troubleshoot it if she'd shut up long enough to let me check her outgoing mail settings.
2) It's not connecting to Infostations to get her old e-mail.
--- this is because, oh, she CANCELLED WITH THEM BEFORE COMING HERE. I am not the first person to explain why this makes her old e-mail not work. I will not be the last.
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT
There IS a legit tech support issue here, which I finally, painfully pried out of her: she gets an error message connecting to our mail server's port 465. This probably means that SSL is turned on for her SMTP connection. And maybe also that the password got mistyped. But she absolutely refused to sit down and fix her settings -- she's 45 minutes overdue for something important, etc. Well, I asked, it sounds like this isn't a good time for you to talk. Would you prefer that we took care of this when you're not under such deadline pressure? Then, because she's so late for something so important, she spent the next minute and a half complaining to me about her broken e-mail.
Lessons learned:
1) She doesn't actually want tech support, she wants to complain.
2) She is of the impression that if she whines loudly and long enough, no matter what the problem is nor how many times it's been patiently explained that the settings on her computer need to be changed, no matter how crazy her Heisenclicking gets, that we have some magical ability to hack not only the Internet but also all of her applications, and make everything Do What She Means.
3) I bet she lives in Lake Wildwood. [This is the rich-snob gated community down the hill. Surprisingly, my guess was incorrect. -b]
12/6 jp - K9 called at 11:30am on Thu Dec 6 and said "I don't want your service any longer. Cancel it." We have refunded the full amount on her credit card, and the account has been closed. She has been nothing but trouble. Lots of blaming.
Anyway, K9 is gone now, off to the greener pastures of other ISPs that haven't banned her for life yet. Perhaps she's also found happiness in switching in her shiny new Macintosh for a computer that is more user-friendly.
If not, I recommend GlaDOS.
--
* Problem In Chair, Not In Computer.
** Yes, this is an impossible result.
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Music: Al Green, "Here I Am (Come And Take Me)"
Tags: my brain now hurts, tech support horror stories, work
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07:02 pm
[Link] |
This applies on many different levels
Tasks I Never Thought I'd Find Myself Attempting, Let Alone Successfully Completing:
Catching cat vomit in my bare hand to keep from having to clean an expensive floor rug.
Part 1 in a continuing series.
Current Location: ~/brainstorm
Tags: my brain now hurts, pets
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10:01 pm
[Link] |
Tis the season
Heard "Feliz Navidad" on the in-store radio while eating lunch at Rubio's with kadyg today.
OFFICIAL START OF 2007 CHRISTMAS SEASON: November 18
OFFICIAL LENGTH OF 2007 CHRISTMAS SEASON: 38 days
You may now begin your anguished wailing, holiday preparations and/or metadebate over the perennial "War on Christmas."
--
I'd also like to interject a prediction about Christmas season length.
Most people would say that the maximum possible Christmas season length is 366 days (it begins Dec. 26 and extends through a leap year). I don't think this is the case.
The nitpickers' argument -- that depending on one's definition of "Christmas season," it might hypothetically be possible to start a Christmas season before the previous Christmas concludes -- is worth mentioning. But I'm not trying to talk about hypothetical maximums. I'm trying to talk about practical maximums.
In practical terms, the season is still nowhere near its possible length -- Christmas has already overrun Thanksgiving, and occasional sightings have been made indicating potential to similarly overrun Halloween. Obviously other holidays aren't a barrier. But there is one thing that can arrest a holiday buying spree:
Another holiday buying spree.
Thanksgiving and Halloween have little to no overlap with Christmas buying, which is why they have both been so ineffective at holding back Christmas season creep. They're both food-based holidays and Christmas is a merchandise-based holiday. The final pre-Christmas merchandise-based holiday isn't actually a holiday at all. It's the back-to-school rush, when not only all manner of supplies, but also clothes and accessories and technology, have to be procured.
So. I predict that the Christmas season's maximum upper bound is approximately 110 days. Beyond that, retailers are just robbing their own pockets -- money spent on children's gifts can't be spent on school necessities.
(Also, back-to-school traditionally heralds the start of autumn. Christmas has acquired the theme of a cold-weather holiday. You can somewhat get away with extending a winter holiday into fall, but never into summer. The cognitive dissonance would be too great.)
Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Mood:  cranky
Current Music: "Guardian Legend Hyperion remix," The Wingless
Tags: my brain now hurts
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12:53 am
[Link] |
Please stand by
We are experiencing ( technical difficulties ). Dealing with today's DSL switchover here at the International House of Ninja is turning out to be a much bigger hassle than expected. Your Baxil will return shortly.
At least I've now got some detailed notes on ...
Steps for switching a Speedstream 5100 to our company's Internet service
- Log in to http://192.168.0.1. Click to edit configuration.
- Enter the "Modem Access Code" printed on the bottom of the device.
- ... Which is set in the firmware and shouldn't be changeable.
- Enter the "Modem Access Code" again because it's not accepting it.
- Assume firmware corruption. Find "Factory Reset" link.
- Reset the modem.
- Repeatedly.
- ... With a large hammer.
- Finish cursing. Locate hardware reset switch on underside of device.
( The fun continues )
Current Location: ~/Brainstorm
Current Mood:  exhausted
Current Music: "Green," Afro Celt Sound System
Tags: geekery, misc life updates, my brain now hurts, tech support horror stories, technology, work
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05:33 pm
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Hate for Yahoo growing
From the tech support files
[BACKGROUND: Our small ISP recently changed its name, and as a consequence a redirect got installed on the home page many of our users are used to to send them to the new site. This call occured on my first workday after the redirect goes live.]
CUSTOMER: I can't get to nccn.net to do my webmail any more!
baxil: What happens when you try?
C: Other stuff comes up.
B: Like what?
C: Things like www.nccn.net/wellwithin, www.nccn.net/vaccines ...
B: (panics, double-checks that www.nccn.net isn't resolving to a site index listing, calms down slightly) Does what you're seeing look like a web page, or does it look like a list of things?
C: A list of things.
B: (tries to fish more information out, finally settles on:) And what did you do to get there?
C: I put in www.nccn.net, and #1 comes up "vaccination information," then "wellwithin earth mysteries at nccn.net/wwithin" ...
B: Aaaaaah .... I see. (Goes to Google, types in 'www.nccn.net' and finds similar page of results) And do you see the listing at the top that says "Spiral.com"?
C: No, I don't.
B: Um, you must not be using Google then. What site does the search results that you're looking at?
C: Yahoo.
B: (sure enough, Yahoo doesn't have Spiral anywhere; its method of dealing with pages that return 301's is apparently to delete them entirely from its database) ... okay, well, there's not going to be a good way to get to our site from there. What I'm going to do is have you put the address into a different location that will take you straight to our home page. (walks her through putting it in Address Bar) See it now?
C: Yep, there's the new spiral page.
B: While you're there, click on the "Web Mail" link to get to the squirrel page and let's save you a little effort in the future.
C: Okay.
B: Alright, now go up to the Favorites menu ...
C: I see Bookmarks, no Favorites.
B: Okay, bookmarks. (... Even though MSIE's called it "Favorites" for three versions now?)
C: I clicked on it and now I'm at a Yahoo login page.
B: (wtf?) ... Wait, that wasn't it. Click on Back.
C: Okay, back to the squirrel.
B: (leads her through the painful process of describing the MSIE window, so we can confirm the "Bookmarks" she clicked on really was in the menu bar ... it was.) Okay, so, just click on the word "Bookmarks" and don't move the mouse yet. What comes up?
C: "Add Bookmarks," etc. (gives a menu listing)
B: Alright, click on "Add Bookmark."
C: I'm back at the Yahoo login page.
B: *headdesk* ... Alright, well, that's no use then. Yahoo has done something really craptastic with your browser, and I have no idea how to fix it. Sorry about that.
C: OK, thanks!
Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood:  okay
Current Music: Kow Otani, "Resurrection," Shadow Of The Colossus OST
Tags: geekery, my brain now hurts, tech support horror stories, work
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10:08 pm
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/80952186/240226) [Link] |
I'm surprised more people haven't made this connection
"What will we do tonight, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Penny ... try to help Inspector Gadget!"
(*MUSIC STARTS*)
They're Penny and the Brain
Yes, Penny and the Brain
One's kinda furry,
the other's sorta plain
While Penny's fighting crime
She's captured all the time
... Then rescued
They're Penny and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain
When Gadget's note explodes
Right in Chief Quimby's face
These two go on the road
To save him from disgrace
They're Penny and The Brain
Yes, Penny and The Brain
Her e-book's arcane
He suffers lots of pain
When MAD unveils a plot
They'll give that cat what's what
'Til "next time!"
They're Penny and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Wowsers!
--
* Blame krinndnz, who is completely innocent, but who got me searching the web in the first place for a picture of the MAD Cat from Inspector Gadget. Then this idea got stuck in my head ... and wouldn't let go.
Current Mood:  silly
Current Music: guess.
Tags: best of baxil, filk, lyrics, my brain now hurts, wordplay
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02:51 am
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/70456868/240226) [Link] |
WUTNWHWL!
Sorry for my silence lately -- been getting distracted with offline things such as Go, video games (Shadow Hearts: From The New World is my latest timesuck) and writing. Yep, writing. Still making slow by steady progress on the Ambitious Cat tales ... I just seem to have a knack for transforming tiny scene sketches into multi-thousand-word monsters.
While the latest story (which stars both Kiasu and the Redeemers -- and a great deal of subsequent fireworks) is still very much In Progress, I ran across a snippet in my old notes tonight that is ready to see the light of day. (For some value of "ready" that includes both "demented but hilarious" and "cringe-inducing," anyway.) It ... well, um, I think I'll just have to let it speak for itself.
So. Never-before-seen SONG LYRICS!
(*A catchy rock riff introduces an upbeat tune of the sort played by quirky yet talented college bands across the nation.*)
This singles bar is getting old.
I don't know why I came.
You look bored too. May I be bold
And ask you for your name?
Me? I'm a creature of the night
A real moonlight child.
You seem like the adventurous type --
Wanna go play ... doggy style?
We can --
(*Suddenly, with no warning, POWER CHORDS! And DRUM FLAILING! The ENTIRE BAND sings in ALMOST-HARMONY! With WOLVES HOWLING! And maybe a banjo, or a theremin, or something!*)
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
With ...
HOT WEREWOLF LUUUV!
(*Back to the normal instrumentation, but more animated this time, and with 82% fewer pretensions of taking this seriously*)
You know, you're right, my line lacked taste
I'm grateful for the clue
You bit me with such canine grace
And fur is just so you.
Another wolf out cruising bars!
I can't believe my luck!
To celebrate this find of ours
Let's go out back and --
(*POWER CHORDS again! Of course.*)
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
With ...
HOT WEREWOLF LUUUV!!
I know you're mad, but hear me out
This meeting must be fate
All these little signs -- like just now, when you threw me through that plate-glass window?
I LIKE that in a mate!
(*BRIDGE! Instrumental n' shit!** A drum solo in the finest tradition of epileptic seizures! Wolf howls! Ambulance sirens! Thrills!*)
You're right, I just can't take a no
But still, you can't disguise
Your tail wagging to and fro
The interest in your lovely eyes
I like your style -- hey, there's that smile!
C'mon, I'll take you home
Why, sure -- we'll chase sticks for a while
Before we bury some bones
As we
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
WAKE UP THE NEIGHBORS!
With ...
HOT WEREWOLF LUUUV!!
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
AROOOOOOOO!!!
(*instrumental thrashing and howling, out*)
Anyway: This shamelessly silly TTU song is called
HOT WEREWOLF LUUUV
Written by The Howl in 1997, for their eponymous first album***
--
* This note left intentionally blank.
** Yes, this is how I wrote it out in the original scribbled lyrics page.
*** But, of course, out here in the non-TTU world it was really written by me.****
**** Oh, shit! I probably didn't want to admit that.
Current Location: ~/laptop
Current Music: Yip yip yip AROOOO!
Tags: lyrics, my brain now hurts, ttu, writing
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11:29 am
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In other news
There is apparently a disease named "popcorn workers' lung" out there.*
The news article in which I discovered this reports on a case where someone contracted it by eating two bags of microwave popcorn every day. As horribly disturbing -- and downright weird -- as this is, what made me do a double-take was an incidental fact tucked in near the bottom of the article. The guy's doctor**** told him to go cold turkey on microwave popcorn, and by cutting those two bags out of his daily diet, he also shed 50 pounds in six months.
Snack food: It gets you one way or the other.
--
* How far we've fallen from the heady, carefree days of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis!**
** Astute readers may notice that the link for the disease name goes to a Wikipedia page on 'p45'. Accordingly, I'd like to advise my readers in the programming field that working simultaneously on i18n + m17n + l10n*** may be hazardous to your lung health.
*** Word of the day for you: numeronyms. And, gods help me, the phenomenon presses all the right buttons in my little geek hindbrain. ]B=8D
**** "House" really missed a shining opportunity here. Maybe next season.*****
***** EDITED TO ADD: That does it, I'm adding "footnotes" to my LJ interests.
Current Location: ~yuba
Current Music: The Judds, "Love Can Build A Bridge"
Tags: my brain now hurts, wordplay
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02:39 pm
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It's not just cream that floats
Harlan Ellison once claimed the two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. Considering that Sturgeon's Law seems to be a universal truth, Ellison's rule is pretty easy to demonstrate, but sometimes you run across examples that just cry out for sharing.
I'd like to formally nominate some especially sterling examples I recently found ...:
Bubble Gum And Duct Tape category: For the most egregious fix of something that could have more easily, more quickly, and more elegantly been replaced.
Today's nominee: The header image from GotSky.com! Because nothing screams "professionalism" like taking a pre-cropped 360-pixel-wide graphic from your existing website and telling your graphics guy that that same picture has to be reused at 500 pixels for the redesign.
Nothing Beats A First Impression category: For website designs that best maximize clickthrough/visibility/search engine placement while minimizing actual utility. (Unintentional successes only. Spam sites are excluded from consideration, as they do this deliberately.)
Today's nominee: MoreMagic's incredible Google summary when you search for their company name*: "spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic, spacer graphic ..."
Get Thee Behind Me category: For superlative application of technology in a manner that is simultaneously dehumanizing, terrifying, and entirely unnecessary.
Today's nominee, and likely winner: Redbook's photoshopping of Faith Hill (Edit: Link appears to be down; see here instead for analysis and here for the original flipbook-type animation) for a recent cover shot. The image is large, so I won't repost it here, but I urge you to go look. And then pick up your jaw from the floor.
Any other nominees? There can't be any shortage of candidates.
--
* Stumbled across while trying to reach the awesome story of the "More Magic switch" in the Jargon File.
Current Location: ~yuba
Current Mood:  busy
Current Music: "Suicide is Painless (MASH Theme)," Jimmy Smith
Tags: link roundup, my brain now hurts
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10:53 am
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Tech support horror stories
As noted in my previous post, jhitchin's "Tech Support" song is dear to my heart. Part of the reason is that, as a tech support worker myself, I have had those moments to which the song refers.
That confusion as the caller describes a situation you're pretty certain violates several laws of physics. ("I'm telling you, my modem works beautifully during the day and then refuses to dial out at all after sunset.*" "Yeah, our logs show that too. Umm ... have you tried garlic? Or a cross?")
That shock as the mists of innocent miscommunication casually burn away and the full depth of a problem is revealed in all its glory. ("I haven't been able to dial up to 555-0616 in a while." "That's not one of our numbers. Aha ... you know, I bet that's the dial-in phone number from the company that we took over from. Wait. How long exactly has it been since you were able to connect?" "Uh, a little over a year."*)
That pants-wetting fear as a Machine That Should Not Be (e.g., anything containing both Windows 98 and a network card) shambles into view like a digital zombie. Or, for that matter, as a User that Should Not Be Allowed Anywhere Near Computers (e.g., anyone who thinks making a Windows 98 box their primary Internet machine is a good idea; or someone who misunderstands the meaning of "tech support" *) moans and latches onto your head to eat your brain.
And the reason I transcribed the song today is because I recently had an encounter that can only truly be described by quoting Hitchin.
The background here is that the outgoing mail server at the Internet Service Provider I work for is restricted to people on our dial-up network as a spam prevention measure; mail-only and webhosting customers have to use their own ISP's outgoing mail server. (This restriction is the case at most ISPs, but since virtually all Internet service comes with free e-mail, it's really never an issue.) One of our e-mail only customers calls up with complaints that he can't send messages, so I explain the policy. Then I discover that his Internet service is satellite.
It has been my experience as a tech that, without exception, satellite ISPs' tech support is hideous. Hughesnet is perhaps the worst offender -- last time I checked, the tech support number prominently plastered all over their website had been disconnected, and the number recycled to an online florist (who was probably sick of getting tech support calls*). But all of them suffer from utterly impenetrable Web sites, unusable documentation, and a burning desire to never have to speak to one of their customers. So when I heard that Customer had satellite service, I winced and decided to give him a hand in setting up his outgoing e-mail server properly.
After wading through WildBlue's hedge maze of a support site, I learn that they specifically don't provide mail server information. Their only public support option is an application to download that will accelerate your connection, and also oh by the way fix Outlook Express' settings so that it will access your mail account.* **
This is, of course, unacceptable. It's a slow day, so I jump into an online-chat tech support queue on behalf of Mutual Customer; I figure I'll know the right questions to ask (and, maybe, have enough credibility) to get all the necessary setup information from one of their techs.
I'm going to skip the story of how connecting to their online chat queue at various times (and apparently at random) cited me a 45-minute wait, booted me out entirely, and immediately threw me to the head of the line. Because that's neither here nor there.
No, the real story starts when I connect to "Senior* Technical Agent 3."
I introduce myself and identify our mutual customer. Then I start asking for details of mail client configuration.
Server name, check. ("But hey, you got one! One out of ten ain't bad.")
Then I ask him the port to connect to their outgoing mail server on.
This is something that end users often don't know anything about; it's a technical detail that's transparent after initial setup. But it's a basic component of the support job. Asking an ISP technician about the connection port is like asking an auto mechanic to check the level of your transmission fluid.
And Senior Technical Agent 3 -- Senior Technical Agent 3 -- says:
> "Port 25? Or 587?"
"we would not know that" * ** ***
Rob, working at the next desk over, is interrupted in his work by a heavy, rhythmic thumping. Seconds later, he has leapt from his seat and is attempting to persuade me to stop whacking my head against the table.*
When I recover, unfortunately, I still have a job to do. I'm not quite masochistic enough to press the issue (I figure I can just try both and see what sticks), but I do have to ask some assorted questions about authentication and connection encryption. At least with those, Senior Technical Agent 3 gives me things that sound like real answers.
I probably don't have to explain that, once Customer called back and we tried to get his connection working, absolutely nothing the tech told me worked.
Except for the server name. But hey, even a stopped time measurement device is right once per solar cycle.
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* True and not embellished, not even for dramatic effect.
** Oh, dear god, I only wish I was embellishing the depth of the stupidity here.
*** Everybody say it along with me: "OH MY GOD, THEY GAVE YOU ROOT?!?"
Current Location: ~/brainstorm
Current Music: "Teleport," Man With No Name
Tags: geekery, my brain now hurts, tech support horror stories, work
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