shiningpolaris.com

July 3, 2009

Ever annoyed by those “absolute anonymity” blogspam comments on every single article that gets on Digg/Reddit?

Filed under: The Internet — sherl0k @ 10:59 am

“Prevent identity theft! Protect your email from spammers!”

Really?

Well, all it takes is a WHOIS on the domain you’re not-so-cleverly masking up with free domain redirectors, to see who this genius mastermind is. They’re all just iframe pages with the main content being hosted at http://www.harleydeals.net/ua/. So let’s query the WHOIS database and see how private this dude’s/dudette’s info really is.

registrant-firstname: William
registrant-lastname: Moffatt
registrant-street1: 8879 W Colonial DR
registrant-street2: Suite 143
registrant-pcode: 34761
registrant-state: FL
registrant-city: Ocoee
registrant-ccode: US
registrant-phone: +1.8636983793
registrant-email: dexxa@att.net

Google searches confirm the name and phone number are accurate, unless he’s using that pseudonym in real life along with on the Internet. I don’t know about you guys, but if he’s dumb enough to not hide his WHOIS info behind a privacy protector then he’s probably dumb enough to use his real information in there.

With this information (which is publicly available) I’m not calling for an army to spam/harass/find his house; I’m simply making an ironic point that a guy advertising anonymity on the Internet is doing a shoddy job of doing it himself.

September 30, 2008

I need to update.

Filed under: Life,School,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 12:17 am

Yeah, it’s been far too long since I wrote anything of substance in here. I’ve been reading, just not writing. Oops.

The girl: Amazing as always. We spent last weekend at her parents’ house for her dad’s 50th birthday. Fun times. I helped her dad cut down trees in the front yard and move some huge furnace into the basement of an apartment complex he runs outside of town. It’s fun doing small projects like this. Liz’s family is always fun to hang around.

Being on the same shift is absolutely awesome. Whenever we’re not at work we’re together, even if we’re not doing the same thing. I’ve been spending time playing through Earthbound in anticipation of the Mother 3 translation (which is nearly finished) and Liz will sit right next to me either watching some downloaded TV shows or cruising the LJ communities and Japanese shops for lolita stuff. She cooks meals for me, and I’ll clean up afterwards. We have some common TV shows we like to keep up on too, so that’s always fun.

Work: frustrating at times, especially when supervisors clash over my priorities. I do a lot of extra work that isn’t quite related to my assigned position, but I do it because I’m one of the few that possesses the knowledge. So when I go back to my assigned job, it’s almost like they’re looking for reasons to go after me. It’s silly. And the scary part about that is that the upper management kinda just… doesn’t care. I do the extra work that will no doubt benefit the company in the long run, so that’s what matters to them. This small stuff the supervisors chase me down for is the last thing they worry about.

As I write this now I’m researching things for work. I was there for almost 12 hours today, and I’ll probably pull another 12 tomorrow. It’s crazy. I love solving problems and tweaking the system. I’m sure it will pay off after this project gets finished. There’s been talks of me moving to another department… which I would gladly take.

Internets: Nothing’s really changed. Still got the same servers, the ROM site hasn’t changed really and I just haven’t mustered up the effort to finish the GBA set that *needs* to be finished. I’ll get to it. I need to work on the tracker too… but once again, just finding the time and effort for it. I wish there were two of me. That would be much easier.

School: Eh, it’s school. Taking statistics and some risk management course. Boooooring.

Guess that sums things up. See everyone again in a month haha.

August 19, 2008

The usual.

Filed under: Life,School,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 5:59 pm

My past weekend was pretty awesome. I had to work Saturday morning, but I suppose the rest of the time made up for it.

Liz and I spent some time at the mall (well, 3 trips worth actually), mostly because Saturday was busy as hell there during the day and after we saw Roller Derby downtown we decided to catch Tropic Thunder. Awesome movie. I wasn’t expecting much out of it, so I was thoroughly pleased. Most comedies these days are just filled with stupid toilet humor, not really my bag. TT was done really well though.

We also had a meal at the awesome Vegan restaurant downtown, where I proceeded to make fun of the PETA flyers they had there. Ever wonder why all their photos are taken in the middle of the night? Maybe it’s because they break into farms illegally and then doctor them up afterwards? Maybe one should take into account that PETA kills more animals than it adopts out. I’m sorry, but animal rights activists amuse me greatly.

Sunday we went back to the mall to finish up some shopping since Saturday was way too effin’ busy, and then went for a walk in the park. The weather was absolutely beautiful for it. Headed back to the apartment and laid back watching Hot Fuzz which was absolutely amazing. Can’t believe it took me this long to see it. And I’m sure demi’s going to kill me for that statement :P

Came home from work today to see my sister making margaritas. Since my mother claims they’re “too strong” I now have two of them.

Trying to spend my spare time doing more productive things, since I’m working 10 hour days and I don’t get much free time to myself. I updated my ROM site with an updated MAME set and I’m hard at work at fixing the GBA ROMs. It’s just time-consuming. Still looking for a host that offers 100mbit unmetered at a decent price. School’s keeping me busy still, too.

April 2, 2008

Here’s life for you in a nutshell.

Filed under: Life,School,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 5:58 pm

Work: Is awesome. I love my job, I really do. I come home really exhausted at times, but it’s only because I work my behind off, going above and beyond and having a really good time doing so. Rumors afloat from reliable sources that I’ll be getting a raise at my 3 month review, so I’m stoked about that. I’m going to need the cash. I also have some awesome coworkers, hilarious supervisors, and a boss with a real sense of humor. It’s hard to find someone there in a bad mood because of their job. Such a great atmosphere.

Personal life: Is really taking off. I love Liz with everything I got, she’s the absolute best ever. I’m so incredibly happy with her and things just keep getting better for us. There’s talk of us moving in together, so we’ll see where that goes. Finally getting a cellphone under her plan, so I’ll actually have a connection to the outside world when I’m not at my computer. Newer car on the way too, I’ll be shopping around later this month.

Internet business: Has too much drama for my liking. I don’t have the time anymore to keep as close tabs on things as I used to so I’m going to be stepping down from nearly all my mod/admin positions within the coming months. Also my interest in music games has declined a lot, partly due to a lack of time, and partly due to a lack of a working PS2. I also don’t have a really fast PC in the house either, so sims/AC data is off limits to me. I prefer Linux, anyway. I will be keeping my ROM site up and running though, but I need to find a host with more options. I’m not paying another $20/mo on my bill just for another harddrive. That’s highway robbery after only a few months of service.

School: It’s school. Classes are okay, I’m doing fine in them, I just dislike having to use IE for everything. And even then IE doesn’t work right all the time. So annoying…

March 25, 2008

Easter wrap-up.

Filed under: Bemani,Life,School,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 8:42 pm

The weekend was pretty fun. Friday night I headed over to the apartment early so I could get some homework done, and broadcasted some radio while doing so. It works out pretty well because I’m not distracted when I’m alone there, I can focus on my work. I was able to get it all done shortly before Liz came home. Nice timing, I’d say.

Liz and I spent Saturday traveling around town. Had lunch at a local sit-down restaurant which was pretty delicious. Went to both Carousel and Great Northern malls along with some other places. I always have a good time when I’m out with her, since we’re so laid-back about everything and we just go with whatever flow happens to come our way. We hit both malls because we were both struck by the DDR bug and headed to Carousel to play. But then the coin register broke. So no SuperNOVA for us. The trip wasn’t all bad though, we looked at cell phones since I’m getting one next month under Liz’s plan. I figured it’s about time I join in on this whole 20th century revolution. We also saw Dre, which makes any trip to Carousel worth it.

GNM was nice, not many people there and it was nice seeing Adamn again. I also prefer Extreme since my scores are much better, I can’t stand SN’s timing. But this is all old news.

Sunday we went to her parents’ for Easter. I love her family, they’re awesome. Good food, good times. Liz’s brother Rob is friggin awesome too. Wish they were closer, he’s definitely the kind of kid I’d hang around with more. Aside from the whole playing WoW thing, of course.

Speaking of, a ton of people at my job play WoW. I’m not going to get hooked in though, I like my spare time. I’m probably going to pick up RO again though, but not hardcore. I still have school to worry about. I’m slowly moving away from a lot of my website administration duties only because I just don’t have it in me anymore to keep current on everything and do menial tasks. Especially the tracker. I’m behind on a lot of things there and I’m just going to pass off the responsibility to someone else, and call it quits soon after. Sorry everyone, but I’ve done a pretty damn good job of expanding the place (from an IRC channel that rarely got over 100 users to a tracker with over 2000) and after almost 3 years I’m ready to pass the torch. Here’s to hoping the place doesn’t go down in flames.

Installed the latest beta of Ubuntu 8.04. Don’t really notice much different about it, if anything X eats more processor usage and RAM. But the latest Firefox beta is lean, so that makes up for it. Packages are getting updated daily to the date of release so I’m assuming things will only get better. I’m getting rid of my desktops soon anyway, replacing them with laptops I get at a deep discount from work.

January 18, 2008

Home, sweet home.

Filed under: Life,Linux,The Internet — sherl0k @ 1:18 am

I’ve slacked on posting here because I’ve been in the process of moving webhosts, and I just haven’t had the time to be around long enough to ensure everything moved over without any major hiccups. Of course, like any server move though, there were hiccups. Moving was a bit of a pain, between database inconsistencies and my old host being a pain in my rear. Everything seems to be okay now, and I’m so happy to actually be on a dedicated server so I have more control over everything. Shining Polaris’ new home is quite cozy, and speedy to boost.

The biggest issue about doing a server move is that it’s more than just my own domain I have to caretake for, it’s about 3 others also that I carry with me. And all their data. One of these days I’ll stop being such a nice guy and stop hosting everyone else’s stuff, but for the time being this is the price I pay. If anything this gives me more experience and I’ve learned a lot in the past few days which I’m sure will prove invaluable for the future.

I’ve been working on a brand spanking new emulation and ROM website, with the amusing name of Pants Emulation. I found a nice site design on OSWD to be the base of my site layout, and coded everything else from there. I was really impressed with myself with how I was able to get everything down, from the searching and results, to integrating phpBB3 login cookies with the rest of the site. And of course, the downloads database is massive. It’s only getting bigger too; as of this writing I’m adding in the entire MAME arcade set. Soon after that, it’ll be the entire Gameboy Advance set. I’m not messing around here, it’s crazy enough I put the whole N64 collection on there already. I have the emulators section almost done so that’s going live soon. After that it’s just sit and watch the download counts rise, and hopefully get some affiliates in the process. I’m still contemplating ads, as much as I hate sounding selfish I would like to make a little cash from this if possible.

Internet things aside, I’ve been spending a lot of my spare time with Liz and suffice to say things are great and we’re really happy together. She’s working some funky hours but we’re doing what we can to spend time together whenever possible and it’s working out pretty well so far. We’re heading back to her parents’ place this weekend so that should be fun. Next friday is her birthday; we’re contemplating getting drunk and watching Rambo in the theatres.

Time for me to get back to work and possibly sleep.

October 13, 2007

Pretty insightful article.

Filed under: The Internet — sherl0k @ 2:27 pm

http://torrentfreak.com/steal-our-album-bury-the-label-071009/

“I encourage our fans to acquire our album however they please. The philosophy I’ve adopted is that if you’re supporting disc sales, you’re keeping the old model around longer…the one that forces dudes like me to tour 9 mos/year if they want to make ends meet with a career in music.”

Quite possibly the most intelligent thing I’ve heard from an artist on the topic of music piracy yet.

July 21, 2007

Partying with the internet.

Filed under: Life,The Internet — sherl0k @ 2:15 am

Really don’t know how else to describe it. Myself, Juli, setzer, and kelsie. From one hotel to the next, a heart-shaped jacuzzi, alcohol, and having an overall good time.

Tomorrow’s going to be even better at Chris’ house. Ben’s coming in. peanut, yagsimit, AxemRangers, are all making the trip in from Rochester too. And I think Kait’s coming? Not sure if anyone else is gonna come. At any rate, it’s going to be quite the experience. I was far too exhausted to really party at BMF so this will definitely make up for it.

Also, going to the zoo with Juli tomorrow, not sure who else is joining us. I promised her I’d take her to see the penguins while she was here. I’ll definitely bring my camera with me.

June 14, 2007

Been a while since I did that.

Filed under: Life,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 10:51 pm

Today, I bought something for myself. I rarely buy myself things anymore, the “pleasure” kind that actually has some long-standing value to it that I can use over and over again. Went to the local gaming store and picked up a Street Fighter PS2 fighter controller. You know, the one where the L and R buttons are on the front of the pad, rather the top. Laid out pretty much like a Saturn controller. Only cost me $20, too. Last time I went looking around for one, it was $30 at least because they come in the nice box and have a comic in it. So I now have a decent pad to play fighters on, because we all know how bad it is playing on a normal PS2 pad. Currently updating my MAME set too, I haven’t updated since .112 and I now it’s at .116. No idea how much has changed, but at least now I’m up to date.

My sister has come home from her job in Cali, which means she’s lugging her laptop around the house. Now, my DI-624 router either a) really sucks at wireless, or b) is located in a really bad position in the house. She can’t hold a steady connection. Normally this wouldn’t bother me so much, but the problem is that when her connection dies, the connection dies to everyone else in the house, even though every other connection is wired. Now, the router is under the computer desk up against the wall, upstairs. She’s using it downstairs. But even in her room (which is directly across the hall, not even 15 feet from the router) the laptop doesn’t get a full connection. So I don’t know if it’s the router sucking or what. I’m going to get an antenna cable so I can at least get the antenna out in the open instead of it being under the desk, that may solve the problem. I remember going over to Jess’ house and her computer having the same problem because the router was stashed away inside the desk instead of out in the open, I’m going to assume it’s the same issue here.

I’ve had a splitting headache since I came home today. And as much as I don’t want to blame it on the school’s HVAC system even though they fixed it, I think I will. Because now the entire building is FREEZING. It physically exhausts me and just makes me feel uncomfortable. I’m going to start bringing my sweaters with me again, I don’t care if it’s June. This is just getting ridiculous.

Work’s died down, thankfully. I can focus more on my last quarter of classes and the other side projects I have going on. Have a meeting Saturday out in Oswego for some web design job, my net admin hooked me up with this one. The outlook looks pretty good from what he’s told me, I’ll know for sure when the time comes.

June 10, 2007

Can this end, please? Pretty please?

Filed under: Life,The Internet,Work — sherl0k @ 9:12 am

Just when I thought that my work at school was actually going to come to an end, it never did. The computers that were supposed to come in STILL haven’t come in. We thought Friday, but no. Then they said Saturday, but no. Now they’re saying Monday morning. So we keep getting these guarantees from Dell and DHL, but they keep falling through on us.

So yeah I had to be there yesterday, which was supposed to be a day off. I took Thursday off instead, which actually wasn’t too bad because I was able to break up the long work week for working 9 hour days. Today being Sunday, nobody’s going to be there. And the school’s quarter starts tomorrow, so I’ll be there at 9am (hopefully) with computers in the doorway for us to work on. But I’m not holding my breath, we could be hanging around all day and not have them come in until 5pm. Then that would REALLY suck because since I have class on Tuesday I won’t be able to help as much.

I was so exhausted after yesterday’s shift that after I came home and got something to eat, I passed out. For about 16 hours. Yeah I needed that. I feel so refreshed now, I’ve made up nearly all the sleep I’ve been missing over the course of the week. I really have trouble sleeping some nights, no idea why. Buuut I’m all better now!

This is also the reason why I haven’t been around much for the past 2 weeks… Working these long shifts that are physically draining doesn’t give me much energy when I get home to lounge around and talk to people. I usually lay in bed and watch a movie or some show on TV until I pass out, then I start the entire process over again the next day. I’ve kept contact with a few people, but that’s pretty much it. Hopefully after this is all over with I can get back to a more normal schedule.

Today I have some more “personal” work to take care of, meaning me sitting in front of a computer typing and mouse-clicking away. My sister comes home from Cali today too, so that will be an interesting scenario. She hasn’t been home since Christmas. Bringing all her stuff with her, looks like she’s not going back. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

May as well grab some food and start the day off right. One of these days I’ll actually have a “day off”… who knows when that will be.

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