The inverse effects

As I was walking into work yesterday, the power went out. About 10 seconds later, I thought it came back, but then walked into the next building and realized it wasn't (that building is on a different generator system). In this case Xcel lost a feeder nearby, but was able to backfeed from elsewhere so the power was back in 30 seconds anyways. Normally power outages at work aren't fun, as it means worrying about whether the generators will come online OK (big engines don't like starting in the cold any more than cars, and they don't run as often either) or the utility come back online, and whether I'll need to start shutting things down an hour later. I had actually just been talking to one of the electricians the day before about running the monthly generator transfer test process over break. However going into this season and starting over a week of holiday time this Friday, this power outage made me happy because it was a complete test, and the server rooms were on indefinite power and full cooling about 15 seconds after it started. And that means I'll probably get to enjoy my holiday time without interruptions (at least those from power issues). Of course the students finishing up their finals papers in the labs probably weren't as thrilled about it...

Dangers of the roads

Last night as I was driving home, I had to take an alternate route as a major road was blocked with flares and law enforcement vehicles. I didn't think too much of it afterwards, until tonight I got an IM with information that explained it. That's the second time in two years that a relative of someone I know has been involved in an accident due to driving drunk, and someone died. :( Be careful out on the roads, especially as people are partying during the holidays... And if you're partying, know your limits.

Charlie Brown and Scrubs

So I'm a bit behind and this is sorta old, but Charlie Brown Christmas - Performed by the Cast of Scrubs.

Map of the Internet

This is sorta cool.

III XVI

One of the more interesting plates I've seen recently, noticed on an SUV as it drove past last night.

Children in the streets

So I saw an article with pictures of snowstorm related scenes, and this one sorta stuck out at me. The source is #7 on this page, and the caption reads, "Earlier in the week, children in Washington State enjoyed a day off, as severe weather closed down schools." So apparently in Washington the children enjoy their days off by laying in tire tracks in the streets...

Paper money unfair to blind

Judge rules paper money unfair to blind. It's too bad they didn't realize this was coming when redesigning them a few years back. Maybe the US will catch up with other parts of the world now?

Space and the Human Body

Outer Space Exposure

Sweet moment in airport security

Sweet moment in airport security, posted to IP on Thanksgiving. Now that the archives are up and I can link to it (they've been down since at least yesterday), hopefully they stay up...

And the spambots adapt...

So I was enjoying my relaxing Thanksgiving (well, not really, but that's another story), and I get emails about spam comments. That's the first in a year or more, so I glance at the logs to see how it evaded the setup. It appears it followed a link from googleblog, and was acting as a fully compliant browser (executing javascript, etc.). So either it was a manual attempt, or a really advanced script. To make the rest of my day easier, I implemented an XBL check (after making sure it would have helped in this case), which is something I'd seen as an interesting idea to prevent spam. As I didn't want to bother with Net::DNS for such a simple check that doesn't run often, this should be pretty portable in case anyone else uses perl and wants to try it.

if ($ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'} =~ m/^(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)\.(\d+)$/) {
my $xblresult = qx!/usr/bin/host $4.$3.$2.$1.xbl.spamhaus.org!;
if ($xblresult =~ m/\b127\.0\.0\.\d+\b/) {
print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";
print "Rejected due to xbl\n";
exit;
}
}