Twitter Moby Dick – 140 Characters at a Time



I kinda knew this was going to happen. I pondered doing something on twitter myself, but also knew it was going to be a big undertaking.

I am doing this post 140 characters at a time. I am separating it at every post length. Why? Well, would you continue to read this post at

140 characters at a time? Well the twitter ID ‘Publicdomain’ is going to attempt it as today they will be publishing ‘Moby Dick’ -the

timeless novel by Herman Melville. The classic, written in 1851 is about the journeys of Ishmael and the obsessive search for the “Great

White Whale” by the Captain of the Pequod, Ahab. The Whale took his previous boat and Ahab’s leg, so he has devoted his career to catch up

and exact revenge on this beast.

OK, enough of that. You get the idea. This is what we know as the quintessential of American Romanticism and is still a fascinating read today. I remember when I first picked up this book –
It’s one of the only few that I read cover – to – cover.

But the real question is: Will you read it – 140 characters at a time? Publicdomain has calculated 1.2 million characters.This puts the Twitter count well over 8500 posts. Every hour – 8 AM to 8 PM, everyday a new post will occur. He says 13 paragraphs on the hour, which is calculated to take 5 weeks to complete.

Of course, the big question is: if you can do this with 1.2 million characters, what prevents someone from doing this to spam Twitter? The posts will be run by a PHP script and, excluding any downtime from Twitter or the poster, this might give someone an idea to bot their posts as well.

If you are interested, the event will happen at http://twitter.com/publicdomain.


Some Clarifications about Geek News Central and RawVoice



I have been asked from time to time about the relationship of Geek News Central to RawVoice. Let me be very clear they are separate entities.

Geek News Central and several other sites I run personally are owned in whole by my wife and me a through a corporation we set up in 2005 called Podcast Connect Inc. Podcast Connect Inc. also manages the PodcastAwards.com site.

RawVoice is a separate company, that owns, manages, operates RawVoice.com, Blubrry.com, TechPodcasts.com, PodcastFaq.com and PodcastPromos.com. RawVoice is in no way linked to my personal company Podcast Connect.

All of the ad deals we do for the 100’s of podcasters we work with, is through RawVoice. This also includes our Premium Podcast statistics, Premium Podcast Publishing with Hosting and any other services we offer.

Hope this clarifies the relationship to those that have asked.

 


Time Warner and AT&T DNS at Risk Plus Many Others!



Time Warner and AT&T among others have yet to upgrade their DNS servers. Now that there is some rouge code on the loose that is designed to target these DNS servers it is a VERY DANGEROUS time to be surfing the Internet using the default DNS services from one of these companies.

I strongly urge you for at least the short term utilize OpenDNS as your DNS host. If you do not know what DNS is you need to get over to OpenDNS and find out now. This is not a complicated change  but if you are on a network that has yet to upgrade their DNS servers, (Check Here) you are at EXTREME RISK!


Spam King Follow-Up



To follow up from Todd’s mention on the Podcast today, officials have found the Spam King: Edward Davidson, his wife and daughter in a murder-suicide. Apparently the Spam King and family were found 25 miles out of Denver in an SUV. All three were shot with indication that Edward pulled the trigger.

Here is where the story gets weird. There was a 7-8 month old boy that was also in the SUV and was unharmed. Also, Edward shot a Teenage girl who then ran for help. She was treated at the local hospital.

Davidson was serving 21 months in minimum security prison for sending email using hijacked computer networks.

It is a sad, tragic ending to this story. Nobody should take lives like that, whether it’s their own or somebody else’s. I am just speechless.


GNC-2008-07-25 #394 Bags are Packed Road Trip



During the show I talk about the escaped spammer, bad news came in after the show. My heart goes out to the extended family.

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Listener Links:
Coward
Antenna
Car for Sea and Land
TSA Abuse
Hackers Target Macs
AT&T Broadband Caps

Show Notes:
Mark Cuban FCC Comments
Jailbreak and Unlock
DRM and Yahoo Music
Odds on Destruction of Earth
Telco Fights Fiber Install
Would Pretty Linux make a difference?
XM and Sirius?
ISP in UK Sell Out!
Study of Big Blogs
Twitter Clowns
Sprint Sells Towers
Refrigeration of Computers
Windows Mojave :)
Solar Sailing in Space
Hang on Outlet
Coward
IE8 to Ship this Year
13 Apps for Blogging on iPhone
STM Journey Bag
Comcast Shuts Winer Down
iPhone 2.1 Firmware
Google Knol
Ballmer raises the Veil
12 Seconds
DNS Attack Code
MPAA Unbelievable

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Twitter must be run by a bunch of Clowns



Clowns are supposed to make one laugh, they are not supposed to run companies. Twitter continues to be one screw up after the other. This morning I woke up to 300 less followers because these clowns don’t have the common sense to test their new anti-spam bot before they release it to production.

The Clowns must realize that users that follow us and users I follow, have opted in to do so. Leave my followers alone! You Clowns need to get a clue, if I see a twitter poster that is obviously spewing spam I unfollow. Let me police my own follower list. Fix your service