Dave Bullock / eecue : Programmer | Photographer | Admin | Human

I no longer have a catch-all email address. For years the email (qmail) server that I run was set up to receive anything @eecue.com. So if you sent an email to asdflakhjflakjsf@eecue.com or dave_is_a_mean_person@eecue.com I would receive it. This was helpful as it allowed me to create addresses for every site that I submitted my information to, such as target@eecue.com, amazon@eecue.com, etc. That way if those companies sold my address to a list I would know they were responsible for the spam.

This seemed like a good idea until I started getting dictionary Joe Jobbed a few years ago. A Joe Job is when someone sends emails from your account to discredit you. In my case it was just a spam bot sending spams from random addresses @eecue.com. I don't think it was an attack on me, I just have a short domain name that has a catch-all address.

The joe-jobbing caused me to receive thousands of bounce messages. Today I finally decided to turn off the catch-all functionality in my email server. First I dug through my archived mail to find any important addresses that I still needed to receive mail at. I added aliases for the ones that would be hard to change. Any address that was easy to change I just logged into the site it corresponded to and changed it to my main address.

After getting rid of the catch-alls I set up a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record on my DNS server. SPF is a record on a name server that tells mail servers which IP addresses are allowed to send email for that domain. Luckily I only ever send email from my personal mail server so that was easy to fix.

These changes should greatly reduce the amount of spam and joe-job bounces I receive.  

A few weeks ago I ran in the Revlon Run / Walk for Women, a 5K that raises money to fight women's cancers. I was originally planning on walking, but I decided to run instead. My final time as 34:54 and I came in 2,359th place out of about 65,000 people. I ran in honor of my beautiful, wonderful, strong mother who is a 5+ year cancer survivor.

There is still time to sponsor me, so far I've raised $220, but I would like to raise $2,000. You can click here to sponsor me. Thanks!

On Sunday I spent the day covering the historic landing of the Phoenix on Mars from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. It was an exciting assignment for Wired that entailed four separate trips, one to Goldstone in the Mojave and three to JPL. Here is some of my coverage from the landing, click on the screen-grabs to read the articles:

Screen-grabs hosted by flickr. 

• Trumbo
  This looks like a great movie about a great man who wasn't afraid to stand up for what he believed in.
  (tags: movie trailer trumbo dalton.trumbo)

I'm covering the Phoenix landing on Sunday from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Today was my second trip to JPL in as many weeks. I had a chance to interview two of the Mission Managers and I recorded them with my totally awesome Sony PCM-D60 using an excellent Sennheiser MD46 microphone and listening to it all with my Sennheiser HD 25-1 II headphones.

The first interview is with Joe Guinn, Mission System Manager:

My second interview that I recorded today is with Barry Goldstein, Phoenix Project Manager:

Screen-grabs hosted by flickr.

A funny anecdote: After interviewing Goldstein in Mission Control I asked him to move into some better light for a photograph with a good background. When he was walking over there I signaled Reuters photographer, Mario Anzuoni, to follow me so he could get a good photo as well. After I shot my photos Anzuoni took his, which is now up on Reuters. Here are some other great photos of the San Diego fire by Anzuoni. 

Last week I took an early morning drive out to the Mojave Desert to visit NASA's Goldstone facility. Goldstone is one of three Earth locations of the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN is used to listen to and control spacecraft and has been around since the 50's.

A few days later I headed to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to get some photos of Mission Control and interview a lead technician responsible for the landing [click to listen to the podcast].

I will be covering the landing live on Sunday for Wired.com. My Mars landing coverage can be found here on Wired Science. Click on the image below to see the gallery:

Screen-grab hosted by flickr. 

• Chinese Wedding Photographed During Quake
  This is amazing, powerful and moving. Thankfully all the guests survived according to the comments below the post.
  (tags: china chinese.quake wedding photography)

• LolCat of the Day
  Haha Crocs.
  (tags: lolcat crocs)

• Awesome POV Bike Display
  I want one of these. Actually I want two of them.
  (tags: pov microcontroller bike bicycle)
• Video From Last Weekend: Search and Rescue Training
  Put together by Jeff Lehman. Look out for me in a funny hat and on rope.
  (tags: sbsar sar cave rescue training)
• Remote Camera Trigger Mayhem
  A cool article from the Reuters blog about shooting a big horse race. Very many cameras all triggered remotely, ftw.
  (tags: photograph reuters pocketwizards photojournalism)

• Retired LAPD "Film Cops" May Be Replaced With Real Police
  I've always thought that the retired police that the film crews use to stop traffic don't properly enforce the laws due to their close relationship with the studios. It looks like they may be replaced with real on duty police officers.
  (tags: lapd filmla filming downtown.la)

I'm trying to get in touch with Dane Reese. He was an inspirational teacher when I was in High School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. If you know or if you are Dane Reese and you're reading this, click on the Email button on the left hand side of this site and let me know how to get ahold of him. Thanks!

UPDATE: I got in touch with Dane. He's doing well and just recently got his PhD in Education (Transitive Learning).  

After months of not posting on blogdowntown, I finally put a post together from this month's Art Walk. It's a short photo essay from a few galleries and it's live now. Click here to see my Art Walk post on blogdowntown.

Click here to check out the rest of my photos from the May Downtown Art Walk. 

• Kittens on a Treadmill
  Great, now we need a treadmill.
  (tags: cute cats treadmill)
• LOLCat of the Day
  Kitty-seat!
  (tags: cute lolcat)
• Bar Monkey
  Everyone needs one.
  (tags: bar.monkey monkey japan)

A gallery that I shot for Wired.com just went live this morning. The process for creating the metallic glass is pretty cool. The materials they are producing will end up finding tons of commercial uses in the near future.

Screengrab hosted by flickr. 

• Up the Yangtze - Trailer
  This is going to be a great movie.
  (tags: china three.gorges.dam yangtze)
• Noise - Trailer
  Tapping a primal urge that everyone experiences leads the protagonist of this movie to smash cars when he finds them with their alarms on. Brilliant.
  (tags: noise.movie noise car.alarms smash)
• Hamlet 2 - Trailer
  Ok this looks hilarious.
  (tags: hamlet.2)

• Couple Rides Train From Wedding to Reception
  This is awesome!
  (tags: wedding reception public.transportation matrimony)

• Britain's Got Talent Surprise
  Ok this rocks.
  (tags: britain's.got.talent michael.jackson awesome)

After I was walking back from the protest today, I saw this totally awesome pipe-smoking fellow walking his fat fluffy bunny:

Today's protest was smaller compared to last years May Day protest. I would say roughly 10,000 people gathered beside City Hall at the end of the day. There were three groups, and photographed each of them, the first while it was gathering at Olympic and Broadway, the second from their rally point in MacArthur park to the intersection of 5th and Broadway where I met up with the Legalize LA group, which seemed to be the largest of the three.

Here are some of the photos from today:

More after the jump....