I started using spamassassin on my CEC email account on 3 September 2002. In the 88 days that I've been using it to filter the spam out of my inbox, I've received 1757 spam messages and one false positive. This comes out to slightly less than 20 spams per day. All told, spam makes up almost 1/5 of my 100MB CEC disk quota. And I only get an average of 15 non-spam messages in my inbox each day. (And my definition of non-spam is rather liberal, as I include everything that gets into my inbox in this definition. And a spam or two usually sneaks in every day.)

I've read a number of proposals on how to deal with spam. One of the most interesting (I wish I could find the link for you), recommended a one cent fee be charged for each email sent. Since this comes to less than a dollar a day for most normal users of email, this wouldn't be too bad (especially since a tweak to the system recommends that each email recipient be credited with 3/4 of a cent for future emails), but it would stop mass mailers in their tracks, as none of them could afford the thousands of dollars it would cost them to send their millions of spam messages. Of course, the main drawback is that groups that legitimately send bulk messages would face some hefty fees. Perhaps ISP could get in for a one-time fee if they promise to police diligently for spam? For example, I'm not opposed to having a cap on the number of emails I can send each day. Two hundred seems very reasonable. It's way more than I would ever send, but far fewer than a spammer could use. And groups that have a legitimate use for bulk mailing could show the ISP proof that people opted in to the mailing list in order to get a bigger cap.

If anyone has other ideas, let me know. It just seems like we need to start filtering spam at the source rather than at the destination.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 30 November 2002 at 10:04 PM

My Thanksgiving feast is over. I don't recall everything I ate, but the buffet included turkey, ham, roast beef, pork, potatoes, dressing, stuffing, pea casserole, candied yams, corn, a variety of salads, and an ungodly number of desserts. Plus all the breakfast stuff that I skipped. We've been going to New Harmony for a Thanksgiving brunch since we moved to Evansville, and I've yet to be disappointed. Everyone else is downstairs eating dinner right now, but I'm too stuffed to even think about dinner, so I'm up here watching CSI and working on the 530 group project. (Advanced search is still broken -- and I don't know why -- but I made the changes to the default search.)

Remind me to post about what I did last night. It's pretty interesting, but I think I'll save it for later.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 28 November 2002 at 7:32 PM

Yesterday I had a moment where nothing seemed to be going right for me. I was carrying some soda out of the ACM office to put in the fridge when I banged one of the cans against the corner of the filing cabinet. The can burst open and sprayed all over the office. Once the can stopped gushing, I dropped it into the trashcan. Of course, it started gushing again, this time all over the books on the bookshelf next to the trashcan.

After it stopped spraying soda, I got started on cleaning up. I got some paper towels down from the top of one of the shelves, and in the process knocked a bulletin board down, breaking the plastic hanger off its back. Once I got the bulletin board back up and the books dried off, I started working on the office. The file cabinet that I had originally banged the can against was obviously covered in soda, so I got some cleaner out of the closet and started cleaning the filing cabinet. But this is a comedy of errors, so, of course, the cleaner took the paint off the filing cabinet.

That's when I gave up.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 November 2002 at 4:55 PM

If you're looking for a good movie to see in then nest few days, I'd like to recommend the new James Bond flick Die Another Day. Like all good Bond movies, it is very over-the-top, but this one has a bit of an edge to it. I don't want to give too much away, but I will mention that the title sequence is awesome. It's the typical Bond sequence with stylized girls dancing and swimming around on the screen, but it is also highlighting a rather disturbing torture sequence.

After the movie is over and reality sets in, you'll find yourself thinking that there's no way that James could have done this or that, but you won't find yourself thinking that during the movie. My adrenaline was pumping. Was he going to make it alive? Was he going to catch up with the bad guy? I don't want to spoil things for you, but of course the answers are yes and yes. But during the film I wasn't so sure.

The only fly in the ointment was the predictability of the plot. As michael can testify, I had a pretty good handle on just about everything that was going to happen, in broad generalities if not specifics. But that didn't seem to lessen my enjoyment of the film at all. Die Another Day gets my enthusiastic approval.

Comments: 3 Posted by david on 24 November 2002 at 12:31 AM

I've been in the engineering school for almost 12 hours now, and here in the ACM Lounge for ten of those twelve hours. Which kinda sucks, but I have accomplished quite a bit today. I've gotten a bunch of asp pages written for my databases group project, and have hacked around with my 513 project. I also seem to have forgotten to eat any meals today, but, possibly due to my general lethargy, I don't seem very hungry. This weekend I also need to work on 455, 423, and more for 513, as well as buying a nice chair for the ACM Lounge, so I think I'll be pretty busy.

Comments: 2 Posted by david on 22 November 2002 at 11:34 PM

Much like everyone else, I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets this weekend. But rather than write a review of it*, I'd prefer to spend my time discussing a different children's show. More specifically, I'd like to discuss "Discovery Kids," NBC's Saturday morning programming block.

The basic idea behind "Discovery Kids" is that NBC took shows intended for adult audiences, reworked them with prepubescent participants, and interspersed shows more in keeping with the tNBC programming of the past. But the retooled adult shows are the best. There's a pre-teen version of Survivor called "Endurance" where kids compete in events, and the winning team gets to send two other teams (a team is one boy and one girl) to the "temple," where the two teams play Paper, Rock, Scissors to determine who will leave the island.

Another awesome show is the "Discovery Kids" version of Junkyard Wars, called "Operation Junkyard." "Operation Junkyard" is slightly different than the Junkyard Wars we're all familiar with. In OpJk, the teams are assembled in repainted school buses filled with junk (as opposed to the junkyard in Junkyard Wars), and are then asked to build simple devices to accomplish things like keeping a sinking boat afloat. I've yet to see any of the kids tinker with a motor, which is a much appreciated change from Junkyard Wars, where all the shows seem to be quite similar. The kids in OpJk also seem to have more trouble working well in teams, which makes the show much more interesting.

Anyway, if you have the opportunity to watch some TV on Saturday morning, give "Discovery Kids" a chance; just stay away from "Scout's Safari."

* The Harry Potter movie was good, but Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) upstaged Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) in all of their scenes together. Whether this was because Grint has mastered the high-pitched squeal in order to show about 18 different emotions, or just because Radcliffe was as wooden as a cigar store Indian, I don't know.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 November 2002 at 4:38 PM

"Students wrote the programs"

yes they did. youll notice the article doest say which students (because that would have really made my day), but I consider my day made enough as is.

now I just hope that my interviewer from APL happened to read cnn this morning.

(p.s. when you pull a muscle in your neck, how long exactly before the intense stabbing pain every time you turn your head to the left stops? because I hope the answer is "soon.")

Comments: 3 Posted by michael on 19 November 2002 at 11:45 AM

I'm stuffed. Chris, Christie, michael, Rachel, and I all went out for dinner at the Macaroni Grill. Guess who else we saw there? None other than Ron Cytron and his family. We said hi to Ron as he was leaving, introduced him to Rachel and Christie (Chris introduced them by their websites), and then thought no more about seeing him until we were done with our meals. That's when our server informed us that "one of our teachers" had bought dessert for us. Needless to say, this was totally unexpected and unnecessary, but very much appreciated. So we pigged out on some great Macaroni Grill desserts, and now I can barely move myself out of my chair. Anyway, thanks for the dessert, Ron.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 17 November 2002 at 10:36 PM

I've had a busy week of interviewing, testing, and coding, so perhaps that accounts for my lack of posts here. Next week I have more of the same, with an interview on Tuesday (in town this time), a take-home exam on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a bunch of programming assignments due on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The interviews with Cerner last week seemed to go fairly well. I can never really tell how I did in an interview after it's over, though, so I guess I'll just have to wait a couple of weeks and see what they say. This week I have a round one interview with APL, which I hope I do well on.

My room here in apartment 12 seems perpetually cold. Probably because of all the windows, which don't like very thermally efficient. I'm beginning to wonder if I should follow in my former roommate Scott's steps and buy one of those space heater things.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 November 2002 at 2:55 PM

The wireless access point here in apartment 12 seems to be on its last legs. This is the second linksys wap that's died on me in the last 12 months. Avoid these things like the plague.

My secret suspicion regarding this thing is that its being done in by too much radiation. You see, because I'm both lazy and impatient, I decided that one microwave oven wasn't enough. So apartment 12 now sports two microwaves, and I often use both of them while preparing my meals. I mean, why wait twenty minutes for a meal when I can have the whole thing done in 10? But I am concerned that the increased radiation from what can only be described as a fairly cheap microwave has forever destroyed the sensitive electronics inside the wap. I only hope I'm not getting over-radiated. Just to be on the safe side, I think I'll skip the x-rays at my next dental appointment.

All this talk of radiation has reminded me of a chart all of my eight-grade science classmates and I received from Mr. Wiseman. It detailed the FDA's recommended radiation doses for one year. All that I recall from the chart is that if you had dental x-rays and rode on a plane in the same year, you were getting too much radiation. Which means all those full-head x-rays I got before I had surgery a few years ago probably put me over my lifetime limit. Mutant powers, here I come.

Comments: 1 Posted by david on 10 November 2002 at 11:58 PM

According to this article, WashU is going to have some tough competition in keeping its best dorm food in the country title this year.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 November 2002 at 9:15 PM

It's amazing how the the republicans have managed to alienate even me, despite my general conservative tendencies. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, I think. I don't support the death penalty, but I can perhaps understand why you might want to use it. But for the federal government to file charges against the DC snipers, take custody of the two suspects away from Maryland authorities, and then drop the federal charges against them so they can be shipped off the Virginia where both of them can face the death penalty strikes me as a bit disgusting. Venue shopping is a bit worrisome. It seems like they're making an end-run around the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Especially when you consider the fact that Maryland had most of the evidence, a majority of the shootings occurred within her borders, and they Maryland police were the ones who caught them. All this rigmarole just to make sure a 17 year old kid is given the death penalty.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 7 November 2002 at 5:26 PM

I promised you a few additionally insights into the acm programming contest, so here they are.

1. You never really appreciate your editor until you have to do without it. Lets face it, emacs isn't really the slickest editor around, but it sure beats the pants off realj, which lacks useful features like proper tabination and parentheses and brace matching. When you consider that the C++ guys were using Visual C++, a pretty decent editor, I really believe that realj cost us at least 30 minutes of time.

2. All the problems fall into a small set of easily identifiable categories. With the proper training, you could probably optimize the order that you solved the problems based on their category. Oh, the categories are (roughly) algorithm/data structure problem (where implement a canned algorithm), simple brute force problem, formatting problem (where you have to spend gobs of time formatting your output), intelligent problems (where you have to show some insight because the brute-force approach will fail because of time or space constraints). There might be a couple of others. Leave a comment if you know of one.

3. How you organize your computer time will probably closely correspond to how many problems you get done. One computer for three people can cause a lot of headaches.

WU|ACM is thinking of running their own programming contest, so if you think you'd be interested in participating, you might want to keep an eye on their webpage.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 7 November 2002 at 2:24 AM

a day I have long awaited (and that Im sure dave has long feared) has finally arrived. as those of you who clicked the link now know, my favorite television show ever has just been released in its entirety on dvd. and with the holiday season just around the corner, too. imagine the possibilities.

oh, and speaking of presents: happy birthday, john. (p.s. if you dont tell me what you want for your birthday soon, this weblog shout-out is all youre getting.)

Comments: 4 Posted by michael on 6 November 2002 at 3:08 AM

Hello again. Sorry about not posting, but I was in Kansas City this past weekend participating in the ACM programming contest. The two WashU teams took second and third out of eight at our site and tenth and 24th out of 108 in the region. Not well enough to advance to the international competition in Hollywood, but pretty well considering it's WashU's first time participating in a number of years.

Oh well, class time. I'll have to save my programming contest insights for another post.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 November 2002 at 12:51 PM

Alright, the hastily selected Halloween theme is gone and your colorize preferences should have returned to normal. I'm tempted to force my own preference of hue=220 sat=30 on all of you, but I'll let you settle back into normalcy first.

This morning I woke up at 7am with a craving for a glass of Orange-Banana juice (it tastes like orange juice without the high acidity and smells like bananas). So I got out of bed, got myself some juice, drank it, went back into my room, and started working on cs455. I had the assignment done and submitted by 10:00 and made a bit of progress on the next assignment before I realized that I probably should have gone back to sleep rather than working on things that aren't due for a while. I didn't go back to bed, but now I'm very tired. So I'm going to go to bed soon and save my packing for tomorrow morning.

This weekend will be the third weekend in a row that I've been out-of-town. Because of that, I'm eagerly waiting for next weekend, when I can finally catch up on some sleep.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 1 November 2002 at 12:06 AM