As just about every Aussie knows right now, we’ve got some serious bushfires in south-eastern Australia. I saw the NASA satellite photos featured on the news recently and just had to look for them on the web. The latest images of the bushfires from NASA’s MODIS satellite are just spectacular. Don’t get me wrong, the fires certainly suck. I’m just impressed at the technology :-)
Archive for December, 2006
A while ago I came across this awesome article with some tips on how to take good photos with your digital still camera. I was particularly interested in the “rule of thirds” which is:
“Imagine two horizontal and two vertical lines equally dividing your shot, then place subjects on the lines or where they intersect with each other. Place your horizon on the top or bottom line to add emphasis to the ground or to the sky respectively.”
This explains why when cycling through the display modes on my camera, there is one which divides the screen up into a 3×3 grid. Now I know what it’s for I’ll try and use it when taking photos.
Well, the data from my previous catchall experiment is in. The aim was to reduce the level of email spam I was getting. I recorded the number of emails in my Gmail spam folder which reflects the number of spams received in the last 30 days (after which spams are deleted). Data was sampled over a one month period and 23 data points collected. I switched off the catchall address a third of the way into the experiment, so emails to nonexistent accounts are bounced instead of silently accepted. I hoped the spambots would take this as a sign to give up on those addresses. I’m also told that when an email is bounced the full email is not downloaded by the receiving server, so this should reduce email traffic slightly (not that I’m close to my hosts limit).
I would have done a longer, more thorough experiment but there needs to be an easier way to collect the data (using Gmail API perhaps?) Anyway the results are below.
Conclusions? Well the graph would seem to indicate spam levels decreased somewhat linearly after the switch, and they stayed around a 450 average in the following months… until a couple of days ago when the amount skyrocketed to 780! Maybe I was just hit by a very eager spambot, who knows. But after that I’m reluctant to draw any conclusions at all from the experiment. It’s not like these spam levels are a problem; Gmail kicks total spambot arse!
Today, I thought I’d try my hand at the elusive art of jam making. Considering I was a jam virgin, I reckon this batch turned out OK. It’s not as good as Aunty Anne’s though. I probably boiled it for too long in the last stage, as the fruit pretty much turned to mush. It was a good thing I got a tip about “Jam Setta” which is basically powered pectin for when the jam doesn’t set (which mine didn’t). The jam tastes OK but maybe the citric acid in the Jam Setta made it less sweet. I used 1kg of apricots.
I think I’ll make strawberry next but other suggestions are welcome.
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