Newest spam technique

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but this blog is being hit a lot lately by comment spammers. I've been keeping up to it, so I don't think it's that bad right now.

The problem is they are not linking directly to their spam pages, but linking to a google group, or a yahoo group, or to a msn spaces.

Now, I don't want to block those domains, so right now I don't have an automated way to fight the spam. *sigh* I've reported a couple of those groups to msn or google, but I don't think that's the best way to keep up with it.

Spammers are evil. I want to reach through the ether and smack them upside the head. It's just another battle in the Spam Wars.

Happy New Year!

To everyone who celebrates it, Happy New Year 2006!

Oie...

From cbc.ca on issues deployment of military icebreakers in the Arctic in order to assert Canadian sovereignty.

"There's no reason to create a problem that doesn't exist"... "We don't recognize Canada's claims to those waters..."
-- David Wilkins, U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Saddened by waste

One of the things that I hate most when the government in power changes is all the programs of the previous government get scrapped. Not necessarily because they are bad programs, but because the other party started it.

Now, the gun registry may have been a text book example of a badly run software program, but why scap it now that it's been done? I watched a news story about it and they likened it to complaining that a house renovation cost too much, so you tear down the house.

They want to throw out the billion-dollar project and replace it with something else. *sigh* I hate waste.

Reference:
cbc.ca wikipedia.org about.com

A day too late

As with anything, planning and the execution are critical issues. They can make or break things like political campaigns. So I was really amused when I checked our mailbox today and found a post card that had on it "please support Allan Cutler and Stephen Harper on January 23rd". Riiiigght. At least a day too late.

Needless to say David McGuinty won again. He had lots of signs up, I got an automated call from him, and it looks like he actually came to our apartment (but we were out).

Regardless of the party and issues, which are important, I think that McGuinty ran a much better campaign.

Ottawa South 2006

We live in "Ottawa South" and for the first time I am really going to try and figure out what the candidates are going to do for the riding, rather than just voting for the party I want to win. So, I've got to do some reading by checking out the people's sites: Liberal, NDP, and Cons.

We'll see if I can filter through the crap / propaganda and see if there really is any kind of drive to "do good" for the people, or if they just seem that they will go along with the party (haha). Okay, time for bed.

Update: Since there is no "PC" party any more and they are the "Conservatives", but that's too long to say, so I am going to call them the "Cons". ;-)

Smarter design

One of the things that I think is important is to keep making constant improvements to the things that you do. Little design changes as you go. We always used to keep our milk snip-it thing on the fridge, but then my brother showed me a smarter way. The jug itself has a place holder for a snip-it or 2.

I find it's the little things that keep on making the world better, even if it's something as dumb as a milk jug.

Published

We were contacted by someone who wants to use some (he mentioned 7) of our Notre Dame pictures in a paper he's submitting to SIGGRAPH. Ya, I never heard of it either.

It all looks legit since his home page etc. link to his school's website (he's a masters student). It looks like Laura and I will (might?) have our names published in a paper submitted.

Wow, it looks like I'll have my lifes ambition of having my name in a scientific paper and a text book finished very shortly. All without doing any real work... ;-)

Just a note: you can find my name in it now with amazon's "look inside" feature! Awesome! :-D

Next car

I could use this car as my next one... if I could afford it.

Maybe I could just get the seats...

Not a huge fan

One of the things that I'm learning over and over is that I'm not a huge fan of meetings. I'd much rather be coding and "doing". I understand that it's a neccessary evil, it's just that I'd rather not get pulled into meetings. At least at this point I only end up going to meetings that I can contribute a lot to, rather than the ones where you just sit there and wonder why you are there and when will it end.

*sigh*

2 years

I've been working for my current employer for 2 years now (today). Weird how fast the time goes. That also means that I have been out of school for more than 2 years... and as Martha would say, "that's a good thing". ;-)