cornexo

Received my copy of High Performance MySQL directly from the hands of Baron a few hours ago. The edition looks fabulous. I hoped it would arrive in time for my upcoming vacation. What else should a geek do at the beach but grab a great summer read!

This morning I received my usual email blast from Sotheby’s announcing the upcoming Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. I’ll admit I signed up for it, no complaints about spam. But I get too much email and I want to unsubscribe. Thankfully they provided a nice unsubscribe link in the email. Kudos!

Out of the woods right? Simple form, email address and submit. Wrong. Unceremoniously I am informed that my email address does not appear on the list. (??) Wait! How did I come to receive the aforementioned email?!?! Ok, I get it. They have poor list management software which doesn’t talk properly with their outsourced provider. Regardless, error messages shouldn’t be brutal but helpful and informative. It qualifies as informative.

Ok, no big deal. It happens. Their site also has a Contact Us link. A little hidden, but it’s there. Miserably small input fields make me cranky. No issues filling out the form and submitting it.

Problem solved. Back to dealing with my overloaded inbox. Inbox Zero, here I come, again.

5 minutes later, blam, what should appear in my inbox?


The original message was received at Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:04:44 -0400 (EDT)
from route2.ny.sothebys.com [192.168.1.2]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

(reason: 552 … User exceeds storage quota)

—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to mxpool2.postoffice.net.:
DATA
<<< 552 … User exceeds storage quota
554 5.0.0 Service unavailable
<<< 503 Need RCPT first.
Reporting-MTA: dns; adm2.ny.sothebys.com
Received-From-MTA: DNS; route2.ny.sothebys.com
Arrival-Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:04:44 -0400 (EDT)

Final-Recipient: RFC822; enquiries@sothebyshelp.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.2.2
Remote-MTA: DNS; mxpool2.postoffice.net
Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 552 … User exceeds storage quota
Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:04:45 -0400 (EDT)

From:
From: xxx@xxx.xxx
Date: June 18, 2008 11:03:42 AM EDT
To: enquiries@sothebyshelp.com
Subject: Bugs/Technical Problems from Sotheby’s Web Site

Please unsubscribe me from your email list. I tried using your unsubscribe link from an email I just received. It tells me my email address is not part of that list which is funny because I just received an email for Sotheby’s Private View: Impressionist and Modern Art, London.

Thanks.

Jeff


They must have a tremendous demand causing the inquiries mailbox to overflow. Then again, maybe the person responsible simply went on vacation.

If anyone from Sotheby’s is listening. Please unsubscribe me! Thanks.

Tags: flickrphotography

A great shot courtesy the Library of Congress.

Tags: flickrphotography

Could it be any easier? Head to animoto, link to your flickr pics (or a few other sources), choose a song, click go, find something to eat in the fridge, and watch your video.

Tune by Vaeda

YouTube has been down for a few hours now. Public whois info shows that someone definitely hacked their account…

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registeredwith many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.netfor detailed information.

YOUTUBE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM

YOUTUBE.COM.NOT.RESPECTED.BY.CALITEC.NET

YOUTUBE.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM

YOUTUBE.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COMYOUTUBE.COM

Woops, someone just got fired. For a good post… http://www.centernetworks.com/youtube-down-1

Update 10:15: appears to be fully functional again… As some people pointed out the whois info above is misrepresented by whatever whois OS X defaults to…

I quite agree that it is becoming harder to find compsci talent, especially with Google and Microsoft collecting worker bees using golden handcuffs. 

Why I really care is that Microsoft is vacuuming up way too many programmers. Between Microsoft, with their shady recruiters making unethical exploding offers to unsuspecting college students, and Google (you’re on my radar) paying untenable salaries to kids with more ultimate frisbee experience than Python, whose main job will be to play foosball in the googleplex and walk around trying to get someone…anyone…to come see the demo code they’ve just written with their “20% time,” doing some kind of, let me guess, cloud-based synchronization… between Microsoft and Google the starting salary for a smart CS grad is inching dangerously close to six figures and these smart kids, the cream of our universities, are working on hopeless and useless architecture astronomy because these companies are like cancers, driven to grow at all cost, even though they can’t think of a single useful thing to build for us, but they need another 3000-4000 comp sci grads next week. And dammit foosball doesn’t play itself. 

Full post over at Joel on Software. 

I had lunch today with a very special friend who I’ve asked for some interior design help. Space is something that I have never been able to occupy well. Having the opportunity to get some professional help is exciting and intimidating. Yes, the ability to coordinate colors and shapes escapes me. While getting a feel for the project, over some average miso and average udon noodles, yes average, at The Box, she asked one very disarming question: “What do you want people to think of you when they walk into the space?”

<crickets chirping>

Uh. I had no answer. “What kind of a question is that?” was all I could muster, trying to buy time. My brain did a few somersaults but landed flat on its ass. Vivid recollections of mixing colors in kindergarden and coming up with putrid brown rushed through my synapses. In all my thirtysomething years of life I hadn’t really considered using my surroundings to deliberately convey an image of myself. Things that I surround myself with have meaning to me, but what does it make other people think? I’m seriously considering hiding my Darth Tater.

Tags: flickrphotography

These are my links for February 9th:

• SavorGrace.com -
• Weblog Tools Collection » Blog Archive » Adding Your Plugin to WP Extend Plugins With a Mac -
• Yellow Mug Software - -