(( meatspace ))

I’m no longer going to provide backup MX on pianosa or any box I am primarily responsible for. I’m sending out mail to people who have pianosa listed as backup MX. Barring a request for more time, I’ll be dropping ‘em all from my configs as of Friday, Jan 28th, 2005.

I’m sending people mail now to let them know. If you have any questions, let me know.

If you are worried about losing mail in the event of a prolonged network outage or host downtime event, I suggest dropping your DNS TTLs to one hour (at least on your MX records), so that you can repoint with ease. Modern MTAs can all deal with retransmission in the event of an outage, so all you lose is spam.

Thanks for your understanding.

Paul Graham has written a lot and elequently about programming, the computer industry, and life. A lot of it I agree with, some I disagree with, but all of it is at least thoughtful and worth considering.

However, since I love to pull out one liners to file away for later, I’m going to christen the following Graham’s Law, unless someone has a pre-existing qualifier, in which case this would be Graham’s 2nd [Ed note: extend as necessary] Law.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as genius. But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

Update: Graham’s law states that the kinetic energy of two samples of different gases at the same temperature is identical.

In some way, I think these parallel each other. I’m ok with that.

Here’s a lot of fun. It’s my favorite MMOPRrrrrrrPPG*. Puzzle Pirates!

Let me know if you sign up.

* – Massive Multiplayer Online Piratical Rrrrrrrole Playing Puzzle Game.

On the subject of data backups, the economist Brad DeLong has a perfect summary of the reason they’re necessary:

Remember: a machine has no mind: you cannot sense beforehand when it is about to betray you.

peep..