The cool thing I've realized about being a total loser is that you can do really silly things without having to worry about what anyone thinks. Because there isn't anyone! With that in mind...


posted by 00k at 10:09 PM

If you've ever wondered about all the headers in an email, this probably won't really enlighten you. I'm just going to make a point of making a point of headers and timestamps for future scripting purposes. If you would like to learn something though, this probably won't kill you to know.

This is an excerpt from a real header, the names and IP's have been changed to protect the innocent:

Received: (qmail 12233 invoked by uid 0); 25 Feb 2003 03:26:28 -0000
Received: from host25.ipowerweb.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)
  by mx0.gmx.net (mx027-rz3) with SMTP; 25 Feb 2003 03:26:28 -0000
Received: from senderomitted by host25.ipowerweb.com with local (Exim 3.36 #1)
    id 18nVeh-00043E-00
    for ook@gmx.net; Mon, 24 Feb 2003 19:21:19 -0800
-snip-
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2003 19:21:19 -0800

Let's follow this email as it made it's way from sender to ook@gmx.net. It's in reverse chronological order, because the time I received it comes last even though that was the most recent event.

If you start at it's creation, the bottom 5 lines in turquoise, you see that it was received by ipowerweb on Feb 24, at 19:21:19 -0800. The -0800 is the time zone of ipowerweb, Pacific Standard (PST -8). Converted to Mountain Standard (MST -7) we know that it was sent by the sender at 20:21:19 -0700, or 8:21pm MST to ipowerweb. The Bat knows that I am in MST, and it made the adjustment from the text file to the GUI to show that the time of creation was 8:21pm my time.

The email went to ipowerweb who then routed it off to gmx.net, my email host. Since gmx.net is in Germany, the time zone changes dramatically in this step which is shown on line 3 and up in purple. Germany is on CET time, Central European (+1), but their server reports their time zone to be -0000 for one reason or another. We know that GMT time is 7 hours ahead of MST, and 8 ahead of PST. This means that the email was received by GMX at 8:26pm my time (MST) on Feb 24, and 7:26pm ipowerweb time (PST) the same day. This means that it took about 5 minutes to cross the world. BUT, with the consideration for the time zones, we have to realize that while it's 8pm here one day, in Germany it's 4am, the next day. That is why our date varies from the time ipowerweb sent it to the time GMX received it, in this case to 3:26am GMT.

This is particularly noteworthy with consideration to the script that I'm writing. My script should be able to take a big text file full of emails that the Bat! generates and dispose of all the emails that I have already put out to the newsletter based on their headers. This means that I'll have to tell my script what time window to look for on what days to keep and what to get rid of. I thought originally that I could just tell by using the names of emails, but I think using timestamps is going to prove more reliable and standard.

It's unfortunate however that my script is really specific, so that if I change hosts, I'm going to have to rewrite most of it to accomodate different headers. I imagine though that with clever usage of regular expressions everything will some day be O.K. I guess the really good script writers are the ones that can generalize everything to the point that their script will work for anyone. If the measure of good is how universal your script is, I am very very bad :)
posted by 00k at 4:48 AM

posted by 00k at 3:10 AM

This rant is for my mental health.

So I send out a newsletter for a guy, right? It gets sent over email... an issue a day, usually runs around 300K, 6,000 lines of text at 80 characters a line roughly. It's a pretty substantial thing and it goes out to a lot of people. Anyhow, the way that it works is that this guy gets forwards from people across Colorado and the country, and he forwards them to me to put in this newsletter. That's fine, not too hard. Until you take into account every inconsiderate bastard that writes email without any thought to the people that have to read it and make sense of it. I see some of the queerest shit.

There's one guy that always double spaces every single thing he writes. Talk about a superiority complex. There's another guy that writes in all CAPS. There's some chick that has to have really flowery presentations... little asterisks and tildes everywhere for emphasis. Then you have people that don't break things up into paragraphs, people that just rant and rant for 3,000 words. I worry about those people. Then you have the people that can't spell for shit, the people that don't capitalize anything, even names, the people that use random spacing methods, a tab here, 5 spaces there. Then you have the preachy signature people, the people with 45 totally irrelevent links in their stupid signature. Those people can die.

I think you can tell a lot from a person by how they format their email. I do little profiles in my head as I format these peoples emails. Some day I will know them all on sight just from their email mannerisms!

Well all the bad grammar and poor formatting makes me suicidal by the end of nearly every night. But I can even take issue with the people that format really well. I can get an email that was originally formatted beautifully, but after having been forwarded, turns to total garbage. All the lines are broken, I imagine just like their dreams, and all the bulleted lists they had are just scattered all across the page now, like dust in the wind. It's pretty tragic.

I think people are under the impression that email is easy and standard and how it looks for them is how it will look for everyone. They also somehow seem to be oblivious to the fact that someones going to read what they're writing. Maybe they just don't understand what's going on there. It's sad that people have come to rely on it so for something like this.

Anyhow, I hate these people and I want to kill them all. But for a long time I would just format away, so any moron could look brilliant after I had had my hand in their work. And then I got to thinking about it. Why should I clean up their garbage? Why should I have to be the one responsible for making their work attractive? I shouldn't, not to that extent anyhow. So I came up with a plan which I've been executing joyfully. Bad formatting in my world is met with consequences. What kind of retribution could I possibly dish out? Well, their letter is going to be public. A lot of people are going to read what they write. So I make sure to fuck it up really good. Not the message, just the presentation. If they write in all caps, I make it all small letters or I capitalize the first letter of every word. That looks especially stupid, then they either look like a little kid or a zealot. The people that use pretty tildes everywhere... I just axe out any kind of formatting they have at all. If they wanted it to be pretty, I make it as ugly as possible. All one paragraph if I can manage it without dropping the quality of the newsletter. People that spell things wrong, I don't correct their spelling any more. Let them look like the idiot, I don't care. You want to double space everything? Maybe even triple space? Yeah all your shit is going into one big block as far as I'm concerned. So take that. I figure if I do exactly the opposite of what they want when they write that stuff, they'll figure it's a wasted effort and they'll stop doing it. And well, if they don't, that's okay, cuz I feel better about it. It's still a quality newsletter and there are plenty of people that do know how to format an email and their stuff is always good and presentable. The people that really have a problem though, are not getting help from me any more. I hope the whole world finds out how poorly they format their emails and laughs at them! And they make fun of them until they cry! And then maybe they'll even kill themselves.That'd be nice... then I wouldn't have so much work any more.

Well that was a lot of stuff I doubt anyone but me will read, but I feel better anyways.

I just know I'm going to write a big bitch fest thing like this some day and upload it to that guys site by mistake. What a treasured moment that would be!
posted by 00k at 4:22 AM

posted by 00k at 2:35 AM

At last...
My love has come along...
My lonely days over...
And life is like a song...

Boy... I'm tired. My eyes are burning. They've been burning for about 3 hours. The good part though is that I finally, finally, finally got linux installed on my second computer. And so I'm happy. I fucked up the setup pretty bad, apparently setting up how much space for which partitions is actually something you should put some consideration in to. I just kind of said fuck it and guessed a couple numbers, and that was apparently a very bad thing to do as half the shit I told it to install installed to a partition I made really small. Oops. I'm a newbie. Oh well... gotta learn somehow. Fucking everything up is usually a really good way to learn.

posted by 00k at 2:12 AM

Two Wolves

An elder was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf is evil -- he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good -- he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old man simply replied, "The one you feed."
posted by 00k at 2:22 AM

I am the mind of a child trapped in the body of a teenager the age of a college student.

I just finished a really good book... Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. A big fat screw you to anyone that would criticize me for reading kids books. A good story is a good story. Here's a review!

Artemis Fowl

by Eoin Colfer

We're talking about Artemis Fowl. Artemis Fowl is this filthy rich 12 year old kid whose father was lost and his mother's gone crazy. Left to his own devices with a bunch of money apparently he's up to a whole lot of no good. He hatches a plan to abduct a fairy, oh yeah apparently fairies are real in this book and they live underground and are called The People. He manages to get ahold of their sacred book and translates it, something that's never been done before. Going on the knowledge he acquires from this little fairy book, he captures a fairy, one Captain Holly of the LEPrecon unit (very clever). He holds her for ransom to get his hands on some of that good old fairy gold, and the story is about how he pulls it off against all odds or whatever.

Anyways Artemis Fowl is the shit. Plus he's got a manservant named Butler that's the shit too, acts mostly as bodyguard and ass kicker. Fine characters and a great story. Made me reminiscent of Bruno the Kid, a classic cartoon in my mind that didn't last very long, but about a genius kid Bruno (voice done by Bruce Willis) that was a secret agent for some top secret government agency "GLOBE". Great cartoon. Anyhow, fantastic book, read it if you get the chance. Or wait for the movie coming out from Miramax like the pathetic lazy bum you are, whatever.
posted by 00k at 1:42 AM

Well folks as you all well know, nothings quite as useful as a review of a movie that's been out of the theaters for ages that noone really cared about when it came out anyhow. Just consider me your Worthless supplier. Assuming you're here for anything in the first place. Boy did I have you fooled.

Swimfan

Swimfan, starring Jesse Bradford, Erika Christensen, and Shiri Appleby

No, those names probably shouldn't ring a bell.

Jesse Bradford was in Clockstoppers of 2002, directed by Commander William Riker of Star Trek the Next Generation (aka Jonathan Frakes). A highly underrated movie in my book, but then adults don't really watch those kind of movies ("kids" movies).

Erika Christensen you might remember from Traffic as the heroin-shooting crack smoking friend of the kid from That 70's show (Eric Foreman, Topher Grace) and daughter of Michael Douglas. Anyone that saw Traffic got a little excited when she showed up on "That 70's Show" and put the moves on Eric Foreman's dad. She's not the girl from 10 Things I Hate About You, that's actually Julia Stiles. They look pretty alike though. If you liked her in anything, you'll like her in this movie. Unless you've ever cheated on a girlfriend.

Anyhow, the last girl you should care about, Shiri Appleby, hasn't done much in the way of movies I care about. I recognized her and wasn't sure why, and found that much to my chagrin I recognized her from the show Roswell, which I accidentally watched a few times when nothing was on FOX. Busted.

Anyhow, this was a fun movie. It had most of the stuff I look for in a movie. Actors and actresses, sets, a plot. They did okay with all of those components. Not TOO predictable although there have been a lot of movies in this stalking-psycho realm (The Crush - Alicia Silverstone, Fear - Mark Wahlberg/Reese Witherspoon, more famously Fatal Attraction) to name a few.

There's really not a whole lot to say about the story though. Guy has great life, fucks girl once that isn't his girlfriend, tries to ditch her, girl goes psycho and attempts to ruin every aspect of his life. She does pretty well, props for that. Of course in the end she can either traditionally die or pick out her next victim, I won't spoil it for you by telling you which.

It gets recommended by me anyhow, but I'll recommend anything that gets me out of doing homework for a few hours. I'm enjoying the soundtrack as I write this, which I downloaded to fully complete the fraudulent experience afforded me by Kazaa. The price of being a writer I suppose, I sacrafice so much.
posted by 00k at 12:07 AM

I watched Kangaroo Jack tonight, I'm a bit embarassed to admit. Even more embarassing is how I wound up with this movie - I was actually trying to download "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" and got tricked. I feel like that guy at the emergency room trying to explain how he got a beer bottle stuck up his ass or something. There's just no way to keep your dignity when you've got something stuck up your ass. Or when you watched a kids movie while trying to download a chick flick. I'm going to review it anyway though, cuz while I may be a loser, I'm a PROUD loser.

Kangaroo Jack

This is when Kangaroo Jack eats licorice from the pocket of "the jacket".

Okay, so you have a black kid and a white kid that get in crazy adventures all the time. The black kid is interesting and loud and crazy and the white kid is sensible and not a risk taker that is bad with girls. Of course they make the perfect pair. The white kids step dad is a big mafia man and the kid and his friend screw something up big time resulting in their getting sent on a mission to Australia to deliver $50,000 to a bagman that coincidently is being paid that $50,000 to kill them. Anyhow before you know all that, they get to Australia and hit a kangaroo with their Jeep. They think the thing is dead so they take a couple pictures with it... posing him and such. This is of course the crazy black kids idea. They put a jacket on him and some glasses, the thing wakes up and takes off with the money in the jacket, and crazy silly things ensue. Many crazy silly coincidences and catastrophic "bad ideas" later, the white kid and the black kid and a girl they picked up in the outback or wherever get back the $50k and everyone else goes to jail or dies. The white kid and the black kid start a company with the $50k selling shampoo made from some outback berry and now they're both filthy rich and live on a yacht, and the white kid gets the girl.

Altogether a totally unremarkable movie that I'm reasonably ashamed to admit I watched and laughed to and liked. The kangaroo doesn't really talk in the movie, but as an actor he talks at the end. He's really cute and I want one.
posted by 00k at 2:10 AM

Relationships are like long trips. When you get into one, it's like leaving the house with somewhere good in mind as the destination. You're excited about the trip and looking forward to what lies ahead. When you get out of one, you're really glad you're home again.


Somewhere there are starving fish, that are in need of your help. For less than one dollar a day, you can help one of these poor starving fish. Don't they deserve a chance?

posted by 00k at 1:37 AM

I'm one short of having a 12 pack of empty aluminum cans on my desk. I should really recycle. But I should do a lot of things.


posted by 00k at 12:09 AM

Double-O
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