December 2003 Archives

After waiting twelve months for its release the third part, which corresponds to the third book in Tolkien's trilogy, has been released. I knew that the first few days after the release it would be pointless trying to see it in any of the cinemas, but I really want to see it this weekend. I've decided to give it a shot at the 10 pm show...

Weird. There is no other word to describe the type of advertising that keeps on appearing in the Google Ads boxes here. One of the things I wanted to test with this 'blog' was the Google Adsense content checking type thingy. (Excuse my English :) ) I wanted to see whether it would serve content based more on the text (ie. these ramblings) or would the fact that it recognises this as a blog win out... So far the jury is yet to reach a verdict, but there is a definite tendency for it to grab the blog side of things more than anything else. Hmmmm Why is it doing that?

I'm always installing these things on our servers in order to make sure that we can support them. However I've never really got round to actively using one. In some respects I sort of miss writing. I used to write a lot more when I was younger. Most of it was non-fiction and of course there was a LOT of academic coursework, however I really should write more often. Like so many things in life, if you get out of the habit of doing it you tend to lose your style. I'm not saying that my style is particularly good per se, but one should not forget how to express oneself in as many contexts as possible... That's my excuse and I'll be damned if I'm going to change it!!

Spammers are now targetting our Bayesian filters. I've been doing some research on it, but there isn't a huge amount that we can do. The only feasible option is to work on implementing more custom rules for the main spam filters and see if that has any effect. Over the last few days there has been a marked increase in the number of emails that are getting through. Fortunately most of the mails that get through do not contain anything offensive, but they could have done! This is the real problem. What would have happened if the more offensive types of spam mail had reached one of our users? Luckily the RBLs seem to be working well.

I knew that the run up to Christmas was going to be busy. I didn't expect it to be as much 'fun'. This afternoon it took on a wholly new element... Needless to say certain elements in the industry were quick to pick up on this and attempted to exploit it. All sounds a little vague, doesn't it? But mystery is what it's all about. I work in a realm of intangibles, rarely dealing with physical elements, so why are you so surprised?

I'm really sick of moving around. For the last few years I've been jumping from one flat to another, time and time again. After a while the novelty wears off. The first place I lived in while I was in Milan was a classic example. We were all perfectly happy with the flat. It was nice and big and we all had our own rooms, which suited us all as they were all a lovely size.

Irish weather has always mystified me. .

Coffee. Without it Monday morning would be truly unbearable. Hardly an original or deep thought, but I'm still waiting for the caffeine to 'kick in'