--------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E G A R Y N U M A N D I G E S T (by subscription only - to unsubscribe, see bottom of this message) --------------------------------------------------------------------- (#2002-74) - Topics This Issue: 1) Spamfighting 2) This House Is Cold 3) Dark Wonders 4) Dark Wonders 5) More on Dark Wonders ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 18:28:57 -0700 From: "Joey Lindstrom" Subject: Spamfighting This is a wee-bit off-topic, but it does relate somewhat directly to this mailing list itself. Further discussion should perhaps be taken to email if it doesn't pertain directly to this list or to some Numan-related topic (so we don't bore/annoy everyone). On Mon, 04 Feb 2002 18:01:43 -0700, Steve Morris wrote: >Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 20:02:34 -0000 >From: "Steve Morris" >Subject: Spam > >Is anyone else on this list getting bombarded with Spam? I am trying to >remove my email address from the two places it is visible on the web because >I assume that it is being picked up by web crawlers. For the first place it >was visible , I managed to remove my address quite easily..The other place >is the Numanboy Fan Directory. I have emailed the "webmaster" but he has >not bothered to reply. Does anyone know who he is or if he receives this >list? Or for that matter , whether it is now too late to stop the Spam >bombardment. Back issues of this Digest are available in text format at: http://digest.garynuman.info It is entirely possible that someone could webcrawl that. However, since I switched to my new address (to joey@garynuman.info, from joey@garynumanfan.nu), I've noticed that I get nearly zero spam (at the new address), and I've posted here several times. How many times have you posted? I don't seem to recall your email address ever popping up here before, though I don't monitor it THAT carefully - so I wonder how your address could have been harvested from here (when mine doesn't appear to have been). Nobody else has access to the master list of members, and I've set the list itself to double-opt-in so that the list itself doesn't get spammed (they've tried). Here's a theory, though. I have an email account with my ISP, that I don't use, which is joeyl@cadvision.com. I've *NEVER* posted that email address *ANYWHERE* on the internet, and my ISP has a strong no-spam policy which includes the assertion that they never sell their user list to anyone for any reason. Yet this account receives about 10 spams per day (I have it set to automatically drop ALL email into my spambox, as I receive no "legitimate" email in that account). You are with btinternet.com, a major ISP. Cadvision isn't that big, but it's fairly large in its own right, about 50,000 subscribers. Large ISP's like these get targetted by spammers that use a brute-force approach. They'll send millions of emails out, addressed sequentially, like this: a@isp.com b@isp.com c@isp.com d@isp.com ... z@isp.com aa@isp.com ab@isp.com ac@isp.com ad@isp.com etc. (and on and on, millions of combinations and permutations) Most of them will bounce back as undeliverable. Some do not - the ones that don't bounce back are deemed to be "valid" and are now targetted by spammers. They don't do this for every domain name - just the popular ones. This may well be what's happened to you. This is one of the joys of running one's own mail servers: not only are you less of a target (you're not using a "popular" domain name), but you can install your own spam-filters at the server level without having to twist an ISP's arm. :-) All mail coming through here, to myself and anyone else using a garynuman.info email address, gets filtered through four spam lookup databases, which are updated daily (for anyone who cares, they are: ordb.org, spews.org, spamhaus.org, and spamsites.org). You wouldn't believe the porn ads and toner cartridge ads and whatnot that gets filtered out as a result: on average, about 100 per day. A few do get through: I average about 3 or 4 per day in my personal mailbox (after filtering), and nearly all of them are addressed to my old joey@garynumanfan.nu address (which is now forwarded to my new address). My addresses do appear on Numan and other websites, though, so it kinda goes with the territory. One thing you can do: many spams include toll-free numbers for you to call them and order their shit. So call them. Repeatedly. At their expense. See how they like it. :-) For those outside North America, a North American (Canada, US, several Caribbean and South Pacific nations, but NOT Mexico) toll-free number will begin with one of the following sets of digits (each will be followed by 7 more digits): 1-800 1-888 1-877 1-866 1-855 Non-North-American callers can usually reach these by dialing "00" before the number. A UK toll-free number will begin with: 0800 (or sometimes 08000) 0500 (or sometimes 05000) (these are being phased out) (and then be followed by a variable number of digits, soon to be standardized to a fixed length) Callers from North America can usually reach these by dialling "011-44", then dropping the leading "0" from the number (ie: 011-44-800-whatever). (Caution: sometimes these spammers instead include a "900" number. These begin with 1-900 in North America, and 09xxx in the UK. These are PREMIUM RATE numbers and can be as expensive as $10 per minute, billed to YOU. Don't mix these up with toll-free numbers eh? If in doubt, use a payphone and don't deposit any money or stick a card in.) Another helpful hint: calling a North American toll-free number from a North American payphone will cost them 35 cents (US) more than if you call them from a regular phone - the payphone operator gets compensated. This will also help you avoid prosecution for making harassing calls, though technically speaking, simply calling them repeatedly is not, in and of itself, "harassment" (it depends on what you SAY to them once you connect to them or their voicemail). Do you get the feeling I'm very anti-spam? :-) / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / A smelly nuisance in a stable is valuable fertilizer if you move it / to the south forty. / -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" / (Robert Heinlein) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 20:46:16 -0000 From: "Vickers" Subject: Re: This House Is Cold Mark Henson asks about THIS HOUSE IS COLD. It was missed off 'I Assassin'. Personally, I think it is brilliant, and listen to it with earphones on, so that I am immersed in the swirling sounds!!! And yes, perhaps it is LETTERS that they have discovered... Paddy Vickers ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 14:11:27 -0700 From: "Joey Lindstrom" Subject: Dark Wonders Hey all. Just got an email from Gary Perkins asking me if that's really my name on the back of the new two-disc compilation set called "Dark Wonders". Well, I haven't seen a copy of it yet, but as near as I can tell, yeah, I'm the one being referred to. :-) Anyhoo, he suggested that maybe I drop a note into the Digest by way of explanation (or maybe he meant "defense", heh heh!), and so here I am. I'm at work right now so I don't have access to my mailbox (I archive everything - guess I'm a packrat), but what I do have access to is: 1) My memory 2) A track setup that I created on my workstation's hard drive. A few months back, I was emailed by... sorry, I forget the guy's name. He asked me if I wouldn't mind helping him out with putting together a new compilation, and specifically helping to choose the tracks and maybe a title. I admit to being a little leery: haven't we seen enough compilations? This one, however, I was assured would also have some material from "Pure" on it, so I figured, ok, maybe I can have some fun with it. So, I grabbed my pair of Numan MP3 discs (got all the studio tracks on two 700-meg discs, which I play on my car CD-MP3 player) and rolled up my sleeves. I could choose any tracks from the "Numa Years" as well as the Eagle stuff - a relatively wide playing field. The first thing I decided was that most of the Numa stuff, with the exception of Sacrifice, just didn't mix with the later stuff. This needed to be a two-disc set, with a clear defining line between the two "eras" of music. I've always thought that's where a lot of these compilations fall flat on their faces: putting songs together that just don't GO together. That suggestion was received with quite a bit of enthusiasm, so I plowed ahead. The second thing I decided was that, while several die-hard Numanoids will buy this because they're completists, this is not going to be marketed to Numanoids. It's a cash-in, designed to make a bit of money off of Numan's new-found cred. People are hearing Numan for the first time, liking what they've heard, and looking for more. So if they pick up a copy of this compilation, I want to hook them into hopefully buying some of Numan's studio albums. That means spending some time and effort, and CAREFULLY selecting both the material and the playing order, so that somebody listening for the first time won't want to turn it off halfway through because some idiot has decided that "Rip" goes nicely with "Emotion". ;-) (I still don't understand how "Emotion" made it onto a Numan studio album, much less a compilation!) I spent several hours one afternoon playing songs that I hadn't really listened to in a while, and then comparing them with others that I DO listen to frequently, and seeing what they sounded like when played one after the other (ie: do they "go together" in a coherent way?) First I whittled down the list to about 18 tracks per disc, then mixed and matched until, finally, I was down to 13 tracks per disc, in what I considered to be a coherent order. (Your mileage may vary: I know at the very least that Martin Purvis had several disagreements with my choices, heh heh!) I was also asked for a title for the compilation. I came up with ten or twelve, not only for the overall compilation but for each of the two discs inside the package. I DO NOT HAVE my list of titles handy, so I can't recall with any certainty whether "Dark Wonders" is one of the ones I suggested, but it does seem to ring a bell this many months later. I'll have to confirm that when I get home from work, lest I take credit for somebody else's idea. Whether or not it's my title or not, I have to say (with admitted bias) that I do rather like the title: it says a lot about the music inside the package (and, indeed, about Gary's current sound). Now, as for the track lineups that were finally used. They are nearly exactly the same as those I chose, in the same order. There's one very glaring exception, though, and it was the one thing that Mr. Perkins pointed out as being a little bit dodgy (and I, again with biased opinion, agree). :-) For some reason, they shifted "This Is Love" from the first disc (the Numa stuff) to the second disc (the Eagle and Sacrifice stuff), and crammed it in between "Bleed" and "The Angel Wars". Yuck. Just doesn't work. So don't blame me for that. :-) Anyways, for your listening pleasure, I now present both the original track listings, and the actual production track listings: Original - Disc 1 ----------------- 01) Call Out The Dogs 02) The Pleasure Skin 03) My Breathing 04) Strange Charm 05) I Wonder 06) Cold Warning 07) The Skin Game 08) Your Fascination 09) Berserker 10) The Child With The Ghost 11) Survival 12) Puppets 13) This Is Love Original - Disc 2 ----------------- 01) Rip 02) Dark 03) A Question Of Faith 04) An Alien Cure 05) Pure 06) Bleed 07) Little InVitro 08) The Angel Wars 09) The Seed Of A Lie 10) Dominion Day 11) Walking With Shadows 12) Pray 13) I Can't Breathe What We Got - Disc 1 -------------------- 01) Call Out The Dogs 02) The Pleasure Skin 03) My Breathing 04) Strange Charm 05) I Wonder 06) Cold Warning 07) The Skin Game 08) Your Fascination 09) Berserker 10) The Child With The Ghost 11) Survival 12) Puppets 13) Cars (does this surprise anybody?) What We Got - Disc 2 -------------------- 01) Rip 02) Dark 03) A Question Of Faith 04) An Alien Cure 05) Pure 06) Bleed 07) This Is Love 08) The Angel Wars 09) The Seed Of A Lie 10) Dominion Day 11) Pray 12) I Can't Breathe 13) I Die: You Die (live) What basically happened is that they wanted to get "Cars" and "I Die: You Die" in there, and thus had to bump two songs. Unfortunately, because I had timed these discs so that they would be *FULL*, this probably led to timing problems that pretty much forced them to make the shuffle and stick "This Is Love" onto disc #2. Personally, I would have preferred to see them drop that track altogether, because by doing so, and by also including "I Die: You Die", they wound up dumping what I think are two of the strongest songs on the second disc, both from "Pure": "Little InVitro" and "Walking With Shadows". Bah. Kinda defeated one of my purposes: to bias the second disc towards his CURRENT sound, what he's doing TODAY. As a result, we only have 3 out of 13 tracks on that disc from "Pure", rather than the intended 5. But, on the whole, I guess I have to be pretty happy. Beyond those changes, this two-disc set is EXACTLY what I thought it should be, right down to the playing order. And, I have to admit, that kinda gives me goosebumps. "Wow! Somebody listened to MY opinion! I had a hand in the production of a Numan album! How cool is that?!?" :-) Well, anyways, that's the story. I'm still waiting for my free copy of this thing though... :-) Joey Lindstrom ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 13:35:13 -0800 From: Rod Reynolds Subject: Re: Dark Wonders Hi. I would like to know when this was/is released and in what country and on what label? Congrats BTW, Joey. Rod Los Angeles > > Hey all. Just got an email from Gary Perkins asking me if that's > really my name on the back of the new two-disc compilation set > called "Dark Wonders". Well, I haven't seen a copy of it yet, but as > near as I can tell, yeah, I'm the one being referred to. :-) Anyhoo, > he suggested that maybe I drop a note into the Digest by way of > explanation (or maybe he meant "defense", heh heh!), and so here I am. > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 17:42:20 -0700 From: "Joey Lindstrom" Subject: More on Dark Wonders Well, I'm home now, with access to my old email folder, and it looks like the title "Dark Wonders" is indeed one of mine, in fact it was my first choice. Here's a clip from an email I sent to the guy at Snapper Records (Michael Heatley): =========================== Overall compilation possible titles: "Dark Wonders", "A Voice In The Dark", "The Black Messiah", "In My Darkness" =========================== However, contrary to my last post, neither of the two discs would have gone over 70 minutes had they not had their track lineup slightly altered as noted earlier. Therefore, the choice of moving "This Is Love" over to disc #2 now makes zero sense at all - it should either have been dropped altogether, or left on disc #1 as there was still room to include "Cars" (you can go up to 80 minutes on one disc). Similarly, the dropping of the two "Pure" tracks from disc #2 also makes zero sense. I figure, though, that this was the sort of decision that was made by someone in the marketing department. At least they left everything else alone. / From the desk of Joey Lindstrom / / "Diplomacy is not a real job." / --Everything I Need To Know I Learned From Babylon 5 ------------------------------ End digest@garynuman.info Digest [02/05/2002 18:01] --------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E G A R Y N U M A N D I G E S T is produced, moderated, and distributed by Derek Langsford, Dave Datta, and Joey Lindstrom dlangs@sunstroke.sdsu.edu, davdat@allmusic.com, Joey@GaryNuman.Info ------------------------------------------------------------------- To reply to the messages in this list, email: digest@garynuman.info If you want to be removed, or someone wants to be added, email: listserv@GaryNuman.info and include this line as the first line of your message body: SUBSCRIBE digest@garynuman.info (email address) or UNSUBSCRIBE digest@garynuman.info (email address) (email address is optional but useful if you have multiple addresses) If you want to switch between receiving Digests or individual posts, again send to listserv@GaryNuman.Info and include either of these in your message body: NORMAL digest@garynuman.info or DIGEST digest@garynuman.info ------------------------------------------------------------------ Please note: this mailing list is configured to automatically unsubscribe you if mail to your mailbox goes undeliverable for any reason. 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