Category: Geekery

Petty annoyance of the day

I’m watching my web server logs scroll by, and every minute, I see the following:

216.239.69.45 - - [10/May/2004:10:04:18 -0400] "GET /getlatest.glh?PV=6.0.5.27&OS=WIN&L=en-US, en, *&LID=1033&ch=120+90+0+0+0&ch=72+53+0+0+0&ch=52+739+0+0+0&ch=33+923+0+0+0&ch=73+166+0+0+0&ch=97+108+0+0+0&ch=118+14+0+0+0 HTTP/1.0" 404 1063 "-" "RMA/1.0 (compatible; RealMedia)"

Now, if Google can be trusted, and believe me, it can, it appears that this bozo somehow has his DNS screwed up so that it thinks I’m channels.real.com.

If only I had some suitably BOFHly way of handling this – like causing his RealPlayer to suddenly scream at him to shut the fucking thing off.

Just Answer the Question, Dammit!

I have a bunch of mailing lists that I maintain, and which operate using Mailman software.

I also have a person on a bunch of my lists whose ISP routinely will stop accepting email for several hours a day. The ISP that this ISP gets its email from sends these “your mail hasn’t been delivered for four hours, I’ll keep trying for 5 days” messages which were common back in the days of UUCP email, but pretty stupid now a days. Unfortunately Mailman treats these messages as bounces, even though they’re not. And if Mailman sees enough bounces, you get bounced off the mailing list.

The person in question doesn’t want to change to an ISP that is more reliable, for reasons that are really none of my business. The ISP that sends the warning adamantly refuses to stop sending them, saying they’re important. And I don’t want this person to drop off the lists – she’s a very positive contributor. So thus my dillemma.
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