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MDM gives away my address

News ·Wednesday March 28, 2007 @ 19:59 EDT (link)

WA plate UNS 457 (light brown Saturn) wins the twit of the week, for driving down the left lane of 51st to pass everyone and then butting in at the end. It's a heinous practice that I see all too frequently, and I wish people wouldn't let them in.


New drywall Our Internet access was cut for a few days (since Sunday around 2100, back this afternoon), because MDM gave away our Internet (IP) address.

Most MDM customers have a dynamic address, which means it can change at any time (but usually stays the same for extended periods, sometimes for months), and this address is assigned automatically from a pool of addresses using a protocol called DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), which also provides other information to tell a computer how to connect to the Internet.

Having a dynamic address is unsuitable* for running a server (such as the web server that served up the web page you're reading this on) since it's important that the location of the server be known. Furthermore, many ISPs block people from running servers without a static IP, purely out of meanspiritedness (I used to run a server in Waterloo, Toronto, and Fonthill from a regular consumer account with, technically, a dynamic IP, although it didn't change much). Static IPs are usually only available in a "business class" plan; this is the case with MDM (but not with Speakeasy, which is the greatest ISP ever, although they just got bought by Best Buy; I hope for their customers' sakes that quality doesn't degrade).

However, someone at MDM made a mistake and put my static address into the DHCP pool, and naturally enough a computer on the dynamic network got it when it asked their DHCP server for an address to use. Two computers on the same network can't use the same address; it creates conflicts (who gets their packets?) They fixed that today, removing the address from the DHCP pool, and it's working again. They also were able to set up reverse DNS, which will help immensely with getting removed from various mail server blacklists set up by self-appointed net policeweenies (I've just requested removal from Spamhaus's PBL, which was a fairly painless process, especially compared to some).

* There are workarounds, e.g. sites that provide DNS for dynamic addresses, such as dyndns.com, or it's possible to run a script to update DNS whenever one's assigned address changes, but it's inconvenient (for one thing, DNS values are cached and changes take a while to propagate, even with low TTL values).


New roof In other news, there's no longer a hole in our house: since I last wrote, the trusses have been replaced (some sistered in beside the old ones), the new roof has been installed (it's a nice medium gray), the framing, exterior siding, and drywall has been completed (including Honey's bathroom skylight, although they had to redo one side when we noticed it had been made too small); yesterday they did taping and mudding; I believe painting is next, and after that probably carpet, or perhaps fixtures. They also have some windows sitting around to replace some that were damaged: the master bedroom, the front door, garage (it's on the side that was hit), and downstairs bathroom. I'll post pictures.

REOIV of Fark, commenting on the article Most illegal immigrants crossing into Texas have to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities will prosecute them (a deplorable state of affairs) did me the kindness of coming up with a truly comprehensive plan for illegal immigration (my comments in italics):
  1. Make it a felony to be an illegal immigrant. (Instead of a civil misdemeanor as it is now.)
  2. Punishment options are deportation or jail time billed to your country in the form of tariffs etc. (We'd soon own Mexico and everything in it.)
  3. Arrest illegals any time they are discovered, be it school, hospitals, traffic violations etc. (No more crap like "sanctuary cities" or not being able to ask about legality during traffic stops.)
  4. Anyone helping hide illegals is charged with aiding a felon. (This means you, Roman Catholic church of Satan.)
  5. Any company found to have funny tax information (i.e. their employees are using stolen SSNs etc) or employing illegal immigrants repeatedly loses their right to do business inside the US until the issue is taken care of along with the people in charge of the company are not allowed to run any other companies or businesses. (Punish the enablers, too.)
  6. Any time your Social security number is found being used with another name or in another town every person listed with that number is sent a letter instead of nothing happening. (It's my identity you're stealing; you haveno privacy rights.
  7. All credit reports pull everything based on your social security number on its own even if the names don't match up.
  8. Make English the official language of the United States. Any and all government documents and paperwork are only in English. If you require a translation it is on your dime.
  9. You are only an American Citizen by birth if your parents are American Citizens or were legally in the United States when you were born. If you cannot prove they were here legally when you were born you are not an American citizen. (I can see relaxing this to require only one parent to be a citizen, and only requiring the other to be a legal resident, and not merely for my own sake; it's just reasonable.)
Do those nine things and the problem will clear up quite a bit.

I'd add:
  1. Also fine business employing illegals, say $10k the first time, $100k for the second and subsequent times; raise it for larger companies.
  2. Build the wall; regularly check for tunnels, let agents use them for explosives exercises.
  3. Mine the border, posting appropriate signage (see the Fark link for examples).
  4. Let anyone patrolling the border shoot invaders on sight.
In a similar vein, the Seattle Times has an article stating that low-paid illegal work force has little impact on prices; we frequently hear that getting rid of illegals will cause prices to skyrocket in pro-illegal propaganda.

I got my trophy copy of Office 2007, and my Ship It! plaque last month, with the Office 2007 sticker; very nice. At work we're still planning for M1 (Milestone 1); this release is to only have two milestones (plus M0/MQ/MI: Milestone 0, Quality?, or Innovation, an initial milestone where there's space to do work like my object model rework); Office 2007 had three, but it was a long cycle. We're getting down to scheduling developers; I'm divided between collaboration and server work, which is what I wanted. It should be an interesting journey.

A radio commercial recently caught my attention, because in it they speak about "Nassau scientists" and later about astronauts; I think they want people to think they're saying "NASA scientists", but they're somehow prohibited from actually claiming that (because we know advertisers are scum enough to claim anything if it'll make them richer).

Last, a couple words about country music. I'm fairly fond of old country music—songs about cowboys and lonesome roads and wide prairies and jukeboxen and so on, but I find new country is generally fairly tacky, focusing more on trailer parks and unwed mothers. I suppose it tries to follow reality, so perhaps I'm more upset at reality than music. I've only been inside one doublewide trailer, and it was pretty nice, on a good piece of land, and probably a tenth of the price it'd cost in a bigger city.