Attention users of techapartment resources: Especially timmins.net and telcodata.us

I know service has sucked today. It's not a bandwidth issue. I'm undergoing a gigantic joe job right now. Some spammer is generating hundreds of thousands of emails with the sender address being random addresses @timmins.net.

Since timmins.net and telcodata.us share much of the same architecture (but not quite) it is also affected.

My apologies for the shitty service, but it's not my fault. I'm doing what I can, but under the load I've already had one backup MX bail out on me (quite understandably and with my blessing) for the course of the attack, and had to switch my offsite backup MX because it was crushing that server too. Mainframe has over 30,000 backed up emails in its mail queue that are almost all invalid, just waiting to be bounced.

It's a fucking mess.

I'll summarize the rest of the day with little plus and minus signs:
+ Optimizing my monitoring system at work
– Fucking up the summary cache database on it in the progress, but rebuilding it was part of the above optimization and made a HUGE difference.
+ 100 Megabit Full Duplex connection in the detroit datacenter at work now
– I think (provider) is inaverdently forcing my redundant connection to 10/half. Grr.
+ Renewed my badge at (colo provider) today
– Got bitched at for not signing in guests. I've been taking guests for like what, 2-3 years now? and they decide to throw a bitch fit while my router is in several pieces on my lap? Fuck that noise. My guests come to help me do shit, like be my gopher or help me organize my crap.
+ K index of 9 today. Heard the Northern lights were cool. Look up at the sky and it's fucking like daylight because I'm a city boy. I hop in my truck and take off on the first road that went north I could find. Took it until I seen dark skies.
– Didn't see a damn thing
+ Got lost up in BFE, and hilarity ensues as one of my backup MXen calls me with far more patience than I would have had under the circumstances, and asks me to flip my MX record to the proper machine. My bad. I go to grab my data cable for my cell phone. It's not there. Nope, it's back 50 miles south at home. I plug in my wireless card, and remember that up in BFE, they don't use wireless ethernet. I actually manage to find an AP to find out it's not actually connected to the internet, or anything else interesting for that matter. Ugh. End up calling my other backup MX to have him edit the DNS record. More hilarity ensues as I am apparently in a non existent town.

Welcome to my day today. Hi.

IS-271

Dear Paul Timmins:
Congratulations!
You have successfully passed the Independent Study Course "IS-271" entitled "Anticipating Hazardous Weather & Community Risk".
You will be receiving your official certificate soon. Please allow up to two
weeks for processing and delivery.

Independent Study Program Office
Emergency Management Institute
National Emergency Training Center
16825 S. Seton Ave
Emmitsburg, MD 21727

I seen this in telecom digest today, and I thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:27:42 GMT
From: joel@exc.com (Dr. Joel M. Hoffman)
Subject: Irresponsible Techs was Re: Vonage, and Digressing
Organization: Excelsior Computer Services

In a similar vein, I remember several years ago having not one but TWO dial tones on my pair, due to, I think, water damage and crossed wires. The situation also gave me very loud static. When I was using my line, my dial tone would disappear (as it should), but I'd still have to scream to be heard over the other dial tone and considerable static. One week (!) after placing a trouble report, I got a phone call.

"WHO'S CALLING," I yelled, trying to be heard over the noise and static.

"mumble mumble" was the response.

"WHO IS CALLING!?" I yelled louder.

"IT'S THE PHONE COMPANY," I heard someone scream. "WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE TROUBLE?"

-Joel

So with the help of , we found the RFI I was hearing on the 440 band last week.
It wasn't comcast, surprisingly. But it was deceptive. Apparently it was an IF product of a far more interesting frequency that turns out to be a studio loop for TV 7 (WXYZ).
Yea, it's patched straight to their intercoms. And yes, it's funny. ๐Ÿ™‚

The following shows on the flickering box rule. Everything else sucks. You should watch these and nothing else too, just like I do.

  • The Brak Show
  • Aqua Teen Hunger Force
  • Spaceghost Coast to Coast
  • South Park
  • Good Eats
  • Mail Call
  • Tactical to Practical

That is all.

HAM stuff….

Oh, a good quote from tonight. I'm sitting here on the W8OAK 440 repeater, and you can hear WFM audio blaring in over top of it. Becky's like
"What the hell, you can't play music over ham radio…"
"Erm, that's cable leakage. Comcast has a bad amp somewhere nearby. *"
*she listens intently to the sound, then looks at the clock* "That's gotta be Law and Order, SVU"
"That's sick. You know that, right?"
"Yea, now I'm torn, I hate cable TV, but I like the content!"
"You should be like me and hate both.."

* Yes, I know cable leakage is something the cableco is responsible for taking care of, but I didn't have the time or equipment to track it down at the time. I've taken mental note of the Freq and location though, so if someone wants to go fox hunting…..