brentashley

Albert Delgado is hosting a new blog about using Disruptive Technology in the education system. Check out the category links for explanations of a whole slew of resources. (not just a half slew, mind you, an entire-regulation-measure slew)

Dan Gillmor comments on the latest installment of measures accelerating America’s descent to Hell in a handbasket.

This is absolutely serious shit, folks. The constitution is now next to useless with stuff like this happening. The very foundation of American society is being rent asunder and unless it’s caught early, there may be no way for it to become unfucked.

Unxmaal describes a simple way to block referral spam.

Mmmmm – less filling!

This video of a demonstration by Doug Englebart at Stanford Research Institute in 1968 contains so many mind-boggling examples of advanced technology that it surely must have some people wondering about the validity of their patents.

I noticed today at the gym that it’s odd how the very people who treat their bodies most like a temple are the same ones who are most likely to tattoo graffiti over their sacred walls of braun. Seems incongruous to me.

I’ve been trying to send email to a certain company this weekend but I always get the response:

smtp;550 5.0.0 Use your ISP’s SMTP server

I’m told that it’s because I don’t use my ISP’s SMTP server for outbound messages. Because this company’s ISP has decided that this could be a spammer tactic, they have decided to reject all mail from people who don’t send it through their ISP’s SMTP server. “Sorry, no Honda Civics on this road, sir, some people use them as getaway cars, don’t you know.”

Here are a few reasons why you might not send mail through your ISP’s SMTP server:

• You use a non-windows system that uses the standard method of delivering mail via a local SMTP server.
• You have an ISP whose SMTP server only allows outbound mail from addresses in its own domain
• You have an ISP who requires POP access before allowing SMTP but you don’t care to use their POP mail
• You don’t trust your ISP’s SMTP server’s reliability
• You don’t trust your ISP’s DNS to reliably provide you the SMTP server address (you’re probably getting the idea that I have trust issues with my ISP)
• You use a laptop at home, at work, dialup, elsewhere, and you don’t want to have to change the SMTP server every time you send a message

SMTP is designed to work this way. Breaking SMTP won’t fix the spam problem. Rejecting mail that’s sent in this perfectly reasonable way will just cause reasonable people to stop trying to send you mail.

Matt Raible just discovered my blog, leading me via referrer to discover his blog.

Funny, we’ve known about each other for some time in development circles, but just haven’t connected at the blog level.

I’ve been blogging for almost two years now (21 months). I’ve come to expect that online people just know that about me – time to rethink those assumptions!

Seems Tim and I aren’t the only ones Verisigning off. Terry Frazier is sick of them too.