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Comment Re:spamassassin (Score 0) 190

have you tried spamassassin?

Don't follow this advice. SA has become so slow that it's almost useless. On a VM with 1GB RAM, it takes anywhere from 15-60 seconds to process a single e-mail, and is an incredible resource hog. I've been running SA for years, run the latest stuff, and have pretty much done every tweak imaginable. And the default rules are about useless now as well: The scores are set so low that you have to set a low threshold, increasing your false positive rate. About 50% of the mail on my mail server (personal use, maybe 200-300 inbound messages a day, 90% spam) just gets passed due to spamd timing out.

Unfortunately, there appear to be no decent alternatives out there. Greylisting is nice, but spammers are wising up to it, and simply resend spam. There was a time about 3-4 years ago that zero spam came through (same inbound volume)...now, it's more like 5-10 a day. Not that I'm complaining. My point being that switching over to SA will not solve any of the submitter's resource woes with procmail.

Comment $45,000 for a Master's? (Score 3, Insightful) 163

Sorry, folks, but no Master's in CS is worth $45,000, and certainly not from Georgia Tech when better schools offer the same for half the tuition (Univ. of Texas comes to mind), and regional schools for a quarter of this. This seems to be nothing more than a marketing ploy to show what a good "deal" you could get if you went 100% online while at the same time inflating the quality of the on-campus program at Georgia Tech.

Comment It all makes sense... (Score 3, Interesting) 198

The other day a Google tech recruiter (not a headhunter) contacted me about an interview at Google. This after I turned down a second interview with them seven years ago. Yes, seven years ago. It got me to thinking: Is Google that desperate for qualified employees that they are having to dig that deep into their interview files to find talent? After doing some research, it seems as though they want to interview me for a "technical sales engineering" position or some such thing. Still, this article and the fact that Google is searching their archives for help seems to point to a dwindling supply of technical types in the market.

And since I'm a few years older than Vince Vaughan, I seriously doubt I'd quite fit in anymore. Say what you want about The Internship, but Google's imprimatur was all over it.

Comment I can appreciate this as I watched my father die (Score 5, Interesting) 351

I was honored to be able to hold my father's hand when he passed away from stage IV lung cancer a few years back. One can never really say they are ready for a loved one to pass, but I was resigned to the fact, and therefore there weren't many emotions going through my head while telling my dad it was ok to let go. (I had read in a couple of places that scientists believe hearing might be one of the last senses to shut down immediately prior to death, so I figured I could do no harm telling him everything would be ok.)

One thing I did notice, and will probably never forget: In the moments up to his final breaths, while his BP was dropping, his eyes never stopped moving, It could have been involuntary movements, but they would stop for an instant as if to focus on something, then move again. He never acknowledged me while I was with him the last few hours, but his eyes: They would flick around the room as if he was looking for something, or maybe seeing something only he could see. The doctor said it was likely his vision had already shut down at that point, which made it all the more impactful on me. Even as his BP dwindled away to 0/0, after his breathing had stopped (no death rattle, just shallower and shallower, with increasing apnea gaps, until it simply stopped), his eyes made a few last furtive movements, then were still.

Who knows what my dad was seeing in his final moments? Obviously he didn't live to tell me about it. But the scientific part of my brain tells me something was going on his brain right up to the moment that he no longer had blood flowing through his brain.

Comment Re:Refuse the search? (Score 5, Informative) 923

This raises another question. What happens when these people refuse to answer questions or allow a search of their home?

IANAL, but I've done quite a bit of reading about this topic. The rule (at least in the US) is very simple: You are not required, nor should you allow any law enforcement officer into your home or business without a search warrant. Needless to say, you should not be talking to them at the front door either. They are not going to bust your door down, and it's likely they will not return.

Keep in mind that you should never talk to a federal agent without your attorney's advice. The reason? It is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent, and there are many cases of people being charged with lying rather than the original crime for which they were being investigated.

Don't take my word for it. Read the words of a former government attorney (scroll down to "The Raid"). There are any number of good articles and videos authored by attorneys. Here's another one that's worth a read.

Comment I've been watching Breaking Bad... (Score 1) 923

...and since I have an interest in chemistry, I do a lot of Google searches about things that are mentioned in the show, such as the process of meth production and the precursors of meth production. I noticed Wikipedia has an article on meth production, not to mention alternative ways to produce precursors such as phenylacetone without getting the attention of the feds.

So why is it that I stand a better chance of getting a visit from the DEA than does Jimmy?

And no, I don't use Tor because I refuse to submit to a tyrannical government (at least not while I don't have an M-16 pointed at my face).

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