Home of Mr. Joshy

I happened to get curious, about the definition of the word ‘reasonable’. Often times, I seem to come into dispute with others over the true meaning of the word, though I keep quiet for the most part about the discrepancy, and chalk it up to the whole dichotomy of logical/rational versus emotional thinking processes. The following quote was about halfway down Dictionary.com’s definition of “Reasonable”:

“What the majority of people consider to be ‘reasonable’ is that about which there is agreement, if not among all, at least among a substantial number of people; ‘reasonable’ for most people, has nothing to do with reason, but with consensus.” [Erich Fromm]

Suddenly a great many things which were mysteries to me become perfectly clear.

I picked up a Dell Vostro 1000 from Dell’s Black Friday sale. Over the coming few days/weeks/etc. I plan to build a page here which details my forays into various Operating Systems on this guy. Ultimately, this is to be my road-warrior machine for my primary job, whereas my PowerBook G4 will remain my trusty companion for my personal endeavors. Stay tuned for updates.

I’m not really the largest fan of Chipotle Mexican Grill. However, I do stop by from time to time to enjoy a fresh burrito. Some of my friends and acquaintances, when faced with the apparent specter of being taken out to a Chipotle Restaurant, offer up the somewhat roundabout excuse that Chipotle Mexican Grill “is owned” (which variously is implied or expressed to mean that they were completely bought out by) the McDonald’s Corporation. This is usually followed by some vague accusations about McDonalds food or attitudes toward consumers, or some kind of anti-big-business sentiment. More recently, I heard the excuse “I don’t want any McDonald’s Mexican food.”

After hearing this a few times, I decided to gloss over some google search results and see if I could substantiate the rumor. Quite simply, I couldn’t, other than it was being repeated over and over — all over. Wikipedia’s article on Chipotle Mexican Grill, specifically the History section, has a good overview of what the real low down is. The article doesn’t specifically cite a source for its information on the investments by McDonalds, but the first source does contain some information about it. Since I first wrote this article, I have received a (comment) reply which comes directly from Chris Arnold @ Chipotle. Chris basically repeats what the Wikipedia article states, but with his comment comes the authority of Chipotle itself, and I can safely say… “I told you so.”

From The Washington Post via The Agitator, more news following my previous post on this topic, the Virginia Assembly has passed a bill re-authorizing traffic enforcement cameras throughout the state. On my ride into work this morning I spotted a red light camera that looked to be freshly installed in Arlington, and I know Fairfax County never dismantled theirs (that I can remember). Beware, as they will probably go live as soon as the bill is signed.

See The Newspaper for a good summary of studies on Red Light cameras and their effect on injuries and fatalities.

Just caught word from The Newspaper that Virginia’s Legislature is hard at work bringing back Traffic Enforcement cameras. Just when you thought you were safe. Fire up your fax machines and telephones! I’ve heard that lawmakers don’t read e-mail. They get too much e-mail from people.

I’ve installed an OpenID plugin. This should make it easier for everyone to leave comments, etc without having to “register for an account”. If it works out OK I think I’ll get it up and running on my other sites as well.

I have been legally eligible to vote since before the 2000 elections. Since that time, I have voted twice. I would have liked to have voted more, even every single time, for every single election. Our system needs as many votes as possible to remain legitimate. But often due to my own lack of diligence, persistence, and in some cases being tied down at work (including today), I have not been able to vote.

This year, I am also held back by the inopportune timing of my having moved from my apartment to a rental house, days before the registration deadline, and without the time surplus to be able to re-register. A worthless excuse to some, but true nonetheless.

I have seen the documentary, Hacking Democracy. It is unsettling, to say the least. I believe it. I put some stock in the rumors that we are footsteps away from utter chaos. Not neccessarily much stock, but enough.

I’ve learned a lot in the past two days. I’m not happy with a good chunk of it, but I’m not yet in a position to do anything about it. After ditching qmail (and by extension ezmlm) for Postfix (and by extension, mailman) I have been wrestling with locking-down the two new packages. Postfix was relatively easy. Mailman has proved to be very close to my undoing.

Consider the following:

• My brand-new e-mail address (indeed, my preferred address) was ruined because it was placed online in cleartext in a mailman archive.
• Mailman has no functionality to password-protect or disable list creation out-of-the-box.
• Mailman has address “obscuring” functionality but it is limited to message headers and only does “user@domain”->”user at domain” conversion.
• There is no easy-to-locate, easy-to-read documentation (that I could find) which documents workarounds for the above (excepting the first, of course).

I have taken steps outside of the mailman box (so to speak) to secure the mail archives and list creation (via password protection). In the future, I hope to find an archiving solution that works the way I need it to. I don’t want to see my e-mail address in google cache ever again.

I was recently trying to install Midtown Madness 2, and I couldn’t get the setup to run. Instead, I got a blank error box. After some agonizing google searching, and a search or two on the MS knowledge base, I found a lead:

Clean out my temp folder.

After doing this, the game installed fine. Yay Windows.

I am officially severing my ties with qmail. In addition to the troubles with installing qmail, I have encountered more than enough evidence that there are widely known security issues, none of which would necessarily compromise a host, but invite DoS type attacks, and in general a degradation of the mail system.

I need something more robust against such attacks. I will more than likely switch back to the horrid swath of code which is sendmail. Sendmail’s ties to the internet vigilante group “MAPS” are what turned me away from sendmail in the first place.

UPDATE: I have done some research and decided on Postfix to replace qmail and sendmail.