Some numbers...

So I'm back in the office in Shanghai, and the sun is shining in a blue sky, which is a pretty rare event.  I'd love to be outside since it's a reasonable temperature these days, but here I am getting settled back into the job, with a new boss and a new direction.  I'm actually hopeful, though, which is great.  I'm about to move into an actual office (no more open plan working for me!) and apparently the new boss can get me a deal on a goosedown underlay for the winter.  It'll be like sleeping in a cloud.

I had a wonderful holiday back in the southern hemisphere, and caught up with a lot of people, all of whom it was fantastic to see.  Of course I wish I'd had more time, but hey.  Once you see how many people I had to see, you'll see why the schedule was so tight.  I promise more catch ups when I retire.

So, here is a summary of my holiday in numbers:

• 20 days
• 10 flights (1 cancelled)
• 3 countries
• 6 towns/cities (1 was just a layover)
• 4 journeys to Hong Kong International Airport; 3 to Melbourne; 3 to Sydney
• 6 time zones (if you include changing times for daylight savings twice)
• 11 - 30 degrees Celsius (approx)
  
• 19 family members
• 69 friends and friends-of-friends (and the new people were all lovely!)
• 2 runnings into on the street
  
• 20.2kg in my backpack on the way home (including 2L of 42 Below)
• 12.5kg of extra belongings in a box put in the post
• 1 upgrade to business class (first time in nearly 9 years of travelling!), but only for 2 hours
  
• Countless hugs and kisses, and not enough time, or flat whites.

Thanks to everyone who made the effort to see me (including the ones who wanted to, but couldn't), especially those who let me stay at their places, helped me organise things, and gave me directions.  Miss you all already.

[Image: Blue sky over Bondi, Bondi Beach, Sydney]

Original post sent via email to Wendebulous

The truth about spam: "Fw: FUNNY" is not as funny as you think

Getting nonsensical, unentertaining, "inspirational" or otherwise worthless emails forwarded to me, often by virtual (ha) strangers or long-ago workmates, is one of my pet peeves.  The obvious reason is that I don't find them interesting or worthwhile, I have better ways to use my time, and I don't care.  The less obvious reason is that I am fairly protective of my own privacy, and I don't want my email address handed over to complete strangers, especially the kind of strangers who will further propagate the sort of emails that I hate, or worse, not be actual people.  Why don't you just give them my phone number, address, and bank account details while you're at it?  Come to think of it, I received a 'warning' email today which included, not just a whole mess of email addresses, but all sorts of personal contact information contained in footers.  Be careful, people!

Before I launch into full rant mode, I'd like to pass the mic over to my completely wonderful, yet easy irritated, friend Dave, who wrote what he intended to be a passive-aggressive response to receiving an illogical but apparently compulsive forwarded email, and actually produced a well-written, educational missive about one of the dangers of the internet.  Like I said to him, if it were more succinct, I might be tempted to put it on a t-shirt. 

I have removed the names and email addresses, because I am a considerate person.  If people really feel the need, the absolute, unavoidable compulsion to send me random crap (and I'm not talking about things you know I'll actually appreciate), for the love of God, learn how to use the bcc: option.  Please. 

Anyway, please read the following message, and feel free to pass it on to your favourite quasi-spammers.  Perhaps encourage them to read the whole thing by saying that something hilarious will happen when they scroll right to the end.

Hi there [name removed to protect baby seals] et al.,

Just so you're aware, it's physically impossible for anything 'funny' to happen if you forward a message to a certain number of people. All that will happen is that people will forward it hoping that something will happen. Which, as I'm sure you now know from forwarding this message, it never will. It just results in a whole bunch of spam being thrown around the internet.

But what's more, all the email addresses that people are forwarding to will be harvested by spam bots, giving spammers a whole bunch more addresses to send their "make your penis bigger!", "FREE viagra!" and "find hot prostitutes near you" emails. Thus these will start flooding your inbox, along with the emails with malware and worm attachments that can really fuck your stuff up.

It's actually quite a clever spam technique - promising the uninitiated users that something 'hilarious' will happen if they forward it to enough people. If you look below at the forwarded message, you'll see all those blue underlined links, all those email addresses to whom "[name removed even though he was one of the forwarders at fault]" sent it out to... well, as soon as this email is returned to a spammer, they can just copy all those addresses onto their database and know that these addresses have real people on the end of them, and so add them to their list of people to send out all their spam. They can also sell the list of email addresses to other spammers. This is actually how most spam email actually gets their millions of target users.

Emails are just strings of letters and numbers being sent through electronic communication channels... there's no physical way that forwarding, replying, or doing anything to the messages will result in any 'cool' thing happening.

So, as a general rule of thumb - only ever forward emails if you actually want or need to forward them. For example, if it's information that you want somebody else to see - that is to say, the intended use of the forwarding feature.

I am sorry if this sounds passive aggressive or preachy, but... well... it's a bit annoying, see. Because now if any of the other 6 people to whom you also forwarded this message (that is, [names removed because it wasn't their fault]) then forward it on to a bunch of other people, it'll be my email address added to the spam list. And then, if any of those people then forward it on to another bunch of people, my address will be propagated again and again and again, etc., etc., ad nauseam. In effect, by forwarding these kinds of emails to your friends, you are actively increasing the amount of spam they get.

So. If you ever get an email and are encouraged to forward it to a certain amount of people - whether it promises something cool, or promises that it will save the life of an African child with every person you forward it to, or promises that it will increase the chance of finding your one true love... the best thing to do is delete it, or just move it to your spam folder. Because that's what it is. Spam. Nothing else. You could always forward it to a bunch of people who you don't really like, and laugh at the fact that they're going to get a lot more spam, but again, your email address is still going to be propagated on that list just by engaging in any kind of forwarding activity.

Sadly, because the vast majority of people are completely unaware of the underhand tactics that spammers use to build up these lists of verified, active email addresses, spam now accounts for over 90% of all email traffic online. Check out this section of the Wikipedia article on spam, if you like (with cited sources): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam#As_a_percentage_of_the_total_volume_of_e-mail

All the best, and hope you're well.

Dave [name retained to acknowledge the awesome]

2009/9/7 [name removed to reduce global warming]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [name removed to save the whales]
Date: Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 4:49 PM
Subject: Fw: FUNNY
To: [names removed for the sake of my conscience]

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [name removed to protect the innocent]

To: [name removed for an ideal future]

Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 10:04 AM

Subject: Fw: FUNNY

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [name removed for the sake of the children]

To: [names removed for world peace]

Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 10:55 AM

Subject: FW: FUNNY

 

---

I don’t normally forward these but will give this a try.

---

 

---

Forward this to at least 7 people and see what happens on your screen . you will laugh your head off!!!!!!!!!!! This is the coolest thing I have ever received. All you have to do is send it to 7 people and watch your screen, it is the funniest clip. I can't tell you what it is but I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair!!! So, send it to those 7 people and watch. If you forward it to 7 people a video comes on your screen.. This works. I don't know how...but it works.

[It does not work.  No matter how much you want something hilarious to happen to these bouncing bikini-ed beach bunnies.]

Original post sent via email to Wendebulous

Get your wallet out - it's for a good cause

So, I take a while to clean out my inbox sometimes.  If I don't act on something straight away, it tends to get buried until I manage to shuffle through everything in sporadic bursts of what seems like productivity.

I received an email a while ago from my friend Bjorn asking for sponsorship for a 2.8km cross-harbour swim, in support of Surf Lifesaving NZ.  It's for a great cause, especially in a place like NZ (and, similarly, Australia), where the beaches are unpopulated, beautiful, and sometimes dangerous. 

From his sponsorship page:

Ive signed up as a charity swimmer to raise money to support Surf Life Saving New Zealand. By donating through my web page you are helping to save lives with Surf Life Saving. THE EVENT IS ON THE 21st NOVEMBER 2009

I'll do all the hard work (train for and complete the 2.8km Auckland Harbour Swim as part of the Sovereign New Zealand Ocean Swim Series) but I really need your help to make a difference so that everyone can enjoy New Zealands favorite playground safely.

So, please sponsor me?

Select the "Make a donation" button below. It's simple, fast and totally secure and the money goes directly to Surf Life Saving New Zealands bank account.

If you live in New Zealand your donation is tax deductible and a receipt will be issued.

So please help me today! And pass it on to everyone you know!

I spent a few years in my youth patrolling the beach, but my experience being stuck in the bush fires in Melbourne reminded me what a fantastic job all the volunteers in SLS do.

Good luck with the training, Bjorn!  Click here to donate, especially if you were in the bush fires or have ever needed help on the beach.  Do it.

Also, I posted this on my Facebook page the other day, but you still have one more day to donate to Becks's head getting shaved in support of the Leukaemia & Blood Foundation.  She has to deal with the discomfort of a cold, bald, head, so donating is the least you can do. :)

This isn't intended to be a guilt trip or blatant advertising.  If I can encourage one person to donate something to any good cause, then it's worth the few minutes I took to do this.  If you have no ties to these organisations, there are countless others out there.  Donate some money, time, clothing, expertise, or blood to an (appropriate) aid, research, or charity organisation soon.  You won't regret it. 

Original post sent via email to Wendebulous

Good Books and good deeds

I've always been consistent in not giving money to beggars, but I'll usually donate to buskers (homeless or not) who impress me, I often donate to established charity campaigns, and I try to donate blood when and where I can (which reminds me, I should really visit the blood bank again soon).

Sometimes I question my choices when it comes to giving back, and I know I don't do enough for the world on a daily basis.  Knowing that I have taken more international flights than a great many people gives me carbon guilt.  The fact that I've gotten used to the comfort of air-conditioning in hot countries does the same. 

So when I was reading the Oxfam newsletter that arrived in my inbox today, I was happy to be reminded of the fantastic service that Good Books provides.  They have over 2 million titles (books, audiobooks, and music) at reasonable prices, ship internationally for free, and all profits go directly to Oxfam.  They promise no mark ups, and ship from both the UK and the US.  It may sound too good to be true, but through their volunteer work and generous sponsorship, you can donate to a good cause (or many good causes) by doing something you probably do once in a while anyway.

If you're reading this post, I propose two things:

1) Suggest a book or CD (or more than one!) for me.  I have been starved of new music and haven't been reading enough lately, and I have decided to buy at least a few titles from Good Books.  If your recommendation is persuasive enough, I'll go with it!  If I get them all shipped together, it will slightly make up for the environmental cost of shipping, right?

2) Order something yourself, or as a gift for someone else.  If you were going to buy books or CDs online anyway, consider checking out this service before you use your usual one.  The NZ dollar is still down, so it might work out to be a similar price, and you'll get that warm fuzzy feeling for free (not to mention the delight of no added shipping costs).

Looking forward to getting some suggestions!

I feel all special...

Lovely Cassie wrote a blog post (at least partially) about me on her super-fantastic blog, A Normal Day.  It makes me feel all special.  Plus, she likes my iccint.  Gold stars for Cassie!

Cassie and I lead the kind of lives where it's possible for us to run into each other (and Carla!) on a glacier.  We can't forget that these lives are awesome.

x

Things I'd never say out loud, but that I've already told strangers on the Internet

For the first time in ages, I can read the Facebook feeds on my RSS reader - that is, people's status updates, notes, and posted items. 

Status updates I've been keeping up-to-date with somewhat through other means, and posted items seem to be a lot of YouTube videos which I can't watch, sadly.  Some of them actually look interesting.

I thought that the notes thing would be more fruitful.  I regretted not being able to post comments directly (I suppose if something really caught my eye, I could look up the note on my phone and make a comment that way, but, honestly, that's a lot of bother), but then I took a look at the actual contents of the feed.  On first glance, the vast majority of the notes posted seem to have been of the 'random stuff nobody knew or ever ever ever needed to know about me' variety.  On second glance, I realised that a few of those contained 'random crap generated by the internet that is only incidentally related to the author' instead.  My mistake. 

Sure, it's easy to do one or two of these things, and they usually only take a few minutes (I've done a couple myself, but let's pretend that that was for research purposes), but when I have everybody's all corralled together, crowding out poor little blog posts and stray creative thoughts, they become a bit overwhelming.

I know it's not my place to make comment on the state of the Internet, and God knows I should do more productive things with my own time, but I just wanted to say thanks to the people who are actually generating somewhat original content of their own accord. 

But ignore me.  I'm just becoming an Internet grinch because of communism.



In cheerier news, dogs are as smart as toddlers when it comes to taking a hint.

Bumper link round-up

Zubbles!

For those not in the know, China blocked Facebook last Tuesday, and even though I've got some workarounds (I'm still deciding whether or not to keep the paid VPN service, because my internet connection tends to be so bad anyway that it just slows an already slow process down), keeping up-to-date with people (or, stalking them) is much more difficult these days.

The other thing that's hard is posting interesting links that I find.  Getting access to sites I haven't seen in a couple of months also means that I have more links to share.  It's so bad that I have even briefly considered opening a Twitter account, but hopefully it won't come to that.  I may not be able to live with myself (sorry, Tweeters, or Twits, or Twitterers, or Twatters, or whatever the cool kids are calling themselves).  Yes, Facebook being blocked is a significant event for me, and I can still find it in me to hate on Twitter.  I do share things on Google Reader, but it's not easy to see my witty comments when they are imported to Facebook, so that takes half the fun out of it.

Anyway, here are some fun things I've stumbled across recently.  Some of them have already been shared via Reader, but oh wells.

From Everybody Loves Free Stuff:
Zubbles!  They're coloured bubbles, with a name that's fun to say!
Magic salad plate - never have real vegetables touch precious meat products again.
Some gross but also cool anti-acne medication promotional samples.

Some wacky stuff from the Irish Times, including the fact that a Chinese girl who was named 'Chicken Shit' by her parents is finally old enough to do something about it.

11 Photos Where Black People Were Awkwardly Photoshopped In or Out (thanks for the link, Dave).

Even though the riots in Xinjiang were terrible, and apparently caused by an inadvertent scream, it's nice to know that the Chinese armed forces are still kicking it old school by using crossbows.  That's right.  Crossbows. 

Possibly the biggest bunny in the world, who should probably just join that morbidly obese family who were asking the British government for more money because they are too fat.  Actually, he's too cute for them.

Possibly the worst piece of 'writing' I've seen in a while.

It's official: Asians are the best at racism.  Yay us!

And finally, some cute.  Care of Disgrasian as well, Asian babies vs animals, and links from Eve: poor Chinese kitten who needs a home, and My Milk Toof, which has to be one of the very cutest blogs I've ever seen. 

Enjoy!

It may just be temporary...

...but I can read blogs again!  Whee.  I have so many to catch up on, though.

Of course I can't actually visit the sites yet, but it seems that my feeds are working again.  Right now, anyway.

Come on, China, just go that little bit further and let me see some pictures.  That would be super duper.

In less dorky-slash-controversial news, I had a great visit to Chengdu to see some friends and some pandas (who I like to consider friends), my mum and her sister came to visit Shanghai, and I've just been generally stupid busy with work, socialising, and other random commitments.  All the visits have been wonderful, but slightly exhausting in that they have all been in the same few weeks.  My friend Alex is in town this weekend, and as soon as I've said goodbye after having a super fantastic time with him, I'm going to hibernate in my apartment for a couple of days.  I need sleep.

The internet is broken

I just had to type out a blog post on my phone because we still have no internet access in my office. Conspiracy theories abound. Then I got even more paranoid about posting something that had so many no-no words in it. So I put it on my other blog. If you want to read it, hopefully you know where to go.

I'm so iMbarrassed*.

The links didn't work in my last entry, which is an awful virtual faux pas, especially as I specifically mentioned the links.  So, here they are, even though you don't really need them.

This blog, which you may or may not be reading.
Another blog, which is written with Wordpress. [This link didn't work until Dave corrected me. Thanks, Dave.]
Some information on what happened at Tiananmen Square nearly 20 years ago.


*Have you noticed that everything's called iSomething these days?  i'M not iMagining iT, am i?  My iSP at home is called ihug, but it has been for years.  I hug.  Do you?