Since last night I saw some domains are acting up, turns out the whole of .web.za is fubar. Got this from them:
“Yes we have moved .web.za off to new nameserver’s and it seems there are some teething issues with regards to some other NS’s picking up the entries, things will probably act up for 24-48 hours and then resolved itself.”
I spent 2 days in Norwich this week, it is a great place. Not too big, not too small but filled with history. It has a fantastic Castle and Cathedral built with rock from Normandy almost a 1000 years ago. It is almost impossible to look in any direction without seeing a few big old churches – today it has more than 35 large churches, it had 52 at some point.
Many of these are closed due to the decline in church going folk, turned into book shops, museums or galleries. I have some good photos of some of these churches that I will put up here in the next few days. Apart from all this ancient history there is also a lot of really characterful locations throughout the city. The photo here is from a old book shop called The Scientific Anglian, as far as I can find out it was forced to close down when the owner could not afford the alterations that was needed to comply with a new set of health and safety laws.
Tonight I saw The Mission in Norwich and as always they were FANTASTIC, I really liked this gig they had a good atmosphere however their set was much shorted than the previous ones I have been to. They were supported by 2 bands, The Faces of Sarah and NFD.
NFD is the reason I took time off work, came to Norwich, paid a hotel and it was absolutely worth every second of it. NFD is better known as Fields of The Nephilim, they have reformed under a new name now. Their new album is due out in October and if tonights set is anything to go by it is going to be fantastic. The music is as powerful as I remember it, was a real step back into almost 10 years listening to them tonight. They finished the set with an absolutely amazing version of Psychonaut and it fit in perfectly with their new music, which should give anyone who know them a good idea of what is to come!
The Faces of Sarah was a very big surprise, they were also very good and you can see they take inspiration from Fields and a few other bands, they were great, together with NFD they really set the bar very high for The Mission.
UPDATE: I have uploaded some photos from the gig here, these were taken with my little Canon iXus.
I have a unhealthy interest in product recalls. I cannot walk past a sign of them in the shop and I am subscribed to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission‘s RSS feed of new recalls. It’s fascinating to see just what kind of blatant things can slip through quality control in companies, and its always interesting to wonder just how many people complained – or worse – before the company would do a recall.
Some of my favorites:
CPSC, Coaster Co. of America Announce Recall of Bunk Beds
Hazard: A gap between the step of the built-in ladder and the top bunk allows enough room for a child’s body to slip through but will not allow for a child’s head to pass through. This poses a serious strangulation risk. Federal standards for bunk beds are designed to protect children against entrapment and strangulation.
CPSC, First Samco Inc. Announce Recall to Replace Gun Holsters
A plastic or leather strap on the gun holster can catch the trigger of the gun when inserted into the holster causing the gun to unintentionally discharge, posing an injury hazard to the user.
Re-announcement of Recall of Ames True Temper Wheelbarrows
The plastic wheel assemblies on these wheelbarrows can break when the tires are being inflated. This can result in plastic pieces exploding from the rims of the wheels, possibly hitting nearby consumers and causing lacerations and other injuries.
Recall of Georgia Boot Steel Toe Boots
The boots may have been mislabeled to indicate that they are resistant to electrical current, which is incorrect. This may result in a serious shock or electrocution to consumers.
I blocked China and Korea off my machine yesterday around lunch time. After 24 hours of these rules in place I have blocked 3500 packets already, thats shocking!
I scripted it all to block these countries and also to block a number of other things like proxy scanners from irc networks, windows networking ports etc. I simply drop the rules into a set using ipfw and move the temp set over the old set to activate the new rules, works a charm and enables me to rebuild the blocking rules regularly without disrupting my other rules.
Now I wonder what these 3500 packets were, so I might enable logging and do some stats on the stuff.
