Still Blue...

So I asked the problem to be escalated to "Support Level 2" and I got:

Good day,

The ONLY way to get around this is the Dedicated IP. Which as above is a extra cost. If the service that you are using is blocking the service you will need to resolve the issue with them. We can not work with a Firewall that we have NO control over.

Thanks,

Jon Bryson
BlueHost.com
888.401.4678

No, you cannot work with a firewall that you have no control over - but you CAN work with the people who administer that firewall. In fact, those people have been trying to work with you for four weeks and have received ZERO response.

Bluehost, you're a makin' me blue!

My wife leads workshops throughout the country. It's one her bread and butter means of income. These workshops require a lot of planning and coordination ahead of time. Reliable email has become an absolute requirement for her. So, when I received this email from a friend who manages the web services for one of her collaborators today - I was a little livid:

Well, looks like email to Bluehost is still not working as I just got the email I sent to Asha yesterday bounced back to me.

Just wanted to let you know that Bluehost is on a blacklist at LiquidWeb (possibly elsewhere as well). They/we tried to contact Bluehost for about 4 weeks to get them to take action to fix the problem (a script exploit repository hosted on your server). They did not reply or respond, so that means no one with a server on Liquid Web's network can send email to anyone on your shared server.

If you can open a ticket and have them investigate, they will probably be a lot more responsive since you are a customer. Just say you can't receive any email from abc@cdef.com or zyx@wvut.com and they should be able to sort it out.

Bluehost is reknowned for their usually excellent tech support, so I bopped over to their trouble-ticket system and opened a ticket on the problem. Sure enough, Bluehost got back to me within a couple hours. But the response about knocked me out of my chair:

What you will need to do is purchase a Dedicated IP, so that your website appears unique. You are currently on a shared hosting server, so your domain shares the same IP address as all of the other clients on that same server. So if they block one domain on the server, they will block all of the domains. The only way around that is to purchase a Dedicated IP so that your website uses its own IP and shares it with no other domain.

The cost for a dedicated IP is $30 per year ($2.50/mo prorated to the end of your agreement). If you would like to purchase the dedicated IP, simply login to your domain manager at http://bluehost.com/dm and click on the dedicated IP tab.

Lonny Jepson
Support Level 1
BlueHost.com
888.401.4678

I won't even bother explaining why this is a non-answer. So either Bluehost has just gone entirely to pot or they are using blacklists to sell services. Either answer now has me looking for a new hosting service!

Conferences...

Paul Ramsey has posted his initial comments on the FOSS4G 2010 Conference Hosting proposals. This is a big deal because my name is on the cover of the "North American" bid. Actually, it's Denver, Colorado. I got some immense help from a new friend, Peter Batty. He was able to get GITA on board as conference organizers and call in some bigger names than I had access too for our organizing committee.

Even if we don't get the bid, I look forward to working with Peter in the future. And I look forward to visiting The Netherlands in 2010... That is, if we don't get the bid!

On the Rigors of Science

I'm in the midst of reading for my comprehensive exams. One smaller item on the reading list is Borges' "On the Rigors of Science" or "Of Exactitude in Science". There's a nice video on YouTube featuring Borges, himself, reading in Spanish:



And another:

...In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.

From Travels of Praiseworthy Men (1658) by J. A. Suarez Miranda

J. L. Borges, A Universal History of Infamy, Penguin Books, London, 1975.

Meat...

When I was a kid, I used to love eating chicken. That is, until one night when I was done eating and started inspecting the bones. I had a wing which ultimately connected to the back and the spine. I sat there at the table examining the vertebrae... And I started to get a little nauseous. I felt a little too connected to the life that I had just consumed.

I've always had this love-hate relationship with meat. I like eating meat... when it's just meat - a food. It's the bones that really get me...

I was just preparing to put my first turkey in the oven. I rarely ever prepare any meat at home. I can't stand the consistency of raw meat. It's slimy. It's messy. I always feel like I have to wash my hands. This feeling is compounded because my wife and I generally feed our cats raw meat. I've managed to convince my wife that the prepared raw meat from the pet store is adequate...

So I was washing the turkey after letting it soak in brine overnight. I have a nice deep-well sink with a detachable faucet, so it's an easy operation. As I was turning the turkey and lifting the wings and legs, I started to feel that nausea return. The flesh was nicely pliable from the soak. The limbs moved - the wings spread. I could see the muscles of the bird flex under the plucked skin. I could really SEE the bird.

I had to quickly pat it dry. Hopefully, dry enough... I threw it into the roasting pan and started to baste with butter. I kind of felt like I was putting suntan lotion on a child. Not a good image...

So I grabbed the salt and pepper. After such a coating of butter, the salt and pepper hid the bird's skin nicely. I crammed my cubed butter, garlic, shallots, and fresh herbs inside. I reached around front and realized I'd left the giblet bag stuck in the neck... What the heck!

I tossed the thing in the oven and closed it. I proceeded to wash the blood from my hands (ok... there wasn't really any blood). But it did take a while to clean the counters and the sink - lots of soap and hot water... Hopefully by the time the oven beeps at me, what will be inside will be more like Thanksgiving Dinner than a great fowl with wings that flex and muscles that ripple.

I appeased myself by preparing the vegetables to be roasted later. Maybe I just have less appreciation for the life force of plants, but chopping vegetables seems almost contemplative...

Bond... James Bond

I caught the new Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, the other day. I think I need to right a longer post-modern critique of Bond... But for now, suffice it to say that I was a little confused throughout the movie. There were several references that I assumed were to parts of Casino Royale. So I rented that this weekend and sure enough, the two are very tightly intertwined. In fact, QoS appears to pickup immediately where Casino Royale leaves off. To get the best experience of QoS, be sure to watch Casino Royale again right before going to the theater.

As for the movie - well, the new Bond is more exciting. The focus is on action and not gadgets and girls (although there are plenty of the latter - but this new Bond doesn't sleep with as many as the old Bond). Seeing how Casino Royale starts off with Bond first getting his Double-Oh status, I think these movies are a return to a younger, less-experienced, brash Bond. There is considerably more character development for Bond in these films compared to the old (which isn't saying much because the old Bond had zero character development in 30+ years).

As for the movie title, I think this video sums it up nicely:

Shopping for a Digital SLR

I've decided to upgrade to a DSLR. I've been using point and shoot cameras for years and feel that I'm being limited by the camera. After playing around with a friend's Olympus E-400 and another friend's Nikon D60, I've decided to go with the Olympus. Right now, the E-510 is available for about $550 with two lenses. That's over $100 cheaper than the newer E-520.