Results 1 - 100 of about 426,000,000 for answers

Results 1 - 100 of about 691,000,000 for questions

It's true: on the internet, there are more questions than answers; but almost everyone has got something to say. How very like life.]]> http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/questions-vs-answers-vs-comments/193:2010-03-02/feed/ 0 http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/paypal-email-fail/182:2009-08-06/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/paypal-email-fail/182:2009-08-06/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:22:04 +0000 pgl http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/?p=182 Now that I've got a job working for an email service provider I've started taking a bit more notice of different companies' attempts at email marketing, and I have to admit to becoming slightly more sensitive about when they do it badly. Today I received yet another ridiculous failure that's so bad I honestly can't quite tell if it's an actual phishing attempt or not.

It's from PayPal. They sent out a message about "great summer savings", coming from paypal@info.paypal.co.uk - but with a Reply-To: address as reply2@info.paypal.com. That wasn't the first thing I found amusing, though - I've only just noticed that. The first thing was that I wanted to unsubscribe, and right at the bottom saw this:

"This email was sent to <insert user email address>, because your email preferences are set to receive the PayPal Periodical newsletter and Product Updates. Click here to Unsubscribe"

That's funny enough on its own, but a few lines above that, they've added:

"How do I know this is not a Spoof email? Spoof or 'phishing' emails tend to have generic greetings such as "Dear PayPal member". Emails from PayPal will always address you by your first and last name.

How ironic. Oh well, all I want to do is unsubscribe, so, after checking that the domains in the links aren't some dodgy fake ones I click the "Unsubscribe" link, and what do I get?

Wow. Wow, just... wow. I mean, wow. How many fuckups can you get in one email? From one of the world's biggest internet companies? Eesh.]]> http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/paypal-email-fail/182:2009-08-06/feed/ 0 http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/dear-linux-com-you-suck-love-pgl/153:2009-08-05/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/dear-linux-com-you-suck-love-pgl/153:2009-08-05/#comments Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:33:45 +0000 pgl http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/?p=153 Wankers.

[The below pasted verbatim, including grammatical errors, etc.]

From: Peter Lowe <pgl@yoyo.org>
To: Linux Foundation <events@linux-foundation.org>
CC: linux.com.users@linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [Linux.com.users] 20% LinuxCon Registration Discount for Linux.com Members

I don't normally bother responding to poorly thought out marketing attempts
like this, but, your last one so annoying that I just - can't - help myself.

Look, you're trying to reach people who want to go to your event, right? You
could at least treat the people who _don't_ give a shit with a bit of
respect - I mean, like, think about the people you're sending to a *little*
bit, rather than just say woo look, a list of subscribers that's an easy way
to get the message out.

You've sent me a mail, with an unsubscribe link. But, you didn't send mail
directly to people (would that really have been too difficult?), but,
because I don't know which email address you've sent the mail to, I have to
guess both what my email address is, but also my password.

The first thing I did was try logging in to mailman using my Linux.com
registered email address and password, which, but course, that didn't work
-- I'm guessing because you've just done a mass import of all Linux.com
accounts into one big list, with new passwords for everyone?

So, then I had to guess which email address you sent it to in order to get
the password "reminder". Fortunately I got that right: because if I'd put in
the wrong address I would have had no way to know, as mailman reports "A
reminder of your password has been emailed to you" regardless of the address
you use in its password reminder form. I'm glad I got it right, because I
hadn't made a note of the address I'd not signed up to a list with.

If you're patting yourself on the back because not many people have
unsubscribed in response to your mailouts...

Also, it would be kind of nice if you could put some sort of, uh,
description of the list on the mailman page? It's not listed on the main
index:

 - https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo

and the main page for the list:

 - https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/linux.com.users

doesn't have a single word about what the list is for. Also, why on earth
are the archives password protected!?

Another problem is that there's nowhere on Linux.com where I can say "don't
contact me about future promotions" or whatever. I can opt-out of "system
emails", "private messages", or "application notifications", but not this?

Lastly, and this really is just me being picky, but hey, using a consistent
domain (linux-foundation.org vs. linuxfoundation.org vs. Linux.com) would be
nice.

You're trying to attract people to your event, but unfortunately what you've
done is make me even less likely to go, and certainly less likely to treat
anything with "Linux.com" branding (or linuxfoundation.org, or...) with any
respect. Sadly I have a horrible feeling couldn't care less.

cheers,

 - Peter


Linux Foundation wrote on 2009-07-29 Wed 8:10 am:
> LinuxCon  - The New Technical Conference for All Matters Linux
> September 21-23, 2009
> Portland Marriott Waterfront � Portland, OR
> 
> =========================================
> Linux.com Members Receive 20% Discount to LinuxCon
> =========================================
> We�re pleased to offer a 20% discount off of registration fees
> exclusively for Linux.com Members. Register before the August 15th
> early registration deadline and attend for only US$319!
> 
> Register Here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/component/registrationpro/?func=details&did=1
> 
> Use this discount code when registering to receive the 20% discount: LC_COM
> 
> ================================
> Top Five Reasons You Can�t Miss LinuxCon
> ================================
> *Top Tier Speaking Talent You Can�t Find Anywhere Else*
> Speakers including Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth (Founder of
> Ubuntu), Bob Sutor (VP, Open Source & Linux at IBM), Imad Sousou
> (Director of Intel�s OSTC), and more. This is your only chance to see
> Linus and other kernel developers speak at a general conference.
> 
>  *Innovative Content for Developers, Business and Operations*
> Over 75 sessions spanning Developer, Business and Operations Tracks
> filled with in-depth content straight from the leaders of Linux, not
> just marketing presentations.  Click here to View Full Schedule:
> http://linuxcon.linuxfoundation.org/meetings
> 
> *Free in depth tutorials to improve your Linux skills*
> 11 in-depth, free tutorials that will help you advance your career.
> From scaling your systems administrators to kernel debugging.
> 
> *Meet Linux Luminaries, Change the World*
> A flexible schedule featuring abundant �hallway track� time, attendee
> lounges, and a special �Bowling for Penguins� fundraiser on Monday
> evening that will help you save the penguins while challenging your
> favorite Linux developers to a bowling match.
> 
> *Network with speakers and attendees before, during and after the conference*
> With the LinuxCon online attendee community, you can plan your
> schedule and connect with speakers or attendees before the event to
> ensure your time is well spent.  Check it out here:
> http://linuxcon.linuxfoundation.org/
> 
> =============================================
> LinuxCon  - The new technical conference for All Matters Linux
> September 21-23, 2009
> Portland Marriott Waterfront � Portland, OR
> =================================
> This is just the beginning.  In addition to fantastic content and
> speakers, we promise you a great experience at LinuxCon that will
> bring you back again and again in the years to come.
> Register Today!
> http://events.linuxfoundation.org/component/registrationpro/?func=details&did=1
> 
> Additional discounts are available for Linux Foundation Individual
> Members and LPC Attendees � contact angela@linux-foundation.org for
> more information.
> 
> Questions? Contact us at events@linux-foundation.org
> ==================================
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/linux.com.users
> _______________________________________________
> Linux.com.users mailing list
> Linux.com.users@lists.linux-foundation.org
> https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/linux.com.users
> 

They have not, of course, replied. All I've received by way of acknowledgement is a rejection of my attempted post to the linux.com.users list.

I finally did get to see the other mails from the list: after looking through the Linux.com.users mailing list archives, I discovered that there had been three prior mails from May that were less annoying, but still made the same basic mistakes of etiquette and common sense that the above did.

(Ironically, first introductory mail, which didn't mention the fact everyone had been signed up to a new list, talked about "gain[ing] goodwill and support of fellow Linux.com members", and that the new Linux.com is "for the community by the community" - hah!)

Perhaps I'm overreacting to this, and I should just ignore it. They're just such... idiots! Arg.]]> http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/arse/dear-linux-com-you-suck-love-pgl/153:2009-08-05/feed/ 2 http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/poetry/incroyable-fantastique/138:2009-01-16/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/poetry/incroyable-fantastique/138:2009-01-16/#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:26:44 +0000 pgl http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/?p=138
Tres bien. Magnifique.

• http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6h03RO2Wcxo]]> http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/poetry/incroyable-fantastique/138:2009-01-16/feed/ 0 http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/tech/screen-split-windows-how-to-use-them/125:2008-12-19/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/tech/screen-split-windows-how-to-use-them/125:2008-12-19/#comments Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:23:09 +0000 pgl http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/?p=125 (ctrl + a,: to bring up prompt for entering screen commands) :split split current window into two regions :resize +20 grow the current region by 20 lines :focus down move to the lower region (ctrl + a, until the desired window is visible) :focus up move back to the previous region ... later, when the new region is no longer (des|requ)ired.. :remove remove the current region]]> http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/tech/screen-split-windows-how-to-use-them/125:2008-12-19/feed/ 0 http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/tech/rss-feed-for-friends-twitter-updates-in-google-reader/119:2008-12-07/ http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/tech/rss-feed-for-friends-twitter-updates-in-google-reader/119:2008-12-07/#comments Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:24:59 +0000 pgl http://pgl.yoyo.org/bits/?p=119 Hooray. I like keeping up with what my friends are up to, and add any weblog feeds I find to Google Reader whenever I come across one.

Recently I've realised how many of them are using Twitter, which I've signed up for but have no interest in using myself. So, it was kind of annoying to find out that while there is an RSS feed for each individuals' updates, the RSS feed that combined all my friends' updates together was password-protected.

This meant that rather than keep using Google Reader, to keep up with the all those Twitter updates I'd have to check Twitter itself - which truly doth sucketh.

However, problem solved! Not too complicated in the end really. Woo.

I've written a tiny script that uses curl to get a copy of the password-protected feed and runs from cron regularly and makes a local copy I can subscribe to in Google Reader:

• Twitter / pgl with friends

Thankfully curl lets you use your .netrc file to specify the username and passowrd, and the Twitter feed is available over SSL, so it's even properly secure. Rah.

[jem:pgl]:~/scripts $ crontab -l | grep twit
 */5 * * * * twitter-friends-rss-update.sh
 
##~
 
[jem:pgl]:~/scripts $ cat twitter-friends-rss-update.sh
 #!/bin/bash
 
friendsrssurl='https://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/14063001.rss'
localcopy="$HOME/p/twitter/rss/friends.rss"
 
/usr/bin/curl -s -n "$friendsrssurl" -o "$localcopy"
 
##~
 
[jem:pgl]:~/scripts $ curl --help | egrep -- '-[sno]/'
 -n/--netrc Must read .netrc for user name and password
 -o/--output  Write output to instead of stdout
 -s/--silent Silent mode. Don't output anything

and good day to you. I am writing this to let you know about a site I made. It's actually been around for a while, but hasn't changed much from its original (very much lacking) state after I stopped playing WoW nearly a year ago. Now that started playing again, I've finally gotten round to updating the website with some bits that I hope other people might find useful.

(This is actually a repost of the note I put up in the WoWAce forums - apologies for the duplication!)

It was originally written so I didn't have to check three places whenever I was trying to find an addon, or check for updates.

You can see it here:

• http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/

Here's a quick overview:

• lists updates to addons hosted on Curse, WoWInterface, and (*spit*) ui.worldofwar.net
• updates available for previous hour, day, or three days
• allows filtering by site
• allows advanced filtering using Perlish regular expressions
• supports favourites lists (for registered users)
• can be accessed via an RSS feed (which should show the same list as set after configuring any filtering)
• searchable database (8809 addons across all the sites so far) (I find this really useful when I can't remember where I saw an addon)
• can be added as a Google Gadget to an iGoogle homepage
• can be added as a Google Subscribed Link
• supportsOpenSearch (at least, it should do!)
• includes detailed information for each addon
• where able, shows: links to sites able to be associated with the addon + changelogs + descriptions + details + update history + version numbers
• easy-to-use/remember URLs? (nobody else is going to care about this, are they, heh :)

Here's some links in addition to the main page, if anyone's interested in having a look:

• http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/rss/ (I use it with Google Reader)
• http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/find/ (I've tried to make it fairly logical with the searching (could do with better highlighting)
• http://fin.instinct.org/wowmods/help/ (various notes and stuff (including a changelog and todo list, woo!))

(Aside: just noticed ui.w are back to wowui.w - wtf? Another name change? Pff.)

It's not finished; there's lots more to do. But, now that there's finally favourites lists, I figured it might actually be useful for other people as well as me. :)

Any and all comments, criticisms, suggestions, and / or other similar communications, thoughts, opinions, and missives related, indirectly connected, or even nothing to do with the site are of course happily encouraged, welcome, desired, positively lusted over, and will find a soft warm home in my brain where they can relax with buttery toast and a nice cold alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage of choice and the fine company amongst peers and friends.

cheers,

- pgl / Fin

[mimi:pgl]:~ $ tits=arse
[mimi:pgl]:~ $ arse=cheese
 
# this way I figured out myself after a long time pulling my hair out
[mimi:pgl]:~ $ echo ${!tits}
cheese
 
# this I found later at http://www.seocam.net/how-tos/how-to-create-variable-variables-in-bash
[mimi:pgl]:~ $ eval echo $`echo $tits`
cheese
 
# how to assign to a variable variable:
[vini:plowe]:~ $ tits=cheese
[vini:plowe]:~ $ arse=tits
[vini:plowe]:~ $ eval $arse='hello'
[vini:plowe]:~ $ echo $tits
hello

Explained -- obliquely -- in the manual:

   Parameter Expansion

   ...

       If the first character of parameter is an exclamation point, a level of
       variable indirection is introduced.  Bash uses the value of  the  vari-
       able  formed  from  the  rest of parameter as the name of the variable;
       this variable is then expanded and that value is used in  the  rest  of
       the  substitution,  rather than the value of parameter itself.  This is
       known as indirect expansion.  The exceptions to this are the expansions
       of  ${!prefix*} and ${!name[@]} described below.  The exclamation point
       must immediately follow the left brace in order to  introduce  indirec-
       tion.

("This is known as indirect expansion" - rubbish! Everyone calls it variable
variables! :))

• YouTomb.

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.

Also: cool!

• Play Auditorium

You proceed through the game by redirecting waves of light into targets by positioning things that divert the waves, with the levels getting more complex as you go on. There are "many ways to solve every puzzle"

This demo of Auditorium features 3 Acts. Each Act has at least 5 separate levels. We are currently working on the full version of the game and have estimated around 20 acts total to be released in the near future..

- http://pgl.yoyo.org/whois/

Previously, it arsed up on most domains due to overzealous sanitisation on my part. No longer! Hooray.

## arrays in bash: assignment, indexing, and looping
##

# assign multiple values to a new array:
array=(tits arse)

# or:
array=([0]=tits [1]=arse)

# or:
array=([0]=tits arse)

# assign single values to specific indices:
array[2]='cheese'

# add a new value to the end of the array (push)
array+=(hmm)

# NB: indices do not have to be congiuous:
array[5]='last'

# view specific element of an array:
echo "first element: ${array[1]}"
echo "----"

# view number of elements in an array:
echo "${#array[*]} total elements"
echo "----"

# loop through an array by index:
for x in ${!array[*]}
do
echo "\${array[$x]} -> ${array[$x]}"
done

echo "----"

# loop through an array by value:
for y in ${array[*]}
do
echo $y
done

exit

## --
## output
## --

"test.sh" 67L, 1089C written
:!bash -D test.sh
:![ $? -eq 0 ] && test.sh
first element: arse
----
5 total elements
----
${array[0]} -> tits
${array[1]} -> arse
${array[2]} -> cheese
${array[3]} -> hmm
${array[5]} -> last
----
tits
arse
cheese
hmm
last

- http://www.rickygervais.com/images/tsott_nywindow.jpg

#734797 +(3215)- [X]

<Malagmyr> This linguistics professor was lecturing the class.
<Malagmyr> "In English," he explained, "a double negative forms a positive. In some                    languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative."
<Malagmyr> "However," the professor continued, "there is no language wherein a double                  positive can form a negative."
<Malagmyr> Immediately, a voice from the back of the room piped up: "Yeah..... right...."

Thanks to a "rizzo" on a weblog I came across, though, it seems that the issue might be solvable - apparently you need to make sure that your machine has the ports 1380, 8046, and 10622 open - so have a look at your firewall setup and see if that might be the problem.

Thanks, rizzo!

• Warhammer Online Authentication Failed Error | John-Michael Del Valle's Blog.

Update

There's a few other things, too:

• run warpatch.exe (see this FAQ for more)
• possibly open port 4574 (see this FAQ for more)

I've just run warpatch.exe and have apparently have 815MB to download. Ye gods.

Update #2

Well, looks like that was the issue: just needed to run warpatch.exe. Which admittedly isn't exactly the obvious solution; but it worked. (I even got a response to a mail I sent about something entirely unrelated this weekend, saying to run warpatch.exe, heh). I've just had a nice four hour intro to the game, and, well, I'm pretty happy I'll have something to do for a while yet. Hooray!

1. Get people signed up through a pyramid scheme based around people's need to feel popular and their ability to believe that relationships are essentially a matter of mass - that 200 superficial relationships is the same as 20 long-lasting friendships
2. ...
3. Profit!

And, yes, as it happens I am rather a hypocrite here, because I have spent a considerable amount of time looking for people that I might possible know or have worked with or have sat opposite on the bus once because then I could introduce myself and I'd get another more Connection! Which makes me one step closer to winning at LinkedIn! But I figure, every other idiot or minority or otherwise mockable group is allowed to mock said group they belong to, so, I can too. Anyway. I wanted to write about one particular part of LinkedIn.

On the "Home" page after you log in, there's occasionally a box off to the right labelled "People you may know", with a list of three or so LinkedIn members that you aren't currently linked to, as suggestions for future Linkees. (Linkees? I suppose you'd be a Linkee too then, the Link goes both ways, it doesn't matter who initiated it after an invite's been accepted. Perhaps that would make everyone collectively the Linkii. Too much ee going on there, I'm mentally gurning. Hmm. "We are the Linkii-Gurn, and we come in peace! We would like you to join our professional network!")

So, this "people you may know" didn't seem much of anything at first, I didn't take much notice of it as I was working way through much more efficient methods of mass-linkage ("right, now, I was on 461 bus route back then, so if I just find out the route and search for everyone that lives in the surrounding area and send them all invitations, statistically speaking I'm certain to rack up loads more Connections!). However, after a while I realised that the suggestions were surprisingly accurate - and not just accurate, but remarkably helpful, because people were being suggested that I would never have thought of myself! I mean, I could imagine that had I actually been spamming my fellow bus-travellers from 10 years ago, I might see the bus driver up there - except not the normal bus driver, the guy who we only saw for a week because he was temping while the other driver was ill, and I only had one five minute conversation with, about paint.

I've I've wondered a few times how they did it. Some of the methods must be relatively obvious - they're always encouraging people to import their entire address books and stuff, and things like correlating locations with interests with age would no doubt be very effective in a lot of cases. Some of the suggestions, though, were just so obscure, I just couldn't figure out how on earth the algorithm had been able to connect us. (Was there someone on the bus with me 10 years ago working for LinkedIn?! It's a conspiracy!)

Whatever it was must've been a strong enough link that we were identified as potentially knowing each other, but something (or, more likely, a whole lot of little things) so unobvious that even after some considerable thought (I had to lie down for a bit) it remained a mystery. Considering the fact that I must've come across quite a few of the other members of LinkedIn on a closer level, I would have expected to be seeing other people's faces that I'd heard of, or had worked somewhere I was familiar with, or something - at least more often.

I finally Googled the problem today, and found a question that was answered on LinkedIn itself about the "You might know..." feature. It's not just me, have a look at some of these quotes (actually, the question itself gives a good idea of what I mean):

How does the AI behind the "People you may know" work?

I'm amazed by its accuracy. Just today, it suggested over a dozen people that I do know and am connected to in one way or another. What's the logic behind the code, in simple terms? Is there some code written in the contacts file we upload? Although, some of the people that I "know" weren't hidden somewhere in my address book, so it can't be that. Is there some geo localization at work, or is it a sort of datamining AI? I'm so curious to know how it works!

Clarification added June 24, 2007
It can't be from my "other" contacts because I don't have any stored there. Nor can it be keywords that we have stored in our profiles because some of the "people i may know" have completely different backgrounds, education, jobs, etc.

Clarification added June 24, 2007:
I think there is a cross co-relation between contacts that I upload and those uploaded by others that include me. Even if we don't invite these contacts or even if these contacts don't invite me, then subsequently delete them from our contact list, I suspect LinkedIn stores this information.

The weirdest thing though is when it suggests someone I only know "off the street": someone who's contact info I don't have and vice versa and someone with whom I have no history with (school, employer, same industry, etc.).

Most of the other commenters were equally amazed or even more so - one person in particular made me question whether they were just shit stirring or telling the truth:

was just given two names of people that I do know, but that I have no connection with through LinkedIn. My profile is not filled in with enough data OR the right data to make a connection. Therefore, how would they know I worked with them, if that employer is not listed, how would they know I went to school with them, when that inststution is not listed. I am not a regular LinkedIn user and only have a few connections, and those connections have no connections to the people on my list. SO.... where did those names come from?

There were a couple of comments from staff:

Steven Stegman - Research Scientist and Sr. Product Manager

"People you may know" is powered by a sophisticated predictive model that uses many factors to guess people you might know. it's still in beta, and we've made some significant refinements to it recently.It's pretty cool, no? Please give us feedback on it.

The comments following this essentially ignored him - with everyone saying how amazed they were, until the last post:

David Brabant - Software Architect - Software Development Manager at Siemens IT Solutions and Services

There isn't any kind of magic here, and even less the slightest trace of artificial intelligence. This is simply based on graph theory, starting exploration of the graph of your relations from your node, and filtering those relations according to what is called "homophily". The greater is the homophily between two nodes, the more likely two nodes will be connected. For a good introduction on the social network theory, see the document linked below.
Links:

http://home.earthlink.net/~ckadushin/Texts/Basic Network Concepts.pdf

Well, of course. It's simply graph theory! If anyone had cared to read even the simplest of introductions in the field then we wouldn't've had to waste this man's valuable time, I mean, really, how inconsiderate. Oafs.

So, I went and read (most of) that 63 page PDF, and I'm still convinced it's a little more murky than that. It doesn't explain why I'm not getting more suggestions about people who would be instinctively easily to identify within a degree of accuracy. Also, there are people I haven't attempted to connect with that I could have, but decided against, or simply couldn't remember the email address for and needed to know it before sending an invite. Why haven't they come upas suggestions while these seemingly counter-intuitive others have? After all, they're actually (given the data, if it were being analyzed) much more strongly connected to me than the others.

A couple of things might be along the lines of, someone who's been to visit someone else's page, and gone most of the way towards contacting them, but didn't in the end - which is exactly what I did with a number of people, and relatively easy to look for. Finding people who appeared in, say, two or three people's address books, and is already even though they didn't list their work addresses from 5 years ago, they were already connected to another two people from the company. You could probably tell a lot about who someone might be connected to given their browsing habits - I would say (without any evidence, true) that humans tend to be much more interested in people they know than strangers even when the stranger is famous or rich (or otherwise might tempt people being curious without having their friends to check up on first): for anyone that signed up, the first few profiles they looked at would be huge pointers.

Of course it does have to be some sort of Science in the end (unless they really did have people following me around on the bus!); but I sincerely doubt the specifics are about to be revealed any time soon. My money's on LinkedIn being actually pretty sneaky, even if they're being clever as well (and I guess their money is too), and whatever the case it's still pretty cool. And, as Clarke's third law states, any any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; while we're still ignorant, who cares how they do it?

One problem it's always had, though, is that it looks pants with at low points subpixel rendering (aka Cleartype) turned on. Hooray! thought I, when I came across this page:

• Inconsolata ClearType: Raph Levien's Inconsolota font, hinted for Windows.

Thank you, xiy, or Mark, or whoever you are! You have made the world a better place.

• inconsolata-modified.ttf

[jem:pgl]:~/p/misc_useful $ /usr/bin/scp scp\:copying-filenames-with-colons-in-them.txt localhost:/dev/null
ssh: scp: Name or service not known

# sorted:

[jem:pgl]:~/p/misc_useful $ /usr/bin/scp ./scp\:copying-filenames-with-colons-in-them.txt localhost:/dev/null
The authenticity of host 'localhost (127.0.0.1)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 12:2b:3a:4e:be:6f:41:f2:20:4c:1b:ee:6a:46:35:61.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'localhost' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
pgl@localhost's password:
scp:copying-filenames-with-colons-in-them.txt 100% 0 0.0KB/s 00:00

Executive summary: filenames with :colons: break scp, unless they're prefixed with a path.

Why: scp has no way of telling that a file called "file:name" is isn't the user specifying host:path, which is the usual way it's used. To disambiguate this for scp, prefix the filename with its path (either relative to your current directory, or a full path, it doesn't matter); ie, instead of "scp filename:with:colons", it's "scp ./filename:with:colons".

- wpau_prelimcheck.class.php

Hope someone out there finds this useful.

"Does any one know how to synchronize ... thunderbird ... with your nokia ... and the other way round?"

A perfectly valid question, especially since both Nokia and Thunderbird have been around quite some time now - you would've thought that this is a solved problem.

However, I think the correct answer to that this question is, no, nobody does. And if they do then I would very much like to know about it.

The old Thunderbird addon doesn't work anymore, and hasn't for a while.

There's two beta-stage projects which might one day help, but look almost abandoned to be honest:

- http://www.gnokii.org/

- http://www.gammu.org/wiki/index.php?title=GPlus:Main_Page

(GPlus is actually based on Gnokii, it just has the same half-finished feel to it. (I am being totally unfair here - a lot of hard work has obviously gone into these projects, and they don't deserve to be dismissed out of hand; they just didn't work for me and the amount of time I've spent playing with stuff that also doesn't work has caused me to be nasty (fuckers).))

I've tried them, they don't work (at least not with my phone, a 6300). Ditto MobileMaster. Ditto Intellisync. It's tragic. Is this really such a hard thing to solve?

Oh well.

[... a little later on...]

I wrote this post a few days ago - since then, I've installed the Ovi Suite. And fuck me sideways, they've finally done it -- what they should've done five years ago -- a group of programs for managing your mobile that doesn't need three services running and five processes starting up when you login. Clap, clap, Nokia!

Horrible as it is that they've taken this long to come up with this, it is a good set of programs, and I have recently experienced my first proper Sync. Maybe I'll write more about it later - especially the weird as Wyrd 3D desktop thing that comes with it.

(Not that, of course, it syncs with Thunderbird: but it did with GroupWise, and GroupWise can export something which Thunderbird can import - so... well it's a start.)

[tags]nokia, thunderbird, syncing, painful, pain, gnokii, gplus, ovi, ical, calendar, 6300, mobilemaster, intellisync, fail, gplus, beta, groupwise, export[/tags]

Junk Filter Statistics

The junk mail filter has been trained by 46868 messages, whereof 28127 (60%) have been rated as solicited and 18741 (40%) as junk. This resulted in a total of 699360 tokens read, 349780 (50%) rated as good and 349580 (50%) as evil; the number of different tokens is 622268.
The following table will show the 12 most common tokens, hiding 622256 tokens below the threshold of 24060 appearances.

(Processing this training.dat of 24060562 bytes took 780.35 seconds.)

Token                            Good   Evil  Junk Probability
1 mime-version:1.0              13818  17248  65.20 %
2 for                           16579   9394  45.96 %
3 the                           21511  11836  45.23 %
4 envelope-to:pgl@yoyo.org      22742  16294  51.81 %
5 content-type/type:text/plain  22016   6247  29.87 %
6 you                           19875   9279  41.20 %
7 with                          17209   8710  43.17 %
8 this                          17078   9004  44.17 %
9 x-mozilla-status2:00000000    10897  13810  65.54 %
10 that                         17419   7984  40.76 %
11 x-mozilla-status:0001        10846  13810  65.65 %
12 and                          20086  10530  44.03 %

That's right, there's a greater than 40% chance any mail I receive is going to be spam if it contains any of these words: "with", "that", "and", "for", "the", or "you". 40% for any of them. Sigh.

However, as many before me, I have ignored my own best interests in order to satisfy those narcissistic tendencies (my real own best interests) that urge me (and apparently a large percentage of the rest of the world (who are arranged in some sort of sphere, it seems)) to tell everyone else (that's right, everyone) what's on my mind: resulting in this - this thing, here, with me, and you. Hello.

Warning: I will attempt to be amusing, and interesting, something which almost guarantees that my webloggery will annoy you. This is not an apology, just, an excuse I can use to myself after I've irritated you.

OK, right, now where is my checklist? Right - doing well so far, I can tick off self-absorbed posting, spending too long fucking around with Wordpress, and - ah - I'm right on schedule to fill up some area or roll type section with links to people I've know. Then I think fairly soon I'll be ready to post about anything that over 90% of all weblogs have already posted about, followed perhaps by some short notes about work that mean nothing to anyone except myself, at which point I can take a break for a few months until I'm up for the apology for not posting much recently. Excellent. This is going to be fun.