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As those of you on my notify list doubtless noticed, there was a messy
mail explosion right after I sent out mail about my last entry. The
problem appears to have been due to some combination of a runaway
vacation program & the inherent stupidity of Novell GroupWise (
whole lot of group, little bit of wise) It's all neatened up now,
of course, but I simply must share with you all this delightful little
romance that
Bryant Durrell composed as he (in his capacity as one of the
flick.com sysadmins) and
Gretchen (the other flick.com sysadmin) worked on the problem.
Thus, without further ado I present:
The Rewards of Virtue
OR
How Sendmail Overcame its Baser Instincts and in Doing
So Found Happiness
Windward says "I believe, by the way, that sendmail gets the hint after
the first try."
Windward says "'Hm,' says sendmail. 'I'm being rejected. Is it my
breath? My personality? Well, I'm not sure, so I should think about it
a bit before I try again. Maybe the time is just wrong.'"
Windward says "' But the last thing this lovely site will want is for
me to try again immediately!'"
Windward says "And then a while later sendmail will remember that it
had fallen for this other site, despite the rejection, and try again.
'Oh,' it will say sadly. 'Rejected again.' Will sendmail try again
immediately? No! 'I will wait longer this time. Maybe she's in
mourning. Maybe I need a longer shower. I will wait longer.'"
Windward says "The process will repeat. Eventually, sendmail will be
waiting long enough inbetween tries to read long Heinlein novels. This
will not do sendmail any harm, becaue sendmail is well-balanced. 'Hm,'
sendmail will say now and again. 'Another try. Another failure... well,
when I finish reading about the glorious redhead I'll try again.'"
Windward says "Eventually, sendmail will realize that three days have
gone by, without acceptance. Sendmail sighs. 'Not today, it would seem,
nor any day. A pity.' And the story will end."
Windward says "But it will be a happier story than the one we tell with Novell. Novell is a masher of the lowest sort, who follows nice young hosts from music halls and will /not/ go away."
Windward says "'I've told you five thousand, seventy one times!' But it
will make no difference to Novell."
Windward says "Fortunately, the nice young host has a friend named
tcp_wrappers..."
Windward says "And tcp_wrappers has contacts in the Metropolitan Police
Department. So our host need not fear Novell's rough attentions. The
door is firmly locked."
Windward likes to think of the host, tcp_wrappers, and sendmail all
sitting down with a cup of tea.
Windward likes to think of Novell outside the window looking glowery.
That Novell. Shockingly bad ton, what?
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In other news... well. I finished BAMM and liked it so much I've weaseled
my way into getting trained as an assistant. The training is this
weekend, and I'm mostly looking forward to it. There is also,
admittedly, a voice saying "What are you THINKING???", but
it's a small and not uncommon voice, so I'm doing a pretty good job of
ignoring it. I am awfully tired of having my weekends so full, but the
training is only offered annually, so it's sort of now or never. Plus
it seems likely that it'll be months after the training until I'm
invited to assist, so I should have plenty of resting time.
My BAMM graduation went very well. Lots of people showed up, but not
too many, and I got to kick people in the head, and I had a really
exciting fight involving duct tape. To my immense surprise I was given
flowers by three different people -- dark reddish-purple tulips from
Rachel, a beautiful golden sunflower from Moria, and these amazing
pink-purple orchids from Jim, mixed with dark-purple anemones. I was
speechless with happy surprise... I hadn't expected flowers from
anyone, and Jim's never given me flowers before, so there was just a
lot of joy and goofy grinning and hugging of my very wonderful
friends. Plus there's the added bonus that Friday night Jim and I
had been in the city having dinner with Sam (exceptionally cool
Pern person who I am hoping to lure down here permanently) and we'd
seen blue orchids and I'd commented on how much I liked them, so I had
that all-over warm fuzzy of realising yet again how much attention
Jim pays to what I say and do. Wow.
Workwise I'm sort of tired and frustrated. The design phase is winding
down, but a lot of new information has surfaced that means we're sort
of unsure exactly what's going on. Many more meetings. I continue
to hack at various specs and think about Y2K and everything, but
very haphazardly.
In more cheerful news, the rapid approach of Passover has somehow
inspired me to start cooking! I made spaghetti last night, and tonight
I plan to make brownies in an attempt to start reducing the endless
boxes of brownie/cake mix I seem to have acquired. I'm not positive
how long I'll be able to keep this up, but I'm really enjoying
the process so far.
The February entries are still in progress. Honest.
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