Category Archives: Geek

My family just spent a week in Florida and used Delta Song airlines (highly recommended). One of the great things about Song’s planes is that they have entertainment centers built into every seat. They allow you to watch television, listen to music, or play trivia games against other passengers.

After boarding the plan, we waited for the entertainment centers to become active. After 10 minutes of blank screens, they lit up with scrolling text and strangely enough a small picture of a penguin at the top of the screen. It took a second to realize it was Redhat Linux booting up.

Very nice…

On Sunday, Heather and I took the kids to a local kid’s entertainment center called “Scallywags”. It’s the sort of place that has jungle gyms, inflatable trampolines, etc. inside a large commercial building – and an area for parents to sit and have a few minutes of freedom to read and talk. Off to one side of the building was the arcade area, filled with kid-friendly arcade games. Imagine my surprise when I saw an arcade version of the Linux game “Tux Racer”. Too bad it was broken – it would have been fun to play with Tommy and Petey.

Here’s a couple of snapshots from my camera phone. It was a bit dark inside the arcade, so the quality isn’t so great.

From BoingBoing:

Like I’ve said before, the new Galactica (which until now was limited to a two episode miniseries) is much better than the original. While I have very fond memories for the 1970’s Glen Larson version, they are specious memories at best.

This photograph says it all:

The New York Post has an article stating that the original three Star Wars films will be released on DVD Septmber 21st.

Note that these are the revised releases from the 90s and not the original theatrical versions.

From CNN:

As much as I hate the idea of the government using my tax dollars for anything besides the bare necessities, I can’t help but be excited about this. Then again, I’d be much more excited if a private enterprise made the same proposal…

Number fun!

Have you ever wondered how pencils are made? Here’s how.

Yet Another SpamAssassin Leader

New record score: 45.20
Subject: Could Make You Financially Secure For Life!

Content analysis details:   (45.20 points, 5 required)
AS_SEEN_ON         (3.0 points)  BODY: As seen on national TV!
MLM                (0.7 points)  BODY: Multi Level Marketing mentioned
EARN_MONEY         (0.9 points)  BODY: Message talks about earning money
JODY               (2.9 points)  BODY: Contains "My wife, Jody" testimonial
BANG_MONEY         (1.7 points)  BODY: Talks about money with an exclamation!
BULK_EMAIL         (1.8 points)  BODY: Talks about bulk email
ORDER_REPORT       (2.9 points)  BODY: Order a report from someone
SENT_IN_COMPLIANCE (4.3 points)  BODY: Claims compliance with spam regulations
FINANCIAL          (4.3 points)  BODY: Financial Freedom
SECTION_301        (1.1 points)  BODY: Claims compliance with spam regulations
EXCUSE_3           (0.2 points)  BODY: Claims you can be removed from the list
INVALUABLE_MARKETING (2.9 points)  BODY: Invaluable marketing information
RISK_FREE          (0.8 points)  BODY: Risk free.  Suuurreeee....
COPY_ACCURATELY    (2.9 points)  BODY: Common pyramid scheme phrase (1)
INITIAL_INVEST     (2.7 points)  BODY: Requires Initial Investment
HTML_30_40         (0.6 points)  BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML
BAYES_90           (3.0 points)  BODY: Bayesian classifier says spam probability is 90 to 99%
                   [score: 0.9880]
HTML_WITH_BGCOLOR  (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML mail with non-white background
HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is red
HTML_FONT_BIG      (0.2 points)  BODY: FONT Size +2 and up or 3 and up
HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is blue
RAZOR2_CF_RANGE_91_100 (1.2 points)  BODY: Razor2 gives a spam confidence level between 91 and 100
                   [cf: 100]
HTML_SHOUTING5     (0.0 points)  BODY: HTML has very strong "shouting" markup
REMOVE_PAGE        (0.4 points)  URI: URL of page called "remove"
NORMAL_HTTP_TO_IP  (0.7 points)  URI: Uses a dotted-decimal IP address in URL
RAZOR2_CHECK       (0.9 points)  Listed in Razor2, see http://razor.sf.net/
DATE_IN_PAST_03_06 (0.3 points)  Date: is 3 to 6 hours before Received: date
RCVD_IN_DSBL       (4.3 points)  RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org
                   [RBL check: found 119.24.21.67.list.dsbl.org.]
CASHCASHCASH       (0.0 points)  Contains at least 3 dollar signs in a row
MIME_HTML_ONLY     (0.1 points)  Message only has text/html MIME parts
MISSING_MIMEOLE    (0.1 points)  Message has X-MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOLE
MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.0 points)  Message looks like Outlook, but isn't

Wow, what a week for spam. I’ve never seen scores this high! These people honestly suck at disguising their spam…

New record score: 38.80
Subject: Amazing small digital camera!

Content analysis details:   (38.80 points, 5 required)
RCVD_FAKE_HELO_DOTCOM (2.6 points)  Received contains a faked HELO hostname
TO_MALFORMED       (1.5 points)  To: has a malformed address
INVALID_DATE_TZ_ABSURD (4.3 points)  Invalid Date: header (timezone does not exist)
MSGID_OE_SPAM_4ZERO (3.5 points)  Message-Id generated by spam tool (4-zeroes variant)
FAKED_UNDISC_RECIPS (4.3 points)  Faked To "Undisclosed-Recipients"
MSGID_SPAMSIGN_ZEROES (4.3 points)  Message-Id generated by spam tool (zeroes variant)
OPT_OUT            (0.0 points)  BODY: Talks about opting out (lowercase version)
EXCUSE_3           (0.1 points)  BODY: Claims you can be removed from the list
EXCUSE_REMOVE      (2.4 points)  BODY: Talks about how to be removed from mailings
REMOVE_PAGE        (0.3 points)  URI: URL of page called "remove"
MSGID_OUTLOOK_TIME (4.4 points)  Message-Id is fake (in Outlook Express format)
DATE_IN_FUTURE_06_12 (1.3 points)  Date: is 6 to 12 hours after Received: date
RCVD_FAKE_HELO_DOTCOM_2 (2.4 points)  Received contains a faked HELO hostname (2)
FORGED_JUNO_RCVD   (2.8 points)  'From' juno.com does not match 'Received' headers
RCVD_IN_NJABL      (0.9 points)  RBL: Received via a relay in dnsbl.njabl.org
                   [RBL check: found 8.64.87.159.dnsbl.njabl.org.]
X_NJABL_OPEN_PROXY (0.5 points)  RBL: NJABL: sender is proxy/relay/formmail/spam-source
RCVD_IN_UNCONFIRMED_DSBL (0.5 points)  RBL: Received via a relay in unconfirmed.dsbl.org
                   [RBL check: found 8.64.87.159.unconfirmed.dsbl.org.]
RCVD_IN_DSBL       (2.6 points)  RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org
                   [RBL check: found 187.83.95.200.list.dsbl.org.]
CLICK_BELOW        (0.1 points)  Asks you to click below

New record score: 36.10!!!

Subject: SENSATIONAL Offer! Better Health!

Content analysis details:   (36.10 points, 5 required)
X_PRIORITY_HIGH    (1.9 points)  Sent with 'X-Priority' set to high
WE_HONOR_ALL       (4.3 points)  BODY: Claims to honor removal requests
REVERSE_AGING      (2.1 points)  BODY: Reverses Aging
AS_SEEN_ON         (1.9 points)  BODY: As seen on national TV!
BANG_GUARANTEE     (0.5 points)  BODY: Something is emphatically guaranteed
WRINKLES           (2.9 points)  BODY: Removes Wrinkles
BANG_OPRAH         (4.3 points)  BODY: Talks about Oprah with an exclamation!
WHILE_YOU_SLEEP    (1.7 points)  BODY: While you Sleep
BANG_EXERCISE      (2.5 points)  BODY: Talks about exercise with an exclamation!
OPT_IN_CAPS        (0.2 points)  BODY: Talks about opting in (capitalized version)
COMPLETELY_FREE    (1.1 points)  BODY: No such thing as a free lunch (2)
HTML_30_40         (0.9 points)  BODY: Message is 30% to 40% HTML
HTML_FONT_COLOR_RED (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is red
HTML_FONT_COLOR_GREEN (0.8 points)  BODY: HTML font color is green
HTML_MESSAGE       (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML included in message
HTML_FONT_COLOR_BLUE (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML font color is blue
HTML_LINK_CLICK_HERE (0.1 points)  BODY: HTML link text says "click here"
HTML_SHOUTING6     (2.9 points)  BODY: HTML has very strong "shouting" markup
MIME_HTML_NO_CHARSET (0.8 points)  RAW: Message text in HTML without specified charset
DATE_IN_FUTURE_06_12 (1.3 points)  Date: is 6 to 12 hours after Received: date
RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM (0.6 points)  RBL: Received via a relay in relays.osirusoft.com
                   [RBL check: found 194.215.121.196.relays.osirusoft.com.]
FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK (3.5 points)  Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook
MIME_HTML_ONLY     (0.1 points)  Message only has text/html MIME parts
MANY_EXCLAMATIONS  (0.8 points)  Subject has many exclamations
MISSING_MIMEOLE    (0.5 points)  Message has X-MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOLE
CLICK_BELOW        (0.1 points)  Asks you to click below

(SpamAssassin 2.55, standard rule set)