Everbody has a blog...

Why I won't get Speakeasy DSL service again.

Jan Schaumann — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:34:25 GMT

Reminiscent of my previous nightmare with DSL, the reason why I'm ditching Speakeasy DSL service after 9 years can be found summarized in this ticket.

Having outsourced my hosting to Panix, I'm ready to become a consumer.

bouncing mail due to relays.ordb.org

Jan Schaumann — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:14:06 GMT

Apparently some time today, relays.ordb.org was changed to return positive results for any and all queries. This caused my mail server to reject all incoming mail.

I understand that it's an efficient way to make people not use relays.ordb.org anymore, but willingly and intentionally cause people to lose mail is really not very nice.

See also: http://www.nabble.com/relays.ordb.org-r ... 86049.html

A surfer's log

Jan Schaumann — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:39:55 GMT

Date: 2008-01-19
Where: Pacifica/Linda Mar
Time: 13:30 - 15:00
Weather: Sunny
Wind: None.
Crowds: Emptyish (for Pacifica)
Tide: Low, low tide.
Waves: 3-4', mostly. Some 5. Fairly clean, but few.

First time surfing in 2008. Very, very out of shape. Good thing it was mellow. Warmer than anticipated.

Google blocking certain user-agents

Jan Schaumann — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:17:52 GMT

If you're trying to write a tool that retrieves information from Google, you want to make sure to explicitly set the UserAgent string to something like what a regular browser would set.

For example, perl's LWP::UserAgent sets the agent string per default to "libwww-perl/#.#". Google apparently doesn't like that and will not return results to you. Setting it to something like "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; NetBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3)" would work.

Interestingly, they appear to whitelist agents, rather than blacklisting them. That is, a random string as a user agent will not work. This means that they are effectively saying "we will only serve content to agents that we know (and approve) of", banning any client they simply might not know of.

One would assume that they did put this whitelist into place to prevent certain abuses, but then again, it would be trivial for anybody developing tools that lend themselves to abuse to simply reset the agent string to something they would accept, so the win seems negligible to me, while the cost of banning unknown agents seems high.

A Surfer's Log

Jan Schaumann — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:11:12 GMT


Date:           2007-11-25
Where:         Pacifica/Linda Mar
Time:           11:15am - 12:45pm
Weather:      Cloudy
Wind:           Some winds from N.
Crowds:       Emptyish (for Pacifica)
Tide:            High tide just turned to outgoing tide.  Some current.
Waves:         Choppy, but good.  3-5', mostly.

Got a 5', some 3'.  Ate a 5'.  Water was quite a bit colder than the last time.

A Surfer's Log

Jan Schaumann — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 06:20:13 GMT


Date:           2007-11-23
Where:         Pacifica/Linda Mar
Time:           11:30am - 1:00pm
Weather:      Sunny
Wind:           Some winds from N.
Crowds:       Empty (for Pacifica)
Tide:            Low low tide, starting to change to incoming tide
Waves:         Choppy, but good.  3-5', mostly.

Water's starting to get... "brisk".

A Surfer's Log

Jan Schaumann — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:40:40 GMT


Date:           2007-11-11 -- 2007-11-17
Where:         Canoe's Waikiki
Time:           mornings, afternoons
Weather:      Sunny
Wind:           None
Crowds:       Crowded.
Waves:        1-3' mostly.  Occasional 4'.  Slow.

Rented an 8'2" from Surf Bruddahs, which apparently still was too short.
Would have needed at least a 9' to get more out of it.

The water's nice and warm, though.  I forgot how nice it
is not to have to wear a wetsuit and booties.

A Surfer's Log

Jan Schaumann — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:37:38 GMT


Date:           2007-10-28
Where:         Pacifica/Linda Mar
Time:           9:30am - 11:00am
Weather:      Sunny
Wind:           none
Crowds:       Emptyish (for Pacifica)
Tide:            Low tide, starting to change to incoming tide
Waves:         Flat.  Hardly anything worth paddling into.
                   A few 2-3'.

A Skater's Log

Jan Schaumann — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:01:15 GMT


Date:            2007-10-23
Where:          Sunnyvale Skatepark / Fair Oaks & Wolfe
Time:            9:15 - 10:00am
Weather:       Sunny
Crowds:        empty - 7 or 8 people

Been at least 6 months, so just warming up, refreshing muscle memory.

Somewhat related: another reason why San Francisco sucks.

A Surfer's Log

Jan Schaumann — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:06:26 GMT


Date:           2007-10-21
Where:         Pacifica/Linda Mar
Time:           10:00am - 11:30am
Weather:      Sunny
Wind:           On-shore, brisk
Crowds:       Only few people out.  Parking lot almost empty.
Tide:            Low tide, starting to change to incoming tide
Waves:         Bumpy, choppy, blown out.
                   3-5', occasional 6',7', even some 8'+
                   Strong currents / rip tide towards south

The sea was angry that day, my friends.  Like an old man trying to
send back soup in a Deli.

Got my ass handed to me.  Caught only a handful of waves, mostly 
whitewater.  :-/