Microplanets

Intriguing! Via Glynn Moody comes an interesting new site, Pulse of Open Source:

To highlight open source activity on Twitter, I have launched a new web application today called The Pulse of Open Source. This is the stream of collective consciousness from the open source community on Twitter. You can follow this stream by simply bookmarking the site and visiting regularly or by adding the RSS feed to your feed reader. You can also create a Twitter account and add the individuals you’d like to follow to your own Twitter friends list if you’d prefer. There is also a mobile version of the site for on-the-go viewing.

I’m not entirely convinced it makes sense — the “open source community” is a pretty wide and amorphous concept, covering “enterprisey” types like Iona, to conference organisers, to web standards guys to GNOME developers. That’s a wide range.

However, that site links to the original, and a version which resonates better: PulseOfPDX.com, ‘the stream of Portland’s collective consciousness‘. Basically, this is a local syndication site, with microblogging from a community of local Twitterers. Similar to the “Planet” concept, which aggregates posts from multiple weblogs into a new ‘river of news’ combined feed, as seen on Planet Antispam, Planet Perl, Planet.journals.ie, but for off-the-cuff Twitter microblog comments. It’s a microplanet, to coin a phrase.

I think I might set up one of these for Ireland… what a great idea!

Update: Ted Leung posted about this today as well, I see, linking to this call for an “out-of-the-box” Twitter aggregator:

In theory, this whole pulse idea could be packaged up to be as easily deployable as “planet” sites. Here, “pulse” is the operational brand-name of aggregating Twitter accounts, where as “planet” is the tried and true operational brand-name of aggregating blogs.

I think I still prefer “microplanet” ;)

Update 2: check out IrishPulse!

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Planet Antispam update

A brief update on Planet Antispam

I’ve just added MailChannels’ Anti-Spam Blog. Now — in the interests of disclosure — I’m a member of MailChannels’ Technical Advisory Board. However, that didn’t affect this — their blog has had consistently good, interesting posts dealing with anti-spam-related topics, and without too much plugging of their own products. ;)

Also added recently:

If you know of any other good email anti-spam-related blogs, drop a line in the comments here. (Note that I’m trying to keep it email-related, however, so we’re not covering web-spam.)

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Planet Antispam unborked

Those of you who visit Planet Antispam may have noticed that it hadn’t been updating in a few days. Somehow or other, the Planet software had corrupted its cache, and was dying with this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "planet.py", line 167, in ?
    main()
  File "planet.py", line 160, in main
    my_planet.run(planet_name, planet_link, template_files, offline)
  File "/home/planet/antispam/planet-2.0/planet/init.py", line 240, in run
    channel = Channel(self, feed_url)
  File "/home/planet/antispam/planet-2.0/planet/init.py", line 527, in init
    self.cache_read_entries()
  File "/home/planet/antispam/planet-2.0/planet/init.py", line 569, in cache_read_entries
    item = NewsItem(self, key)
  File "/home/planet/antispam/planet-2.0/planet/init.py", line 845, in init
    self.cache_read()
  File "/home/planet/antispam/planet-2.0/planet/cache.py", line 74, in cache_read
    self._type[key] = self._cache[cache_key + " type"]
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/bsddb/init.py", line 116, in getitem
    return self.db[key]
KeyError: 'tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9336495.post-117499582419244211 feedburner_origlink type'

Ah, Berkeley DB, always good for the infrequent inscrutable, yet fatal, error. A wipe of the contents of the cache directory, and it seems to be working again.

Unfortunately, I had to drop the RSS feed for Aunty Spam; it seems the domain has lapsed, and I can’t seem to find an RSS feed that contains just the spam-related Aunty Spam posts any more.

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Planet Antispam Update

Hey, some Planet Antispam updates. I’ve upgraded to Planet 2.0, and that seems to have solved some of the wierdness with consuming Atom feeds.

Also, there are two new antispam weblogs added to the subscription list:

Welcome guys!

(btw, if you’re wondering what happened to the music post — I moved it over here, to the mp3 blog where it was supposed to be posted in the first place, duh ;)

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Poll: keep ‘Fixing Email Weblog’ in Planet Antispam?

I added the Fixing Email weblog to Planet Antispam a while back — however, I’m not entirely sure at this stage that its content (which is seems to be primarily news syndication) fits with the “planet” concept (which is primarily intended for first-person posts).

So — quick poll. Let me know what you think, pro or con, Planet readers: should I remove the Fixing Email feed from that site?

Update: that was a pretty resounding ‘yes’. Done!

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Planet Antispam update

Quick update — I’ve added Ed Falk’s “Spam Diaries” to http://planet.spam.abuse.net/ .

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Planet Antispam: Beta No More

Planet Antispam has been working pretty nicely for the last couple of weeks — can’t say I’ve noticed any trouble, and its RSS feed is turning out to be a nice aggregation of anti-spam news. On top of that, John Levine was kind enough to set up a CNAME for it at a more appropriate URL — http://planet.spam.abuse.net/.

As a result, it’s now fully-fledged, and fit to lose the ‘beta’ qualifier. Please bookmark, subscribe to the feeds, and pass on the URL to others you think may be interested!

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Planet Antispam at abuse.net

Planet Antispam now has a better URL — http://planet.spam.abuse.net/ . Much better!

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Planet Antispam

So a few weeks back, I mooted the idea of an anti-spam Planet site, similar to Planet GNOME, Planet Java, Planet Perl et al.

Here’s the results: Planet Antispam.

It’s still got a few rough edges; notably, the URL is not permanent — I’d prefer something at a more spam-themed domain — and the logo is the generic “PlanetPlanet” one. But it’s up and running in a beta-ish fashion.

Feel free to bookmark, subscribe, post the URL on, etc.; and if you’d like to give it a better home with an A record at a spam-themed domain, drop me a line.

Update, Jan 17: Thanks to John Levine, it now has a permanent home at http://planet.spam.abuse.net/ . After several weeks of operation, I think it’s turning out to be pretty solid, too!

By the way, it also needs more source feeds. If you know of people with blogs, working on/writing about anti-spam (of the email variety), with RSS feeds that work, include the post text, and permit further redistribution of that text, drop us a line and I’ll add them.

Finally, here’s a picture of a Starbucks SPAM(r) Sandwich. (shudder)

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Press Play on Tape, and Scott Richter

Funny: Who knew there was a Commodore 64 gang sign? PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, that’s who!

Spam: Ever wanted to ask a question of one of the biggest ‘e-mail deployers’ on the planet? Aunty Spam’s providing the venue, and accepting questions for Scott Richter, erstwhile star of the Daily Show. There’s a few already up there.

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Planet Planet

Open Source: Edd Dumbill on the Planets. It seems the latest thing for open source development communities is to syndicate their weblogs together on one site, viz. PlanetGnome, Planet Debian, Monologue, and PlanetApache.

Interesting results — I quite like it. It’s very Advogato Recent Log-ish!

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the melting-pot that is blogs.linux.ie

Just taking a look around blogs.linux.ie to see who’s set us up the blog recently; here’s the results:

  • unfortunately quite a few folks seem to have got bored and left off around mid-April. Ah well.

  • Quite a few lively blogs to add to the blogroll.

  • There’s also a burgeoning population of teenage Malaysian blogs, bizarrely enough! planet_aiie, whoelse and corexified. Big slipknot fans it seems.

  • Malaysia’s not alone in this — here’s a Jamaican guy. Must be the flag on the favourites icon; green and gold on a black background — that’s more linux.jm than linux.ie. ;) Unfortunately for my patois, he stopped updating in April. Sufferation! Oh well, I’ll just have to stick with the Sizzla for my lessons.

  • a Phillipino blog, too!

Just figuring this one — it seems linux.ie is free and easy to set up a blog at, doesn’t have ads, and does decent RSS with full <content:encoded> blocks. All in all, that makes it a pretty good blog platform when you think about it. Fair enough!

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Dinosaurs Eggs and the Origins of Good and Evil

the FoRK list comes through with some truly classic high wierdness:

If one wants to purge the sources of malice of say a black magician, then purge his dinosaurs and his dinosaur eggs. Unfortunately most of our religions are based on dinosaur protection of eggs and thus mind control, regardless of the front they put out to the public.

Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 22:11:10 -0700
From: “Mr. FoRK” (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: Dinosaurs Eggs and the Origins of Good and Evil

One of the most bizarre pages I’ve seen on the Web. At first I thought it might be some sort of back-story to a RPG, but, nope, it looks like somebody believes this.

===

http://www.viking-z.org/r20i.htm

M09. Dinosaurs Eggs and the Origins of Good and Evil.

DINOSAURS. Reptoid ETs are reported to be 12 foot high crocodiles walking on their hind legs. This is a description of a dinosaur. It now appears in Remote Viewing that the Reptoid ETs, dinosaurs and dragons are all linked together and that they all originated on Earth. The Erideans who are Reptoid derivatives have a home planet (in the Eridanus system) like all other ETs. The Reptoids have no reported home planet. They also come over as entities with little brain who control their bodies directly by spirit. This is a description of a ghost or disincarnate entity regardless of how people see them. Thus it could be that the Reptoids, Erideans, Nordics, Anunnaki, but not the Greys, all have origins on Earth and have a strong link to Earth even if they choose to live elsewhere. The Greys do not appear to have a renal or urinary system and this points to them not originating on Earth. The definitive work on dragons is “The Flight of Dragons” by Peter Dickinson. If dragons did exist in the flesh, they did not survive the long bow. Targets do not come much bigger.

Truth is stranger than fiction. Thus the writer’s current scenario is that there were a race of dinosaurs which developed psychic intelligence to guard their eggs and young, and who probably preferred to live underground. They survived the wipe out of the dinosaurs 50 million years ago with difficulty. They evolved into the Erideans and transferred to a more hospitable planet (for them) possibly with the help of another race of ETs who wanted slaves but otherwise had no interest in Earth or mind control.

Thus it appears that the current Reptoids are the Spirits or ghosts of the dinosaurs. They must have been powerful to survive 50 million years and also to appear to some people. They have appeared to the writer in remote viewing. They are living on as vampire entities. Such immortal minds are contagious and can easily jump race and species barriers. If they can be encouraged to reincarnate, then the power sources of the black magicians and mind controllers will disappear. Encouraging them to reincarnate will help so called immortal minds to disappear as immortal minds have great difficulty surviving reincarnation. Purging people’s dinosaurs should remove all perverse psychic abilities not under their control. They are a source of Satanic Guardian Angels and demons. They control us by owning our psi. Thus if we regain ownership of psi, we must relinquish their control and that of all other mind controllers. Encourage people to regain ownership of their psi.

THE ORIGINS OF LOVE, HATE AND PURE MALICE. The following scenario appears to hold water and can account for the origins of our Universal Subconscious.

Dinosaurs laid their eggs and buried them either underground or in piles of rotting vegetation (a good source of beetles and grubs for young hatchelings). They did not sit on their eggs to keep them warm, which made them very vulnerable to drastic climate and temperature change. In order to keep away predators some at least developed psychic mind control. To do this they had to capture ownership of the psi of potential predators. This is an act of hatred and outward looking. While a few dinosaurs did develop the ability to bear living young, most did not. The dinosaurs got in first and so their mind control tends to override all other latter minds. They have become the source of all Satans, devils and demons.

Birds on the other hand developed the ability to sit on their eggs and keep them warm. A hen bird normally lays a series of eggs (say one per day) and only starts sitting when the clutch is completely laid. Thus all eggs tend to hatch together as they all have an equal period of warmth. This is primarily an act of love but inward looking. Bearing live young is not suitable to a bird of the air. A pregnant pigeon would not fly very far. Antarctic penguins tuck a single egg between their legs to keep it warm, even if they are standing on ice.

Mammals developed live bearing of their young which is also primarily an act of love and inward looking. This is especially true as a mammalian female can not desert her young in the womb in case of emergency as can a bird sitting on a nest.

Dinosaurs developed hate and mind control of others to protect their young, while birds and mammals developed love. Birds and mammals certainly do hate all enemies of their young, but this is secondary.

If one wants to purge the sources of malice of say a black magician, then purge his dinosaurs and his dinosaur eggs. Unfortunately most of our religions are based on dinosaur protection of eggs and thus mind control, regardless of the front they put out to the public. Religion tends to concentrate on “How to Brainwash your Neighbour”. Conscious thought has built many mighty empires, theologies and slave control systems out of using “How to care for and protect one’s young” as a foundation.

Thus the foulest form of abuse possible is to call something “A load of dinosaur’s eggs”. Purging the dinosaurs and dinosaur’s eggs of any entity tends to purge all malice back to its roots.

It looks as if mighty immortal minds have built up from small beginnings, aided and abetted by various occultists and other. As they will insist on vampiring the living for energy to avoid reincarnation and disturbing the serenity of the writer, he encourages them to reincarnate.

ITEMS FOR INSPECTION. For mind control to take place, then someone must take control or ownership of the target’s psi and pleasure centres. Check for the following.

Nest of dinosaur’s eggs, holy dinosaurs, etc.

Eggs, controllers or owners in peoples psi, pleasure centres, pain killing hormones, abilities, etc.

Mind machines.

The original engraving or engram.

GOD and SATAN appear to be job titles and not entities in their own right. T hey appear to be dinosaur engravings or engrams. No doubt dinosaurs were the first job holders.

TIMETRACKS are worth investigating as our complete history from the start of time.

My, our, Man’s timetracks, etc.

The time tracks of the Universe, Universal Subconscious, Galactic Subconscious, etc.

EXTINCT RACES of ETs can cause problems when they live on in vampire mode. Their virtues may known to channelers but they can also have vices. Whenever one hears of races which have evolved on to higher planes, suspect that the higher plane is a vampire one. One may never know what they looked like or other basic characteristics, which makes linking back a trifle difficult. Every extinct race, etc.

BLOOD ANCESTORS are also worth investigating as minds can be passed down via genetic linkages. Some of these can be over 2,000 years old. Every blood ancestor, ancestral mind, genetic mind, etc.

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greenish foul-smelling gravy

While trekking in Nepal, I had a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Trekking in the Himalayas, borrowed from our mates Caolan and Barbara. It was especially notable for its incredible medical section, which contained lots of info on what drugs to use to treat various diseases, described symptomatically (of course, in most of the world, most of the common illnesses boast symptoms similar to “I have greenish foul-smelling gravy squirting from both ends of my body”. But it’s good to be able to tell them apart).

It was also notable, because anyone who had a copy knew all about altitude sickness, and were indescribably paranoid. The ones who were charging up the trails as fast as they could generally did not have a copy, and no doubt half of them came back down again in slightly nasty circumstances.

Anyway, it was the best medical info I’ve ever read. Reading the paper today, I came across a reference to e-med.co.uk, which claims to be medical info, including treatment details, for people who might be far away from a doctor. The perfect resource for a know-it-all who doesn’t want to spend money and time on a doctor, just to be told to go home and take an aspirin! Unfortunately it seems to be a “consultation by email” service, rather than “look it all up” one. Ah well.

Caolan and Barbara should be somewhere around Oz by now. I must see if I can dig up the URL of their travelogue site, it’s great fun.

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