Technology

/ Don

My Minority Report Interface is Coming…

Back in September 2005, I was interviewed by Communication Arts about our site, Who is Augustine, for Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. The final question of the interview was about my dream computer set-up, to which I promptly replied: “I’m looking into getting one of those translucent screens that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report. If anyone notices them on the market in the next century, please drop me a line.”

It looks like the software is coming from Leap Motion. Now I just need to speak with Paul Bettany about providing the automated voice for my Jarvis.

 

/ Don

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus

An infographic dissecting the nature and ramifications of Stuxnet, the first weapon made entirely out of code. This was produced for Australian TV program HungryBeast on Australia’s ABC1

Direction and Motion Graphics: Patrick Clair
Written by: Scott Mitchell
Production Company: Zapruder’s Other Films

/ Don

Goodbye Windows Mobile

This weekend, I picked up the new HTC Evo 4G, which has been sold out of Sprint stores for the last month. And while I’ve only performed a cursory evaluation of the OS, I’m worlds happier than I was with Windows Mobile 6.1. The operating system isn’t new to me, however, as I spent nearly a day-long barbecue stealing Itay‘s Nexxus One and spent the last year looking over Zeh‘s shoulder as he fiddled with his MyTouch. Needless to say, I liked what I saw. My geekiest of friends had given Android 2.2 two international thumbs up, so my purchase was clear.

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/ Don

Spam-blocking sub-domains

A long time ago, around the time I started compiling my “Best Practices…” list, I began creating forwarders for ecommerce accounts to distinguish who was sending me solicitations and to be able to stop them easily. If you give someone your email address, say “joe@joe-co.com” then you have no idea where the soliciations are coming from and the only way to stop them is to increase your SpamAssassin rating—potentially losing false positives—or to get a new email address.

But, if you create “hsbc@joe-co.com,” and forward that to “joe@joe-co.com,” you can see who sold your email address and promptly disrupt the flow of spam by simply deleting the forwarder. Well, after a decade of online business through my company, ERA404, I have a veritable bee’s hive of forwarders floating around. And, as I’d like to do some house-keeping to keep them organized, I’ve decided to create a sub-domain to create easily visual recognition of what is an actual forwarder (i.e., don@ forwards to don.citarella@) and what is a spam-blocking forwarder (i.e., hsbc@ temporarily forwards to don.citarella@).

Here’s where I need your assistance. Fill in the blank:
Solicitor: “Sir, in order for me to process your order, you need to provide a valid email address.”
Me: So I’d like to provide them with: “[solicitor name]@_____.era404.com” where ______ is the word I’m seeking.

Here are a few that I thought of: @firewall, @temporary, @spam, @commerce, @solicitations, @junkmail, @junk, @delete, @block, @protect, @safe, @safety, @protection, @temp.

Here are a few suggestions by friends: @refuse, @trash, @scrap, @waste, and my personal favorite, @is-a-dirty-dirty-whore. (Imagine providing the following: “The email address is: hsbc@is-a-dirty-dirty-whore.joe-co.com“). Ah, it’s the little things in life. It truly is.

So I appeal to you, gentle readers. What would be the best spam-blocking sub-domain? While my preference is to go with @solicitations, I worry it will be too long: networksolutions@solicitations.joe-co.com. And does @trash have that certain je ne sais quoi that I want, so that solicitors think “I see what you did there. Well played, dear sir. Well played.“?