Posts for March 2008

An interview on OpenDNS

I just finished listening to what turned out to be quite an engrossing Technometria podcast; an interview with David Ulevitch from OpenDNS. OpenDNS is an improved DNS system, with both performance and functionality enhancements compared to the classic, boring old Domain Name System. Ulevitch makes a good case for his service; ISPs (the traditional provider) don't usually consider DNS a core competency, and often lack the resources to properly scale their DNS service as traffic and users expand. (Anyone who's had DNS troubles with their cable or DSL provider will be familiar with this). OpenDNS devotes dedicated resources, development support, and infrastructure to optimizing their system. Makes sense.

In addition, they offer capabilities that are simply above and beyond what normal DNS provides. First out of the box is phishing protection; you can get this by just using their DNS resolvers (208.67.222.222, 208.67.220.220) without even setting up an account! OpenDNS runs the PhishTank anti-phishing site, and uses this data to detect and block DNS requests to known phishing sites (say, from accidentally opening a phishmail purporting to be from your bank). Great service; especially for less Net-savvy types. If you set up an account, they can go far beyond the defaults, allowing site blocking by domain name or by type (adult, gambling, etc.), URL shortcuts (help --> http://helpdesk.yourdomain.com, stock FOO --> Yahoo stock info for FOO), etc. Stats are available and allow deep analysis of your DNS use, and account management is flexible enough to handle either a single machine/NAT, or a large network.

Really quite fascinating. Like Phil and Scott on the podcast, I think I'm sold. It's easy to try out...just change your DNS settings to the addresses noted above (OpenDNS gives very straightforward directions for just about any configuration). I went the next step and created an account, mainly for purposes of stats analysis. I'm not interested in domain blacklisting (other than phishers), but your milage may vary.

And with all that, OpenDNS not only stays free, but even has a business model! They offer ads on selected "domain not found" pages, monetizing some misspellings and typos (though they also fix the common ones transparently and without the ads). Pretty low impact, and apparently, they are profitable.

Thanks to Phil Windley for a fascinating podcast (as always), and to David Ulevitch for offering such an interesting service for free.

(Note: be aware that DNS-based internet filtering is just as imperfect as any other type is. There are multiple ways around it, and it shouldn't be considered a panacea. Used with awareness of the strengths and weaknesses, though, it's pretty useful, and certainly easy to manage.)

March 31, 2008 permalink | Comments (2)

Farthing is phenomenal

So, Farthing went from really, really good to holy-crap-can't-put-it-down good about 15 pages after I stopped to post yesterday. I don't want the book to end; I stopped at the bookstore on the way home today to pick up Ha'Penny, the sequel, but it wasn't in stock. *grr*

So it's wending it's way to me on the wings of Amazon angels (at 2/3rd the price, as well); I should have it Monday. Luckily, I can switch back to the Temeraire series (book 3: Black Powder War) while I wait.

I'll have a paperback copy of Farthing by Monday as well, for any IRL folks who want to give it a whirl. Recommended.

March 26, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

What a day: Nassim Taleb and Jo Walton

I felt amazingly fortunate today. During my ride to and from work, and while I had free time otherwise, I was able to listen to an great podcast and read an awesome book...both free. Vive la Chris Anderson!

The podcast was a Long Now SALT presentation by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, perhaps best known for the book The Black Swan. I've followed his work for a couple of years now, and this talk was vintage Taleb; uncompromising, challenging, and unabashedly controversial. Great, great stuff. I keep bumping in to authors and lecturers that help me crystallize beliefs from intuition; Nassim Taleb is one of those people.

The book is Farthing, by Jo Walton. I was lucky enough to catch it as a free ebook (for my N770), given away by Tor Books as they drum up interest in their new website/fiction portal (an ebook a week, folks...check it out!). Farthing was already on my wishlist, and I will definitely be buying it (for the author's sake, and as an evangelizing borrow-book).

It's an old-fashioned English murder mystery...set in a alternate history post-WWII Great Britain where Churchill was deposed and a Nazi offer for peace in 1941 accepted. Germany controls the continent, and an increasingly fascist-leaning Britian grapples with the tensions and intrigues of THIS new world order.

The background is revealed naturally, as the novel progresses. The pace is great, the characters are cast beautifully into the English class system, and the story seems to be progressing well (I'm 3/4 through). I can't wait to finish...and this is book one of an at least three book series. Joy.

Both the podcast and the book are some of the best works I've come across in recent memory; to hit high points in both my primary mediums at once is a great thing. Thanks very, very much to both Nassim Taleb and Jo Walton for their great work and their generosity in making it available gratis. I predict that you'll find it well worth it.

March 25, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Two good BoingBoing posts

I love Boing Boing. It's a great aggregator, which is a important function on the Web, but I also have a great deal of affinity for many of the topics they favor. Civil and cyber liberties, for example...

US customs bar fashionista druggie writer for moral turpitude -- Sweet Mercy...can we please find some better things to do? It's one thing to turn someone away for convictions, illegalities, etc. (albeit still something worth arguing about; I disagree with many of the drug-based [victimless crime] indictments). But it's entirely another to toss out phrases like moral turpitude on an entry denial. As our friend John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey says: Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800's over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that. (By the way, pause and read the Kung Fu Monkey post. The man's a genius. I'll wait.)
WWII Bomber: Trademark Infringement -- *growl* I hate these bastards. Abusing legislature like the DMCA that's already crazily overbroad is simply inexcusable. Read Cory's comments here...he knows his stuff (used to work for the EFF, on exactly this sort of thing). These people are happily taking advantage of the common conflation of 3 different sets of law...trademark, copyright, and patent. They're different, folks, and different rules apply. Each of them was developed with specific balances in mind, and to take the parts of each that are most advantageous to you is wrong, unethical, and deceptive. Makes me crazy, and it's the reason I dislike the term intellectual property, which promotes the confusion.

March 22, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

My Amie Street music feed

Interesting! Amie Street provides a RSS feed of my music purchases that I can share. Sounds like a good idea! I just bought Sick of Being Stoned today, and it friggin' rocks.

My Amie Street purchases RSS feed (link removed, see UPDATE 3 below)

And, what the hell, the player for Sick of Being Stoned...

UPDATE: I edited the RSS feed link above; trying again. It appeared to act strangely (WAY too many results) in Google Reader. If it did the same for you, try dropping it and re-add the edited one. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to their Amie Street spotlight page for this link: LOLCat video for Sick of Being Stoned. Excellent!!

UPDATE 3: After watching Google Reader wig out on this feed twice, I'm removing the link for now. Something is being constantly updated, metadata-wise, and the feed isn't working as intended. I'm going to touch base w/ Amie Street on it...they've been very open to suggestions and willing to communicate on things in the past. I think a feed of my purchases would be a great idea, and I'm sure they'd like it to work as expected. Hopefully I'll have good news soon.

March 21, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

POTUS trumps Pope. Totally.

Wow...I mean, I've always found the notion of papal infallibility cool and all (well, ok, Coke-through-the-nose funny, really...but cool sounds better), but it's got NOTHIN' on the President. Secrecy News links to the text of a recent Congressional floor statement where Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) described the contents of three Office of Legal Council opinions that he had been able to review. Among the gems:

An Executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous Executive order. Rather than violate an Executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.
The President, exercising his constitutional authority under article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President's authority under article II.

Awesome! It's like superpowers!!

PS: Yes, all my Catholic compadres, I am aware of (at least generally) the nuances of papal infallibility. I was fascinated with it at one point in time, and spent some time researching the subject. Fun stuff.

March 17, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

I'm late! No party yet, though...

Friday was hectic and the weekend was pretty sucky, so I actually missed this: House Passes Spy Bill, Rejects Telcom Amnesty Despite Veto Threat. Bravo! Of course, who knows what'll end up coming out of conference committee, but this was a principled stance, and I'm really happy about it.

March 17, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Stand tough, House members!

If we stick with it, the vote against telecom immunity will be a real win for transparency. I'm impressed at how well they've stood up...oh. Crap: House to Close Its Doors for Spying Bill -- It wasn't clear what information would be presented in the closed session...[Senator] Whitehouse said the documents assert that the president has the power to determine what his constitutional powers are, particularly in a time of war.

Queue the 24 references, and the arm-twisting...*sigh* And, of course, after a secret House session, if you vote against this, you obviously want the terrorists to win.

My prediction...after this session, the bill (including telecom immunity provisions) passes. (Boy, do I hope I'm wrong, though). We are well and truly fucked.

March 13, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Scratch Monkey, by Charlie Stross

I ran across a link to Charlie Stross's Scratch Monkey in ebook form on Friday...had to d/l it to my Nokia straightaway. It's a very early novel of Charlie's (which you can tell in certain spots) but overall, it's brilliant. I see bits and pieces of later characters here and there; I always enjoy exploring an author's work as it evolves over time. Exactly my type of fiction, too...I'm loving it. If you like the kind of wacky sci-fi I do, you'll love it too. Thanks for sharing, Charlie!

March 10, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

The Mukasey Paradox

Yow...Radley Balko posts a link on a great thought experiment: The Mukasey Paradox -- Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.

Thanks, Radley...I think. My head hurts now.

March 9, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Buh bye...

Awesome: My kids don’t know what ‘radio’ is -- I love ya, Cam.

I just realized I'm posting this while jamming to a song (Save Myself) from Chinese Whispers. A band I've never heard on the radio, and whose music I bought (yeah, I still do that) on the Internet. Telling. (Of course, the next song in my 5-star playlist was REM. *shrug*)

March 7, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Google Contacts API

Cool. Google has released the API for Contacts! I've actually been waiting for a decent programmatic way to interace with Contacts; I don't use it as my primary contact list, but there is certainly a decent amount of info there, and it'll make for a easy online backup of my data. Looking forward to playing with this. +1, Google! (I actually wanted 30boxes to step up here, but their contact data API still isn't up to snuff.)

March 5, 2008 permalink | Comments (0)

Bye, Mr. Gygax...

Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons creator, dies -- Wow...now I feel OLD. I still have my second set of D&D books ( a copy of the Basic Set blue book, albeit sans cover). D&D, AD&D, and the fast-growing RPG genre that resulted from it's success was a HUGE part of my growing-up years, and I have continued to pen-and-paper RPG off and on to this day (some friends and I just started some gaming based on the competing Palladium system.)

By the time the AD&D 2nd edition rules were released, I'd moved on to play other systems, but D&D and first edition AD&D will always hold a special place in my heart. Farewell, Gary.

March 4, 2008 permalink | Comments (1)

Waiting on Trent's web monkeys...grin

So I saw the announcement about Nine Inch Nail's new album Ghosts sweep across the Twittersphere this morning. Checked it out...how can I NOT buy it straight from Trent Reznor himself for five bucks?? As 320kbps MP3s, no less (or FLAC for that matter, if I want to be completely audiophile nutty). Trent is true to his word...he said last year that he was looking forward to taking back his music and having a direct relationship with his fans. Outstanding!

Of course, NiN learned about the slashdot effect today. I didn't bother immediately downloading the songs, and by the time I got home tonight, the servers were crushed; the site is temporarily down while the web monkeys slap on some more go-juice (maybe wiring into Amazon Web Services or something). But never fear; Trent's already got my fiver, and I have my download link for later. Heck, I'll just get it off of Bittorrent if I get antsy...it's not like I haven't already paid. I hope NiN makes a zillion bucks off this, and Trent sticks his thumb in the eye of every music exec that lets him get close enough to do it. Vive la Internet! Long live the tubes. Hopefully this will put another nail in the classic music industry coffin.

March 3, 2008 permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier posts -- Later posts