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I handle the abuse contact for an ISP’s domain name. Normally this doesn’t take up much of my inbox. Even the “Your users are spamming” messages (in response to forged senders) have dropped off.

Since last night, though, the abuse and tech support contacts that filter into my inbox have collected 42 44 spams advertising the “Body Bouncer,” which claims to “take the gravity out of sex.”* Distributed IPs, random content, 6 different subjects (so far). What they have in common are a sales pitch in an image, and a link to their website.

Ordinarily, that would be enough to tag it. Continue reading →

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I had a really strange experience with Internet Explorer earlier this week. I had a reason to check Windows Update (checking for driver updates), but no matter what I did, Microsoft Update opened itself in Firefox! Even if I typed the URL into IE, or chose it from the Tools menu. It became clear that the same was true of typing in any other URL, or trying to open a link in a new window.

As far as I can tell, IE had decided that it wasn’t capable of handling new HTTP connections and was sending the URL to the default browser. Continue reading →

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DC Comics’ April releases have been announced, among them Crisis Aftermath: The Battle For Blüdhaven. (That’s the city Nightwing decided to protect when he went solo, downriver from Gotham and even more corrupt.) But the cover doesn’t make me think of Nightwing, or of Batman:

A woman dressed like the Statue of Liberty, a blond man in sunglasses wearing a blue outfit with a star on the shoulder of an arm he's flexing toward the viewer, and three identical men in black wearing pain black bandanas to cover their faces. Blue flames rise behind them, and a cityscape behind a barbed wire fence.

Let’s see, there’s American Maid/Captain Liberty, not sure about the guy in the middle, but the three ninjas on the right sure look like they’re forming a hedge.

Could it be true? Is The Tick coming to Blüdhaven?

OK, they’re actually the Force of July (thanks to the Comic Bloc forums for the ID), but wouldn’t the Tick have been funnier?

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One of the two soap dispensers in the bathroom at work has been broken for months. I think the building doesn’t fix it because it looks full. Over the past week or two, someone has started writing things like “Broken” or “Still Broken” (or, one day, “Kaput”) on paper towels and leaving them underneath or draped over the dispenser. Someone decided that this makeshift “Out of Order” sign needed an addition:

Out of Order -- Forever

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The Grand Comics Database* is a project to index the titles, dates, credits, covers, and character appearances in every comic book ever published. A sidebar on the home page shows the latest cover scan contributed. A couple of days ago, that cover scan was this:

Cover of Commies From Mars: The Red Planet

The image links to the GCD entry, which is still a stub right now, but apaprently it was printed in 1973 by Kitchen Sink Press. Here’s the kid’s thought balloon:

I’ll play along with these filthy commie invaders from Mars until I can get to my shotgun! I’m little, but I’m all American!

On a related note, I’ve just made reservations to see Scott Shaw!’s show, Oddball Comics, running in LA through February (hat tip: News From ME).

*I’ve found it very useful for finding info for my Flash site. Unfortunately it isn’t big on supporting characters, so I’m still tracking down issues myself to fill in the details. On the other hand, this way I can acutually read the stories.

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Here’s a piece of friendly advice from a mail server admin to companies that interact with subscribers and customers via email:

Pick one domain name for your business. Just one. Don’t use any other domains in your emails, even if you want to keep order confirmations separate from promotions. If you contract out for some other company to send out a newsletter or survey to your customers, insist that they send it out using your own domain name. If you’re using DomainKeys or SPF, make sure they’re authorized or send it yourself. And don’t even think of making the links through redirection scripts, even if you really want to track which subscribers are clicking.

Why?

Two words: Spam and fraud. Continue reading →