Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 18

“Apocalypse Moi” Kickstarter status

The Apocalypse Moi paperbacks for signing have arrived!

Hardcovers are being printed as I write this. According to the printer, that is. I have no independent verification.

If you chose the “All the Fiction” option, either in print or ebook, you have MORE ebooks. They’re waiting for you on BookFunnel. Go to my.bookfunnel.com and log in with the email address you provided in your survey. If you don’t have an account already, it will ask you to create one.

Why use Bookfunnel, rather than just sen...

16: Consume Brain Space

Let’s have another snippet of Run Your Own Mail Server.

Text file configuration works great for settings that rarely change. If your mail server is truly only for you, then text files will probably be fine. When you have a larger number of users or a more dynamic environment, however, you need easier management. That means a database. And a front end to manage that database, because routinely running raw SQL commands would require memorizing the database structure and that would consume brain sp...

15: Cheese Mover Habits

Here’s a few words about system upgrades–or, rather, a few words about about system upgrades.

Modern systems administrators have outsourced their memory to online forums and search engines, which worked until illiterate large language models got rebranded as AI and the resulting feral autocomplete engines stuffed your external brain’s technology section with reconstituted search-engine-optimized Scorpion fan fiction. Fortunately for you, so did your boss. You have the option to fall back on the ...

“60 Seconds of WIP” now on Apple and Spotify

My pathetic podcast, 60 Seconds of WIP, wherein I read one minute of something that you can’t yet read or even buy, is still going.

I have compounded my errors by getting it in Apple and Spotify. I tried to get it into Google but their podcast manager is being replaced so I quit. Are there any other aggregators folks want?

I just recorded tomorrow’s episode, “Cheese Mover Habits,” with a snippet from my forthcoming FreeBSD Journal column. You’ll never be able to buy the Journal, so you only can’...

September’s Succulent Sausage

(This post went to Patronizers at the beginning of September, and the public at the beginning of October.)

While “See the Sausage Being Made” is an accurate description for the $1/month Patronizer level, I’ve been pondering renaming it “Give Lucas Money Just For Still Being Alive.” Because that’s kind of what it feels like over here.

Hi, folks. August was dominated by an exploding air conditioner, the Apocalypse Moi Kickstarter, and the writing grind.

The old air conditioner was installed in 199...

14: Competent Spammers

Here’s a few words on the Sender Policy Framework, aka SPF, aka omg why please no no no.

SPF is often touted as an anti-spam measure. It isn’t. It’s one component of a spam assessment policy. Competent spammers are among the most reliable publishers of SPF records, gleefully declaring that any host may send mail for their domains. Emails from domains without SPF records are likely to be classified as spam, however.

When a MTA with basic spam protections receives an email, it performs an SPF chec...

OpenBSD PF versus FreeBSD PF

I encountered yet another discussion about OpenBSD PF versus FreeBSD PF. For those who are new to the discussion: OpenBSD developers created PF in 2001, and it rapidly improved to become the most approachable open source packet filter. FreeBSD ported PF over to its kernel in 2004, with occasional updates since. Today a whole bunch of folks who don’t program echo cultish wisdom that one or the other version of PF has fallen behind, not kept up on improvements, or otherwise betrayed their communit...

Yes, I Know I’m In the AI Scraping Search Engine

I awakened today ready to make words on Run Your Own Mail Server only to discover that half the world wanted to be sure I knew about the search engine for Meta’s Books3 LLM training data, aka “AI.”

Yes, I know.

The search engine was created by The Atlantic, and I thank them for this public service.

Authors and publishers have already filed lawsuits against Meta and their partners. I do not have the cash to sue Meta. I must ride on the coattails of other people’s lawsuits.

For the record, most o...

13: The Only Right We Have

Today I’m reading from a story that’s coming out this winter, “The Rats’ Man’s Lackey and the Forbidden Tinsel.”

I’d agreed to obey the rules. To walk away from my past, so that my demons couldn’t find me. This madhouse had no right to throw any of that in my face.

The thought calmed me.

Hiding in a root cellar while the opposition filled the house with bullets? The bad guys had no right to break their word. A teammate developed cancer? She’s the best person I know, this isn’t right! Any time I ...

A True Story: “The Cat”

I have never owned a cat. I have never lived with a cat. It’s not that I mind cats, but rats fit my life better. For a few years though, a cat seriously impacted my life.

That tab at the top of my site that says Autobiography? Sometimes I publish true stories there. There’s a new story up there, about the aforementioned cat, the never-experienced delights of goat on a stick, and mouse compost. While the names have been changed so Larry the Leg-Breaker doesn’t get tetchy with me, the facts are on...