Archive for March 22nd, 2013

Star Trekkin’, across the universe…

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service says it was a mistake for employees to use an agency studio in Maryland to film a parody of the TV show “Star Trek.”

More:

The IRS says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show “Gilligan’s Island,” cost about $60,000.

This is a story I am not proud of. In my defense, I was younger and dumber at the time.

A long time ago, I worked for the IRS; I was a “data transcriber”, which meant I typed in information from tax forms.

One day, they called all of the employees in the Austin service center together for a special assembly. It turned out the purpose of this assembly was to sell us on purchasing US Savings Bonds…and the powers that be had decided the best way to do this was to show us a “special episode” of “The Golden Girls” that had the characters explaining how wonderful savings bonds were. I don’t believe this was ever broadcast; I think it was something the government commissioned from the producers of “The Golden Girls”. I am willing to bet everyone got paid for their work, and I am also willing to bet that it was more than $60,000 even in 1986 dollars.

Posted in Clippings, Stupid, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 22, 2013.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Chinua Achebe, noted Nigerian writer perhaps most famous for his novel Things Fall Apart. NYT. A/V Club.

Achebe’s name was frequently tossed around as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize, but he had to content himself with winning pretty much everything else, including the Booker Prize in 2007. But in his final years, he twice rejected honors from the Nigerian government, rather than be seen as complicit in what he called “a small clique of renegades” who had transformed “my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.” He reserved perhaps his greatest impatience for those who accused him of blaming colonialism for all of Africa’s woes. “Some people think,” he told a Paris Review interviewer in 1993, “’Well, what he’s saying is we must praise his people.’ For God’s sake! Go and read my books.”

And:

Mr. Achebe’s political thinking evolved from blaming colonial rule for Africa’s woes to frank criticism of African rulers and the African citizens who tolerated their corruption and violence. Indeed, it was Nigeria’s civil war in the 1960s and then its military dictatorship in the 1980s and ‘90s that forced Mr. Achebe abroad.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Quiz show.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Harvard Quiz Bowl teams that won four championships between 2009 and 2011 have had those wins vacated because of a cheating scandal involving one student.

…

Two other students from Quiz Bowl teams at The Charter School of Wilmington, a high school in Delaware, and the University of Michigan were accused of similar breaches, though only Harvard had multiple national championship titles vacated.

Posted in Clippings, Stupid | Comments Closed

Posting the bans.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Looking back, I find it has been a little more than a month since I installed WP-Ban.

In that time, it has blocked 30,257 spam attempts. That’s 30,257 spam comments I haven’t had to delete.

Where are these coming from? I thought it might be interesting to post a Top Twenty list of IP addresses.

IPs Attempts % Country ISP
94.23.60.124 2,214 7.32% France OVH Systems
200.220.196.23 1,862 6.15% Brazil Nelson Quintas Telecom
192.74.228.193 1,083 3.58% United States Peg Tech
192.74.228.145 770 2.54% United States Peg Tech
192.74.248.161 650 2.15% United States Peg Tech
96.47.225.66 551 1.82% United States IPTelligent LLC
96.47.225.82 550 1.82% United States IPTelligent LLC
142.4.116.58 548 1.81% United States Peg Tech
96.47.225.74 548 1.81% United States IPTelligent LLC
192.74.236.165 546 1.80% United States Peg Tech
142.4.98.226 513 1.70% United States Peg Tech
117.21.226.205 503 1.66% China Chinanet Jiangxi
142.0.133.89 496 1.64% United States Peg Tech
117.21.225.25 381 1.26% China Chinanet Jiangxi
117.21.225.42 374 1.24% China Chinanet Jiangxi
142.4.119.170 356 1.18% United States Chinanet Jiangxi
142.4.98.210 354 1.17% United States Peg Tech
5.9.7.208 351 1.16% Germany Hetzner Online
192.74.230.69 339 1.12% United States Peg Tech
117.21.227.47 330 1.09% China Chinanet Jiangxi
44.02%

The percentage figures are based on the number of spam attempts coming from each IP address, as a percentage of the total spam attempts. So, for example, a little over 7% of the total spam attempts to my blog came from one IP address, 94.23.60.124, which is located in a block of IP addresses assigned to France (according to the Country IP Block database).

What conclusions can we draw from this? Blocking certain IP address ranges can be a big win if you don’t want to spend time mucking out Akismet. Specifically:

  • 94.23.0.0 – 94.23.255.255
  • 200.220.192.0 – 200.220.207.255
  • 192.74.224.0 – 192.74.255.255
  • 96.47.224.0 – 96.47.239.255
  • 142.4.96.0 – 142.4.127.255
  • 117.21.0.0 – 117.21.255.255
  • 142.0.128.0 – 142.0.143.255
  • 5.9.0.0 – 5.9.255.255

I am a little surprised at the number of spam attempts coming from IP addresses in the United States. My impression before I started using WP-Ban was that most of my spam was coming from China and countries in Latin America. My reading of the stats indicates that I do get a lot of spam from those sources, but larger percentages come from the United States and various countries in Europe (France, Germany, the United Kingdom, etc.)

For the record, I have yet to get any email from anyone in an IP range I’ve blocked requesting that I make an exception. I am happy to do so for any legitimate readers of my blog who are blocked: my email address is displayed on the page informing users they are banned.

Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist asked an interesting question: had I tried to associate the spam IP addresses with specific providers? The answer: no. I’ve gone back and attempted to add provider information based on what I’m finding at CQCounter.com.

However, I’m finding some issues between CIPB and CQCounter. For example, CIPB shows 142.0.133.89 as a United States IP block: CQCounter shows it as a Chinese block with Peg Tech as the ISP. I’d like to do some more work on this; if anyone has any suggestions, or especially if anyone has any information on Peg Tech, please feel free to leave it in the comments.

Posted in Admin | 2 Comments »

Banana republicans on trial: March 22, 2013.

Friday, March 22nd, 2013

I was out until late last night (having a very nice celebratory dinner at Bordeaux’s Steakhouse in Dripping Springs: thanks, Mom!) and wasn’t able to report on the latest Bell developments until this morning. That’s probably for the best, as I can link to the second day LAT coverage rather than the breaking news.

“I have never heard of anything like this in my 40 years of law,” said Robert Sheahen, a veteran Los Angeles criminal defense attorney.

What happened? Briefly, hell broke loose in California.

…the judge declared a mistrial on the outstanding counts, saying “all hell has broken loose” with the deeply divided jury.

As you may recall, the jury returned verdicts on some of the charges, but remained undecided on others. The judge sent them back Thursday morning to continue deliberations.

An exasperated Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy drew the case to a close after a bizarre day in which one juror asked to reconsider the guilty verdicts reached Wednesday. Then, an anonymous juror passed a note to Kennedy urging her to “remind the jury to remain respectful and not to make false accusations and insults to one another.” Kennedy refused to set aside the guilty verdicts.

These are different notes than the ones members of the jury sent on Wednesday, by the way.

What does all this mean?

1. “Prosecutors declined to comment because of the upcoming trial of Robert Rizzo, the former city administrator alleged to be the mastermind of the corruption. But an official said no decision has been made about retrying the defendants on the remaining charges.”

2. “[Former council member George] Cole’s attorney, Ronald Kaye, said the jury’s behavior suggested ‘coercion and intimidation’ that throws the guilty verdicts into question.
Attorney Shepard Kopp, who represented Jacobo, said the jury’s conduct is ‘tremendous legal grounds for motion for a new trial.'”

Basically, the jury verdicts stand, but it sounds like the defense has a chance to get them thrown out on appeal, if they can prove jury misconduct. My recommendation: buy popcorn futures.

Posted in Beef, California Über Alles, Clippings, Food, Law | 1 Comment »