Cox Crow

It just irks me

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has a significant attraction, or failing, depending on your perspective: there is no reliable means for identifying the users. When you are providing a service for people who expect other people to be decent human beings, and have provisions in your terms of service for terminating scum and l33t f00lz, it helps to know who those f00lz are. It's not enough to assume that spelling impairment is a clear indicator; you have to tie the nickname to a real person. From the user's perspective, how do you know that the luser you speak to today is the same luser you spoke to yesterday? [more]

12:45:18 PM # Google It!
categories: Identity, Security

Sex and the Campus

The New York Times reports that a Yale student writes about sex.

11:44:14 AM # Google It!
categories: Media

name dot name slash tilde name slash: A Swashbuckling Adventure

Mark Pilgrim expounds on the history of the tilde.

So I was researching the history of the tilde, because D told me that her company just installed a new web proxy that denies access to any URL with a tilde in it. Presumably because the presence of a tilde indicates with remarkable accuracy a personal site, and apparently her employer believes that reading personal sites is not an appropriate use of company time. Which, to be honest, is probably accurate, given the nature of her work. But never mind that. I don't want to talk about corporate politics. I want to talk about the tilde. (910 words) [dive into mark]

The tilde (~) doesn't indicate a personal web site here, here, here, or here, though it does here. There are a couple of ways to remove the tilde from the URL. There is also a very good reason to keep the tilde.

More next week after we make the change.

11:03:46 AM # Google It!
categories: PWP, System Administration

Musical Gifts

This is the playlist from a compilation I made for my wife during the first year we knew each other. It's still one of my better efforts. I'm of the opinion that a playlist is an original work.

9:14:10 AM # Google It!
categories: Family, Law