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Mailinator

Mailinator is a wonderful little service that helps protect your privacy, reduce the amount of spam you get, and minimize the number of useless user names and passwords you have to remember. Sounds great? It is.

But what does it actually do? Well, the concept behind it is so simple that it’ can actually be a little tricky to explain. Fundamentally, mailinator is just a big ol’ web-based email system. The difference is that you don’t have to sign up for its service, and you don’t use a password to log in:

  • No signups mean that I don’t have to register with mailinator to start using “martin@mailinator.com”. I can just give this address to anyone–and that includes annoying web sites that want you to register before reading their content, and any subsequent email they send to that address will be delivered to the mailinator mailbox.
  • No passwords means that all I have to do to access the mailbox for “martin@mailinator.com” is go to the mailinator web site, and type in the name “martin” in the login box. I will then be shown a list of all the email that has recently been sent to that address. Go try it.

The final part of its simplicity is that the service is disposable. Mail doesn’t linger in the mailinator mailboxes. I think they keep it around for ten hours or so and then flush it automatically; it gets flushed sooner if the mailbox sees heavy traffic. There’s no way for you to save your mail, and no way for you to forward it. It’s there, and then it’s gone. If you don’t check it quickly enough, it’s gone. If you have no interest in checking it ever again (perhaps because you wanted a quick, throwaway address to give to a site you knew was going to spam you), you don’t ever have to go back there, and nothing will touch your personal mailbox.

Simple scenario:

  1. Go to the LA Times web site
  2. Try to read a story.
  3. Find out that you need to register to read the story
  4. Learn that “Registration is FREE and offers great benefits.” Uh huh. Heard that one before, spam, spam, spam.
  5. Register for a new account, providing a false name, useless street address, and a mailinator.com email address.
  6. Find out that they have just sent you a confirmation email, with an “activation link”.
  7. Check the mailinator mailbox for the spurious email address you supplied
  8. Click the activation link.
  9. Read the article you wanted
  10. Forget about ever having registered. Forget the password, forget the username. Don’t worry about getting junk mail, or singing christmas cards, or telemarketers calling at 3am. It’ll won’t happen.

Cool, huh?

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The King and the Cavemen

An allegory about third-party suppliers

Once upon a time, there was a very rich King. The King had many palaces throughout his country, but some were old and crumbling. “Build me a new palace!” he told his advisers. “Make it impressive, and make it big, for my family has grown large, and they expect greatness of me.”

The King’s advisers started on this task immediately. For months, they searched the land to find the perfect location for the new palace. Eventually they found a tall mountain, surrounded by forests, rivers, and splendid views of the countryside.

The advisers could not build the palace on their own, of course. But a tribe of cavemen lived nearby, and the cavemen were known for their construction skills and beautiful craftsmanship. “We want you to build a palace for our King,” said the chief adviser. “It must be impressive, and it must be big, for the King intends to entertain his whole family there.”

Continue reading “The King and the Cavemen”

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Wednesday is Lack of Theme Day

A Few Good MenI started off watching A Few Good Men–a classic. There are so many triple bills for which this film could be the solid core:

45 Magnum and a tieInstead, I’ve gone for Magnum Force, to follow up on Monday’s foray into Clint Eastwoodland. Ah, back in the days when tough guy cops wore ties.


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Sick. Again. Sigh.

It started a week and a half ago with a sore throat. As is normal for me, this became an earache, and then the whole thing dropped down into my chest for a congestion party. Weakness, exhaustion, dizziness. Last Wednesday the doc diagnosed a “non-specific viral infection” (how often have I heard that recently), possibly brought on, and certainly exacerbated by, stress.

Work has been very understanding. In addition to the sick leave I took while I was, well, sick, I’ve also taken a week off to try and get my head back together.

The Crown Inn, HumshaughOn Friday we rented a car and drove down to Northumberland. We found a wonderful little hotel, the Crown Inn in Humshaugh, a few miles out of Hexham. Unfortunately, I woke up on Saturday morning with a rotten headache. I thought it would go away with some breakfast and tea, but it didn’t happen.

Martin and Alex in HexhamWe spent the rest of the day in and around Hexham. Abi assures me that we had a good time, but it’s all a bit of a blur for me. The headache just kept getting worse and worse. Every time I moved my eyes, turned my head, or shifted my posture, I’d be struck down by a vicious pounding right behind my eyes.

Saturday night was awful. Double-doses of paracetamol and ccodeine weren’t helping. Thinking that I might have been dehydrated, I was drinking vast amounts of water. And if I wasn’t just lying on the bed, in the sweltering heat, trying not to toss and turn for fear of the hammering pain, I was getting up every hour to pee. Which, of course, started off the cascade of rippling violence throughout my brain.

By morning I was exhausted, soaking with sweat, still in agony from my head, but now also from my overworked kidneys, and incredibly bored. (I hate it when I’m so ill that I can’t even read.)

Oh, and then I had to drive us back to Edinburgh. Gah.

We made it back and I collapsed. I managed to sleep for a while, but if anything, my head was getting worse. Abi called the emergency doctor service. They reckoned that I was too ill to come to the medical centre, so the on-call doctor came out to see me. She diagnosed an opportunistic bacterial infection in my sinuses. (I hate bacteria. They come in and kick you when you’re down.) So now I’m on antibiotics and some new painkillers, and I’m glad to say that I’m feeling a lot better.

Last night, after the first of the antibiotics had kicked in, and the pressure behind my eyes had relented a little, I almost thought I was fully recovered. But that was probably just because the pain before had been so bad, and any respite felt like nirvana. Now, I’m just back to feeling weak and exhausted again. My head still hurts, just less. I’m still coughing, and still feeling congested, but the phlegm isn’t luminous green any more.

BitesOh yeah, and I’ve got a gum infection behind one of my wisdom teeth, and bizarre, continuously spreading insect bites all over my body. Sigh.

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Attack of the Clones

Star Wars II: Attack of the ClonesFeeling, as I am, sick and sorry for myself, I thought I would slap something mindless and fun on the DVD player and zone out for a while. I made the mistake of watching Attack of the Clones again. I hadn’t seen it since it came out on DVD, and now I remember why: it’s a cock-awful pile of bantha poo.

I could go on and on about the crapness of the script, acting, direction, but it’s all been done before, and frankly, it’s too bad even to waste more energy on lambasting it.

Next up: Speed. Keanu is da man.

Update: Ah, much better. Watching Speed just served to emphasise how completely devoid of originality Clones is. For a film so fantastic, so filled with action, and so bursting with special effects, that’s good trick to pull off.

Next up: Dirty Harry.