Author Archives: Brian

Project done – Spam Map

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Well, after losing a lot of sleep this week, I finally finished the project I have been working on. It’s a Google Map hack – Spam Map. It maps the worst spammers that send mail to Mailinator. I think it’s freakin’ cool (of course, I’m biased). Poking around seeing who is sending what spam from where is addictive somehow.

UPDATE: slashdotted! Cool! my first slashdotting! Server is down now (of course).
UPDATE2: server is up and running smoothly again – the intial “just got into work, must check slashdot” wave took it out, but it’s good now.

If you like it, Digg it.

After playing with it for the past week or so, I have learned that the majority of spam to Mailinator comes from the NorthEast US and not overseas as I would have assumed. I wonder if that’s true for spam in general?

So…you saw it here first – an email/spam Google Map Hack. Mark my words, in 3 months from now, everyone will have a Spam/Email map. :) Let’s see how long it takes for one of the Mailinator clones to make their own spam map.

I’ll do a post about my thoughts on the Google map API soon…

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Some great cover songs by Chance – free downloads

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I have had these for a while and thought I’d share them. They are some really good covers done by a band called Chance. If you only try one, try the Milkshake cover – it is an all-out rock cover of the hip-hop song Milkshake by Kelis. The other two songs are really good too – try them all!

UPDATE: These links are broken….read the second comment below to see why. If anyone has webspace/bandwidth to host these MP3s, let me know.
UPDATE2: Here are the songs temporarily – the link is probably slow, but at least you can get them. PLEASE do not link to the songs directly, link to this post.

UPDATE3: I’m giving Coral Cache a try now – let me know if the links work for you or not

These are direct MP3 links from the Coral Cache:
Milkshake cover (MP3) – 4.6MB
Creep cover (MP3) – 4.8MB
When Doves Cry cover (MP3) – 6.1MB

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Ancestor podcast novel has begun

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I am so psyched! Scott Sigler has started the Ancestor podcast novel. He previously did Earthcore which was fantastic, and now he’s podcasting his other novel, Ancestor. I listened to the first episode Monday in the car on the way home from work. It sounds like it will be as good as Earthcore. Both books are being podcast for FREE so try them out! Earthcore is finished so just go grab the whole thing all at once. Ancestor just started so you can get it on it now from the beginning.

Katrina – my geek contribution and my daughter’s donation

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I haven’t mentioned Hurricane Katrina yet because I didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. Now I do…..

My wonderful wife, Jennifer, has been a Red Cross volunteer for a few months now. She is on the Disaster Action Team (DAT) and was on pager duty a week at a time once a month. She would respond to fires in our county and help out the fire victims.

Recently, some Katrina evacuees (about 400?) were brought to the Raleigh, NC area and my wife was able to work for the Red Cross with them (in fact, she is there right now). The other day my wife called me before I went to work and asked if we had any extra routers we could let the shelter use. They had three laptops but only one cable modem to provide internet access so she wanted a router to give all three laptops ‘net access.

So, I loaded up a backpack with two routers, two CAT5 cables, and two mice (I hate laptop touchpads), and delivered them to my wife at the shelter. It was a small contribution, but I was happy to do it.

On the same topic, we talked to my four year old daughter and asked her if she had any extra stuffed animals and/or baby dolls she would like to give to the kids at the shelter that had NO toys. She, of course, has WAY too many of these anyway, and we figured this might be a good lesson for her. Now remember, at four years old, your life REVOLVES around toys. She ended up picking out about eight stuffed animals and baby dolls to donate. Once again, I was SO proud of her. Jen took them to the kids at the shelter and she said they were VERY happy to get them.

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