Find Out Who Is Hosting a Spam Site
If you’ve ever wanted an easy way to find out who is hosting a site so you can send them a DMCA notice for spam, there’s a new tool on the block to help you. Who Is Hosting This? enables you to find out who is hosting any web site. Their FAQ, which has an entry reading “This probably means that the owners of this website have bought an IP range and are self-hosted” indicates how they obtain the data, which is by IP range assignment. So they’ll give you the underlying provider of service, which in the hunt against spam, can be a powerful tool.
This screenshots are looking up information for three spammers ripping me off:
Unfortunately a bug in Who Hosts This causes the last lookup to fail, and instead of saying “unkown host,” the service simply just spins. Also, the last address is a bit odd, as it belongs to a spammer in the Philippines but hosted in Canada by Shaw. Still, 2 DMCA notices are better than none!
Shure E4c-n / SE420 Review
I bought a pair of Shure E4c-n earphones about 6 months ago from Amazon, and I have to say they are the best I’ve ever owned. They have a 4/5 star review on Amazon with 50 reviews; their newer cousin the SE420 has similar reviews. Here’s what they look like:
The sound isolation is orders better than any other headphones I’ve tried, and the frequency response is excellent. My coworkers, two of whom bought similar or identical Shure earphones, also swear by them. You can be sitting on the worst part of the NYC subway line with them on, and not hear the pain of the wheels screeching on ill fitted metal tracks.
A reviewer on Amazon praises the sound quality better than I can:
These IEMs sound absolutely incredible. They sound is so clear and detailed that I notice new details in songs that I had listened to dozens if not hundreds of time. In a complex musical passage it is easy to follow every note of a single instrument which is not an easy feat with most headphones.
As for Customer Service, it’s the best. My earphones started wearing out in 6 months at the cord junction where it meets the plug, and they are sending me an advance replacement (against my CC) of the SE420s. When I get them I’ll send back the defectives to the Customer rep who took my warranty replacement and they’ll reverse the charge. Another customer had a similar, great experience:
As for Shure customer service–I had a suspected loose wire in one of the E3 earphones (used for 8 months) leading to dropouts when I would move my head. I got a return form off the Shure website–filled it out and sent it along with a copy of my receipt to Shure. Within 10 days, they had sent out a completely new pair at no charge.
Even Apple doesn’t offer this level of personalized customer service. I’m extremely impressed, and with their 2 year warranty, I’ll definitely buy again!
The Jyllands Posten Danish Cartoons
Twelve cartoons were drawn on September 30, 2005 by the editors of Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper, to show Muhammad as they believed he should look. These cartoons drew the wrath of the entire Muslim community, and are reproduced below with commentary. The BBC notes, “It is the satirical intent of the cartoonists, and the association of the Prophet with terrorism, that is so offensive to the vast majority of Muslims.” It is up to you to decide if they are legitimate commentary or blasphemy.
Mohammed wanders the desert, leading a camel far behind him as the sun sets. I read this as an allusion to Jesus who wandered the desert for 40 days and 40 nights resisting temptation and praying, unless there is a parallel story in Islam which I don’t know about. I’ve never had the chance to read the Koran. So, by drawing the prophet in the desert, the first cartoon attempts to bridge Christianity and Islam.
Mohammed is depicted with a halo of horns made from the Islamic crescent symbol. Clearly the intent is to cast the prophet as a demon in thin disguise, which is insensitive because it does not give us a context in which to reinterpret him. OK, you tell us Islam / Mohammed is evil. Why should we believe you because you childishly draw horns on him?
In this third cartoon, the prophet Mohammed is drawn intertwined with the star & crescent. This is an obvious but necessary connection, because without Mohammed there would be no Islam. As the editor is trying to show, the two are synonymous.
It’s harder to interpret this picture of Mohammed in black with two veiled “virgins” and a short sword in his hand. It is clearly intended to contrast the so-called “promised virgins” that a Jihadist is promised in Heaven with women’s rights, terrorism, and Islam. The women are wide-eyed, indicating that either they disapprove of violence, or that they do not relish satisfying a killer in his personal heaven. The prophet’s eyes are censored–I don’t know why.
“Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins!” the fifth reads. I find this just amusing, especially given that the idea of having 72 virgins waiting for you in heaven may be a mistranslation:
Luxenberg tries to show that many obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic. Luxenberg’s new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, yields “white raisins” of “crystal clarity” rather than doe-eyed, and ever willing virgins – the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred [sic], and not unsullied maidens or houris.
The sixth cartoon is one of many meta-cartoons by the editors which decry their reactionary attempts to redefine Mohammed in a modern context. However, the shirt of the boy reads “the future” and the board reads “The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of reactionary provocateurs.” We should take this to indict any kind of overreaction by traditional Muslims.
“To draw the Prophet is to die,” thinks this scared editorial cartoonist furtively drawing Mohammed. If Islam were a religion of peace, would he look so nervous? Conversations are protected under free speech, not persecuted by charges of blasphemy.
The text, which is hard to make out, reads, “Hm… I can’t really recognize him” and “Kåre’s public relations, call and get an offer.” Apparently the editor wants to equate all world religions and all kinds of people together in a gigantic mashup.
If you remember the old bat-light they used to call batman by projecting his logo into the sky, you’ll instantly recognize this call for the people of the book with the Star of David and the Crescent and Moon prominently jutting up into the sky. Does this mean Islam needs more heroes? The text (Prophet, you crazy bloke! Keeping women under yoke) seems to indicate it needs more female ones…
Another pro-free-speech cartoon degrading the Muslim and Arabic response to religious criticism. Why should they worry about a cartoon drawn by some guy from the middle of nowhere? Their heresies are our freedoms.
The most controversial of the cartoons, this one features the Islamic creed written on the helm and a lit fuse and bomb instead of a turban. The idea is dumb–Islam brings suicide bombers. But the image itself is powerful, and the overstated fact is true. Why are there not any Christian suicide bombers? Why aren’t there any atheist suicide bombers??
Another meta-cartoon, this one is excited about all the publicity these cartoons will generate for their publication. I have no comment.