Wednesday, March 31. 2010
- Whois Privacy
Many legitimate businesses buy whois privacy without really thinking about how it makes them look. Many illegitimate businesses turn it on because they have an interest in hiding.
- Mailbox stores
Postal addresses in Whois that turn out to be in Mailboxes, Etc. stores are a red flag
- obviously bogus postal addresses and phone numbers
Mismatching states, zip codes and area codes are a dead giveaway.
- postal address in Boca Raton, FL
Are there any legitimate internet businesses in Boca?
- no web site
Whether this is a blank web page or an apache "your installation worked" page, it's a clue you want to hide.
A year and a half ago, a deer tried to occupy the same space as my left front fender, and thus proved that two solid objects cannot in fact occupy the same space. I used the Travelers Insurance concierge service to handle the repairs and they ended up farming the body work out to DeNooyer Chevrolet (who did a decent job with the repairs, I might add.)
So suddenly today I got a helpful email message from DeNooyer via an anonymous outfit, vu7s.com, indicating that as a valued customer, if I wanted to receive promotions via email all I had to do was, well, nothing, they were going to just start sending them.
Here is a list of facts as I see them:
- I was never DeNooyer's customer, I was Traveler's customer. DeNooyer presumes too much.
- I never gave DeNooyer my email address. They got it from somewhere else, without my permission
- I don't play opt-out games, I never "click here". I did what I usually do, I instructed my mail server to reject all email from *.vu7s.com
What the vendor appears to have done for DeNooyer is called epending. They probably sold DeNooyer a service whereby they correlated names with likely email addresses and just started sending. It's an error prone process that sometimes has some pretty awful side effects if the wrong email address gets tied to a name. Just say NO to epending.
Tuesday, March 30. 2010
As the Internet deployment of IPv6 goes forward, folks are starting to collect info on the deployment of junk email over IPv6. Here are some stats from RIPE on the subject.
Their study is not particularly rigorous, in particular they have spam blocking in place on IPv4 that is not present for IPv6 (see their section on Methodology.) Their comment about DNSBLs is a concern. They are right in that DNSBLs are controversial, but some are more controversial than others, and sometimes the manner of usage is what is controversial - direct blocking at connect time is a very different thing from Spam Assassin scoring, and some DNSBLs are really bad for the former, but fine for the latter. They don't actually say what they are doing, they just indicate that they are using some unspecified DNSBLs in some unspecified manner. Another issue is that they don't really indicate which spam control measures are turned on for IPv6 vs IPv4; as far as I know there aren't any significant IPv6 DNSBLs yet (one clear difference between their IPv4 and IPv6 data), but I'd like to know if they have their greylisting turned on for v6?
Finally, I'd like to know how they can refuse connections to MTAs when the target address does not exist. A receiver has no idea what the recipient address will be when the initial connection is requested.
Monday, March 29. 2010
Just a quick note -- the relationship between Leckie and "Stella" has no basis in fact that I'm aware of. There is a real Stella in _Helmet for My Pillow_, but the details of the relationship are entirely different. The only thing in common is the name Stella.
Update 3 a statement from the NEDiv Executive Steward:
It appears that this may be a genuine issue between SFI and Impact Performance Parts. I am sure that the SCCA Club Racing office is aware of this and will determine if there is any reason for members to question the validity of Impact labeled equipment and/or parts. Until such time that we are advised by Club Racing to take any action on this issue, NEDiv race officials will treat all SFI labels as legitimate.
Thanks
Earl Hurlbut
Update 2 Word is that this may clear up before 4/27, your Impact gear may be ok, so don't rush to replace it
Update I am now hearing that there are developments behind the scenes and that things may change. No idea what kind of change, though.
The SFI Foundation has just announced that they have decertified all Impact Racing products effective 4/27/2010. This means that sanctioning bodies will no longer treat Impact Racing products as meeting SFI certifications. in general, this should apply to suits, harnesses, etc. Note that as of this time, Snell Helmet certifications are separate from SFI certifications, so Impact helmets that are coming in under Snell standards are not affected (yet.)
Things that may happen (and some that will happen):
- In the SCCA, you may see early season efforts to go through driver gear and harnesses, either in impound or by requiring gear checks in morning tech irrespective of helmet stickers. Impound seems more likely to me. I know I will be checking when I am Chief of Tech at the May National at Lime Rock.
- This is an SFI Foundation decision, sanctioning bodies have not yet checked in. The decertification takes effect automatically, if sanctioning bodies do nothing. What is likely is that they will either do nothing, and allow it go into effect automatically, or they might take punitive action and, for example, ban all Impact products (including helmets.) The jury is still out on this.
- I have no information about Impact and Snell Helmet stickers.
Background
A long time ago, the SCCA tended to list brand names that were acceptable, or material types, or a mixture of both. Over time, certification bodies such as the Snell Foundation and then the SFI Foundation developed strong standards and certification programs, and as trust built, the SCCA has tended to remove lists of acceptable brands and materials and instead insert references to standards.
This means that it's important to buy gear in the affected categories that carry proper labeling. The foundations are funded, in part, by the fact that they provide the labels and charge for them. I can't speak to why Impact did what they did, but it may simply have been to save a few bucks, the gear may actually be safe, it's hard to say. In any event, after 4/27/2010, the Impact harnesses and suits have to be gone.
Monday, March 22. 2010
I understand that you're trying to be nice. What you don't understand is that I probably can't see your hand gestures telling me to go first through your tinted windshield.
i find this sort of journalism really helpful in placing things like The Pacific in context: http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/2010/02/hbo_series_shines_light_on_nj.html.
Sunday, March 21. 2010

I own this tandem bike for obscure reasons. It has an involved backstory, which is told by Jason Crane in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.
I got the repaired rear wheel back from the Downtube a few weeks ago, and the replacement tire from them about 2 weeks later. Today, I finally enlisted the 13 year old to help me clean & lube the chains (they looked awful due to surface rust.) She did not think too much of her task, which was to hold the rear wheel up while I applied the various solutions to the chain. But she lived, and later I took it for a short (1 mile or so) ride (without anyone in back -- my daughter's time will come, though).
The bike seems to work pretty well, there are concerns about shifting which I'll have to address, but it got me down the road and back. The front brakes are a bit grabby, the rears are not, probably some adjustment is needed in back. I had to remove the shoes to reinstall the wheel, and i didn't really line them up properly.
So there you have it...
Apparently the SCCA has decided this year that we don't need change bars in the rulebook to indicate what's different from last year. Oh well. There's a section on a whole new engine in the Formula Ford category spec, and nothing to indicate that it hasn't always been there.
I see from my first quick look at the 2010 GCR that the SCCA will require head/neck restraints beginning in 2012. I think this is a really good idea, but please, people, read the manual that accompanies the device you choose and make sure your installation conforms. For the HANS system, this means paying close attention to the spacing of the shoulder harness mounting points. A mount which conforms to the GCR (4" to 6" center to center at the mount behind the driver's head) should work properly.
Saturday, March 20. 2010
The HBO WWII historical miniseries like The Pacific and Band of Brothers seem to be starting a pattern of the remaining participants producing memoirs. There were quite a few that came out of Band of Brothers, and we're seeing similar things with The Pacific, with the variation that with The Pacific, the books are being timed to come out with the series, instead of showing up a year later. I suspect that this is because Band of Brothers was perhaps a bit of a surprise, but now we know what happens when one of these Tom Hanks history projects hits HBO.
R.V. Burgin (Romus Valton, you can see why he goes by R.V.) joined the Marines in 1942 in order to avoid being drafted by the Army. He subsequently fought as a mortarman on Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa. In the latter two battles, Eugene Sledge, author of the classic With the Old Breed, served under him as a ammunition carrier. One of the interesting aspects of this book is that Burgin occasionally points out issues where he disagrees with Sledge, for example, in his assessment of their Lieutenant on Okinawa, "Scotty". This is likely because, as a non-com, Burgin had very different interactions with officers than Sledge, as a Private.
The part of the book of the most interest, is the discussion of Cape Gloucester. This is one of the "forgotten battles" of the Marine campaign in the Pacific, perhaps because it was fought under MacArthur's command in the Soloman Islands. The battles of the Solomons and along the north coast of New Guinea in MacArthur's area of operations are very much neglected.
Another interesting variation from the other memoirs I've read is the different view of women. Contrast the discussion of womanizing in Leckie and Basilone with Burgin's point of view. Burgin fell for an Australian woman early on and married her immediately after the war, which is very different from the behavior of many (most?) Marines down under.
This is a very readable book, of particular interest for the Cape Gloucester section. I still recommend reading Sledge and Leckie first; these two books remain unmatched in the category.
Friday, March 19. 2010

I bought this bike new in 1984; this photo is of it this afternoon, after what I'll call the "completion" of the phase 1 upgrade. More photos appear in this Flickr set.
This photo shows the bike in the original Trek brochure from 1984, and this one gives the original specification, along with the other Trek Sport models of 1984.
I rode the bike a bit, but not a huge amount, through about 1988, when for various reasons it got put away. It came back out a couple of years ago, a result of watching (and enjoying) the Tour de France on Versus, and pondering the nice bike I had and never rode. It needed tires and tubes, and went back out on the road.
Over the next couple of years, I replaced the original Avocet saddle with a Brooks, and the original SR pedals and Lapize toe clips with a set of Shimano SPD pedals.
However, I was still not really clued in about a lot of things about the bike. So this winter I decided to learn about maintenance, which had been very much neglected. Fortunately, I found Bicycle Tutor, which was an enormous help in figuring things out. But it didn't cover everything, there was a lot of research involved. Ok, not too much research involved in replacing the handlebar tape with new cork tape, but there were other research tasks.
The real joker in the deck was when I figured out about the Atom Helicomatic hubs basically being a time bomb. It's well covered on the Sheldon Brown pages, a resource I hope sticks around: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/velos.html#helicomatic. Trek used these on lots of their bikes of the period, and likely the only reason mine were still intact was because the bike just sat for so long. Having figured this out, the next step was to figure out what to do about it. Being a mid-80s six speed, the rear fork spacing is 126mm, and to use modern hubs, I'd have to cold set (spread) the rear frame to 130mm, a procedure which often (but not always) works. I concluded I like this bike too much to take any risk like that, so no cold-set for me. I spent a bit of time on EBay, and came up with a good used pair of Campy Record hubs of the correct size but with no skewers, but the skewers were easy enough to find as well. I also found on EBay a NOS Suntour Ultra-7 freewheel, a type that was briefly produced that fit 7 cogs in the space of a traditional 6 speed freewheel.
So I took the Campy hubs to The Downtube, a local Albany NY area bike shop to get some wheels built. This was where I discovered a flaw in my research. I had picked up 36 hole hubs, and as it happens, 36 spoke wheels are another thing that is passing away. Available rims are limited, 32 or 28 hole hubs would have been much better. The folks at the Downtube did convince me to convert from 27" wheels to 700C wheels, as there are more available options in 700C rims, but even so, the 36 spoke rims were backordered and it seemed like it was going to take forever. Then the owner of the store remembered he had some NOS 36 hole Rigida rims "out back" that had been sitting for years. Problem solved, now i have nice replacement wheels on the bike, with a nice NOS freewheel, and things are 100% better.
This is the end of phase 1, the bike is working very well, the new freewheel is much quieter and shifts much more smoothly than the old one.
Phase 2 is probably going to involve Shimano bar end shifters and a Stronglight A9 headset. I'll write about that someday.
Thursday, March 18. 2010
While wearing your bicycling outfit (spandex included), walk down to the bus to meet her as she gets home. Works every time!
The digitized version came from here, where there are many scans of Civil War photographs of historic interest. Click for bigger...
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