• Radio-Locator
  (tags: radio)

I said it once. (10/2/06 – Amish school shooting)
I said it again. (4/16/07 – VT massacre)

I’ll say it again. Killing students doesn’t work.

I understand people are hurting. I understand people are in pain. I understand the world is a dark place for some. Shooting up a bunch of freshmen in a geology class isn’t going to solve your problems. If your final goal was to end your own life, why try to take bystanders with you?

I can rationalize that some causes justify killing. Not to excuse or allow murder; killing people is wrong. I think every doctrine of life says that. But I don’t understand how you can search/strive for change in your life, or in the world, by killing students. You make change by educating students. Encouraging students. Inspiring students. Their future will ease your pain — why cut it short?

My thoughts and prayers are with the NIU family after yesterday’s shooting. I’m even sadder that the shooter (Steven Kazmierczak, I’m sure a Steve or Stevie to someone,) was a grad student at UIUC. I’m sad that our community failed to help someone obviously in need, and then he’s hurt another community. Hopefully we can all find a way to heal together.

I subscribe to two Word of the Day (WotD) mailing lists. One from dictionary.com, and the other from urbandictionary.com (ie: the English you should use and the English you really do use.) They mail out at different times overnight but wind up next to each other in my inbox in the morning. I enjoy it when they juxtapose themselves. I’m sure they’re not planned to coincide as often as they ironicly do.

For example, yesterday, the urbandictionary.com WotD was “Viagrate” — to imbue with lasting vigor. (Verbifying the popular ED drug.)

It was closely followed by dictionary.com’s perdurable — very durable; lasting; continuing long.

I giggled a little. Happy Valentine’s Day (VD) all!

“The University is requesting bids for auditorium seating for Foellinger Auditorium in Urbana, Illinois.” Thank goodness. Those seats are really uncomfortable; worse in the balconies. I watched U-52 (or whatever that boat/sub movie was,) there as an undergrad and couldn’t move after being in those hard seats for 2 hours.

For Ben Folds, I’ll stand.

www.procure.stateuniv.state.il.us/dsp_notice.cfm?Uni=UIUC&PN=1CCZ908

The library is holding its final open/townhall meeting this afternoon about some reorganization plans it’s considering.

www.library.uiuc.edu/committee/budgetplus/service_models.html has more info.

Essentially, they solicited the library departments for suggestions aligning with new 21st century goals (read: no budget, more collaboration) and have narrowed down to 25 new “models” that are up for discussion — most of them involve closing or relocating (or combining) departmental libraries, but there are other lofty goals too (including the library as a scholarly commons — which if the undergrad is any hint, means removing the books and turning valuable library real estate into a student lounge.)

Anyway, I plan on attending the townhall (and hopefully keep my mouth shut,) but if you have anything you’d like me to pass on to the library administrators or want to come with, please let me know. The meeting starts at 3:30 in the ACES library.

Thank you, David, for your generous TiVo Rewards referral. Thanks for thinking of me, and enjoy your new TiVo.

Tags: tivo

• Combining RSS feeds from two weblogs in Movable Type — Orangescale.NET
  (tags: movabletype)

Some of you reading this are sys admins. Some of you are programmers who have dissected email relay technologies. Others are socially cognizant Inter-net-izens who want to do the right thing. This blog post is for you. Those whose eyes glaze over and thoughts roam to Dukes of Hazard reruns with elaborate car jumps each time I start technobabbling should ask themselves the following question: If the writers are on strike, how are they re-releasing Knight Rider? New actors/sets with old scripts?

The tech question of the day is “should Internet hosts have DNS MX RR records?” They don’t have to. I know that. (If there’s no MX, RFC 974 clearly says that mailers should treat it as if they had one MX with a preference of 0 pointing back to the target host.) The question is, is it proper netiquette for hosts to have them in all cases? (ie: should your desktop have an MX record — whether it points to itself or somewhere else?)

That’s the case my cow-orker is making (that hosts should have MX records. If it means anything, mostly because he set things up this way, we historically have had them in the department and becaue of that have it today.) I say that the simple case is better — if you need an MX record to direct mail somewhere else, use it. Otherwise, simplify the DNS and don’t provide an MX record when the default case is sufficient.

The mail landscape has changed quite a bit in the last few years, with backup mail servers (higher priority MX handlers) being spam targets. Also, fewer hosts have mail servers listening on them (at least on their non-localhost entries,) so that’s changed too. I think our job will get much simpler, both on the mail relay side/configuration and DNS configuration if we just nuke the MX records for the hosts we know aren’t mail servers. If we get rid of the backup MX record entry for them, then all that would be left is an MX 0 record pointing back to themselves, and I say that’s pointless because the RFC says to do that anyway.

Can anyone provide any documentation one way or another that backs up when to use an MX record? Or even anecdotal evidence that when you worked for a major cosmopolitan ISP you NEVER setup MX for each A record in the subnets, yadda, yadda. The Internet community at large would appreciate your input.

My mom used to do this with her coffee mugs and pop cans all the time. But a cop leaving his gun there? What was it doing off his belt? (And in Urbana, no less…)

www.ci.champaign.il.us/departments/2008/02/04/police-warn-public-about-missing-weapon/

Champaign, IL. – On Thursday, January 31, 2008, an Urbana Police Officer reportedly lost a handgun which could possibly be in the City of Champaign city limits. The officer reported placing a loaded, holstered handgun on top of the vehicle, some time between 3:20 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., in the 3000 block of Wynstone and later drove away before realizing that the weapon had not been secured. The officer reportedly drove south on Wynstone to Curtis Road, headed east to Race Street and North to Windsor Road, before remembering that the weapon was not been recovered from the top of the vehicle. After a search of the general area by foot and with the aid of metal detectors, the weapon was not located.

He used the words “rock the vote”

From: Chancellor Richard Herman
To: All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:26:11 -0600
Subject: MASSMAIL – Rock the Vote!

Dear Friends:
It has often been said that silence is permission. In the United States,
that silence too often takes the form of disinterest, cynicism, and apathy
among voters. Yet, democracy can only function with active participation by
its citizens.

Super Tuesday is an opportunity to participate in one of democracy’s most
hallowed rights. That it why I am urging all of you in the university
community to make your voice heard loud and clear, to Rock the Vote right
here at the University of Illinois.

Reasons to vote are as varied as the many critical issues we face as a
nation, a state, and as a land grant university. President Lyndon Johnson
said, “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for
breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison
men because they are different from other men.” Want your voice heard on
global warming, poverty, campaign financing, heath care, or Darfur? Give
voice to those issues by voting for the candidate that comes closest to
your point of view.

Most importantly, with your single vote you reject the all too easy path of
apathy and cynicism. You are saying that you believe in the power of people
to effect change and that you will not be silent.

Here at Illinois we are one campus with many voices. Tomorrow, let yours be
heard.

Richard Herman
Chancellor

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chancellor

–
This Message sent via MASSMAIL. < www.cites.uiuc.edu/services/massmail/ >

Tags: assmail